How to Use LinkedIn to Generate B2B Leads

LinkedIn has progressed substantially since it first launched on the scene back in 2003. What was once a relatively small platform to network with like-minded industry contacts has grown to become a hub of professional content. The platform is no longer just about staying in touch with business associates, it’s now an excellent B2B marketing platform.

With so many industry contacts in one place, businesses of all shapes and sizes are starting to take advantage of the marketing and sales benefits that LinkedIn has to offer, noticeably generating B2B leads. So, how can you make sure you’re utilizing the platform? We’ve put together these tips to help you progress your B2B marketing with LinkedIn.

Build Relevant Connections

LinkedIn is all about your connections. Connecting with like-minded people, professionals, and leaders in your field allows you to build up an online network of relevant people to form and nurture a relationship with. The key here is to ensure the connections you’re building are relevant. Anyone can go on a spree of requesting to connect with hundreds of accounts but they’ll offer you no value if they aren’t the right type of people.

Think about who you most want to target with your LinkedIn marketing. Are you targeting the CEOs and Directors of a company? Or do you need to speak directly to the sales team? Perhaps your company would benefit from being on the radar of executives and junior team members? Whoever it is that you want to target, these are the people you need to connect with.

If you curate your LinkedIn marketing strategy well, inbound leads will likely follow suit. That doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t be proactive too. LinkedIn’s Advanced Search feature allows you to search the platform for users to connect within a more bespoke and filtered manner.

Advanced Search narrows down your search with filters including location, job title, company and industry. Whilst having a large personal network will increase the amount of people for you to target your content towards, the advanced search function allows you to carefully select connections who will be relevant and more likely to convert into a strong B2B sales lead.

Create High-Quality Content

Sharing informative and engaging content on a regular basis is the key to a successful LinkedIn marketing strategy. Whilst the platform is a great place to network and connect with industry contacts, you need to be utilizing the content side of LinkedIn too.

You can create shorter form posts and videos in the same way you can on other social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as utilizing the article feature to create longer-form content that sits directly on your LinkedIn profile.

When you continue to create informative content you’ll begin to be recognized by your audience as an insightful source, making them more likely to seek out your profile and content. Creating this familiarity with connections will allow you to strike up a relationship and conversations that will convert into sales.

Creating multiple pieces of relevant content and staying active on LinkedIn is a great way to create interest in your brand and engage your audience. However, make sure you don’t fall into the trap of posting simply for the sake of it. It’s better to have one quality post a week that engages your audience than multiple posts a day that aren’t up to standard. Remember that whatever you post on LinkedIn or any public channel is a reflection of your company and work standards.

Highlight What You Can Offer

LinkedIn is a great platform to showcase company updates and keep people in the loop about recent and ongoing projects. However, you should prioritize content that showcases exactly what you can offer your audience.

Approach your LinkedIn marketing strategy in the same way you would any sales activity: by highlighting what you can do for your clients/customers and what makes you stand apart from your competitors. Whilst you may enjoy looking at a throwback post to an event you hosted last year, highlighting the one you’re currently planning that has open sponsorship opportunities is much more likely to produce warm leads.

With each post you create, ask yourself, is this showcasing what we can offer a client? Is this telling them what sets us apart from the competition? Or is it simply telling them something they already know or can’t relate to. Identify their problem and provide them with the solution in your content. They shouldn’t have to go looking for the solution – your content should highlight the fact that you can provide it for them.

Utilize Showcase Pages

Showcase pages on LinkedIn are a great way to promote individual brands within your company and target a niche audience. Introduced by the platform specifically to help generate B2B leads, they are sub-pages of your main LinkedIn business page.

The content you produce for a showcase page should be specifically relevant to these target audiences. Content that may be too niche for your main business page will alternatively be ideal for one of your showcase pages.

A showcase page should target one audience segment and provide content and information that is directly suitable to them. For instance, if you run a trade company, you could create individual showcase pages for each local sub-brand.

This allows you to create a community of relevant connections within each showcase page. For example, you may have multiple property developer and construction client connections on your main page but target only those based in a specific area on the showcase page.

Encourage Your Team to Build a Strong LinkedIn Presence

LinkedIn should be viewed as a combination of an online portfolio and CV, not just for your company but for your employees too. Encouraging your team to curate an active presence on LinkedIn can have major benefits for your B2B marketing.

When people decide to spend their money with you, especially if they are purchasing a service, they want to know who is going to be doing the work. Who are they going to be in regular contact with? Who will be overseeing the project? Ultimately, who are they trusting with their business?

Encourage your team to build a LinkedIn presence that compliments the one you’re building for yourself and your company but that also helps to grow their own personal brand. It’s your team’s experience and knowledge that will help to sell your company and a strong LinkedIn presence is the ideal way to showcase this to potential clients.

LinkedIn can offer you a host of opportunities for generating B2B leads. By nurturing your relationship with your connections and creating informative and engaging content, you’ll have a combination that is sure to lead to success. If you want to work with an experience LinkedIn marketing agency, you can contact Social Chameleon.