Unleash the Power of LinkedIn Leads
By now everybody knows that LinkedIn is the premier choice for B2B lead generation.
It allows unparalleled targeting features and it probably has all the key decision makes you’re looking to target already on there.
But, as GI Joe famously said “Knowing is half the battle”.
Having your lead list and knowing how to reach a potential lead means nothing if you don’t capitalise on it properly and actually convert them into customers.
So, how do we do that?
We’re going to go over our own top tips, taken from what’s worked best in our own experience and in the experience of our clients across a diverse set of industries.
Hope it helps.
General Tips:
First, some general sales tips for inbound marketing.
These aren’t necessarily specific to LinkedIn, and they can be applied to any form of lead conversion your business undertakes.
Tip 1: Get Them to Meet With You
“First-prize” for an initial follow-up call to a lead is getting them to book a meeting.
This can be either before or after you discuss the cost and send them a quote, the important thing is to establish a meeting where you make it clear the expectation is that they’ll make a decision at the end.
This does two important things for you:
- It gives your prospective client a time frame, putting pressure on them to make a decision before or during the meeting.
- It allows you to address any reservations or issues that they have, “cementing” the sales pitch by allowing your salesperson to do what they do best.
You should always try to get verbal confirmation from your prospective client because at that point they’ve already made up their mind and the rest is a formality.
I.e. ask them if they’re ready to go ahead. If they say yes, that means you’re in.
Tip 2: Don’t Settle for a Quote
Now, we don’t mean “Hide your price list with your life”, as some businesses seem prone to do.
All this does is frustrate customers and may lead to wasted time pursuing leads that could never afford your services.
Always give your customer an early estimate of how much your services will cost them to eliminate bad leads, and provide more detailed information when they ask for it.
What do we mean, then?
If the outcome of your follow-up call is you saying “I’ll send you a quote”, that means you’ve lost them.
From our experience, these kinds of calls very seldom lead to sales because it:
1) Puts no pressure on your lead to respond and…
2) Doesn’t give your salesperson the opportunity to finalise the sale by addressing any concerns they have, which might not be covered in your marketing materials.
LinkedIn Specific Considerations:
Tip 3: Respond Quickly
Response time can often be the deciding factor in convincing a lead to join your business.
As a general rule, we recommend aiming to respond to LinkedIn leads within 10 minutes (during the working week of course).
This may seem like a very short amount of time, but things move quickly in the digital age.
Responding quickly is vital because:
- You’re already top of mind. They just contacted you, so you don’t need to waste time explaining who you are most of the time.
- It shows you’re “on the ball”. Responding quickly is an unconscious signal that your business is competent and your customer service is exceptional.
- People are impatient. When most modern consumers, including B2B decision-makers, make a decision they typically want an answer -now-. Sometimes all you need to do to win a client is respond first.
Tip 4: How You Reach Out Matters
Across all our clients we see wildly different response (and conversion) rates depending on how you first reach out. In order from best to worst, this is how we recommend you do that
- Call them
- Connect on LinkedIn and then LinkedIn message them
- Email them
Despite seeming invasive and “pushy” in today’s digital age, calls are still the most effective way of hashing out the details and getting a response from someone right now.
If they don’t pick up, or don’t provide a number, the next best choice is to reach out over LinkedIn.
This has the advantage of letting them look through your profile (more on that later) and seeing more about your business that way, but it doesn’t have the same urgency.
Lastly, if neither of those work, email them. Emails are better than nothing, but I’m sure we all know how unreliable people can be in responding to them at times.
Tip 5: Follow Up
This may seem obvious, but this is something we see a lot of our clients missing out on.
Sometimes, simply following up is all you need to do to secure a sale.
People may forget and need a simple nudge as a reminder to make a decision, or they may need time to think over their options and compare.
In either case, simply following up can be enough to convince some people to go with your business.
We recommend following up one day after you make initial contact with a lead, and then two days after the first follow-up if they still haven’t committed.
If they don’t make any serious commitments by the end of the second followup, you can consider the lead lost.
Tip 6: A Final Touch
One often overlooked feature of LinkedIn is the ability to see who viewed your profile.
We can use this to our advantage by “stalking” our leads by simply viewing their profiles.
This makes us top of mind when they see it and encourages them to click through to view your profile in turn.
This lets you use your profile and your business profile, as secondary sources of marketing material to reinforce your main messaging.
Conclusion
So, in summary, this is the optimal workflow that we’ve found to follow up on LinkedIn leads.
- A lead comes in on LinkedIn
- Follow up within 10 minutes, prioritising as follows. Try and book a meeting immediately, and don’t settle for sending a quote.
- A phone call
- LinkedIn Messaging
- Follow up one day later
- If they don’t commit, follow up again two days after the first followup
- “Stalk” them on LinkedIn to encourage viewing your pages
This is all general advice, and obviously, not all of it may apply to your business or industry, but at the very least we hope you learned something useful.
If you enjoyed this article or found it helpful, check out more e-commerce marketing content on the inSyte blog or listen to the inSyte Podcast.
This article was brought to you by Syte.
We’re a specialist e-commerce digital marketing agency with lots of experience using LinkedIn to generate B2B leads for our customers.
If you need any help getting your B2B LinkedIn strategy to work, feel free to reach out with the form below or check out our case studies page to see what we’ve been able to do for our clients.
