Quality leads are at the core of any lead generation agency’s success. Not only do they guarantee client satisfaction, they are also at the very start of the sales funnel, preempting the potential of winning new work.
LinkedIn as Business Development strategy
Launched in the early 2000s and with nearly 800 million members, LinkedIn is the world’s largest network of professionals. Mainly, LinkedIn is a snapshot of a professional’s work and educational experience. Today, with the rise of social media, it has evolved and become more than a digital CV with users sharing personal opinions and emotional success stories. For this reason, it is now an unmissable tool for business development and lead generation agencies.
First things first, LinkedIn is free. There is a Premium option available but the basic account very much does the job to search for new leads. As a cost-free source of data, LinkedIn is great to dig for leads in-house rather than buying lists from third parties that are often costly and not always reliable. Here, at Carbon Global, LinkedIn has been an efficient way to help our clients generate new B2B sales. So where should you start?
Understanding your target audience is of utmost importance in order to search on the social network effectively and precisely. Are you targeting a particular company? A job title or a key discipline? A specific geography? By creating the persona that you wish to target, LinkedIn will pull out the relevant contacts that you can then turn into warm leads, whether that is directly through LinkedIn messaging or calling via the company’s switchboard.
How to find new B2B leads
Perhaps searching on LinkedIn can sometimes feel redundant but, from our experience, it is very much worthwhile. Do note that LinkedIn search results are not set in stone since, as we know, employee turnover and recruitment can change every few months. That being said, the perfect lead could pop up later at another prospective business that you want to target, so it’s worth keeping a close eye on rather than throwing it in the cold leads pile.
Most of the time, professionals will detail their responsibilities in their job description section. This has been crucial to pin down our target prospect. Indeed, a Marketing Director can have a platitude of responsibilities and, in most large companies, you will find that this job title can regroup distinguishable and specific core capabilities, such as digital, e-commerce, and strategy. So, drill into profiles, especially since we know that people buy from people. You might find a nugget of information or mutual interests that can be used to break the ice when speaking with this new business lead.
Another piece of advice. Create daily or weekly job alerts on LinkedIn to find out when companies are hiring in your area of interest. Whether you are targeting a particular company or a specific job title, this can become useful information to grasp if a company is expanding or if your services can fill the shoes of a new recruit. Recently, at Carbon Global, job alerts have been a great lead generation process to help start a conversation, showing a potential contact that we are afloat of the company developments whilst instilling in us the knowledge that there is already a need for our client’s services.
Use emotions to grow your business
LinkedIn is very different from other social networks. It is very much still for business, but that doesn’t mean that your personality should be completely severed from your profile. Distinguishing yourself from the competition is key and LinkedIn offers a cutting edge advantage by showcasing your interests as well as the network of connections you surround yourself with. Thanks to your profile, your personality becomes part of your pitch, part of your sales toolkit and ultimately part of the reason prospects will want to work with you. As ever, remember that people buy from people and emotional connections can make a crucial difference to winning work.
Elodie Smith
Strategic Operations Manager
Carbon Global