Do you know 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is no new to B2B marketers.

It’s a popular platform where 78% of Fortune 500 decision-makers and executives like to spend their spare time.

And, their spare time doesn’t mean reacting to memes, jokes, etc. but they’re actually scrolling through connections expanding their network and valuable content to read.

This is where your opportunity lies.

In a B2B marketing survey, 71% of B2B marketers prefer LinkedIn for their lead generation efforts via social media.

LinkedIn is therefore a powerful tool for lead generation with a goldmine of opportunities. This said so, the truth is not many B2B marketers, especially the newcomers are aware of the hidden potential of LinkedIn.

So how to discover those opportunities via LinkedIn?

By setting an actionable LinkedIn Marketing Strategy. Today we’re going to see some of the best LinkedIn marketing tips to help grow your business in a limited amount of time.

15 LinkedIn Marketing Tips to Grow Your Business

Create a Strong Business Page

Creating a strong company profile is the very first thing to do when you’re planning to start your LinkedIn marketing strategy.

Your LinkedIn business page is the first impression on your new clients and hence it should showcase all the necessary details.

With the business page, you not only attract new prospects via employer branding but also able to post the latest company updates and add new information.

And, it’s completely free to create your company page.

After clicking on “Create a Company Page” (on the top right side), you’ll be asked to choose from four options (see above image). Decide where your business fits perfectly and head towards the next section (see below images).

Fill in the required details and logo. Be professional while uploading the logo and use authentic company signatures or symbols that showcase your brand. No cartoons, proverbs, nature pics, etc. Write a catchy tagline that mentions the benefits your business is offering to your customers.

It’s advised to fill the details completely without haste because LinkedIn uses them to help you appear in searches done by others on the platform. For example, sharing complete address details along with physical location helps you connect with local businesses.

Now your LinkedIn business page is ready, let’s move towards the promotional part.

Share Engaging Content

LinkedIn allows you to share various types of content. Some of the most popular content formats are articles on your profile, slideshows, and videos.

LinkedIn is considered the most credible source of content and hence nearly 98% of content marketers use LinkedIn for B2B lead generation.

You need to plan your LinkedIn content marketing strategy carefully to attract the right audience.

Planning to share short ideas? Start with photos or engage with status updates.

Want to say something briefly and convincing? Write an article and publish it on your profile.

Expecting to engage the audience via visuals? Share an amazing video.

You aren’t expected to share only B2B advertising stuff. You’re welcome to share anything as long as its relevant to your audience, offers value, and expands your network.

This may include a simple proverb, a documentary, marketing tips, the latest company update, demographics, etc.

Post frequently because according to LinkedIn, the average decision-maker reads 10 pieces of content before finalizing their purchase decision.

Hence, make sure your content contains action words and arouse curiosity among your target audience.

For example, see the following post by Neil Patel, a famous digital marketing expert.

His post shares some secrets that big companies have implemented to grow faster. The correct usage of popular company names and their secrets builds curiosity among readers that motivate them to click on the video.

Join Niche-Specific LinkedIn Groups

If you browse through LinkedIn, you will find many groups related to your business niche i.e. where your prospects and business customers are present.

For example, if your company provides digital marketing services, just type digital marketing in the LinkedIn search bar and choose the groups section.

You will find a list of active groups with more than 10,000 members. Become a participant of such groups and promote business on LinkedIn.

How to promote business on LinkedIn groups?

• Once you identify and join your LinkedIn for business groups, it’s time to promote your content such as articles, blog posts, how-to guides, etc.
• Create infographics and short videos to promote business on LinkedIn groups.
• Establish yourself as a trusted source by participating in group discussions and solving queries of members. According to LinkedIn stats, people who comment on group posts more than 5 times get more profile views thus increasing your network.
• Use the 80-20 marketing rule. Despite focusing on your product/service promotion is necessary, it’s important to not overdo it. Hence, share 80% of posts that display industry-related valuable information (latest niche news, research, case studies, infographics, etc.) while 20% of posts should be direct promotion (business stories, employee experience, customer reviews, etc.). You can also stretch it to 70-20 or 60-40 proportion but make sure you are not over-promoting your product/service.

Create Your Own LinkedIn Group

You can also create a new group of your choice.

This helps you stand out as a leader in your industry. Besides, it also allows you to showcase your innovations and ideas and read others’ opinions about them.

If you create any such group, showcase it at the top of your company page as a featured group. Add all your employees in the group and encourage them to send group requests among their friends and industry-related professionals to maximize members in your group.

By using the following tactics, you can increase views on your LinkedIn for business page and ultimately on your website:

• While creating a group, you have the option of including your website link and your name as the owner of this group (with your professional details). When somebody joins your group, they see your website link and your name.
• Always include your website link in your posts/discussions.
• Keep your group active and updated with the latest news and valuable information. This will help you get more requests from people to join your group.
• Avoid over-promoting your products.
• To efficiently promote business on LinkedIn groups, use LinkedIn ads. With ads, you can send personalized ad messages to your group members. You can also send personalized messages without any ads, but sponsored messages deliver only when the member is online on LinkedIn.

Implement LinkedIn Ads

Incorporate LinkedIn ads into your marketing strategy.

LinkedIn members share detailed information about their professional interests, skills, and associations. Since LinkedIn has excellent targeting abilities that can assist you in making strategic decisions, using LinkedIn ads to promote business on LinkedIn is a great idea.

