Should I waste my resources and valuable time to target my audience on LinkedIn? YES! Definitely yes and it should be a MUST! You should definitely start generating leads with the help of this 500+ million users platform. If you haven’t been doing it so far, you were missing on valuable leads daily, but you are never late to learn from your mistakes. LinkedIn has been growing and improving so much in the past years,  with new marketing tools and optimization options, you will catch up in no time.

If you still don’t know if it’s worth it, check out top 7 LinkedIn stats every B2B marketer needs to know:

• 61 million LinkedIn users are senior level influencers and 40 million are in decision-making positions.

• LinkedIn is the #1 channel B2B marketers use to distribute content at 94%.

• LinkedIn makes up more than 50% of all social traffic to B2B websites & blogs.

• 91% of marketing executives list LinkedIn as the top place to find quality content.

• Of the 10,000 most shared articles of the last 5 years, only 6% were written by influencers.

• 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn vs. 13% on Twitter & 7% on Facebook.

• LinkedIn generates 3x more conversions than Twitter & Facebook

I wanted to wow you with the top 7 but will be revisiting all of the 45 Eye-Opening LinkedIn Stats Every B2B Marketer Needs to Know throughout this text, and so should you, when you start your Lead Generation strategy for LinkedIn.

Lead generation is constantly changing game and it’s definitely a game of numbers. You want as much leads possible, but the thing you should focus more is the number of RIGHT leads for your business. If you are getting frustrated because you  don’t have any leads to work with, or even finding it hard to connect with any of them, or the ones you did find take so long to turn into sales, or never even get to that point – LinkedIn is here to help.

1. Start with basics – Optimize Your Profile

Revisit your profile and update it. To impress your visitors you need to complete your profile to the tiniest detail, no skipping. If you continually publish and share relevant content it will appear on your profile and you would want your prospect leads to see that.  Do you have a valid presentation of your business on your business page? Consider making a digital version that will show you off and make sure it’s not longer than 30 seconds. Whatever you fit in 30 seconds video or less, you can also re-type, knowing that those are the essentials that are important for your visitors to hear or read and are short and sweet so they won’t get bored. won’t.

How to Increase Your LinkedIn Success – A Guide to Optimizing your LinkedIn Profile

Consider adding projects to your profile. These will not only show your expertise, but also draw more attention to your successes and give you a chance to add links and build traffic for your website. Amazing right? Feel free to update it regularly and showcase your talent to millions of users daily.  Your marketing leads will be one step closer to becoming a sales lead if they can see, right there, how amazing your work is.

While doing all this keep in mind the importance of keyword you will use to optimize your page to the best and to keep SEO friendly.

Bonus tip: If you haven’t already hide the People Also Viewed section of your profile and keep all eyes on you. This way visitors won’t be able to see a whole list of similar profiles to yours, which basically means not enabling them to check out your competition.

2. Search For The Right Connections And Engage

61 million LinkedIn users are senior level influencers and 40 million are in decision-making positions 

By simply revisiting  the statistics from above you can realize that you have an amazing 61 million opportunities  to score yourself a lead that matters.

With Advanced Search on LinkedIn, you’re able to target your audience on a deeper level with number of filters like:  geographic location, current company, past company, industry, profile language, non-profit interests, and school.

If you want to really dig into it, you may consider investing  in Sales Navigator Plan that would work best for your team. It will give you 22 different filter categories to refine the LinkedIn database into your ideal target list.

Create a list of contacts you would want to reach out and check their profiles. Some of them may be your 2nd circle connection that can help you with your initial approach since you have someone in between who can give you referral, or who you can mention when sending contact request with personalized message.

Connect and after you’ve been accepted send a personal message. Avoid doing it sooner unless it’s someone you’ve met and will be expecting to hear from you. If your message doesn’t get answered you can follow up once, but if the silence continues, it’s better to invest your time on a new lead, than chasing the cold ones.

