How to Drive Leads Using LinkedIn – Kayode Abass
Lead generation is a game of numbers. It’s not about getting more leads but about getting the right leads that add value to your business. I have been at the game long enough to know the difference. To start, ask your sales team these questions:
Are they crying out for leads to work with?
Are they finding it hard to connect with relevant prospects?
Are they frustrated at how long it’s taking to close deals?
Or are they going nowhere with the leads they have at the moment?
The answers to these questions will determine your lead generation priorities and objectives.
If your sales team is crying out for leads to work with, you need to increase the inflow of leads coming in. If they’re going nowhere with the leads they have, then it’s time to focus more on lead quality.
There are a number of paid and organic ways to increase the inflow of leads or find relevant prospects to connect with, as there are also a number of ways to get quality leads and below are discussions of some of the organic ways:
- Creating or joining a group with relevant prospects and publishing helpful content there positions you as an authority and thought leader.
Creating your group, especially, can help you build a platform and turn you to the platform leader. While everybody else are posting updates and talking about themselves all the time, you’ll be building and leading a community with your prospects and clients in it.
When you build your platform and you add it to your profile headline and experience as the “Founder of the Global leaders forum” for example, people will view you as a leader and be excited to connect with you.
2. Understand the decision journey of prospects and aim to be where your prospects are in their decision journeys.
At the Summit, a real estate agent asked me, “How can I get prospects for my properties?”. I said, “LinkedIn gives updates about your connections, you get notified at the time of their birthdays, promotions, work anniversary and even exit from their jobs.”
First, make sure you have the right set of people as your connections, optimize your profile then go out and invite the right people to join your network on LinkedIn. Once you have them in your connection, build relationships with them, invite them to join your platform group.
For real estate agencies, watch out for connections that just got promoted or are celebrating long year work anniversary. People make major buying/investment decisions after promotion at work or to celebrate their anniversary. For example, a friend of mine that works with a big advertising agency changes his car every time he gets promoted at work. To be where your prospects are in their buying decision journey, you need to first understand their buyers’ journey.
You can also use LinkedIn ads to target people at their buyers’ journey outside your connection by their seniority level, years of experience and age.
3. Use LinkedIn ads to drive in high quality leads.
There are two types of leads, there are Marketing Qualified Leads and Sales Qualified Leads.
Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) are leads that don’t immediately lead to sales, and Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) are leads with very high potential of turning into a sales deal.
While your platform group will help you generate MQLs, LinkedIn ads will help you get surplus SQLs.
4. You don’t have much time? You can automate your LinkedIn process.
You can use Linked Helper to connect with thousands of targeted contacts by sending personalised invitation, boost your profile, create a targeted mailing list etc.
Also use E-link Pro to auto view prospects LinkedIn profile and get notifications on birthdays, promotions and work anniversaries of all your profiles in one place.
Kayode Abass
LinkedIn Marketing Expert
mrkayodeabass@gmail.com.