Following are the various types of self-servicing advertising by LinkedIn for business promotions:

Sponsored Content

With sponsored content, you can reach a wider audience and garner a number of views on your business page.

It also assists in building lasting relationships with LinkedIn professionals.

To gain maximum benefit from sponsored content, LinkedIn has shared the following tips:

• Headlines under 150 characters lead to more engagement.
• The description under 70 characters.
• Larger images with 1200 x 627 pixels are recommended for higher CTR (click-through rates).
• A CTA (call to action) triggers the audience to react to their interests.

To garner good views and comments on your post in less time, follow these tips:

• Instead of just copy-pasting industry news, analyze it to offer insights and key takeaways. Encourage thought leadership.
• Content curation works best. Share valuable and relevant information with your audience. Remember to credit the source.
• Repurposing works wonders. Check your previous blogs, articles, etc., and repurpose them connecting with the latest trends.
• Visuals attract views quickly. Hence use audios, images, videos, PPTs, etc. by incorporating YouTube, Pinterest, Slideshare, etc.
• Try to establish an emotional connection through content. Share case studies, human interest stories to connect your brand.

Sponsored InMail

This is equivalent to email marketing but only within the LinkedIn network.

It’s a paid feature.

With Sponsored InMail facility, you can send personalized message ads to your members which are delivered only when they are online or active on LinkedIn. Thus your message will be at the topmost in their inbox and they can easily view your message.
The response rate of InMail is 3 times more than the traditional messaging. Its in-built analytics helps you scrutinize your messages and the corresponding response rate.

Text Ads

Text Ads are PPC (pay-per-click) ads that are visible on the LinkedIn homepage, search result pages, group pages, and profile pages.

With LinkedIn for business ads, many companies have benefited from a growth in their number of leads. Not only companies but also many educational universities have witnessed a 30% open rate for their admission programs via Sponsored InMail ads.

LinkedIn Matched Audience

LinkedIn Matched Audiences allows you to retarget website visitors and promote your product and services to contacts from your CRM database.

LinkedIn Matched Audience is Microsoft’s recent addition that enables you to upload your existing accounts and add email contacts to target via LinkedIn ads.

What happens with this?

Some previous studies show that hardly 2% of first-time web visitors convert. Once set-up Matched Audiences, start sending impressions to your previous network.

This boosts your CPC (cost-per-click) and ultimately heads towards conversion.

The Power of LinkedIn Automation Tools

With LinkedIn, Marketing tools ease your marketing work and get the B2B prospecting job done. These tools help to connect with your target audience using less time and energy. Following are some of the best LinkedIn marketing tools:

AeroLeads

AeroLeads automates the process of email searching and boosts your lead generation efforts by creating a list of unique emails in less time. AeroLeads software helps you to find business emails and phone numbers from LinkedIn in a single click.
Just head towards AeroLeads search bar or install its free chrome plugin and enter the name of your prospect or company and hit search. You will receive all the required information starting from name, profession, email address, company, and up to 15 data points.

Besides, the AeroLeads tool verifies all the email addresses so that you can confidently send your emails to prospects. AeroLeads integrates with third-party applications like HubSpot CRM, FreshSales, Zapier, Zoho CRM, Salesforce, etc.

You can start your free trial with 10 credits to see how you can find Prospects. However, the free trial doesn’t offer advanced features like exporting data to other services like MailChimp, Salesforce, and HubSpot which is possible in paid versions.
Their paid plans start from $49 per month with 700 Credits to $499 per month with 10,000 Credits. If you are an enterprise, you can email them your requirements and get your quote.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a powerful collection of search capabilities, enhanced visibility into expanded networks, and personalized algorithms that help you connect with the right decision-maker.

It simplifies the process of searching, contacting, and staying connected with customers, prospects, and referrals. You need not spend long hours manually track your prospects. Instead, you can use the saved time calling your customers or giving demos.

Top marketing and sales professionals view LinkedIn Sales Navigator as the best version of LinkedIn until today. It’s a paid tool for all users registered on LinkedIn. They offer various types of subscriptions (individual, team, and enterprise) based on your business needs and team size. Pricing starts from $64.99/month.

LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms

Lead Gen Forms are one of the best LinkedIn automation tools in 2020.

The tool uses pre-filled forms to gather top-quality leads from your LinkedIn ad campaigns. LinkedIn launched this feature in 2017 as a part of its mission to enhance lead generation efforts by marketers using LinkedIn.

The Lead Gen Forms integrate with Sponsored Content and Sponsored InMail campaigns. With Lead Gen Forms, you can collect leads’ information such as name, email id, job position, working company, qualifications, experience, etc. from their LinkedIn profiles.

Its tracking feature allows you to measure the cost per lead of your campaigns, number of leads, and form fill rate. As per LinkedIn stats, the Lead Gen Forms tool has helped marketers by reducing their average cost per lead by 20%.

It’s a Wrap!

This was all about LinkedIn Marketing tips to boost your sales. If you implement the above strategies correctly, you will definitely see positive results within a few months. Avoid being too much advertising and put genuine efforts to connect with the audience and understand their needs.

Which strategies are you using to promote business on LinkedIn? How are you using LinkedIn for business growth? Share your thoughts via the comment box now.