How to Generate Leads Using LinkedIn: 7 Steps to Master Success

Introduction

So you’re wishing to get into LinkedIn Lead Generation. It’s about time! The good thing is, there are several upsides when it comes to using LinkedIn for the purposes of Lead Generation. Today, we’ll walk you through the 7 magical steps you’ll need to master LinkedIn Lead Generation but first, let’s try and get some basics out of the way shall we? 

What Is Lead Generation?

The term “Lead Generation” refers to the creation of interest in potential customers to buy a product or service offered by a seller. 

What is a Lead?

A Lead is a person or company that carries an interest in the product or service of the seller. A Lead could be a company or a single person who fits the profile of your target audience. With the absence of leads, a sales team will most likely fail to find any success. 

This is why mastering the right steps to generate leads on LinkedIn is essential, just as it is to refine your sales pitch or closing a sale. 

But before we tackle that, let’s first dive into the benefits of LinkedIn Lead Generation. 

What are the Benefits of LinkedIn Lead Generation?

1) Creates Awareness:

It’s all about how well-known your brand is. If for instance, someone wants to buy a toothpaste, more often than not, Colgate is a name that pops up in their mind. That’s because Colgate is a household name in the toothpaste product category. 

The focus of every business in marketing is to be the first name a customer thinks of when they think about a product you’re selling. As more and more people start recalling your brand, your reputation and recognition begins to rise. When reputation enhances, you get more business and more business means more profit and a greater brand value.

Through Lead Generation, you can educate and inform potential clients in your industry to know about your product or service, and if it actually brings value, then create a scope for a word of mouth. 

2) Increase in Revenue and Profit Ratio:

Want to fast-track your sales and revenue? There’s a reason why marketers spend over 55% of their marketing budget on lead generation. It’s one of the fastest ways to increase your sales and profit ratio. 

When you get access to quality leads, you have identified a buyer with intent, now all you have to do is persuade him to buy. Since he is already interested, how hard could that be? If you have good leads, a competent sales team will do the trick and increase your profit margins in no time. 

We can say it’s a must for this competitive market.

3) Generate Positive ROI:

Better Lead Generation leads to a better return on investment. Period. Here, the investment is the time you spend in identifying the right leads for your business. 

You can even buy qualified leads that stand even more chance of bumping up your return on investment (ROI). In this case, You only pay for the leads you receive and therefore have a higher chance of squaring your ROI by reducing CPL.

4) Easily Reach the Genuine Customer

In the past, this used to be a thing people dreamt of. Modern Day Lead Generation allows you to target that perfect customer anywhere in the world. You are in the driving seat of your sales strategy by evaluating the information and ultimately deciding where you might make more sales. 

5) Advantageous for Buyer and Seller:

You can say this might be the best thing about Lead Generation. It’s beneficial for the buyer and seller both. The buyer can do some detailed information research on various sellers before making a purchase while the seller gets to showcase the product/service to a buyer who is already open to buying the product. A complete win-win!

6) Collects Vital Information about Prospects

When your sales team makes contact with a prospect, lead generation helps you collect important details about prospects, his needs and preferences that will help you tailor the value of your product or service to meet his wants, interests and/or needs.

7) Costs less than Other Advertisements:

A business needs to advertise in order to succeed, so it is important to choose the most convenient marketing strategy that produces the finest results and one that is cost-effective. Lead generation is one of the most efficient ways to obtain customers.

Consistency Is Key

“Consistency is key.” These wise words have been picked up by our ears more times than we can count but, they’ve never been truer when it comes to LinkedIn Lead generation.

But being consistent doesn’t mean you start nudging every soul on LinkedIn who looks like they’d be interested neither should you annoy anyone with a sales pitch out of nowhere.

“People do want to buy, they just don’t want to be sold to.”

Gone are the days cold calling used to work, and cold messaging is no different.

So how do you apply consistency on LinkedIn? Glad you asked. Here are the 7 steps it takes to master LinkedIn Lead Generation that, when applied consistently, are bound to get you clients.

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The 7 Steps to Mastering LinkedIn Lead Generation

Step 1: The Mindset of Giving Value

Success begins in the mind. Your focus should always be to give rather than to take from another. Giving first, asking second.

When you focus on providing value first, you increase your own authority as a resource and instantly make a positive impact on potential leads. Giving value cements you as a trust-worthy individual, and they are more likely to interact with you in the future and be the client you always wanted!

Step 2: Get Your Plan Down!

LinkedIn is not a magic wand that points to the perfect leads which lead to the perfect sale. You need to invest time in prospecting your plan and creating a list. Sending generic messages that lead to low conversions, then being disheartened and blaming LinkedIn won’t get you anywhere.

It will work but the condition is, it must be done right! It’s all in the process.

A written plan is essential to give you actionable steps to undertake. Jotting down various lead generation activities to be executed while having a thorough understanding of why they are crucial goes a long way.

Right now, we’re going to make your job easier by laying out the process of turning a simple lead into an actual client. Follow this when you begin working on your plan.

