Profitable LinkedIn Connection Strategies
Introduction
Thank you for taking the time to read this. We know what it is like to never have enough time in the day, so we are going to make this as useful to you as we can. No matter what industry you are in, If you are looking to make profitable connections on LinkedIn, You have came to the right place. It covers a few strategies along with some marketing concepts that will help you make informed decisions about marketing your business. We even add a few industry secrets along the way.
Secret Sauce
There is a horde of digital marketers on LinkedIn all trying to sell you their brand of secret sauce. The real secret is not that exciting. It is probably something your parents told you when you were little. It’s how body builders get big, writers write books, and entrepreneurs build empires. It’s easy to say and hard to do.
This is it. This is the secret sauce to LinkedIn as well as most everything else. This is what we provide our clients. Consistent work and and education is universal and works for any industry from real estate to aerospace.
The Team
Brayson Management is owned and managed by Jason and Brandy Peal. It’s a small business that specializes in helping small businesses make profitable connections through digital marketing. We got started when my father asked us to help him with an ecommerce site that sold aquarium products. We took over their marketing and drove sales to the site. We later helped him market houses for his real estate investments. We had so much fun doing the digital marketing that we decided to make it a business.
Jason Peal is Co-owner of Brayson Management. He is the son in Brayson. He holds a degree in Writing and a minor in Marine Biology from the University of Tampa. His career started in technical writing where web development and writing skills were important.
His passion for writing and his love of learning has helped him exceed in digital marketing where creativity and adaptability are key skills. He has worked on various digital marketing projects including building and marketing ecommerce sites, creating and managing Facebook and LinkedIn campaigns, running search engine marketing campaigns, and creating and running content marketing projects. He is a big supporter of open source software an avid fan of the ocean and husband to Brandy Peal.
Brandy Peal is Co-Owner of Brayson Management and the Bray in Brayson. She started her career in defense contracting certifying defense agency’s computer networks. Jason and her met while at a defense contractor working for the government. She left defense contracting to help with sales at the ecommerce site. While working for the site she was able to set up sales and used her social media skills to set up large sales that benefited the site and built a trusted customer base. She is chronically ill with a condition called gastroparesis and POTS. Both these conditions called severe fatigue, yet she is able to walk into a room like a spring flower.
Her sales and social media skills pair well with husband’s technical background allowing them to provide a unique and effective digital marketing experience.
She has since worked on a number of marketing projects and has an extensive background in Web Design and Facebook marketing.
She currently lives with her husband and two weird little dogs. When she isn't making websites, she likes to watch psychological thrillers and decorate
Strategies for LinkedIn Success
Target Your Market
This crucial first step is where you define your ideal customer / client. Think of your perfect client. The one that you wish you could fill your client list with. You are Frankenstein building the perfect monster; taking your favorite parts from each of your clients, cobbling them together, until you have this ideal person. You then add as many characteristics as you can to make them feel more real. Give them a name, an age, educational level, and anything else that you can think of. This perfect average will be the person you target when you create your marketing. You can make more than one, but it should be a small number.
Find Your Target
Now that you know what you are looking for it’s time to go out and find them. LinkedIn has many different ways of searching through their database of members, and there are many ways to reach that audience. Which method you decide on largely depends on your budget. The more you can spend, the greater your exposure will be. Here are a few scenarios you can work with. We are going to avoid getting into too many details as those change, and we want this to remain useful.
Methods Based on Budget
Your Budget is Nothing
You don’t need money to make connections on LinkedIn. LinkedIn offers a search feature and a few basic filters to all of their members. You can send out a large number of connection requests, but you can’t personalize them. This will lower your acceptance rate but is easy to do and doesn’t take much time. You also have limited filtering abilities. This means you might have to spend some time scrolling through people before you find your target.
You can also create your business page at no cost. Your business page is where you post content about your business. You build the audience through invite campaigns.
