LinkedIn Leads: Lessons Learned

Any worthwhile lead generation activity takes work. Usually a lot of it. And it can take a lot of time. First, build your database of individuals who can benefit from your product. And keep adding to it. You can do this through traditional marketing like webinars, direct/email campaigns, or purchased lists. But beware of lists as their data is often outdated and inaccurate. At one company where I worked, we employed three data verifiers to call people on a D&B list to validate information. For a small company, this is a pricey undertaking. Building your own list is going to be the best option.

Second, use social media (my preference is LinkedIn), to open up even more channels and broaden your reach to build relationships with people who you couldn’t meet anywhere else. Here are a few ways to do that:

Research LinkedIn Groups that have a relevant mission and members that would be most interested in solutions you offer. Once you join (and often you need to be accepted by the group leader), you can review the members, their titles and interests through discussions taking place.

Participate in those Group discussions where you can add valuable insight. You can begin to build your reputation, and your company’s in the process, as someone worth reading. Do not promote your product here.

Start discussions or lead them to information (including your company’s blog) that demonstrates your knowledge and value in your solution area or industry.

Invite contacts to connect with you. They can be those you’ve met or scanned at a show or conference, as well as those from an event’s attendee list.  Do the same with those who have attended one of your webinars. I keep track of those I’ve invited to connect on a spreadsheet to track progress and avoid duplication.

Tag connections to form “special” targeted groups. Once a contact is a connection, I tag them on LinkedIn assigning them to specific groups usually based on industry, company or area of interest for future communications.

Communicate useful, non-promotional information. This can include general information from trade publications or communities, event or webinar invitations, blog posts, including your own company’s blog since that should also be informative and non-promotional.

By the way, you can create your own company’s Group on LinkedIn and invite customers, prospects and employees to join. But be prepared to spend time creating useful content to make their visit worthwhile if you want to keep them coming back and engaging with you. Monitor and respond quickly to requests to join. Large companies can devote a full time resource to this effort. Smaller organizations who don’t pay attention to this risk losing visitors, and worse, good sales leads.