At MLC, we get a lot of questions about how to best use LinkedIn for commercial efforts. The community is almost certainly the largest directory of potential B2B buyers in the world, but has its own norms and rules, both formal and informal, that make sourcing leads a somewhat-difficult thing to do in an appropriate way.
We got another iteration of the LinkedIn question last week on our Lead Generation Discussions forum:
Hi all – we’re interested in examples of how folks have used LinkedIn to source and generate sales leads.
As someone who’s fairly active on LinkedIn, I have a number of vendors reaching out to me on the site in any given week, but some are quite annoying (endless spam, attempts to “connect” when we’ve never worked together, etc). We’d like to avoid this kind of behavior, if we can.
What are some great ways we can use LinkedIn to find folks while respecting boundaries? Thanks for any advice.
In response, we got the following advice from Ron Yi at LinkedIn. Read it, savor it – it clarifies a lot of what makes for a successful, forum-appropriate commercial campaign on the network. Thanks, Ron!
LinkedIn can be used as an effective resource to both source and generate sales leads. Here are 5 things that you can do to boost your sales efficiency:
Manage your profile: That’s right, it all starts with you. Make sure your profile is complete and up to date. Whenever you reach out to a lead you can be sure they’ll be checking out your profile. So make sure you’re putting your best foot forward with your professional details. And yes, a professional photo of yourself helps.
Grow your network: Increasing your number of connections improves your chances of finding sales leads on LinkedIn because it drastically increases your number of 2nd and 3rd degree connections. Identifying that a potential lead is a 2nd or 3rd degree connection allows you to utilize your own network to secure warm introductions, and it also ensures you’re seeing full profiles of more of your leads. The quickest way to grow your network is to import contacts from your email account, or to check out People You May Know.
Use Company Pages: Company Pages on LinkedIn is a great resource for getting information on your target companies. Along with vital company information, you’ll also be able to see which of your connections are already at a company that you can use to secure warm introductions.
Visit Who’s Viewed My Profile: Most people don’t think about this, but Who’s Viewed My Profile is a great way to generate sales leads. Seeing who’s viewed you is a great way to measure interest in what you have to offer. With your updated profile you’ll attract more and more people, and from there you can create leads from the people that are actively seeking you out.
Upgrade to LinkedIn Premium: A LinkedIn Premium account enables you to quickly find and contact leads with tools like Premium Search and InMail. You’ll also get access to full profiles of people out of your network, along with a ton of other features that give you an edge over your competition.
While you’re using LinkedIn to increase your sales effectiveness, it’s important to keep in mind 2 best practices:
Respect the community: Let’s face it, some people don’t want to receive sales communications. So please respect the community by ensuring you’re only reaching out to leads that are perfect matches for what you have to offer. And if you don’t receive a response, move on to the next lead.
Only connect with people you know: Your professional network should be just that – a professional way to connect with people you know or have an established professional relationship with. We hear from customers all the time that receive Invitations to Connect that are really sales solicitations, and they hate it! So doing that will do more harm than good for your lead generation efforts.
MLC members, for more on using social and word-of-mouth tools to generate leads, check out our whitepaper, Leveraging B2B Word-of-Mouth Marketing Initiatives.
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on 20 February 12
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I agree 100% about LinkedIn premium. Having been a ‘free’ user for three years now with thousands of connections, I only recently upgraded and am very happy I did. I especially like the ability to save searches! LinkedIn is an excellent tool and I continue to find ways to use it that I had never explored before. Thank you for giving me even more usage scenarios to think about.