The other day, I posted a few statistics about the potential of LinkedIn’s outreach. This article is an extension to that post as I committed to come up with proven LinkedIn outreach strategies that will make your lead generation soar.
Do you know why I called LinkedIn a haven for business growth?
It hosts more than 65 million BUSINESS DECISION MAKERS!!
These are the people who can be your next client if reached with proper plan and strategy.
I’m not saying this. LinkedIn does. Every minute, 8 People find their clients and/or employers through LinkedIn.
Now this is what raises the eyebrows.
“Bari game hai bhai!!”
This article is all about exploring the utmost potential of LinkedIn. It includes practices and strategies that will help you organise your LinkedIn outreach and will show you the right doors to knock on.
What is LinkedIn Outreach?
LinkedIn Outreach is nothing more than connecting to your potential client, employer or customer. (To make it simple, I will refer to it as lead)
It consists of two stages — finding your lead and reaching out to your lead.
But this is not a sail in the calm sea, it requires strategies and techniques to filter out your lead among more than LinkedIn members.
Is LinkedIn Outreach really worth it?
LinkedIn is a social network that has a huge number of professionals worldwide. Its key strength is that it allows you to search and reach out to people based on their skills and jobs rather than demographics. There are more than 57 million companies listed on LinkedIn whose business decision-makers are logging in every day. Almost half of the 10 million C-level executives interact with the platform daily.
It doesn’t ends here, a study by HubSpot shows that LinkedIn has a visitor-to-lead conversion rate of 2.74% which is greater than Twitter and Facebook by a whopping 277%.
Why on earth would a business person not use LinkedIn?
Prerequisites to a Solid LinkedIn Outreach Strategy
Before putting the pot on the stove, we have to make things in order.
A solid LinkedIn outreach strategy requires prior tilling. Without that, you cannot expect a high-quality yield
Optimised LinkedIn Profile (Work on your first impression)
Your profile is your identity, the better it is the more your chances to convert a lead. LinkedIn helps you optimise your profile or company page by giving you optimization suggestions. Complete your profile and you are in the good books of algorithms. According to LinkedIn, companies with complete, active pages get 5x more page views.
The following steps will help you optimise your LinkedIn profile.
- A clear and professional profile picture
- A cover that tells what you do
- Consistent branding
- A relevant-to-your niche network
- Show who is connected to your company
- Visible and working contact links
- Utilized extra tabs: Products, Jobs, Life, Videos, etc.
- Content that is up-to-date and drives engagement
- Showcase your testimonials
This is simple. Platforms like LinkedIn are run by algorithms, befriend these by completing your profile. These algorithms will match you to profiles based on your provided information.
It’s like guiding a taxi to your destination. Be Specific!
Interact In a Mix of Methods
Humans are diverse, and that’s what makes things interesting. People on LinkedIn have their own ways of connecting and interacting. Reach out to them with a variety of methods. Do not just rely on sliding into DMs, try to catch them in comments as well.
Plus, ensure you connect to the people on their level. A CEO should be reached out by a high-level staff otherwise you are knocking on the wrong door.
This will make you a community member instead of an annoying stranger!
Be Loquacious
You have to increase your presence in your community to build trust.
Engage with others to show your experience and expertise. The more people see you on their feed the more they trust you and your brand.
This gives you leverage when you reach out to them and makes your knock sound pleasant.
To see where you stand, check out your LinkedIn Social Selling Index (SSI) score. It’s a score between 1-100 that gives you an idea about your standing in your LinkedIn industry and community. An SSI score will give you insight into the following:
Industry SSI Rank: Your ranking against others in the industry you have marked on your profile.
Network SSI Rank: Your standing in your network. It shows how you rank against those to whom you are connected or your 1st-degree network.
Four components of your score
Establish your professional brand: LinkedIn wants you to be a brand. Increase your content to make this score go higher.
Find the right people: LinkedIn connections are worth it. Connect with people who are relevant to your industry and LinkedIn algorithms will make you happy with a higher score.