Budget $100.00 to $200.00 / Month
With a budget comes the ability to gain more features. Sales Navigator is the interface you use to create complex searches on the LinkedIn database. It saves you time and effort by allowing you to narrow your search down to your target, and contact the people on your target list for connections. It allows you to write custom messages to your targets when making your connection request. This is helpful, but keep your message impactful but short. This isn’t the time for sales pitches. Just introduce yourself and say that you are looking for connections. Once there is a connection, you can slowly communicate value through content marketing.
Drip Marketing $50 to $100/ Month
The easiest way to ensure you are maximizing your messaging is through an automated tool that can turn your search results into a LinkedIn drip messaging campaign. It will allow you to enroll your search results into a drip messaging campaign, and it will then automatically send the custom messages you have created in the time frames you have assigned to them.
It’s important to follow LinkedIn’s rules in this case, because it is easy to over connect and over message. We use Dux Soup, because it doesn’t cause you to violate LinkedIn’s policies.
Your drip campaign should be used to gain an introduction and to start the relationship. You cannot auto message a relationship. Once you get the introduction, you are going to want to message people in a more sincere way to build the relationship and to lead to a sale.
Invite Campaigns
You can only invite the people to your business page that you have already made a connection. You make the connection first and then you invite them to your business page. You can have multiple people doing this for a business page and this allows these pages to grow subscribers in a short amount of time.
Content Marketing
Content marketing costs vary depending on whether you use an AI or a professional to help write your posts. This is where you tell your story, post company announcements, and provide industry relevant information. LinkedIn allows you tag relevant people and expand your audience. It is here where you use hash tags to allow your content to be shown in search results. Videos, graphics, and writing all come together to tell your company’s story. You want to try many different types of content to see what resonates with your audience. Your content should be useful, entertaining, and educational to your target audience. They need a reason to view your content that is more than selling them your service.
Budget $1000 +/ Monthly
With a monthly budget of over $1000.00 you can use LinkedIn’s advertising platform. This is where you can rapidly gain a following and even collect customer data. Using Video, Graphics, and good writing, you can add subscribers, attract members to a landing page for conversions, or just expand your reach without restrictions. LinkedIn has a variety of campaign types that each have their own goal. Your first goal should always be making that initial connection. Sales come from connections.
Nurture your Sales Leads
Once you have your connections you need to do something with them. Content marketing is great for passive communication and your connections have likely seen your posts. You still need to contact them directly. If they are active on LinkedIn read their posts, make comments, and ask questions. If they are not active, send them a message introducing yourself and say hi. If you have a question about their business, ask them. People are too busy for a sales call, but most everyone will make a friend. It may take time, and not everyone turns into a sale. Enough do that it is worth the effort. Your sales leads can teach you things about there industry and what they are looking for. Ask questions and listen to their needs and frustrations. Even if you don’t get the sale, this is valuable information for future prospects.
Overcome Their Objections
Your clients will teach you their objections when they tell you why they can’t or don’t want your service. They might say things like “We aren’t ready yet.” “It’s too expensive.” “We are going to do it ourselves.” You won’t know until they tell you and then you can develop your response.
It’s all a learning process.
Keep In Touch
I’ve seen a lot of research that states the number of times a person needs to see your content before they commit. It’s somewhere between five and ten depending on who you ask and what industry you are in. Of course this doesn’t mean you bug them ten times with an intrusive sales message. This is where content marketing helps. They see you, read something interesting, and they don’t feel bothered.
Save Time and Get Profitable Connections
There is never enough time. Your task list seems infinite, while your time remains short and deadlines advance in a steady relentless march. You can’t make more time and you can’t do any more. It’s stressful.
For less money than it would cost you to do it yourself, Brayson Management can grow your digital marketing presence into a sales lead machine. Get a target warm lead list every month without having to do anything.
Brayson Management makes it cheaper and easier with our social media management services.
Signup for a free Assessment to see how we can help you increase sales and make more money.