How to Get Results from LinkedIn Lead Generation 

LinkedIn is the most powerful social media platform for B2B lead generation. With 922.3 million users, it offers businesses the opportunity to connect with decision-makers, build credibility, and generate high-quality leads.  

One of the reasons it’s such an ideal platform for B2B is its precise targeting and search options, making it easier for businesses to position themselves in front of the professionals most likely to purchase their products and services. This article reviews targeting, advertising and other tactics so you can get the best results from lead generation on this platform.  

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Use LinkedIn Advertising

Types of LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn offers various advertising formats, including: 

  • Text ads: These are small, text-based ads that appear on the right-hand side of the LinkedIn desktop interface or at the top of the mobile app. These ads typically include a headline, brief description, and a destination URL.  
  • Dynamic ads: Dynamic ads on LinkedIn are highly personalised, tailored to individual users based on their profile information.  
  • Carousel ads: These ads allow you to showcase multiple images or cards within a single ad unit, and each card can have its own headline, description, and clickable URL. They are effective for telling a story, highlighting multiple products or features, or guiding users through a step-by-step process.  
  • Video ads: Video ads enable you to share video content directly in the LinkedIn feed. They autoplay without sound, and users can click to unmute if they choose.   

Another handy features is LinkedIn’s Lead Gen Forms which are designed to capture user information automatically. When a user clicks on your ad, a pre-filled form with their profile information appears, allowing them to quickly submit their details and express their interest. Having to manually fill in forms is a big barrier to conversion, which LinkedIn has overcome through these forms.  

Know Your Targeting Options

As well as demographic targeting, LinkedIn offers the following options to help businesses reach their desired audience effectively:   

  • Location targeting: You can target your ads based on specific geographic locations such as countries, regions, states, cities, or even specific postal codes.  
  • Company size: LinkedIn allows you to target companies based on their size (i.e., small businesses, medium-sized companies, or large enterprises) depending on your campaign goals and target audience. 
  • Industry targeting: LinkedIn offers industry-specific targeting options, ensuring the relevance of campaigns. 
  • Job title and function: Targeting based on job titles and functions helps you reach professionals with specific roles and responsibilities that can make decisions about purchases or at least influence the decisions of those with purchasing power.  
  • Seniority level: You can also target users based on their seniority level within an organisation, including executives, mid-level managers, and entry-level professionals.  
  • Education and field of study: This targeting option enables you to reach professionals with expertise in particular fields. You can also specify the university or other institution of study.  
  • Interests and skills: This helps you reach professionals who have indicated specific interests, hobbies, or skills on their LinkedIn profiles, allowing you to align your ads with their areas of interest where possible.  
  • Traits: Essentially, this is a form of behavioural targeting where you can target based on ‘direct or inferred behaviour traits’, which are determined by actions members have taken, as well as profile information and other factors.  
  • Member groups: You can target individuals that are members of specific LinkedIn groups, which allows you to connect with professionals who have similar interests or are part of specific professional communities. 
  • Audience expansion: LinkedIn offers an audience expansion feature that allows you to broaden your target audience based on similarities with your existing audience.  
  • Retargeting: With LinkedIn’s retargeting capabilities, you can target individuals who have interacted with your website or engaged with your LinkedIn content previously. For more information about how to do this, click here.

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Optimise your LinkedIn Presence

Optimising your company’s LinkedIn presence is crucial for maximising your lead generation results. After all, your page is where you make a first impression, and optimising it correctly helps ensure that impression is a strong one.   

Make sure the page is fully completed with accurate and up-to-date information such as your logo, website URL and other essentials, as well as compelling information about the business, its products or services, and its unique value proposition. Including all of this information helps to establish credibility and build trust with potential leads.  

Some more tips:  

  • Use relevant keywords to help with discoverability in LinkedIn search results.  
  • Incorporate videos and visually appealing images – for example, you may want to include an introductory video that explains a bit about the company.  
  • Maintain a consistent brand voice and messaging throughout the page and in any content. 
  • Pin your best posts to the top of the page. 
  • Include customer testimonials.  

The company page is not the only thing to work on, however; it’s important that the profiles of executives, senior staff and other employees are complete and reflect well on the company. They should use a professional headshot and create a powerful headline and summary that describes their expertise, skills and achievements. 

To attract users to your company page, be active on the platform and engage with others’ content.  