Engage with insights: This score encourages engagement. The more you engage with others the higher will be this score.
Build relationships: This component raises the stakes a little higher. It’s not just counting on your network growth or engagements, It feeds by growing business relationships. LinkedIn wants you to make full use of it. Connect, engage, and build meaningful relations with your business counterparts.
Higher SSI enhances your presence on LinkedIn and gives you a shot in the arm while reaching out to your prospective leads.
Laying out a LinkedIn Outreach Strategy
As I mentioned above, LinkedIn’s Outreach Strategy is an amalgamation of two processes — Finding the leads and reaching out to them. Below is the road map for you to find out that right door in a densely populated LinkedIn community.
1. Make a Buyer persona
A Buyer Persona is a detailed description of your potential lead. It can be a company, industry or a business person. Making a Buyer Persona will make your LinkedIn outreach strategy more specific and effective.
Having a Buyer persona helps your outreach in getting laser-focused.
Here is an example of a Buyer’s Persona
2. Refine your Leads
Once you get your Buyer Persona ready try searching people and filtering them with it. LinkedIn’s search engine facilitates its members with advanced search filters. Follow the following steps to narrow down your search.
Use filters to target your search: Use different filters like Location, Jobs, Companies, Interacted Profile and Groups to reach out your targeted lead.
Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator: To automate your search try using LinkedIn Search Navigator. It will notify you when someone matches your designed criteria.
3. Leverage Tools; Save time
LinkedIn outreach is akin to rowing a boat. Use tools to automate your sail. Just to give you a glance I’m sharing a few tools below:
LinkedIn Sales Navigator: Helpful in finding the target audience
LinkedIn InMail: Use to reach out to C-level executives.
Hunter: It can be used to find email addresses
Zapier: It automates the outreach sequences
This blog can help you find other useful tools. However, overuse of the automation tools can alert LinkedIn’s red flag and you may end up restricting your account.
4. Align with the diversity of your leads
Your leads are diverse in their desires and pain points. Use these emotions to your advantage. Craft your LinkedIn outreach campaign in multiple ways that align with your leads’ diverse interests. Here are some points to be considerate of while crafting an outreach campaign.
- Personalize! Personalize! Personalize!
- Provide value to spark their interest
- Use various templates
- Always be prepared for negative responses
- Do not reveal all of your cards at once. Leave the conversation open. This will help you know your lead a little more.
Connecting to your lead on a personal level will make your message glitter among hundreds of others.
5. Do Your Homework Before Sending a Message
This is what happens when you go out without doing prior research:
Don’t be like Malik!
6. Diversify your Outreach Strategy:
Do not limit yourself to a single platform. Use a combination of different platforms, for instance, email and LinkedIn; and your boat will have wings.
It is not only the Red Bull that gives you wings!
7. Follow-up is The Key to Spice Up The Things
Do not just fill your DM’s with unanswered messages. According to IRC Sales Solutions, 80% of sales mature only after 4 to 5 contact attempts.
Following up gives an impression that you value your lead and that’s what makes you shine in the crowd.
8: Track Your Progress
Keeping track of your progress will help you organize things and keep the data clean. This helps you filter out leads that you want to drop off or keep going with.
9: Strengthen The Foundation
All these outreach strategies depend upon a single point and that is your social presence and activeness. If you have a profile that manifests trust, experience and expertise, the “knock” is never going to go unanswered. People prefer to hear from someone who has a firm standing in the community. The more you stay active the more are you going to get engaged.
Calling It a Day
Remember, LinkedIn is a professional social network where people come to learn, know, and share useful insights. You can always attract high-value prospects if your profile has a vibe of trust, experience and expertise. LinkedIn outreach strategy is nothing but a method of connecting to people who are more likely to be your leads. Leverage the platform and its potential to the best of your business and you will never find your pockets empty.
Hopefully, you will find the ‘right door’ now!
