Aug 18 / Crystal Thies

3 Lead Generation Techniques Using LinkedIn

lead generation techniques, LinkedIn, online sales leads, small business, Social Media, social network

I know that there are many frustrated LinkedIn users out there who are wondering what all of the hubbub is about because they’ve been on LinkedIn for 6 months and it hasn’t helped their business one bit. The problem is that it’s not being used effectively – they’re not using lead generation techniques that work.

Contrary to many users’ beliefs, whoever has the most connections does not win (unless your only reason for being on LinkedIn is to get a lot of connections). I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have several hundred targeted connections of people interested in me, my services/products, or helping promote my business, than several thousand people I don’t know much about and who are only interested in increasing the size of their networks.

I’m going to share with you 3 lead generation techniques that I regularly recommend. However, they are not all equally effective. If you are in the position where you will only implement one technique, then focus on the first technique I discuss.

Lead Generation Technique #1 – Groups

I help many people with their LinkedIn profiles and one of the biggest mistakes I see is ineffective use of groups. Often, people are only involved in a few groups. Further, the groups they’re involved with are professional groups filled with people who do the exact same thing they do. A few of those are fine for professional development purposes, but they aren’t going to help you generate leads because they are your competition.

Here’s the secret that shouldn’t be a secret…join the groups populated by your target market. Join as many as you can – LinkedIn allows 50 group memberships at the free level.

Next, be active…in a good way. As you’ll see, there are many people who are very active in a not good way. They post a lot and every post is very sales related. This is considered spam and people dislike having it in their LinkedIn groups as much as they dislike having it in their inbox. So, what is active in a good way? Start by answering questions – whether they are directly or indirectly related to your business. Ask thought-provoking questions around the issues and problems addressed by your products and services. If you start a discussion, make sure you follow-up with it and respond to comments.

Further, become an authority in the group. Share important news articles from other sources. Better yet, if you write a blog, submit your new blog posts as news articles. One word of etiquette…I hate when people post their blog articles as discussion questions – they belong in the news section. Now, if you post a discussion question relative to the blog post, you can add the link to the bottom of the post as additional information, but the discussion item should be able to stand on its own. I think it is very rude when people essentially just say, “read my blog post, here’s the link, don’t forget to comment!”

Finally, become the authority in the group. You do this by starting your own group. The group should be something interesting and of value to your target customer. It could be directly or indirectly related to your business. For example, one of my clients is an aesthetician. I recommended starting a group centered around how busy moms pamper themselves and de-stress. It’s indirectly related to her business, but it’s appealing and will be full of target customers.

Also, don’t try to recreate a successful group that is already in existence. That means you have to do some research to find any related groups before starting yours. If you find a group on the same topic but it has very few members, I would recommend going forward as long as you are planning on putting the work behind getting it off the ground. The work involves promoting it in other groups where there would be potential members, pre-inviting LinkedIn connections to join, and using your email list outside LinkedIn to promote it. You want to get the group growing as quickly as possible and no one will initially find it on their own. I say that because group search results are listed in order of group size and there are a lot more tiny groups than big groups so you will get lost in the search results until you have enough members to put yourself towards the top of the list.

Lead Generation Technique #2 – Introductions

The introduction feature is rarely used, which is sad because it is one of the main reasons that LinkedIn was created. The free level of LinkedIn allows you to have 5 introductions active at an given time. The introduction feature is basically traditional prospect research made easy. Most members allow their connections to see their other connections. So, spend time reviewing all of your 2nd degree connections to find people of interest and request an introduction. The advanced people search will show you people who are 3 degrees away. Again, when you find someone of interest, request an introduction.

Lead Generation Technique #3 – Become an Expert

The Answers forum in LinkedIn is not just a place for you to look for advice, it’s a place where you can become an “expert” in the eyes of LinkedIn. It’s also a place where people self-identify themselves as being interested in and wanting your services. When someone asks a question in the Answers section, they can specify up to 2 categories that are related to the question. After the question has been open for 6 days, the questioner can then identify one of the answers as the “best answer”. The person whose answer is selected then gets an expert point in those categories. Pick a couple of categories to regularly monitor in order to find people asking for your business and to answer questions that could score you expert points.

Now What?

The rest is up to you and your sales skills. By generating the activity above, you will interact with many people you wouldn’t have otherwise found. Those are your leads. Connect with those people. Begin building relationships with those people. And, ultimately sell to those people.