LinkedIn B2B Lead Generation: A Complete Guide for Leaders
August 2, 2018 - 21 minutes read - B2B, Remote AgencyWhen it comes to LinkedIn B2B lead generation, it’s all about forming genuine relationships with your dream clients. But forming those genuine relationships can take a lot of work if you don’t have the right strategies in place.
Your ideal clients receive dozens of spam messages from irrelevant leads every single day, and if you don’t know how to stand out from the crowd, they’ll just as soon assume your messages are spam as well.
We’ve published dozens of resources over the years showing B2B marketers and leaders how to generate leads through LinkedIn, sharing the tried-and-true LinkedIn lead gen strategies we’ve used to scale Mod Girl Marketing. In fact, we’ve made it our mission as a social media lead generation agency, to share as much as we can to help fellow agencies see success using LinkedIn.
From our free LinkedIn profile checklist to our LinkedIn jumpstart program, and our LinkedIn growth programs, we love helping B2B professionals and brands build their authority on LinkedIn.
Now, in this complete guide, we’re sharing:
- The reason why LinkedIn is your best source for generating quality B2B leads
- The exact steps you need to follow to land your dream clients on LinkedIn
- All of our LinkedIn B2B lead generation resources, all in one place
Ready to experience growth on LinkedIn?
Mod Girl Marketing, who was named one of The Top B2B Digital Marketing Agencies In The US, helped countless B2B professionals and brands land high-paying dream clients and expand their influence on LinkedIn.
Want to optimize your LinkedIn profile, propel your reputation, and expand your network?
Download my Free LinkedIn Profile Checklist here.
Why Use LinkedIn for B2B Lead Generation?
LinkedIn is powerful for B2B marketing. In fact, HubSpot even found that LinkedIn is 277% more effective for lead generation than Facebook or Twitter!
With over 500 million users, LinkedIn has the potential to send leads to every conceivable industry. Studies have found that of all social networks, LinkedIn drives the most customers to B2B companies (more than 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn), and is ranked as the most effective social channel by 66% of people.
Additionally, 40 million of LinkedIn’s members can be classified as key decision-makers, meaning that, once you start a conversation with them, you don’t have to wait for them to connect you to someone else at their company to pitch your services or products.
So how can you grow your LinkedIn network and connect with your dream clients? Follow these 5 steps for LinkedIn B2B lead generation:
- Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile
- Use Targeted Search Queries to Find Your Ideal Prospects
- Offer to Help Everyone
- Automate Processes, But Add a Personal Touch
- Land Your Dream Clients – On the Phone!
5 Steps for Landing Dream B2B Leads on LinkedIn
Step 1. Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile
Before you can begin connecting with your dream clients on LinkedIn, you need to make it easy for THEM to find you by optimizing your profile.
Approach your profile from a client-first perspective. Everything you write, from your headline to your Experience section to your skills, should show your dream clients why you are a great fit for them. And use 1st-person in your profile – leave “we” for your business page!
When it comes to optimizing your LinkedIn profile, pay special attention to completing your:
Headline
If someone can’t tell from your headline exactly what you do and who you help, then you’re not properly leveraging LinkedIn.
The most popular formula for a solid LinkedIn headline is as follows: I help ____ to _____ by ______.
The main problem with using this formula alone is that the more experienced professionals start to blend in with the beginners. What’s the solution?
So instead, add a bit of “authority flair” and/or “differentiation flair” to your headline formula: Helping ____ to _____ by ____. [Authority title/Differentiation]
Take a look at Mod Girl’s founder and CEO Mandy McEwen’s headline for an example.
Summary
Experts refer to this as the second most important part of LinkedIn profile after the headline. Be sure to put the most important and interesting information at the top of your summary, since the bottom gets cut off by LinkedIn (replaced with a “see more” button). Remember to lead with benefits and include a strong call to action.
Experience
Your LinkedIn employment sections should detail the relevant work you’ve done in the industry. However, just like you did with your Summary, you want to write each piece of your Summary with your ideal client in mind. Show the tangible results you achieved, not the responsibilities you held.
