If you are looking to generate B2B leads for your small or medium sized business, you should be on LinkedIn. It’s easy to sign up and you can get your profile optimized within 15 minutes of logging onto the website.
Once online, you are connected to over 575 million business professionals from all around the world.
Not only that, but these users voluntarily update their profiles with their most accurate career information, making it a gold mine for recruiters and sales professionals.
But is LinkedIn lead generation really as great as it sounds? I like to think it is, here is why.
The Data is Accurate
Whenever you have to gather information for prospecting, you always run the risk of outdated data. Online indexes, company websites and your own CRM’s are behind the ball within only a few months.
People change jobs, get promotions, and companies go out of business. Most of the time you aren’t even aware of these changes until you reach out to your prospects or follow up lists.
The great thing about LinkedIn is users willingly update their information to the platform. This is because they want to let the world know about their new job and promotion and they want to seem up to date when looking for new lines of work.
Even if you only log into LinkedIn once every 2 years, it’s to update where you work. This is what makes LinkedIn lead generation so great for prospecting compared to other lists that might be offered by 3rd party companies.
It’s Easy to Connect to Decision Makers
Another benefit of using LinkedIn lead generation is how easy it is to connect with decision makers. If you were to use cold calling, door to door, or direct mail, chances are you are going to be blocked by a gate keeper.
This means the time you spent practicing your pitch or crafting the perfect letter templates go to waste on someone that’s not going to grow your business.
With LinkedIn, you can find out right away who your exact decision makers are and reach out to connect with them. This is especially beneficial if they reach out to connect to you first. So start accepting those requests! To learn more, check out the video below.
Why You Should Add More People on LinkedIn
You don’t even have to send them a connection request. LinkedIn sends notifications to their email regarding who looked at them that week.
This means if they look back at your profile and it’s optimized with the right call to actions, they are more likely to message you and ask about your product or service.
What if the DM won’t connect with me?
Will the decision maker not connect with you or isn’t on LinkedIn? No Problem! Connect with another person in the company and reach out to them.
This will make you a second connection to the decision maker, making them more likely to connect with you.
Alternatively, you can get close to the person that isn’t a decision maker in the company and use that as leverage for reaching out to the actual decision maker.
What if I can’t connect with someone from the company?
A person from the company won’t connect with you? That’s OK too! You can follow others on LinkedIn and comment and like on their posts.
This puts a notification in their feed to make them aware of you, even if you aren’t connected to them. Just make sure your LinkedIn is optimized when they look back at you.
For more on why you should like and comment on LinkedIn posts, check out the video below.
Why You Should Like and Comment on Posts
Sales Navigator Makes Lead Generation Easy
A big problem indexes have that LinkedIn doesn’t is the ability to really refine your searches.
Salesforce, Zoho, and other platforms allow you to search based on specific factors, but only with information you already input into the system.
With Sales Navigator, not only is all this information already available, but you can narrow down your search based on specific criteria that other indexes and CRM’s would have you pay top dollar for.
The list of available criteria for LinkedIn Sales Navigator are:
- First/last name.
- Job title.
- Current/past company name.
- How you have previously interacted with them.
- School.
- Connection type.
- Seniority level.
- Job function.
- Company headcount.
- Years in current position/current company.
- Years of experience.
- Location.
- Current or past companies they’ve worked for.
- Industry.
- The language on their profile.
- Some non-profit interests.
And more…
Not only can you add or eliminate based on this specific information, but you can also use the search function to add or remove specific keywords that show up on a prospects profile. This makes Navigator especially handy as a LinkedIn lead generation tool.
Example:
Let’s say I want to find US consultants at a small sized firm that are potential decision makers. I only want to target prospects that I think will be warmer to have a quick phone call with me.
I also want to be positive that they are actively consulting for company management to cater my messaging when I reach out.
I might create my search to look something like this:
Keyword: Consulting
Geography: United States
Relationship: 2nd Connection
Industry: Management Consulting
Company Headcount: 11-50
Seniority Level: Owner, Partner, VP
Function: Consulting
This search pulls up 358 prospects. These are second connections (meaning I am connected to at least 1 other person they are also connected to) and they specifically mention consulting on their profile. This also makes sure they are the right sized company to where the decision maker would be at the owner, partner, and VP level.
Finally, the consulting function and management consulting function is specific enough to tailor my message on a mass scale that can relate to these prospects.
If you want to be ahead and have your business grow, using LinkedIn lead generation is a must.
LinkedIn has the most up to date data, the best possibility to connect with decision makers, and has the power to really narrow in on specific prospects.
Want to learn more about why using LinkedIn for prospecting and lead generation will help your B2B business? Watch our video below “The Golden Age of LinkedIn.”
