So you want to acquire more clients on LinkedIn. Okay! That’s a great direction you are moving in. But do you know how to do that? Well, it is something which I started doing a few years ago and still a good percentage of my business is coming through LinkedIn.
In this post I will share with you the ultimate LinkedIn strategies that I know. These strategies will help you ramp up your business and the revenue going ahead.
I just need one thing in return!
Read this post till the end otherwise you won’t deeply understand my secrets to generate business through LinkedIn.
LinkedIn has 766 million users on it. Some are already generating business like me, while others are constantly looking for that one break that could help them live a life full of happiness, at least from the work point of view.
The American social media networking platform, LinkedIn is made for professionals. People on LinkedIn are always in search of an opportunity that could help them earn a handsome amount of money.
And it is true! You can end up making a monthly minimum of 10,000 USD just from one client, if you are lucky enough! You just need a proven strategy in place that aligns well with your audience needs and your business goals.
LinkedIn is an online space that is crowded with founders, CEOs, CMOs, CTOs from different verticals. People are there, waiting for you to come and pitch and ultimately get paid in dollars. This is you actually want, if I am not wrong!
The good news is that you can make this dream of yours come true. But the question still remains! How?
To answer this question and make you understand the process in detail I am writing this post, just for you. So, if you are not following me on LinkedIn, you could do that!
Let us move ahead step-by-step!
What Businesses Need to Survive?
A business regardless of its industry only needs cash flow to survive. For D2C (direct-to-consumer) and B2C (business-to-consumer) businesses the cash flow comes directly from the end user. While for companies working on a B2B (business-to-business) model, it comes from the other businesses in same or other industry.
As LinkedIn is more of a B2B platform, you can leverage it optimally only if you belong to the same bandwagon. Else, it could be bit tough to market a B2C or D2C business over the professionally crowded American platform.
A business can ensure a continuous cash flow when it is able to acquire new clients over time. The process of new acquisition could be tough but it has to be there else no business would survive in the long run.
In 2022, digital medium paves the way for B2B businesses to get new clients. The time is gone when business developers used to go on client’s location for meeting to crack sales. The time has seen an amazingly convenient shift. Today, the easiest way to get new clients onboard is through platforms where they are finding you.
If you want your B2B business to survive today, you need to be on LinkedIn, if you are not. But if you are already there, let us move ahead!
Focus on LinkedIn Marketing
You can never attract clients on the platform if you are keeping LinkedIn marketing aside. The early you understand this, the better your marketing strategies will take shape.
If you are reaching out to your prospects for business without telling them about yourself, the chances of conversion are extremely low. But when you are reaching out to business owners who already know you, the chances that you can get the business are extremely high. But, how to make them know you?
Well, this is what LinkedIn marketing does. It will help your business to put out the word about your existence among the prospects. And not only this, it will also make businesses know about your work potential and what you can do to grow their business.
How to Do LinkedIn Marketing?
Starting with LinkedIn marketing is the first step towards client acquisition over this amazingly rewarding platform.
- Build up your LinkedIn business page. Populate the page according to your business nature and start posting some valuable content over it related to your niche.
- Invite people you know on the platform to like and interact with your page. You can also incite your existing employees who are already available on LinkedIn.
- When you will get some early traction, you just need to keep up the good work by posting more content. The more high-quality content you will publish on the platform the more push you will gain organically.
- Keep posting content, both short and long form at least for two months without skipping a day. After that you can run a paid campaign on LinkedIn to reach out to your ideal audience. Pick up the best performing post and use it for the paid campaign. You just need to garner a few page likes, don’t run the lead generation campaign.
This way, you will be able to market your business on the platform. People, who will connect with your content and business thoughts, will definitely follow you. Your reach will become big and that is the time you can start the process of new client acquisition.
LinkedIn Marketing Strategies:
Before jumping to the LinkedIn strategies to acquire new clients I would like to walk you through some of the proven LinkedIn marketing strategies which I use myself.
1. Build the Right Network
Networking is everything on LinkedIn. Without building a network you won’t go too far on this platform. But merely connecting with people and other companies will neither benefit your business.
You need to connect with the right set of people who can help you meet your organizational goals. Apart from building an audience around your business page, you can also build a network from your personal profile. I call it networking both ways!
2. Develop Content that Intrigues
I assume that I don’t have to mention it repeatedly that content is everything especially, when you are into digital marketing. Also, the quality of content matters even more when you are producing it for the business class.
You won’t get the attention of your audience on LinkedIn if your content sucks. The content that you are producing should be for top-of-the-funnel that is meant for a larger audience. An audience who could possibly fall into your funnel.
If your content is not driving attention, your entire LinkedIn strategy will collapse. Hence, only create content that offers some valuable information to your target audience.
3. Keep Yourself Up-to-Date
If you are not keeping yourself up-to-date you will soon be lost in the crowd. LinkedIn comes up with new updates from time to time, if you are not aware of those changes, your marketing strategy could die.
Also, the new things surfacing in your industry should be on your finger tips. Keeping yourself updated with information is one of the basics of marketing. If you are not aware yourself, how would you make your prospects fall for your offer?
