Effective LinkedIn Marketing Doesn't Stop On LinkedIn

"There is a fine line between stubborn and stupid. Most people don't know that learning how to walk that line often leads to success."

My dad was a great businessman due to his vision and a stubborn streak. He grew up knowing that he would have to work hard for whatever he got. Dad also knew that he would have to work smarter than the average person to succeed.

There weren't many typical bonding moments between my dad and me, but the man could always talk about business. He was also really good at making us kids understand that we had to work hard as well as smart. The dumber we worked the harder we worked. 

I grew up on a horse farm with over 50 horses so there was never a shortage of work. There was also a lot of opportunities to work smarter.

I took the lessons from my childhood with me through college and they're still helping me today. The business lessons and advice that dad taught me led to my growing and successfully selling a few businesses. There are no shortages of distractions or challenges in life for any of us. The last thing you need to do if you're chasing success in business is to get distracted from your endgame. 

It's so easy to get distracted with LinkedIn marketing especially with all the fake mentors, influencers, and coaches. I have to admit that I've let some of the fluff get me off course too.

I went on a brief vacation with my wife recently and we got to speaking about LinkedIn of all things. She's always been a great partner and coach for me so I took her advice. Her advice was simple: Apply the processes that made you a success everywhere else.

Working smarter on LinkedIn

I knew that I had to begin working smarter on LinkedIn due to not having the ROI that I want. Applying the DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve, and control) approach to my LinkedIn marketing and networking was a great decision. 

Finding networking and marketing success on LinkedIn requires a well thought out strategy and serious implementation. It also requires you to define your goals and consistently measure your ROI. Learning how to analyze the data and engagement that you get will help you improve your results. Knowing what is working for you and what isn't will also help you control your actions as well as your results to some degree.

Know your goals

In a data-driven world, it pays to pay attention to trends and analytics. It also always pays to know your goals and to keep them top of mind, while using LinkedIn or any other social media platform. A lot of people get on LinkedIn to build their network without thinking about their goals. Don't be one of those people.

Keep your focus on your goals so you know how to engage and market in a way that will help you meet those goals. To be truly successful on LinkedIn you have to know how to be successful outside the platform. If you don't have a way to monetize your LinkedIn efforts, then you won't be successful. So it makes sense to spend an equal or greater amount of time and effort off LinkedIn to be successful on LinkedIn.

Know your buyers

Most buyers of today are very smart, so they look beyond LinkedIn before buying anything. Therefore, it makes sense to have your website and other social media profiles as strong as possible too. There are a lot of people that put all their eggs in one basket and that is never a good strategy in business or life in general. 

Think about it. If you're looking for a good digital marketer, life coach, or anything else are you going to look beyond LinkedIn? Yea so does everyone else. It is all about building customer trust. People will look at your website, YouTube channel, Google reviews, and everything else before making a positive buying decision. 

You have to give people more than one reason to buy from you. 

Putting it all together

All of your social media and digital marketing channels have to be telling the same story or it'll destroy your credibility. LinkedIn also frowns upon taking payments through your profile, so you need a way to capitalize on your LinkedIn marketing efforts. Putting it all together is where most people fail when it comes to LinkedIn marketing.

You need to tell a consistent story that leads the buyers to feel good about what you're selling. However, you also need to have a clear call-to-action off of LinkedIn to convert LinkedIn fans and followers into paying clients.  

The bottom line is you have to think like a buyer to attract people that will buy your products and services. It's one thing to get to 800 likes on a post and it's another thing to get paying customers to like what you're doing. 

Wondering how you can improve your LinkedIn marketing results? Ask some questions in the comments below or contact me directly as I'm always glad to build a win-win and help as I'm able. Thanks, and have a great day!

About the author: 

Craig Wasilchak is the founder and CEO of Crushing B2B Digital Strategies and a lead contributor to the Service Professionals Network. Crushing B2B Digital Strategies is a Dallas-Fort Worth area-based company that teaches business executives how to improve their ROI from social media and search engine marketing. Craig has built and sold multi-million dollar businesses over the last 25 years. Now, with Crushing B2B Digital Strategies, his goal is to teach other entrepreneurs how to grow and run profitable businesses through professional networking and practical digital marketing strategies.