LinkedIn: A Cost-Effective Platform for B2B Lead Generation
It can be challenging for mid-size niche B2B tech companies to generate new leads organically. SEO is always an important focus, but when your segment is limited specifically to high-level senior executives who might not know about the existence of your product, your best keywords might not come to mind when performing an online search. There are other cost-effective ways to generate web traffic pro-actively on Social Media.
Enter LinkedIn. According to HubSpot, LinkedIn is 277% more effective than Facebook and Twitter when it comes to lead generation.
With a database of more than 630 million professional-minded users in 2020, LinkedIn has become one of the leaders for lead generation in the world. More than an e-sourcing platform for recruitment, LinkedIn allows for experienced users to expand their network, share insightful collateral, market products and keep up-to-speed with industry news.
With extensive experience using LinkedIn for marketing purposes, I wanted to share a few tips I’ve learned over the years.
Trusting a New Connection
While mass email campaigns allow to reach an unlimited amount of leads tirelessly, each LinkedIn message must be crafted carefully to each respective lead. Merge fields and generic phrasing make way for tailored messaging with a more personal touch that will automatically be more appealing to the recipient.
Where cold-calling and outbound marketing emails are usually hit-and-miss, a message from a LinkedIn user adds authenticity and helps building trust from the get-go; Users are able to identify the legitimacy of the messenger with one quick glimpse at their screen.
The results make for an effective way of reaching out to your targeted audience. As your network of connections expands within the industry, so will your notoriety. Below are a few basic metric-based comparisons:
Mass Email Marketing Campaigns Performance
LinkedIn Email Campaigns Performance
Establishing Brand Awareness Organically with Content
In order to market effectively on LinkedIn, content should be created on a regular basis to post updates on your page and / or share with potential LinkedIn leads. The content can range from company news to industry insights. In my experience, the following content tends to perform best:
Videos
Video has become one of the most powerful way to captivate an audience. Check out my other blog on Enhancing Marketing Content with Videos.
Customer Case Studies / Success Stories
When it comes to catching the eye of potential clients, there is nothing quite like publishing a success story with the name of one of their competitors.
“What are they doing that we don’t?”
It’s always important to make the customer’s name and logo pop in the post. A co-branded message essentially acts like a seal of approval for the rest of the industry to witness. This can automatically propel your business to Top-Of-Mind levels of brand awareness.
Partnership Announcements
Recently added a new account as a customer? Now comes the opportunity to boast about it! A quick post to welcome the new customer goes a long way in raising brand awareness. Tagging their own LinkedIn page in the post will boost your chances for engagement activity (reshares, likes, comments, etc.).
Adding media to the post (image, video or article) will also make the post more appealing.
Milestones
Sharing company or customer-related milestones are a humble way to show appreciation and highlight important steps in the development of your business.
White Paper Articles
Publishing white paper, insights, thought leadership or any other kind of industry-related articles is a great way of coming up with new content to keep your audience engaged.
Life at the Workplace
Fun fact: Posting about employee activity and company events will likely produce the highest engagement rate you’ll observe on your page. A happy workplace usually rhymes with successful business and puts a face to the name of the company. This will also help on a bigger scale with your recruitment strategies.
Strength in Numbers
According to the Content Marketing Institute, 97% of B2B marketers use LinkedIn for content marketing purposes, with a high satisfaction rate of over 78%.
The platform is even more effective for B2B Marketers, as 4 of 5 of LinkedIn users drive business decisions for their employers (Source: DemandWave state of B2B Digital Marketing Report).
High ROI; The platform being free makes for an incredible return on investment. Paid features such as LinkedIn Ads and Sales Navigator are also easily accessible to run laser-focused ad campaigns and enhanced lead prospecting, respectively.