4. Establish Your Authority
If you want to be seen as the industry leader by your prospects you should focus on building an authority in your niche. Producing and posting premium content consistently that is engaging is the key to build an authority.
If you will lack authority in what you are doing, no one will trust you. Suppose, I have just started on LinkedIn and my profile has only one published post, do you think people will take me as an authoritative member on LinkedIn? No, they will not!
Hence, without building an authority on any digital platform you cannot expect to get clients. Building your personal or the business profile should be one of your priorities.
5. Create Ad Campaigns
Don’t expect LinkedIn to push the content published on your business page to get organic traffic. The first few followers and engagement on a business page must start from paid campaigns. I don’t know if you will agree with me but LinkedIn Ads are the most powerful marketing tools especially if you are in B2B business.
You can run video ads, carousel ads, display ads, dynamic ads and text ads to get in the eyes of your prospects and drive some engagement on the ad posts. It will increase your page followers and the next time you will post something, the chances of getting the organic reach and engagement will increase accordingly.
6. Tracking Monthly Data
The last part of your LinkedIn marketing strategy should contain tracking of the monthly data. It is very important to track your work at the end of the month and analyze what things went right and where you want to work hard. You can analyze the type of content that bought more engagement and views to your business page or personal profile. It will help you formulate marketing strategies for the future.
LinkedIn Strategies to Acquire New Clients
1. Competitor Analysis
You are not alone on LinkedIn who is trying to get hired by some wealthy entrepreneurs. There are hundreds of people out there who are doing the same thing what you have not even started. Hence, it is vital to run down a competitor analysis. Knowing your competitors is the first step to acquiring new clients.
You should deeply understand what strategies they are following on LinkedIn to get into the eyes of their prospects. The businesses they are targeting over the platform could be or could not be your prospects. However, when you analyze their activity, you will get the bigger picture about how they are doing it!
You can adopt the similar strategy with some alterations obviously, because I want you to be unique with your approach. The fresher your approach is the more impactful the entire process of acquisition would be.
You can take a deep look at the business page of your competitors and analyze what type of content they are posting and what is the engagement rate on each of them. If they are running paid ads, what strategy are the following and so on. It will help you formulate your own LinkedIn strategies to acquire new clients.
2. Professional Business/Personal Profiles
When professionals go for a business meeting, they show up in the best attire possible. Likewise, when you are on LinkedIn you should decorate your business page and personal profile professionally. It is suggested to use a head shot for display picture on your own profile. And use a nicely designed, vibrant and visible logo along with a cover image for your LinkedIn business page.
A professionally designed and decorated LinkedIn profile is what you need to look professional on the platform. If you are making a business page then the entire information about your business, about us and your services should be briefed adroitly. And if you are making your own profile then it must contain everything about your past work experience, your qualifications, what you aspire to in life and how you can help your potential clients in their business.
3. Share Personalized Content
Admit it, when you are creating content on LinkedIn you are not just doing it to provide valuable information to people. You are majorly doing it to get noticed by your prospects. Isn’t it? So, the best way of getting into the eyes of your target audience members is by sharing personalized content on the platform. Never create content that you like to make, it should be always what y our ideal audience likes to see and interact with.
For example, you are the owner of an SEO marketing agency. You like cricket more than anything in the world. Now you are also creating content around it for your personal and business LinkedIn page. Will that help you acquire more clients? No, it will never be of any use to your business.
On the other hand, you are creating content around SEO and how it can help your clients scale up. It could possibly bombard you with high-paying clients. I suppose you got what type of content to share on LinkedIn to grow your business.
4. Right Positioning of Your Business Page (About Us)
Positioning is everything in a business. By positioning yourself as the industry leader through a clear-cut message you can actually acquire more clients than ever before. On your LinkedIn business page, in the ‘about us’ section you should clearly mention about what you do and how it would help your prospects in a precise but powerful sentence.
For example, if you are an SEO agency, you can position your business on LinkedIn as – We Help Businesses Rank on the First Page of Google. Through this message, you will be telling people about your work and the level of mastery you possess in it. Also, such kind of business positioning is intriguing and powerful enough to make any prospect fall for it. You can use something like this as per the niche you are into.
5. Engage with the Audience
For whom are you creating content on LinkedIn? It is your target audience, right? But if you are just creating blindfolded content without any interaction in place, they will never become your permanent followers.
In order to get the same amount of traction on every piece of content that you post on the LinkedIn business page or your personal profile, you need to also engage with your audience in comments, even though personalized messages thanking them to engage with your content.
It will help you engage with people who can be your clients in the future. The better you engage with your target audience the more the chances of converting them while pitching.
6. Use Intriguing Image
LinkedIn is a digital platform made for professionals. But there is a catch too, even the CEOs and founders are humans. They too get stuck into eye-alluring images and engage with them on the digital platform. Hence, always use appealing images with every kind of content that you are creating to market your business.
If I talk about myself, I am a big fan of images that gets into the mind of the viewer merely with a glance. You don’t have to be a pro graphic designer. Just keep the basics right and create something real through images that others are not doing. You can take the help of designers if you are not well-versed with this art.
