You have a fantastic team, but they only have so many hours in a day. You can't grow this company without resources, but you won't have the resources until you grow. It's times like this that demand efficient LinkedIn lead generation strategies. You don't have time to play around on social media. You must hit pipeline sales goals consistently and see results that matter.
These free LinkedIn marketing strategies consistently generate more high-quality B2B leads that make this possible.
Trying to generate B2B leads before optimizing your business profile is a waste of time or money. Free isn't "free" if you do that.
Start by focusing on what people see first. When people see these, you want them to feel compelled to dig a little deeper into what you do as a business.
Then, apply these Linkedin profile optimization best practices. Once you earn significant B2B traffic through these LinkedIn lead generation strategies, test variations to optimize and select the one that gets the best results.
If we were talking about Twitter, you'd have to post 10 or more times a day to gain a decent share of the voice. And forget about becoming a thought leader if you haven't built that presence somewhere else first. Discouraging, right?
But not so with LinkedIn. The slower pace and focus on quality over quantity make this a place where fewer but strategic posts can make a significant impact.
Potentially thousands of people will see your posts. So, LinkedIn lead generation is much easier than other platforms if you know what to do. Just start a conversation in the community. Then engage the people who commented on your post.
According to LinkedIn's research, posts with images earn 21X profile views and 9X connections.
It's important to have a blog on your website. Businesses that blog get 55% more high-quality traffic and 67% more leads each month than those that don't.
But publishing on LinkedIn is just as critical to those engaged in B2B lead generation.
Google regularly delivers LinkedIn articles to answer queries. So, leverage the authority of LinkedIn's website to increase your article's visibility in Google search results as well as the platform.
Publishing an article directly on LinkedIn lets you showcase your company in a more relaxed yet comprehensive medium. And if you focus on being helpful over promotional (which you should), it also provides real value to potential B2B leads.
When you create your content calendar for the quarter, designate a certain percentage (maybe 10%-20%) for LinkedIn. Focus on thought leadership here rather than posting content people are seeing everywhere. End each post by telling them the next step to get the value you're discussing.
Remember that this is a B2B lead generation strategy, so align the CTA with where they are in the buyer's journey.
They're probably in awareness or consideration, so...
TIP: To avoid negatively impacting your Linkedin marketing strategies as a whole, remember not to publish the article both on LinkedIn and your website. Google would only allow one to rank in search results. And you'll get the best benefits if you're visible both through Linkedin marketing strategies and search engine optimization (SEO) on your website.
Engage people as they interact with your content. Be authentic, and patient, and focus on providing value over meeting goals.
Look for opportunities to help people. And approach them human-to-human, not business-to-lead, at this stage of your LinkedIn lead generation. You'll want to bring them further into the funnel before you can call them B2B leads.
Employees who buy into your brand are motivated to see your company succeed. They feel their success is connected to yours and believe in YOU as a leader.
When they speak highly of the brand, engage with it during their free time, and attract both leads and quality recruits through their interactions. To get the most out of this buy-in, notify employees when you publish or post. Ask them specifically to reshare or engage with posts so that the exposure expands to their networks as well. When employees share their brand's content, posts get 200% more engagement.
You just doubled your reach for FREE!
Highly engaged employees will do this. But you can't fake it. And you can't force it.
Sadly, a 2021 Gallup poll found that only about 36% feel engaged in the workplace. Companies should care about employee buy-in. Companies that do increase profitability by 21%.
This buy-in is vital to LinkedIn lead generation. It increases visibility and builds trust at the same time. It's worth your while to cultivate authentic buy-in actively.
Here are the 5 steps to generating employee buy-in to earn more B2B leads on LinkedIn.
Note: Never punish employees for not engaging enough. The various personalities on your team contribute in many ways. Making a lack of engagement punitive generates inauthenticity that will not help your brand. And many slow-starters will come around when they see others enjoying engaging with the brand.
Among the Linkedin marketing strategies that often get underutilized, you'll find groups. Groups are essential because they're focused. You're more likely to meet people here who need precisely what you offer.
To find the groups you could join, enter a non-branded industry keyword phrase in the search bar. Sort by groups, and look for ones likely to have your target audience as members. Do this with your professional LinkedIn profile. You can't join as a company.
Once you're in, be careful not to promote. These are communities, not billboards for services. Post content that highlights your expertise and know-how. Share your most recent LinkedIn blog post in groups and on your own feed.
Since you added CTAs to your LinkedIn blog posts, you can generate leads that way. People may also request to connect directly.
You'll engage people who comment on your posts. Add value and show you're part of the community by commenting on the posts of others.
This one is still free but obviously more involved. So, join some groups and engage with them for a while before attempting to create one yourself. Often, being a member is enough to drive your Linkedin marketing strategies forward.
But once you feel comfortable with groups, you may want to create one of your own to attract like-minded people who want to learn from you. A percentage of people who just come to learn will want to take that further by becoming your customers.
Having your own group gives you some distinct advantages:
In addition to making your group visible in LinkedIn searches, you can actively increase your membership, and yes, it's still free.
Of course, we're moving into the realm of "not free", so this one's a bonus strategy. You can amplify LinkedIn lead generation, grow a group, and start seeing ROI faster if you're willing to spend some money. Setting a budget for LinkedIn advertising can help you gain traction. Remember to set clear goals for this spending, and it becomes money well-spent. Do you want...?
LinkedIn advertising with these free LinkedIn lead-generation strategies is a great way to lower acquisition costs while increasing customer lifetime value.
These B2B lead generation strategies work. We've seen it firsthand as we apply it to our clients daily.
But suppose you want to jumpstart business growth. In that case, our expert team combines custom inbound strategies like these with Paid media marketing to help clients generate positive ROI and grow their businesses.
To learn more about how you can do it too, download our B2B Marketers Guide to LinkedIn Ads: