LinkedIn Lead Generation Strategy: The Complete Roadmap

LinkedIn is more than a job-seeking and posting platform; it is a way for users to connect with others professionally and demonstrate their professional achievements.

If a B2B business uses a lead generation machine correctly, it can readily acquire new customers and build a deeper connection with its leads.

The Advantages Of Using Linkedin For Lead Generation

1. LinkedIn gathers high-level decision-makers

LinkedIn users are big deals. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, LinkedIn has:

• 46 million high level B2B decision-makers
• 17 million opinion leaders
• 10 million C-level execs

Whether you are looking to improve your personal brand, connect with like-minded professionals, or generate leads, LinkedIn should be a key part of your social media strategy. LinkedIn is the most popular social media among Fortune 500 companies. If you are selling B2B products or services, there is a high chance your prospects are on LinkedIn. Whether you are looking to improve your personal brand, connect with like-minded professionals, or generate leads, LinkedIn should be a key part of your social media strategy.

2. LinkedIn messages have a higher reply rate than emails

The average reply rate for a cold outreach campaign is 10% for email and 20-30% for LinkedIn messages. LinkedIn inboxes are not as flooded as email inboxes, so you have a better chance of standing out.

3. It’s still easy to become a LinkedIn influencer

It is still relatively easy to become an influencer or thought leader on LinkedIn compared to other platforms like Twitter.

If you want to be successful on social media, you need to post good content every day. A good content strategy is a key to success.

4. LinkedIn Ads perform well compared to other platforms

If you want to generate leads on LinkedIn, there are plenty of free strategies you can use. However, LinkedIn Ads can be a good option if you have a budget. HubSpot reports that LinkedIn usually has a lower cost per lead than other platforms like Google Ads or Facebook, and a higher conversion rate.

This is another sign that LinkedIn as a user base is really qualified for B2B advertising. You pay more for a click, but you have more ROI.

Content Strategies For Linkedin Lead Generation

LinkedIn marketing can provide great results for B2B business.

1. Optimize your LinkedIn profile

Your LinkedIn profile is your opportunity to make a good first impression with potential business connections. This is the first thing people will see when you contact them, so make sure it is well-crafted and professional.

Make sure to optimize at least the elements that are visible on the connection request:

• Picture
• Headline

The person you want to connect with is very likely to check your profile to learn more about you.

So you definitely want to have:

• detailed your value proposition visually on your banner
• a nice profile picture
• a clear headline
• showcased your best posts
• detailed your value proposition in the About Section
• given details about your job experiences

2. Define your audience accurately

LinkedIn users are not interested in content that is spammy and salesy. It is important to target the right audience.

So what can you do to turn the tables around? Here are some handy tips to follow:

• Start by spotting the right decision-makers and relevant contacts. You can use LinkedIn’s native search functionality.
• Head to the “People” tab of a company page and look at the list of potential contacts with relevant job titles and connections
• Connect with people with actually have shared connections who are colleagues/co-workers.
• If you are unsure, simply start following a prospect instead of directly connecting with them (and annoying them).

3. Post on LinkedIn daily

If you post on LinkedIn, you can reach out to thousands of people every day and start conversations with potential new customers. If someone likes or comments on your post, you can start a conversation with them.

You don’t know how to get started? Here a few ideas to transform your LinkedIn profile into a lead generation machine:

1. Think about yourself 2 years ago
2. What did you need to hear?
3. Write it down and make a post with it
4. There are probably thousands of people who need to hear that too

3.1 Celebrations

After all your company’s hard work, it’s time to celebrate your successes! Share your company’s story with the world and let everyone know just how far you’ve come.

3.2  How-tos

To publish a tutorial, follow these steps: 1. Write down the steps necessary to achieve the desired result. 2. Make the tutorial as clear and concise as possible. 3. Choose an appropriate title and introduction. 4. Find a good place to host your tutorial. 5. Promote your tutorial.

3.3 Tell a story

A representative of a large corporation recently contacted me about my small business. They were interested in what I do and how I do it. They asked me a lot of questions and were very impressed with my work. This was a great opportunity for me to promote my business and gain some new clients.

3.4 Comments for content

In exchange for people commenting on your post, offer something of value like a whitepaper.

4. Zero in on your tools wisely

There are a lot of LinkedIn tools that can be used, but it’s not practical to use them all, and choosing a few randomly won’t produce the desired results. To be successful, you need to understand which tools to use and why in order to generate leads.

5. Engage in outreach with a personalized, human touch

In order to connect with your leads on a deeper level, you will need to engage in dynamic personalization.

Your messages should be custom-tailored and unique every time you send one to a potential customer, so they don’t think it’s automated.

In addition to this, you should go for the following proven hacks:

• Always offers your prospects something meaningful in return, such as a blog post, a newsletter shout-out, more information, etc.
• Consider fanning out and connecting with your leads elsewhere (think: Twitter, a website contact form, etc).

6. Boost your profile’s visibility through on-point posts and relevant interactions

If you want to reach more users on LinkedIn, you need to post content and comments regularly, like posts, and share content.

One of the best things about the LinkedIn algorithm is that you don’t have to write long blocks of text or long posts to be active. Something as simple as a clap or “Congratulations” works just as well to increase your profile’s visibility.

7. Organize LinkedIn events

LinkedIn now allows users to organize live events and host livestreams directly from their platform. The next time you make a webinar, try to host it on LinkedIn to collect the LinkedIn profiles of your prospects.

After the webinar, you can start conversations with these people to see if you can get any deals from this event.

To create an event on LinkedIn, go to your homepage, scroll down, and click “Create Event” on the left side of the page.

8. Funnel your leads the right way

When it comes to LinkedIn, you should always share your latest blog posts, lead magnets, and webinars. However, you should ensure that your content is educational and not promotional.

In addition to written content, try to include videos in your post, as this is one of the most shared forms of content on social media.

If you want to increase conversions from LinkedIn, make sure your website is optimized with relevant CTAs and includes a chatbot and knowledge base. This way, visitors will be more likely to take action on your site.

9. LinkedIn Groups

The best way to use LinkedIn Groups is to get the contact information of the members and use their membership as an icebreaker when you contact them.

There is no better place to connect with potential customers than LinkedIn Groups. These groups allow you to have active discussions and conversations, which builds trust and credibility. Additionally, you can become an influencer in your industry by participating in these groups.

10. Try repurposing your top content

One way to improve your social media strategy is to take your best-performing content and repurpose it. Many successful brands and influencers do this as part of their overall strategy.

Ask yourself the following questions to understand what kind of content you should repurpose and share on other social media channels as well:

• Which types of posts are gaining the most traction?
• Which content is gathering the most clicks to your lead magnets and landing pages?
• What type of content is not working within your target audience?

You can use social media analytics tools to see how many people are clicking on your updates, how many people are seeing them, and what other engagement metrics are being used.

11. Consider running a LinkedIn lead generation ad

Almost two-thirds of business-to-business marketers have used LinkedIn’s paid promotion tools to expand their lead lists, a reflection of the platform’s strengths in catering to users with a commercial focus. LinkedIn’s ability to let advertisers target potential customers by factors such as industry, job title and company size makes it an attractive proposition for businesses.

Additionally, lead gen ads are less expensive overall and simpler to execute than other options such as Google or Facebook ads. To get the most out of lead gen ads, be sure to include downloadable reports, videos, and other assets that will attract leads.

Outreach Strategies To Generate Leads On Linkedin

1. Get a LinkedIn Sales Navigator license

If you want to generate leads with LinkedIn outreach, you need to buy a LinkedIn Sales Navigator license.

Sales Navigator is a more powerful search engine than the basic LinkedIn search engine. It has more than 30 filters that allow you to target your potential customers more easily using advanced filters like job title, demographics, and company size. You are not limited to the number of searches per month with Sales Navigator like you are with the basic LinkedIn search.

It allows you to easily build lists of high-quality leads and find decision-makers in the right companies.

2. Extract data from LinkedIn and find emails with Evaboot

If you have defined your target audience and built a list of qualified leads using LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you can use Evaboot to extract your leads and find their associated email addresses.

Install the Evaboot Chrome extension to extract data from websites with one click.

3. Send super-personalized messages

We all receive really bad LinkedIn prospecting messages every day.

The 3 main mistakes you should avoid:

1. Don’t try to get a meeting right away. Start a conversation.
2. Don’t talk about yourself. Talk about them.
3. Don’t bring arguments without concrete backup

Here is a good structure for your outreach:

1. Tell the reason for your outreach
2. Ask if the person has the problem you solve
3. Backup with data
4. Give a good reason to reply

4. Send relevant follow-ups

You should ensure that each time you send a follow-up message, you include something that will add value to the recipient. Most people simply repeat their initial proposition and ask for another meeting.

In other words, this type of follow-up provides no value to the potential customer.

Instead of just repeating your original argument, bring new arguments to the table.

You can for example, send:

• Content you created
• Client testimonials
• Results you obtained with similar clients

5. Automate your LinkedIn lead generation campaigns

Among the LinkedIn lead generation tools you can use to automate your outreach are:

• LaGrowthMachine
• Lemlist
• Waalaxy
• Expandi

These tools will send LinkedIn messages and emails automatically, so you don’t need to do anything except wait for responses to come in.

The metrics of your campaigns can be followed, and your CRM can be connected (such as HubSpot or Salesforce).

Some caution is needed though, as LinkedIn is well-known for disliking and sometimes penalizing the use of sales automation.

6. Build high-quality lead lists using LinkedIn Boolean search

If you want to create a list of highly qualified leads, it is essential to master LinkedIn Boolean search.

Boolean search is a really simple programmatic language that works with a combination of logical connectors and punctuation:

• AND: look for several keywords
• OR: look for at least 1 one keyword
• NOT: exclude keywords
• Quotes: look for exact expressions
• Parentheses: combine Boolean orders

Top 3 Linkedin Lead Generation Tools You Need To Know

1. LinkedIn Sales Navigator

If you are already using LinkedIn and want to use some of its advanced features to close more deals using LinkedIn’s pipeline of relevant leads, this is one tool that can help. It offers the following features:

• Advanced Lead and Company Search – Allows you to find the right people and relevant prospects
• Lead Recommendations – Offers customized suggestions for leads
• Advanced Filtering, CRM Integration, etc. – Allows you to access your sales activity, connect to your CRM, add custom notes, etc.

2. Phantombuster

This code-free automation and data extraction tool automates key actions that are critical in the lead generation process and helps you scrape audience profiles. Some of the useful features this tool offers include:

• LinkedIn Network Booster – Automatically rolls out invitations and helps you connect to a list of LinkedIn users
• LinkedIn Profile Scraper – Collects important data such as name, title, position, etc from a list of LinkedIn profiles
• LinkedIn Message Sender – Sends personalized messages to LinkedIn connections so that you can build rich connections
• LinkedIn Auto Commenter/Liker – Allows you to automatically engage with specific posts of your connections

3. Dux-Soup

This tool allows you to connect with your leads using Google Chrome. Some useful features that this tool offers include:

• Managing Prospects – You can leave notes and tags on targeted LinkedIn profiles and engage with users automatically.
• Downloading Profile Details – It allows you to identify LinkedIn profiles, gather data, and upload it into your CRM, making lead management a breeze.
• Outreach, Automation, etc – It assists during a host of outreach activities such as sending personalized messages, endorsing connections, and so on.

Again, please note some caution is needed though, as LinkedIn is well-known for disliking and sometimes penalizing the use of sales automation.

Conclusion

LinkedIn has been shown to be effective in generating leads multiple times. The platform is more than just collecting the first and last names of potential leads; it is about building a stronger connection with them through sustainable and natural methods.