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You can also engage with people who are your followers on other Social Media and ask them to connect with you on LinkedIn too. From there you can connect and generate leads through their networks. Join business groups of your interest and share insights, don’t just follow and sit quietly.  Use connections that you have on this and on other social media networks, or people you’ve personally meet. They may not be your next sales lead, but can also be your bridge to someone from their list of connection who will become one, or at least someone who can be a great referral for you.  

Eventually, learn how to  give up on cold leads, don’t waste anymore time and don’t be spammy, you’ll make more harm than benefits, by chasing someone who doesn’t want to interact.

65% of B2B companies have acquired a customer through LinkedIn.

If you are an experienced user who  already has a network consisted of your former clients and buyers that you know are satisfied with work you provided for them you may want to take this lead generating game to the next level. Define target audiences and deliver relevant marketing and advertising content based on the pages they visited on your site by creating  LinkedIn Matched Audiences. In order to define these target groups, you would need to install LinkedIn Insight Tag to your website. This feature is  a lightweight JavaScript tag that powers conversion tracking, re-targeting, and web analytics for LinkedIn ad campaigns. May seem a little bit complicated, but it really isn’t and it’s worth your research time to set it up.

3. Use Your Content To Keep And Multiply Your Leads

LinkedIn is the #1 channel B2B marketers use to distribute content at 94%

Show your expertise, share knowledge and in time you will build authority by being a source of valuable information for your leads.You can achieve this:

1. With status updates – Give people insights and teasers to your latest Blog and link it. Create posts with tips and useful advices and share them on a weekly schedule. Ad a nice graphic, video, or attractive image and draw attention with visual aids.

1. By writing articles – Use LinkedIn Pulse to generate blog posts and news stories that can extend their reach within their target market.

Only 1 million users have published an article on LinkedIn

Grab your chance to publish among the very little  0.2% of users and become an influencer. separate yourself from so many users that share their content daily.

About 45% of LinkedIn article readers are in upper-level positions (managers, VPs, Directors, C-level)

Are these your wanted leads? Do you have content that will intrigue them?

Whatever your choice of sharing your content is, make sure not to skip any of these steps:

 – Be regular and update your schedule

Don’t work on just one great article, or phenomenal Blog this month thinking this would keep you set for a while. It doesn’t work like that. You have to be present all the time. When you don’t feel inspired to write, research and read quality content from other relevant source, comment, like, share. Make short tips and interesting posts that you can easily publish daily. Frequently check what are the best days and times to post on each Social Media so your that your content can meet its targets in the perfect time.

Articles with titles between 40-49 characters perform the best on LinkedIn

 –  Make your titles short but interesting to intrigue your readers. If you are posting in a group, or on Linkedin Pulse, don’t write long over explaining titles.

 – When creating your content, don’t forget to research and use valuable keywords to boost your SEO and feel free to ad links whenever you can to bring traffic back to your website. 

 – Last, but not the least and I mean it as a reminder, PROMOTE it everywhere, on all your social platforms and channels. If you are a member of any business group, or you are hosting one, make sure that all your quality content goes there too.

Let’s recap everything we learned today and remember that you will need to dedicate 30 – 60 minutes of your working day to your LinkedIn profile. 

Each day choose several steps to focus on:

• Optimize your profile
• Research and make new connections
• Revisit and learn about the ones you already have
• Follow  your current clients and ask them to follow you
• Endorse others so they  would want to endorse you
• Give recommendations so you can get them back
• Be active with posting quality content regularly
• Learn when to let go
• Don’t cross the line of becoming a spammer

If you want to start generating targeted leads on LinkedIn every day, it is possible and will happen. You just need to learn, implement and repeat everything above mentioned.

This platforms offers endless possibilities especially for B2B companies since it’s primarily business oriented. If you learn to use it right you are sure to get more than enough targeted  leads, just don’t leave it at that. You have to put serious efforts and time into those lead if you want to convert them into successful sales and happy clients.