Win B2B Leads with LinkedIn

5 min read
09.05.2021 00:00:00

Generating leads primarily isn't just about gaining as many contacts as possible. Rather, it's about attracting the right B2B leads. We will inform you about how to gain profitable B2B leads for your business, convert them in a short time and thus become more successful.

Gaining Leads

If your salespeople need more leads and you're having trouble filling your sales pipeline sufficiently, increasing the lead count is the most important goal.

However, if there are already unqualified leads that can't be targeted, then the most important thing to focus on is the quality of B2B leads.

With the generation of qualified B2B leads as a basis for further sales activities, you have an important tool in your hand with which you can shorten and simplify internal processes, reduce wastage and also minimise costs.

LinkedIn Leads

For B2B products and services, LinkedIn is a great way to target the right people. Of course, the costs are a bit higher compared to Google or Facebook Ads, but the effort is worth it.

We present the most important options in more detail below.

LinkedIn Lead Ads

LinkedIn Lean Ads are primarily designed to generate new leads. This is a special ad format that already has the form feature built in.

This offers your users the opportunity to get information about your products or services, sign up for a newsletter or similar - without having to do too much effort.

The fields of this form can be customized according to your wishes, so that you receive exactly the information you need from your leads and filter out unimportant information right from the start.

LinkedIn Lead Ads are great for quickly connecting with new potential partners.

If you decide to use a video ad or an image ad, for example, you can choose whether the CTA should link to a specific landing page or whether the form can be opened directly within LinkedIn.

The fact that the form is automatically filled out by LinkedIn directly in advance and that the platform itself does not have to be left by linking to another page makes it easier for the user - thus significantly shortening the user journey.

And: Automation such as that provided by the remote service Zapier ensures that the leads do not have to be retrieved manually with greater effort, but can be inserted directly into the customer's CRM, where they can then be processed.

Example:

As soon as a LinkedIn member clicks on your ad, a form opens in the same window, in which the member's data stored on LinkedIn is already filled in. These are, for example, the name or company name, the employer, the professional position and also the location.

The member then gets directly to the content they are looking for with just a few clicks and does not even have to make the effort to enter everything themselves. In return, you benefit from generating LinkedIn leads with complete and correctly filled data.

Furthermore, there is the option of using dynamic ads, which are great for personal targeting. These are available to you in a wide variety of display formats.

Most often, dynamic ads are used for job ads or followers, but message ads also benefit from this. This is because these types of ads land directly in the message box of the target audience.

However, you will only be successful if you engage with the right target audience from the start. Fortunately, LinkedIn offers you a variety of valuable targeting tools that can be filtered by job position, interests or even industries.

Social Selling

Selling products or services is not always easy - especially if you specialize in B2B services or products.

LinkedIn is mainly used by people who want to establish professional contacts and build a large network - perfect for social selling.

All you need is the right strategy - we'll show you what it takes to be successful.

Social selling is about researching and cultivating B2B contacts from which both sides can benefit in the long term. However, social selling should not be confused with conventional social media marketing.

High-quality content is not the top priority here - rather, it is about identifying contacts who are interested in your offers and at the same time want to build a trusting business relationship with you.

Personal communication appropriate to the context plays an enormously important role in this context.

Don't forget: all the information you can find out about your target group on LinkedIn can most certainly be used for sales.

So take the opportunity to use other social networks to find out how your customers feel and what they are looking for. The better they know what your customers want, the easier it will be for you to find the right B2B contacts to help you achieve your goal later on.

One's own profile on LinkedIn also plays a role that should not be underestimated.

Because this is the one that new B2B contacts take directly under the magnifying glass to gain a first impression - with which you should convince. Because an unprofessional or poorly maintained profile can definitely be a hurdle. Furthermore, you should adapt your profile to the right target group if possible. If prospective customers do not find the appropriate information, the chance of a business relationship is not very good.

With a well thought-out and informative as well as interesting profile, you sustainably increase your Social Selling Index - called SSI for short - and thus also the chances of more conversions in the future.

Expanding organic reach

Generally speaking, building up as broad a network of useful contacts as possible is a key factor in achieving a high reach. Conversely, this means that the greater the number of your contacts, the more contacts - from these same contacts - will also receive your content.

Source: Preview of a LinkedIn post with the Pedalix software

Do you receive numerous contact requests? Then make sure that they are contacts who are relevant to your topic, who could be useful to you or who are in contact with other people who are relevant to you.

Another possibility is to place relevant references to your own articles in posts from other contacts who in turn have a large number of followers. Of course, you should not forget that the topic must also fit the original post.

Also helpful is the creation of groups, through which interested people and companies can become aware of you and thus attract potential new customers.

At the same time, you create a virtual place where you can post your own content, albeit sparingly and carefully chosen.

Feel free to link or tag other relevant people in your own posts - this will also increase the reach of your articles.

Conclusion

LinkedIn, in today's digital value, is a platform that offers tremendous potential for businesses to generate new valuable LinkedIn leads. Whether it's with lead ads or even social selling, there are plenty of opportunities.

However, the focus should always be on communication, humanity and creating trust. However, this again shows that success will most definitely not happen overnight and requires solid preparation or planning.

So take your time to build trust, likeability and interest - get to know the people and companies behind them to get the picture. However, once you find the right LinkedIn leads and engage with them in depth, the chances of higher conversion rates and therefore higher sales are good.