A Year in the LinkedIn Campaigns

In December 2015, my fellow business partner Martin Pykett and I launched 01 Agency.

With any business, it is important to generate new leads and connections, but this is even more vital for a start-up as you are essentially building your business leads from scratch, with no others to act as a foundation for income. That is why it only seemed right to use LinkedIn within our marketing campaigns. It has served me fantastically over the last 12 years, and as a fan of its campaign opportunities, I knew it was the right method for our business.

I have been a member of LinkedIn since 2005 and have heavily invested my time into the platform.

Since 2005, LinkedIn has allowed me to develop hundreds of thousands of pounds in business, and has allowed me to travel the world meeting prospects; engage with new and old clients, and of course has enabled me to open my very own digital agency.

When Martin and I set up 01 Agency, I truly believed in how much LinkedIn could offer and decided to use this to our advantage.

Throughout my years, I have always taken a keen interest in articles written on the internet about LinkedIn lead generation. In fact, I have spent hours just learning about the platform and the importance of using a headline in writing a selling summary; just so I could apply it to my own LinkedIn lead generation campaigns.

With LinkedIn’s assistance, I have been able to use it to develop new business for 01 Agency.

Why You and Your Business Should Use LinkedIn to Generate Leads - https://bit.ly/2ybfiYY

Why LinkedIn works

LinkedIn allows you to identify your prospects. With over 500 million members on the platform, I have been able to use its search filters to narrow down our prospects and ensure we create connections with the right people/businesses.

While the changes on LinkedIn back in March 2017 have removed some of the search filters on the business pro account; the use of boolean searches has proved very beneficial.

Connecting with our prospects has allowed me to speak with them and share content that they want to see. Getting my content in front of the audience has allowed me to generate some fascinating conversations with my connections. Similarly, sharing my content into groups where my prospects are, has enabled me to generate good traction on my posts and develop a position as an authority figure in my field.

Through careful planning, we have built, nurtured and developed a solid business relationship that will hopefuly last for years.

What's it means to us:

From the day we started our business, LinkedIn has played a key role in the way we find, start conversations and qualify new prospects; aligning their needs with our services.

Our business has really taken off over the past 2 years. We are actively developing new leads and are managing to build some good conversations with our target market. From conversations we have had on LinkedIn, these have transformed into leads and new clients.

It’s more than just our own leads:

Over the last 2 years we have refined and honed our methods, to the point that just over a year ago, we decided to revise our business plan and offer our unique LinkedIn skills as part of our service. We figured if it could work for us, surely it could work for others too.

And it is true…

LinkedIn has increasingly become the place to go to generate new business; however, despite its successes, it is not uncommon to hear the phrase: “LinkedIn just doesn’t work for me.”

And this belief is a big mistake…

During the last year, I have closely examined LinkedIn and how it is used by businesses, and have sadly noted the following 4 common mistakes:

1. Your profile doesn’t tell your target audience who you are, what you do and the benefits
2. Most people on LinkedIn have friends, family and recruiters on their profile. On average people on LinkedIn only have 10% of contacts they can sell to
3. You are only posting content about the features of your product/service provides, rather than content discussing the challenges it solves
4. People buy from people – all too often I see people on LinkedIn asking for meetings straight away. Yet you wouldn’t walk into a room of strangers and ask them this. Instead, it is important to nurture your connections; add benefit to them and gain a rapport before you ask to meet.

How to use LinkedIn to Generate Leads - https://bit.ly/2xDYr3V

LinkedIn lead generation is a campaign; it is not a definite win situation. The first thing to remember is that behind every screen is a human being like you and I; a fact that many people often forget.

You wouldn’t go into a marketing campaign just sending emails left, right and centre to anyone – you would first plan.

With our clients, we adopt the following approach:

Step 1 - Create a campaign plan

Step 2 - Develop/understand your target personas

Step 3 - Improve/create LinkedIn profiles fit for engaging with target audiences

Step 4 - Connect with the right personas

Step 5 - Create content designed to educate, inform and entice consumers

Step 6 - Provide target markets with a sense of trust and authority

Step 7 - Nurture relationships to the point of interaction/conversion

To read a full step by step guide, you can read our article here

Our LinkedIn lead generation service has been running for over a year now and we have seen some fantastic results.

A side benefit we have seen as a result of our activities for clients is a marked increase in the number of previous clients (or clients where we have previously pitched but come second) re-opening our discussions.

If you are looking to find out more information about how LinkedIn lead generation can help improve your business revenue, please just drop me a message. I am happy to talk anytime.

Other articles on LinkedIn lead generation:

1. How to use LinkedIn for direct and indirect marketing - https://bit.ly/2h6Kd4y
2. Your step by step guide to effectively using LinkedIn for Lead Generation - https://bit.ly/2y5seQ7
3. LinkedIn for Sales Teams 101 - https://bit.ly/2jtTcxz