For years B2B businesses relied on database generation, cold calling, identifying the right personnel to conduct business with, and then finally connecting with them. LinkedIn simplified all of this! B2B businesses have a new platform to connect with the right professionals in the right industries. LinkedIn made this possible by building the largest network of professionals across the globe.
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network with nearly 800 million members in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide. That is a large pool of resources that B2B businesses can tap to generate leads and drive sales through the platform. There are several ways to use LinkedIn for B2B sales. Because LinkedIn offers you more tools than one – marketing, sales, hiring, and learning.
Let’s begin at the start.
1. Lead generation through your LinkedIn page
The first step to all efforts is building a company page with a vision to make sales. Instead of mission/vision in the company description, talk about what your business can do and for whom. Make it more actionable for leads to connect with you. Use an interesting company page photo that becomes a conversation starter and offer credible information in the header. The header should be crisp and explain in a few words what your business delivers.
2. Content on your LinkedIn page matters
LinkedIn has 15x more content impressions than job postings. People aren’t just job hunting on LinkedIn. They want to learn, explore and update themselves with industries, information, and news. Post regular updates: with relevant topics, trending topics, ask questions, offer key insights. B2B businesses can take advantage of this opportunity to catch the attention of prospective leads. LinkedIn Pulse can become a powerful sales tool. As a salesperson and expert in your industry, you can share thoughts, insights, and more through articles, listicles. LinkedIn sends an instant notification to all contacts.
Take, for example, a solar energy company that can talk about new technology innovations or the achievements from the latest projects. Or an advertising agency can showcase work and talk about market trends. These are content pieces that create more conversations, engagement and help build brand awareness around your business.
3. LinkedIn Showcase page
This is a more focused page than the company page. Use this to generate more leads for your business. While your company page can share the overall company information like achievements, the showcase page will drive more value in terms of focused content. Think of it as the salesperson on LinkedIn. What are the things you’d want it to say? This works perfectly for businesses that have many product categories, different target audiences, or several verticals.
For Eg: Google has many showcase pages: Google Adwords, Google Analytics, G-Suite, and more to offer individual insight into each product.
4. Find People with Advanced Search
Remember the dilemma of looking for the decision-maker to speak to for sale? LinkedIn solved it. Everyone on LinkedIn shares their designations, email addresses, and companies worked for. Using Advanced Search can help you find people in the network through location, current company, industry, profiles, language, and more. The filter ensures you find your target audience and prospective sales lead easily. What’s even better? – SAVE THE SEARCH for future reference.
5. Find People with LinkedIn matched the search.
LinkedIn matched search is a fantastic tool for businesses to find their audiences. Uploading your database of email addresses enables LinkedIn find your existing contact list across the network and opens up their network to your business as a matched audience. Imagine uploading a customer list of everyone who visited your website and being able to retarget them on LinkedIn – that’s what Matched Audiences can offer for your business.
6. Your target audience is on LinkedIn Groups
Almost every industry has a related group on LinkedIn. Most professionals join multiple groups for discussions and updates. This is a good lead pool to find your target audience. Join various groups to understand the latest trends – people share product expectations, market expectations, and more in discussions. But joining isn’t enough, you need to engage and network with people in the group. Connect with the right people in a group and start a conversation. Your next sale is probably coming from a group.
7. LinkedIn Ads
Like most social networks, generating sales for your B2B business through ads is easily possible. Ad exposure on LinkedIn can increase purchase intent by 33%. LinkedIn offers InMail, sponsored posts, dynamic ads, and getting started is easy too. Finding the right decision-maker for your B2B advertising on LinkedIn is efficient – because the audience is easily customizable with over 200 targeting characteristics. About 33% of B2B decision makers use LinkedIn to research purchases. This means generating leads and driving B2B sales looks like a lucrative possibility.
8. LinkedIn Sales Navigator for B2B sales
LinkedIn offers businesses a social selling platform to find prospects, build relationships, generate leads, and build sales. From personalized algorithms to extended network visibility, LinkedIn Sales Navigator becomes a powerful tool for B2B sales. It is a paid tool with a subscription model that offers B2B companies prospecting, lead recommendations, CRM data, sales insights, and more. B2B businesses can leverage these LinkedIn Sales Solutions to drive B2B sales.
