With over 575 million professionals LinkedIn is the biggest professional network compared to other networks. LinkedIn has maintained its position over time as top platform for professionals. LinkedIn growth has been slow but it is picking pace since Microsoft has bought it.
Because of COVID-19 business events are not happening which led to more focus on LinkedIn for lead generation by businesses. Businesses are exploiting this opportunity and exploring LinkedIn marketing big time.
Business are trying various marketing aspects of LinkedIn such as LinkedIn PPC, CPM desktop ads and sponsored InMail.
LinkedIn is popular all around the world, in UAE LinkedIn is a big deal because on an average every user in UAE has 211 connections which is maximum around globe.
Top 5 most connected countries in 2017 (Source: LinkedIn)
LinkedIn is at core is social media platform for professionals but it has totally different audience. LinkedIn is not about pushing sales and spamming your target audience.
You need to have a curate marketing strategy specifically for LinkedIn so that you can use this platform efficiently.
According to Sprout Social, businesses marketing on LinkedIn generate 277% more leads on average than those engaged in Facebook marketing alone.
B2B marketers have confessed over time that LinkedIn contributes around 80% of their social media needs. If LinkedIn is used effectively as marketing tool, it can take your businesses to next level.
How to set up your LinkedIn Business Page
Step by step process of creating LinkedIn Business Page
- On the LinkedIn homepage, click on the Work icon in the top right corner.
- Select “Create a company page” and choose an option from the list that fits the page type you require for your business
You have these choices for the business type:
- Small business
- Medium to large business
- Showcase page
- Educational institution (school or university)
- Fill your page, company and profile details.
- After filing all information, check the verification box to confirm that you are authenticated to run the account behalf of your business.
- Select “Create page.” You may receive an error message if your company page doesn’t meet the requirements, which include having an actual company and business email. You may also be denied because you’ve exceeded your page creation limit.
- If you do not get an error message, select “Start building your page” to customize the page.
8 tips to generate more leads from LinkedIn
1.Curate target Audience: LinkedIn has best parameters to target audience in digital marketing space, businesses can reach to very specific audience using LinkedIn.
For example, if you are a firm selling CRM software to Manufacturing Industry in Mumbai you can target your campaigns to only be shown executives or higher managers of manufacturing businesses with more than 10 employees in Mumbai.
Parameters of targeting audience on LinkedIn (Source: LinkedIn)
2. Post rich content with appealing graphics: It is very important to write post for LinkedIn audience specifically because LinkedIn has unique audience which consists of professionals, population with reading habit.
But it does not mean they read every content available on platform, they are very choosy in terms of what to read and what not due to busy schedule.
Your content should always be informative and educative in nature, it will attract attention of readers compared to promotional content. It is well known visual graphics capture attention of readers very easily that’s why create quality content and appealing graphics always.
Always aim for making your post go viral to have LinkedIn spotlight in respective category which will help you as thousands of readers interested in that category will see your article.
3. Increase your marketing list: It is good practice to send a well-crafted thank you letter to your connections. LinkedIn has special feature which allows you to send 50 emails at one go.
Before sending mail to any user you have to ask them for sign up by sending a link for sign up. It is important that you also mention what they will be receiving by signing up for email list and offer help for anything required.
4. Avoid hard sells: “Treat LinkedIn like any other form of marketing that you do and get clued up on the latest trends. People don’t want to be interrupted, so try your best to be ‘discovered’ on LinkedIn.
Read up on content marketing and inbound marketing, and apply these strategies to this network. There are plenty of people acting like hard-sell 1980s sales reps on LinkedIn, so be wise and don’t become one of them.” – Nikki Hammett, global marketing manager at NashTech Ltd.
5. Create you LinkedIn group: It is good idea to join groups related to your business and be active over there, but the best idea is to have your own group. You can create your group for free on LinkedIn.
Invite people from groups you have joined to your group and communicate them what all benefit they are going to have by being part of your group. Make sure have limited but high lead prospective people in group.
Regularly share quality content in your group and encourage others to participate. As you being controller of the group you can ensure no competition enter in it. Nurture group first and then with time ripe the benefit.
6. Fill Summary Section comprehensively: LinkedIn gives you 2000 character to communicate and engage your audience. Use full sentence and write in away that make them sense or solve their problems.
Many people look at LinkedIn profile over website for better understanding of services and to connect with the right person related to business. Summary gives you opportunity to introduce yourself to your target customers.
Always mention your contact information in summary section I, make it easy for people to reach out you.
7. Use paid Marketing solution: LinkedIn gives you option of running ads to reach audience which is not your follower. You can sponsor articles, run message and text ads. It has various feature which will help you in retargeting such as “Matched Audiences”.
8. Make your company page matter: “It’s also important to have an updated and consistent presence for your brand with its own company profile page. Imagery, colors and content on this page should be consistent with your website and any other social media profiles the business has.
The page should be updated regularly so the brand is active and appears to be a current business. We’ve all had the experience of stumbling upon a company social media profile that’s updated once a month or, worse, hasn’t been updated in months.
Creating a LinkedIn presence then not maintaining it will be worse than not having one at all.” – Carrie Booher, digital content editor at WWOZ 90.7 FM.
LinkedIn is a powerful networking platform which can be very fruitful for lead generation if used appropriately. It is high time to invest time and money in LinkedIn marketing.
It is necessary to maintain core of LinkedIn which is knowledge sharing and relationship building, in coming years LinkedIn planning to have 3 billion professionals on platform compared to 500 million now which will transform B2B marketing up to great extent.