generate business leads using linkedin in an hour a day 6 21-10

Generate leads using LinkedIn in (less than) an hour a day

Presented by Julia Kinslow

What you’ll understand after today’s session

• Why using LinkedIn daily is important to lead generation

• Why you should begin with a social marketing strategy before diving in

• Why a strong LinkedIn profile + regular participation = generate targeted leads

• Why you should manage your time online, make appointments with yourself, aggregate information and use simple sharing and tracking tools to measure your progress

• Why you want to stay to the end – 10 things you can do to generate leads using LinkedIn

• Customer service: Solving a problem for a client is a great marketing event. Solving it in public is one better.

• Knowledge base: Got a tricky, industry specific question that Google can't answer? Your contacts on LinkedIn often can.

• Sounding board: Great for gathering feedback on a new service idea before you go for full-blown market research.

• Networking event: Which goes on forever where you don’t need to get stuck in wallflower mode.

• Temperature gauge: Monitoring social media sites allows you to tap into hot topics in your industry all the time, from all over the world.

• Telephone: It allows your clients, prospects and industry colleagues to call you without actually having to call you.

• Marketing channel: The trick is to engage with your contacts first and spread the word later.

Why it’s worth building social marketing into your daily routine

Social Media and the Revenue Cycle¹

The revenue cycle begins the day a prospect first hears about your company, continues to a dialog, then to a sale and beyond to the client relationship.

There are four key areas where social media plays an important role in the revenue cycle:

Developing relationships with early-stage prospects before they enter your database as a lead (“seed nurturing”)

Building and maintaining relationships with known prospects as they educate themselves (“lead nurturing”)

Supporting the sales cycle once a client engages in the formal vetting process (“opportunity nurturing”)

Deepening and expanding relationships with existing clients (“client nurturing”)

Social Media

Seed Nurturing

Lead Nurturing

Opportunity Nurturing

Client Nurturing

But how can it generate leads?

¹Information courtesy of Marketo, Inc.

Step One

• Get LinkedIn profile to 100% ◦ Use Industry Keywords

◦ Get Noticed

◦ Get Recommended

• Define◦ Goals

◦ Target Audience

◦ Key Messages

◦ Baseline Measurements (KPIs)

Step Two

• Develop a Marketing Plan◦ Social Marketing Strategy

◦ Plan Tactics (road map)

• They come to you

• You go to them

There are two ways to generate leads using LinkedIn

Lead generator: profile landing page

LinkedIn Profile

• Headline• Summary/Specialties• Work History• Recommendations

Lead generators:

Increase in profile views

Increase in searches

Answers

Frequent Status

Updates

Discussion Groups

Best overall for lead generation

Answers

Frequent Status

Updates

Discussion Groups

Optimize your social marketing efforts using LinkedIn in less than an hour every day

1. Manage your time online – make an appointment with yourself

2. Aggregate your information in one place –make it easy for you to share

3. Use online tools to simplify and track your prospects’ interests

4. Measure your progress

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday

8:00 a.m. Review and respond to e-mail





9:00 a.m. – 9:15 a.m.Add status update to LinkedIn (use HQ blog, relevant article)

9:00 a.m. – 9:15 a.m.Add status update to LinkedIn (personal, company news)


9:00 a.m. – 9:15 a.m.Add status update to LinkedIn (personal, company news)


9:15 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.Review LinkedIn Home page for network updates; comment where appropriate; respond to inbox requests

9:15 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.Review industry groups; comment on discussions; pose/answer a question in your expertise


9:15 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.Review industry groups; comment on discussions; pose/answer a question in your expertise







3:00 p.m. – 3:15 p.m.Review LinkedIn Home page for network updates; comment where appropriate; respond to inbox requests

3:00 p.m. – 3:30p.m.Review LinkedIn Home page for network updates; comment where appropriate; research industry info


3:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.Review LinkedIn Home page for network updates; comment where appropriate; research industry info


4:30 p.m. Review and respond to e-mail





Manage your time online

Focus your time spent Aggregate information in one place • Alltop page

• Google Reader• RSS feeds

• Delicious

URL shortener

Copy shortened link into your updates...

Target your prospects’ interests

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-10 0 10 20 30

Question asked on LinkedIn

# of profile views

Hours

Measure incremental progress

Courtesy of Marketo, Inc. and Olivier Blanchard

Measure YOY growth

10 tips to help you fish for leads using LinkedIn

1. Create a personally branded, polished profile and include relevant industry keywords to help you get found

2. Get recommendations from current clients and partners (i.e., SBA, SCORE and outplacement agencies)

3. Connect and reconnect with current and past contacts to increase your lead potential

4. Reach out to former clients and find out what they are currently working on

5. Join LinkedIn industry groups where your clients and prospects gather and participate in discussion forums

6. Search and review prospects individual profiles and discover: if they contribute to blogs; what events they are attending; books they read; find a way to connect

7. Use introductions often as they are considered a warm call with a bit of trust

8. If you can’t find a path to connect with someone, sending a direct message through LinkedIn is preferred to a cold e-mail because it implies a business context

9. Use Answers to ask and answer questions to demonstrate your industry expertise and problem-solving abilities to expanded networks, which can indirectly drive interest in your company and lead to new business

10. Update your status frequently about significant company news, new projects, events or personal achievements. This ‘keeping-up’ process is what can spark conversations about opportunities or revenue-generating projects for you and your contacts

Questions?

Contact information: Julia Kinslow

Phone: 614.395.2181E-mail: [email protected]

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generate business leads using linkedin in an hour a day 6 21-10

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