Creating Content for LinkedIn

Naturally, the objective of your LinkedIn content is to demonstrate thought leadership, build credibility, and showcase your expertise. You can achieve this through creating content that educates, as well as thought leadership pieces that highlight the unique perspectives your company has as a result of their extensive experience in the field. 

As with any social media platform, it’s important to post consistently, but it’s especially important on LinkedIn as it creates a sense of familiarity between users and your brand which is helpful when reaching out to prospects directly.

Aside from articles, you can also post: 

  • Polls 
  • Stories about recent company events 
  • Tutorials 
  • Celebratory posts – for example, employee promotions or any other good news 

Sponsored Content

LinkedIn has the option for sponsored content, which allows you to promote your company’s updates, articles, and other content directly in the LinkedIn feed – an effective way to increase brand visibility, engage with your target audience, and drive website traffic or conversions.  

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Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to Search for Prospects

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a premium feature that allows businesses to target decision-makers with precision. It provides 20 search filters including current and past company, company headcount and type, years in current position, industry, job title, seniority level, profile language and educational institution. 

There is also the spotlight filter which finds individuals that have recently experienced key events such as changing job, being mentioned in the news, and following your company.  

How to Use LinkedIn Groups for Lead Generation

LinkedIn groups are communities of professionals that share similar interests and goals. To make the most of these groups, start by identifying ones that are relevant to your industry, and that have active discussions and a significant number of members that align with your target customer profile.  

Another benefit of having direct access to prospects in this way is that it’s a good opportunity to gain insight into the best messaging to use when targeting similar prospects through other means.  

Before you start posting to groups, there are a few things to keep in mind:  

  • It’s important to familiarise yourself with the group’s guidelines and rules regarding promotional content. Adhering to these will ensure that you build a positive reputation within the group and avoid being flagged as a spammer. 
  • Spend some time observing the group dynamics and conversations before actively participating. Understanding the topics of interest, the types of questions being asked, and the level of engagement will help you tailor your contributions so that they will be well-received.

With that in mind, let’s look at how to get the most out of LinkedIn groups.  

Share Content

Groups provide another opportunity to share your existing content (providing that it aligns with their interests and adds value to the members). You could also offer lead magnets tailored to the group’s interests, and these could be in the form of e-books, whitepapers, webinars, or anything else that’s relevant in your industry. Offer these resources to group members who express interest, providing them with additional value and positioning yourself as a helpful resource. 

Build Relationships

Actively engage in discussions by providing insights, answering questions, and sharing your expertise. Offer meaningful contributions that help solve problems or provide valuable information, as this establishes your credibility and positions you as a trusted authority within the group. 

You can also initiate discussions by asking thought-provoking questions, seeking opinions, or sharing interesting industry insights. Encourage group members to share their experiences, perspectives, or tips, as this not only fosters engagement but also provides an opportunity to identify potential leads based on their responses. 

When appropriate, initiate one-on-one conversations through LinkedIn’s direct messaging feature, mentioning your common interests or the value you found in their comments or posts, and nurture these relationships by continuing the conversation outside of the group. Use these conversations to further understand prospects’ needs, offer personalised assistance or solutions, and explore potential business opportunities.

Remember that LinkedIn group engagement should focus on building relationships, providing value, and establishing yourself as an industry expert. Genuine interactions and valuable contributions will naturally attract potential leads and create networking opportunities, increasing your chances of generating quality leads. If it feels forced or you’re pushing hard for conversions, you will most likely lose prospects’ interest.

Automation Tools

On a final note, there are a broad range of tools available that automate aspects of the lead generation process, such as executing automated message and follow-up sequences, automating connection requests, and extracting profile data and exporting it to CRM systems for further management. 

If using these tools, remember not to neglect the human element as you nurture leads further down the line.  

Wrapping Up

LinkedIn provides a robust ecosystem for B2B lead generation. With its advertising options, targeting capabilities, and focus on professional networking, businesses can connect with the right audience and nurture relationships through to conversion.  

As well as advertising using precise targeting, make sure your company’s page is optimised, along with the profiles of key members of staff. Create educational and thought leadership content to demonstrate expertise, and engage with groups in the right way (building genuine relationships and avoiding the hard sell) in order to guide leads towards a sale.  

Using these tactics and measuring your results often (through LinkedIn’s built-in analytics tools or third-party tools) will ensure you get the most from the platform. 

If you need assistance with your LinkedIn lead generation or any other aspect of your marketing strategy, feel free to get in touch – my team and I would be delighted to help.

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