Skills
Add your most relevant skills to your LinkedIn profile, and encourage connections to endorse you for those important skills. Get the process starting by first endorsing your connections for their skills (initiating reciprocity), and make sure to arrange yours so the ones you want people to endorse at listed first.
Recommendations
A recommendation is someone’s testimony of their professional relationship with you. This social proof is essential to LinkedIn B2B lead generation. To successfully secure recommendations, reach out to former or current clients. If they’ve already given you a testimonial, they can repurpose it as a recommendation on your LinkedIn!
A professional photo
This one might be a given, but your profile photo must look professional. You’ll be surprised by the number of profiles that do not have a photo, or that use an unprofessional photo where they cropped their friends out!
Perhaps the most important part of optimizing your LinkedIn profile, however, is including keywords throughout the entire profile.
Use keywords your prospective clients are actually searching for on LinkedIn. Don’t just call yourself “CEO and Founder.” Stand out amongst the thousands of others with your exact title by mentioning your niche by name.
Download Our Free LinkedIn Profile Checklist
Not sure how to optimize your LinkedIn profile? Download our free checklist and learn how to get maximum views on your content with these simple profile tweaks.
If you are ready to take your LinkedIn efforts to the next level, we offer customized LinkedIn growth programs to help you boost your brand authority and become an influencer in the space.
Step 2. Use Targeted Search Queries to Find Your Ideal Prospects
LinkedIn’s advanced search features are your key to finding your ideal prospects among the 500 million members.
The trick to leveraging search for LinkedIn B2B lead generation is filtering it to match your specific buyer persona. After beginning your initial search with a keyword, such as “healthcare,” filter it using the options at the top of your search results.
You can narrow your search by location, industry, title keywords, and more to find your exact dream clients.
And don’t forget to filter by connection type as well! You typically want to select “2nd-degree connections” when seeking potential leads. These are people who are connected to your current LinkedIn network, and they’ll be more likely to accept your connection request since you already have mutual connections.
Keep in mind that others are using this strategy to find you as well! That’s why including keywords throughout your profile is essential for successful LinkedIn B2B lead generation.
As there is no official tool for LinkedIn keyword research, start by using either Google Keyword Planner or Ubersuggest to help you make a list of keywords that clients might use to find you and your services.
Additional Resources
Advanced search is only one the many features perfect for LinkedIn B2B lead generation. To discover more, check out our blog: The Top 6 LinkedIn Features Guaranteed to Grow Your Business
You can also check out this guide for building a lead list.
Step 3. Offer to Help Everyone
Now that you have your filtered search and optimized profile, it’s time to begin connecting with your prospective clients. But don’t just send blank connection requests and hope people say yes!
LinkedIn has grown a lot over the years; it’s no longer just a digital Rolodex where you connect with people you’ve worked within the “real world.” Now, people are willing to connect with nearly anyone, so long as they see the other as a relevant and valuable connection.
If you truly want to grow your LinkedIn network, you need to explain why you want to connect and give your prospective clients a good reason to say yes.
In general, the more connections you have on LinkedIn, the better. Each new connection adds an exponential number of 2nd- and 3rd-degree connections to your network, making it much easier to connect with those not yet in your network. A connection in common is an easy conversation starter, as well as a possible direct introduction to your dream lead.
Once you’ve identified a possible lead, be smart about how you approach them. Your connection requests should always communicate a good reason for someone to accept.
Always send a personal message that sets yourself apart from the more generic requests most LinkedIn users are used to. Tell your prospect why you want to connect with them and give them a compelling reason to connect with you, especially if they don’t know you. Creating templates makes this easy to do as you increase your quantity of connection requests.
Whenever you send a personalized connection request or InMail, offer value in your first message – and no, a sales pitch for a valuable product or service doesn’t count!
Follow the lead of our founder and CEO, Mandy: start every message by offering to help.
For most, you can leave this open-ended, and let them tell you how exactly you can help them. But with dream leads you really want to turn into clients, do a bit more research. Offer a quick tip on how they can easily fix a problem you noticed on their website or send them the link to an article you wrote that answers a question they recently asked in a LinkedIn update.