7. Narrow Your Audience
A lot of people from your audience are your potential clients who eagerly need what you are selling. You just need to win their trust. At the same time, there will be people in your audience who will follow you, like your content, and comment on something meaningful on your posts but will never buy from you. You need to figure these people out and remove them from your LinkedIn strategy. Yes, you need to narrow your audience so that you don’t end up pleasing people and wasting your precious time on those who don’t really matter to your business.
The best way of narrowing down the audience is through paid advertisements. Detailed targeting is not possible on any platform without spending some money. Pay LinkedIn, drive your campaign and bring the right set of audience to follow you. People who will follow you, like your content and buy from you, in the end, are the audience you should have all your focus on.
8. Regular Posting
Regularity is something that has transformed many people into great personalities around the world. The same goes with your business too. If you are consistent with your work, ultimately you will end up winning. But if your efforts are not regular, they could wreak havoc on your dreams. If you are posting a different type of content 5 times a week on LinkedIn, stick with it, and maintain the same frequency every passing week. The results will amaze you!
9. Make Prospects Feel You Care for Them
Will you ever buy from a brand that doesn’t care about its customers? I guess the answer is no! Similarly, your customers will also not buy from you if you will not make them feel like you care for them. Hence, it is significant in this digital era to tell people that you care about their problems. Also, you have the best solution for whatever issues they are facing in their business life. When your prospects will connect with you, one day they will buy from you.
10. Send Relationship-Building Messages
More than selling and buying, business is about making relationships. To proceed with building relationships, you need to initiate conversations with your target audience. You can send them relationship-building messages on LinkedIn through which you will be a part of their good books.
People who have started following you or who have commented on your posts should be your priority while sending such messages. It will allow you to move closer to their personal space on the platform. And when the conversation starts building on a personal level, conversions are not too far.
11. Start Pitching Your Services Softly
As time passes on, steadily you can start softly pitching your products or services to your audience. It should not be a hardcore sales pitch (bottom of the funnel) but only a soft pitch (top of the funnel) that just put the word out about your capability as a business.
There are two ways to soft pitching your business to your prospects. The first method consists of an image-oriented post that shows the business problems (of your audience) and how your business solves them. You have to brainstorm a creative idea for making such a post.
While the second method consists of writing very short content around one of your testimonials. Again, discuss the business problem and how you solved it. You can even use them in your sponsored InMail paid campaigns.
12. Follow Up Regularly
Following up with the prospects is a daily business practice of most businesses out there. If you want to acquire more clients on LinkedIn or on any other social platform, following-up is ought to be the key.
If you are not engaged in this practice, you are sending out a message that you are not actually interested in the business. But it isn’t like that; you yourself want the sale to go through. However, you don’t have to ask them for business directly. Now, how to start a follow-up conversation is what the next step speaks about.
13. Ask Them About Their Business Problems
Well, reaching out to your audience members and asking them about their business problems is one of the best ways to initiate a follow-up conversation. I always do this in my business.
My team plans a day every week when they reach out to our prospects not for selling our services but just to ask them how things are going in their business. You can try this out! It is one of the most powerful ways to always stand at the top of the list that prospects go through whenever they need someone to make complex things easy in their business.
14. Provide Them a Solution
When your prospect starts telling you about the issues they are going through. Don’t just keep listening! Tell them that you can solve their problem right away without sounding like a salesman. Remember not to forcefully tell your solutions to them.
Speak about your capabilities or how you could solve their problems only when they ask you to speak. This is not the stage where you will be getting a sale. Hence, it is better to avoid it completely and stick to a normal conversation as you do with your friends.
15. Show Them Testimonials
Testimonials are not just reviews of your previous clients. You can even use them as marketing tools, lead generation and conversion tools. At this stage, your customers know – who you are, what you do, how good you do it and how you can help them.
This stage stands just before the step where you will be actually pitching them your services. Thus, it is important for you to show them some of your best testimonials and make them fall into the last stage of your sales funnel.
16. Finally, Pitch Them Your Services
The right time is finally here! Pitch your services to your hot prospects without thinking much. Talk to them like you are talking to your friend but maintain the distance of professionalism in between. Now, it is possible that they can come up with an argument related to your pricing. Negotiate it and let them in at an ideal price! This is how you can onboard more clients on LinkedIn.
17. Welcome Them Onboard
After a successful onboarding! Welcome them as your client. Take them through the policies and strategies you will be following to make their business a success.
18. Work Hard to Get Them Results
Getting a client on board is not the end. You and your team need to perform day and night to scale up their business. If you will perform agilely and meet all your promises, it is when you will be able to retain the clients after the initial contract ends.
To Conclude:
To acquire more clients on LinkedIn is the dream of many companies. Some get success while a lot of them taste miserable failures. Hence, if you want to get clients from this digital platform you must have a winning and reliable strategy in place.
The best way to achieve your goals and get in the eyes of your clients is through creating content, engaging and building a cordial relationship. Selling is the last step in the process.
You can follow my LinkedIn strategies both for marketing and client acquisition to generate some good business on LinkedIn.