Step 3: Locate Prospects

The third step is to locate your prospects. Now the groundwork begins.

Here are 3 common ways you can utilize to locate your ideal prospects.

1) Using the Advanced Search feature on LinkedIn

With over 500 million professionals from over 200 countries on LinkedIn, searching for your potential prospects is not straight-forward.

You need to narrow it down to people who fit the criteria of your particular leads. This is when the “Advanced Search“ feature on LinkedIn comes in handy.

The best bit is, even if you have a free LinkedIn account, you can play around with over 10+ filters to narrow down your prospect profiles.

With filters, you may:

1. Check 1st, 2nd & 3rd connections (To locate new prospects, check the 2nd & 3rd connections only)
2. Search by First Name or Last Name
3. Company
4. School
5. Titles
6. Locations
7. Current Companies (by name)
8. Past Companies
9. Industries
10. Non-Profit Interests

Once you’re done, hit “APPLY” near the top of your LinkedIn page to set your search filters. Once applied, your list will be narrowed down.

Here’s an image of the filters page on LinkedIn:

2) Use Your current network to maximum advantage

Using your current network to maximum advantage is key. A large network housing relevant connections can serve as a gateway to reach more potential prospects through the “Get Introduced” feature.

So don’t hold back in expanding your network. Go ahead and spread! Reach into all connection levels on LinkedIn.

Your first-level connections are the ones most relevant to you, the ones who have a strong idea of your identity and what you do (you accepted their request, or they accepted yours)

Then come the 2nd-degree connections, which are directly linked to your 1st-degree connections, whereas 3rd-degree connections are chained to your 2nd-degree connections. Remember, the 1st-degree connections help pave the way to high-value prospects, so take maximum advantage of your daily networking.

This is because when you share a mutual connection with a prospect, they tend to be more at ease with accepting your connection request. You may use the “How You’re Connected” function in LinkedIn to check all the mutual connections before connecting with that prospect.

3) Check for new potential prospects daily.

Make it a habit to visit Notifications, Who’s Viewed Your Profile pages, and Activity every day to check for potential prospects.

It’s often best to check up on these metrics as people who’ve come across your content in some way show up here. You can be assured that to some extent, they have an idea of who you are, which makes connecting with them quite easy.

Step 4: Connecting for the First Time

Now that we’ve taught you how to locate prospects, it’s time for you to reach out to them.

Pro-Tip

Probably the quickest and most dependable way to generate leads is by directly approaching them on LinkedIn.

Please don’t send out generic requests (**It’s a request!**😁) Make it personalized. People should have a reason to connect with you. Be sure that your success with connections depends on the message you attach with them.

Generic requests are odd, pointless, and signal all kinds of red flags. Here you might have to do a bit of manual labor. Open up your prospect’s profile and try to learn about what matters to them professionally and on a personal level.

Mentioning a common thing with a prospect is often an effective way to get a conversation flowing!

Step 5: Engage to build relationships with your Prospects

Once a connection has been established, it’s time to kick-off with a “thank you” message. This is to break the ice. It would be unfair to expect them to turn into potential clients if you never make overtures after the first connection request. Business just doesn’t happen that way.

It’s best if you thank them for connecting and just simply getting a conversation rolling. Maybe it’s a nice compliment over something you found unique on their profile. Perhaps it’s a thing you appreciate about their business, maybe a post they shared recently.

Looking for similarities such as common interests, connections, or shared experiences are good conversation starters too.

At this stage, never make a request for anything. It gives away the motive and makes a person come across as ingenuine. If you do, a chance of a strong professional relationship might end even before it starts.

Step 6: Keep the momentum going

Now that you’ve kicked off the conversation, it’s time to keep the momentum going. Your goal here should be to add value to them. Hook them up with resources they’d find valuable. Share content that piques your connections’ interests.

Before sharing something, consider:

• What interests them?
• What are their pain points?
• What is currently at the top of their radar?

Don’t pitch anything sales-related even now, lest you wish to lose all the gains you’ve made in your relationship. Why risk being flagged as spam or, worse, banished out of the connection list.

Step 7: It’s time to move off LinkedIn

Oh yes. Finally! It’s time to take the relationship to the next level and move off of LinkedIn. By this stage, you should’ve established trust with your prospects and provided some value to them either on call, video, or a face-to-face meeting.

This is the time to grasp their challenges, get to know them better, and subtly offer a solution. This is when you convert the prospect.

Conclusion

So there you go! These 7 steps when executed correctly will be all you need to ensure mastery over LinkedIn Lead Generation!

If you have any questions or feedback regarding the blog, feel free to leave your comments below. We would love to hear about your experiences with successful lead generation on LinkedIn.

So quit stalling and start turning those perfect leads into clients!

About The Author

Subhan Basit is a senior content specialist at TechNerds with proven digital marketing experience under his belt. He harbors a passion for writing on a diverse range of topics related to futuristic technologies, innovation, and digital marketing to educate and inspire his readers.