Not every lead will turn into a client, but when you approach LinkedIn B2B lead generation from a value-first mindset, you’ll build your reputation as a trustworthy, helpful connection. Then, when your new connection is ready to do a complete website redesign or needs a new marketing strategy, they’re more likely to think of you.
Additional Resources
Ready to become a thought leader on LinkedIn? When you have an effective thought leadership marketing strategy, you can position your brand and key executives within your organization as experts in your respective industry. Learn how to become a thought leader here: The Ultimate Guide To Becoming A Thought Leader On LinkedIn.
Not sure if LinkedIn B2B lead generation is for you? Don’t count it out just yet – with the right strategy, LinkedIn can be a goldmine for B2B leads! Find out why here: 20 LinkedIn Statistics All B2B Marketers Should Know
Want more advice on how to get more leads for your agency using LinkedIn? Check out our blog: 8 Effective LinkedIn Strategies for B2B Marketing.
Step 4. Automate Processes, But Add a Personal Touch
Of course, all this networking on LinkedIn can take time. That’s why we’ve developed an entire strategy that’s built around automation, so a virtual assistant can manage the majority of it for you. But automating lead generation on LinkedIn isn’t a “set it and forget it” type of system. You need a proven strategy and some manual effort to make it truly effective.
Though a virtual assistant sends connection requests and answers simple messages for Mandy, she steps in to personally respond to anything that requires a more detailed response. That way, she saves hours every day and doesn’t waste time on cold leads who never even reply to her first message.
It’s also important to establish your expertise by sharing updates and publishing long-form articles on LinkedIn, but you can similarly use automation and outsourcing to reduce the amount of time you spend on it.
Use a virtual assistant to write social media posts about your latest blog and have them schedule the posts in a tool like Hootsuite or MeetEdgar so you have content going out automatically every day.
This content can take the form of how-to, guides, case studies, and webinars. Don’t worry about duplicating efforts, as republishing your company’s blog content on LinkedIn will not cause a duplicate content penalty on search.
Take a look at Mandy’s LinkedIn profile to see the type of content she shares.
Staying top of mind through regular posting is a great content marketing strategy on any social network, but especially when using LinkedIn for B2B lead generation.
Additional Resources
Automated processes can save you hours each week on your LinkedIn B2B lead generation efforts. But with so many options out there, it can be difficult to know where you should begin! Check out a list of the tools we love to use at Mod Girl Marketing here: Top 8 Social Media Tools for B2B Lead Generation.
Looking for more B2B lead generation strategies? Discover our top 8 Ways To Generate High-Quality B2B Leads!
And learn how to expand your reach on LinkedIn with our free LinkedIn Profile Checklist.
Step 5. Land Your Dream Clients – On the Phone!
Never sell on LinkedIn. Instead, focus on developing real relationships and providing resources that are truly beneficial to your dream clients, both through status updates and private messages. Once someone seems like a potential lead, move it to the phone before you pitch anything.
And that’s not to say you have to pitch to everyone you call, either. We definitely encourage you to only work with your dream clients, but that works both ways: the client has to be a good fit for you, and you have to be a good fit for them.
If you’re on the phone with someone and discover that you can’t help them, or maybe they don’t need a service or product as comprehensive as what you offer at this stage of their business, refer them to someone who would be a better fit.
But when someone IS a good fit, turning them into a client on the phone will be a breeze thanks to the effort you already put in networking on LinkedIn. Before you ever say hello on the phone, you’ll have ensured they fit your buyer persona, offered them true value, and built a personal connection with them.
Additional Resources
Want more tips on how to how to generate leads through LinkedIn? Check out our guide here: 10 Steps to 10x Your B2B Lead Generation on LinkedIn
Still not convinced LinkedIn B2B lead generation is right for your remote agency?
Check out what these business owners and marketers have to say about our lead generation program and how it’s helped them land their dream clients and transform their businesses:
LinkedIn B2B Lead Generation: Start Landing Your Dream Leads on Demand!
By following the steps above and leveraging all of the resources we included in this complete guide, you can save time AND land your dream clients.
Ready to start using LinkedIn to land your dream B2B leads on demand?
There’s a goldmine of opportunity on LinkedIn if you position your profile correctly. Grab a copy of our free LinkedIn Checklist to learn how.
