Every entrepreneur has experienced it at some point: the struggle with landing new leads or clients especially when the business is in its early stages. One of the best ways to accelerate your business’s growth, not only in these beginning stages but also at any time, is by harnessing the immense power that social media delivers, particularly LinkedIn. LinkedIn boasts of more than 600 million active global users who – unlike Facebook or Instagram users – are there with the desire of expanding their professional network. This implies several things; one of them being that users are more open to making strategic business alliances or meeting prospective business associates. These people are not necessarily on LinkedIn to socialise but to grow their industry knowledge and connections or gain from like-minded professionals.
However, to attract better clients and leads on LinkedIn, there are several things that you have to take note of.
1. Have a Professional Profile for Your Business
Even before embarking on any other LinkedIn goals, first ensure that you have a search-optimised, professional-looking and client-focused profile for your business. The same way you would not go for an interview with a potential client dressed in unprofessional or sloppy attire, you must also ensure that your profile works for you and not against you. Remember that first impressions matter a lot when it comes down to winning over new clients on LinkedIn. Include your business’s logo and branding, a catchy and representative cover photo, keywords and ensure your business’s purpose easy to see.
2. Know Your Target Market
One of the major mistakes that rookie LinkedIn users make is lacking a clear picture of their target market. And, unfortunately, lead generation on this platform depends a lot on business owners having a clear grasp of the people who are likely to fuel the growth of your business. A good place to start would be identifying the titles of your desired target audience. Are they CEOs, sales personnel, accountants or HR specialists? After this, you can easily and quickly narrow down your search by scouring LinkedIn Groups and LinkedIn Advanced Search.
3. Learn How to Send Compelling Connection Requests
Most business owners tend to send connection requests to prospective clientele without an accompanying personalised message. This makes your first contact with a customer, who could potentially change your business prospects, very dull. Cultivate a habit of sending your connection requests accompanied by a personalised message that explains briefly but convincingly how you came to know of them and why you think it’s a great idea to connect with them. This will effectively lessen the chances of the recipient clicking the dreaded ‘I Don’t Know’ or ‘Spam Report’ buttons. Bear in mind that getting five of such responses in a row will greatly inhibit your ability to connect with other parties on the platform in the future.
4. Thank You Messages Can Go a Long Way
It is easy to think that you’re entitled to someone accepting your connect request especially if you did an excellent job convincing them why it was in their best interest to allow you in their professional network. But, don’t make that mistake.
As soon as you get the notification that someone has accepted your connection request, it is advisable to reach out to them with a personalised ‘thank you’ note. Don’t go overboard and advertise your offering right away, though. Adding the official URL of your business website when signing off the message is often more than enough. It is even better when you can find some kind of commonality in their LinkedIn profile that can be used to spur up a genuine and non-self-promotional conversation. The goal here is to leave a lasting impression and not to come out as a very eager and pushy salesperson.
5. Harness the Power of Shared Groups to Engage your New Connections
A handy way of striking up conversions and product pitches to current or potential connections is by reviewing and joining the groups that these prospects are already in. With a business profile, you can join as many as 50 groups but it is important to prioritize only the most relevant groups at this stage. Combine this with concise relationship-building messages and you will have set a solid stage for a successful outreach campaign. The core objective of such messages ought to provide or point towards something of tangible value to that prospective client or customer without lacing it with ulterior motives. In other words, learning how to give without expecting anything in return is a vital part of building authentic and productive relationships with your potential customers.
LinkedIn is touted to be the social media network with the most potential in 2019, so learning how to utilise it early on will be key to improving your business connections this year.
Crunchy Social can help you reach out to people on your LinkedIn profile and provide you with leads without you having to lift a finger! Get in touch today to hear how we can help.
