15 Steps to grow your business with Linkedin Marketing
1. Find customers and connections that fit your needs.
“LinkedIn’s targeting is the best in the world of online advertising. Small businesses can target the exact industry, company size, and job role of the people they know would buy their product or service.
For example, if you sell customer support software to small businesses in the U.S., you can set your advertising campaigns to only show to businesses with under 100 employees in the U.S., and within that group, only to executives at those businesses with a customer support title.
2. Stay in front of customers’ minds.
“My business helps small businesses find new customers on LinkedIn. Customers tell us what kinds of people they like to work with. We look for people on LinkedIn who meet their needs and then introduce them. We make it look like the client is introducing themselves, but we do all the work for them. We then use LinkedIn to keep in touch with those who have shown interest.
We update the client’s status every day and write a blog post every week on LinkedIn to keep their name in front of their network. We also send out monthly emails with information about the kinds of problems our clients can solve for their customers and the results they have gotten for other customers. We also give people offers, like inviting them to a webinar or giving them a whitepaper. The result is a simple, cheap, and organised way to get leads, and all of the work is done through LinkedIn.
3. Your email marketing list should grow.
“I strongly suggest that everyone on LinkedIn write a letter to each connection thanking them for being connected and inviting them to join your email marketing list. Do say you’re sorry that the email wasn’t more personal. This is how you can send messages to up to 50 people at once on LinkedIn.
This is how I added about 300 people to my email list. Put a direct link to the email signup in your email. It’s important that the message has a two-way street: tell them what they’ll get if they sign up for the email list and offer to look at something of theirs. This is a pretty low-risk way to get people to like you.
4. Make use of sponsored updates.
“Sponsored updates are when a business pays to have their post show up in a person’s LinkedIn feed. This “pay-per-click” or “pay-per-1,000 impressions” feature has demographics like other social platforms (location, gender, and age), but one key difference is the ability to customise based on company name, job title, job function, skills, schools, and groups. Users can focus on industries they’re interested in without having to compete with companies and messages that don’t matter to them.
With a strong call to action, a sponsored update can be a great way to promote thought-leadership content that is mostly useful to the audience you want to reach. People no longer want to see nothing but ads; they want something useful for free. By using a LinkedIn Sponsored Update to promote its content (whitepaper, guide, etc.), a company can reach a niche audience, get more people to visit its website, and, if the content is good enough, generate sales leads.
5. Put up only good content.
“Good content can be very specific and should do two things. First, it should teach others how to solve a problem or do their job better. Second, it should establish you as a thought leader in that area. If you offer real value in each area, you will get more business as a result. It works because it is based on basic psychology.
6. … and spread fast.
“The most powerful tool on LinkedIn right now is to post directly on LinkedIn. If a post starts to get a lot of attention, LinkedIn will highlight it in one of their categories, which can bring in tens of thousands of readers (or more). This is a great way to get more attention and reach readers in a way that you couldn’t do on your own website, blog, or even by posting a link to an article on LinkedIn.
7. Give your employees a face.
“Get as many of your employees as possible to sign up for LinkedIn and fill out their profiles. These should include professional connections, relevant photos, and a relevant job history with a description of how the person can help your business. My company is planning a LinkedIn Day where a photographer will be on hand to take profile pictures and we’ll help employees set up their accounts.
8. Join groups and keep busy.
“One piece of advice I always give small business owners is to join LinkedIn groups that are for their target audience. This is a great way to “listen in” on what your audience is talking about, and small business owners may also have a chance to interact or give advice. Even if you aren’t connected, you can still send messages to the people in the groups you belong to. This is a great way to save money when building relationships with potential clients and LinkedIn InMail.
9. … and start your own group on LinkedIn.
“Here’s a secret way to find your perfect, ready-to-buy prospects on LinkedIn right away: start by making your own LinkedIn group. After you’ve set up your LinkedIn group, join as many of the groups where your prospects hang out as you can (LinkedIn lets you join up to 50). The next step is to find prospects on the Members page of one of the new groups you’ve joined. Once you’re in the group and have been accepted as a member, click on Members. Then, narrow down the list of members by searching for job titles or other criteria to find your best prospects, and then invite them to join your group (tip: send personalised invitations).
Once these people join your LinkedIn group, you’ll have all your best prospects in one place, as the saying goes. You can keep competitors out of this LinkedIn group, and you can share great, useful content with your prospects that they will love. You can also show them what you can do for them and how valuable you are without being pushy or sending spam. Plus, you already have an email list, a focus group of your best customers and prospects, and so on. This is a great way to boost your small business by building your brand and getting leads.
10. Make your business page count.
“It’s also important for your brand to have its own company profile page that is kept up-to-date and consistent. This page should have the same pictures, colours, and content as your website and any other social media profiles your business has. The page should be updated often so that the brand looks like it is still in business. We’ve all seen company social media profiles that are updated once a month or, even worse, haven’t been updated in months. If you make a LinkedIn profile and don’t keep it up, it will be worse than if you didn’t have one at all.
11. Get your unique URL.
“Everyone should claim their custom URL so that it includes their name. This is especially important for people who meet a lot of potential clients, especially those in professional services and the B2B sector. When meeting with someone they haven’t met before, many people will look up the person’s name on Google to find out more about them. By claiming your custom URL, your LinkedIn profile is more likely to show up at the top of these search results.
12. Fill out the section of your profile that says “Summary.”
“The most overlooked part is the summary. You have 2,000 characters to talk directly and convincingly to the people you want to reach. Use full sentences, write in the first person, and quickly and clearly address their pain points. A lot of people would rather go to LinkedIn than a website. Most of the time, people want to know the person behind the product or service before they buy it or use it. This is your chance to introduce yourself to potential clients and customers. Also, at the end of the summary section, put your contact information. Even if it’s on your profile somewhere else, make it easy for people to contact you.
13. Think of it like a game of numbers.
“LinkedIn marketing is more science than art, I’ve learned. In other words, it comes down to numbers. I know that I will talk to at least 2,000 C-level executives every Wednesday. About six people will respond to these touches, and two of those people will become clients. Instead of going to trade conferences, exhibiting, and speaking, which cost about $10,000 per conference, I built my own practise for less than $1,000 a year in marketing costs, $250 of which goes to LinkedIn for a Premium account. I’d rather give up a few hours of my time each week than spend the $40,000 that most of my coworkers do each year to go to an average of four conferences.
14. Avoid hard sells.
“Treat LinkedIn like any other form of marketing you do and keep up with the latest trends. People don’t like being interrupted, so do your best to be “discovered” on LinkedIn. Learn about content marketing and inbound marketing, and then use these methods to market this network. There are a lot of people on LinkedIn who act like pushy salespeople from the 1980s, so don’t be one of them.
15. Connect first, then build relationships.
“Know that LinkedIn is a social network where professionals can connect with each other. A business owner can and should talk to prospects, strategic partners, referral partners, and other business owners. Once these connections are made, the business owner can decide how to care for certain connections to help the relationship grow.
The main thing to remember is that to use LinkedIn for marketing, you need to put your brand out there and make connections. In your profile, tell people about your business so they can understand your brand. Join groups, post good content, and talk to your connections. This is what it means to be active on LinkedIn.
