Can you find the perfect potential client through social media? 

Maybe not from slower, organic efforts like posting to your profile, but certainly through paid social media marketing. As we all try to cultivate a sense of stability and community during a time of social distancing, many organizations are moving their in-person events online, and essential businesses are searching for ways to continue to make genuine connections with B2B professionals who need their help. With people flocking to their phones to stay in touch with colleagues and keep tabs on their industry, social media marketing holds great potential for businesses still in action.

LinkedIn, now home to more than 660 million users, brings together professionals from countless industries to provide a more productive outlet for learning and connection via social networking. Its biggest advocates are B2B marketers and the companies they help grow through tactics like sponsored posts and matched audiences, making the most of the sales and marketing tools in LinkedIn’s campaign manager toolkit.

Let’s explore three of the most effective methods for meeting buyers on everyone’s favorite professional social platform, LinkedIn.

The Most Effective Methods for Gaining Leads from LinkedIn

Sponsored Content

One of the quickest ways to reach high-quality leads with this powerful channel is through the magic of Sponsored Content—LinkedIn’s native ad solution for capturing the attention of users right in their newsfeed. Sponsored Content is your shot to make readers pause in between updates from alma maters, news of colleague promotions, and hot takes on the tech landscape. They’ll pause and see your ad, a carefully crafted post highlighting a valuable content offer, and want to read more. That is if you know how to develop a great campaign.

When to Use Sponsored COntent:

• When connecting with leads in the early stages of the buyer’s journey

• When looking for opportunities to gain visibility for news or events

• When a profile update or content marketing asset is already performing well

Tips to Get Sponsored Content Right:

• Put your best foot forward. The content that performs the best on LinkedIn through Sponsored Content are eBooks, guides, and whitepapers, so make sure you have a worthwhile asset for leads to grab if you’re spending a decent budget on this advertising method. And don’t forget—Sponsored Content gives you the option of creating an ad with a single image, video, or carousel of images. The last two are more dynamic, so if you have a great creative team behind you, explore what would tell the story of your piece and hold the attention of users in the newsfeed to seal the deal.
• Make the most of Sponsored Content’s targeting features, setting criteria properly for who you’re going after by job title, company size, industry, gender, age, and more. This is why LinkedIn is so effective for B2B marketers, so don’t let your efforts go to waste by skipping these customizations.
• Invest in creating an effective landing page and thank you page for your content. Clearly describe what the offer is and why it’s worth sharing contact info. If you’re targeting multiple types of leads with this campaign, create different landing page sets for each so you’re really speaking their language. And don’t forget to make your pages and content mobile-friendly! It may be a no-brainer, but it’s often overlooked.

InMail

InMail is one of the most popular ways of reaching potential attendees for events and webinars. If you’re not already privy to this handy LinkedIn tool, it’s using direct (and personalized, if you’re smart) messages to share information about content, special offers, webinars, events, company announcements, new products—whatever your B2B heart desires. These “emails” land right in a user’s inbox when they’re logged into the platform.

When to Use InMail:

• When going after leads at any stage of the buyer’s journey
• When you’re ready to use personalization or ABM
• When sharing time-sensitive updates or exclusive invites

Tips to Get InMail Right:

• Take the time to research before you reach out. Whether you’re a big believer in buyer personas, knowing your audience is important; you don’t want to invest the time and money to slip into inboxes only to have users instantly swipe your message away. That means becoming familiar with their role, their level of decision-making power, their company, and more to write a subject line that will resonate and a message that’s short, sweet, and effective.
• Send InMails from a person at your organization that has the authority and job title to make your messages enticing and worth the open. The sender should make sense for the recipient, so skip the interns and make your campaign count by launching from a profile that’s professional, complete and closest to who the recipient would talk to if they become a warm lead.
• Use personalization! InMails are perfect for testing personalization and account-based marketing tactics. Some marketers even use LinkedIn’s matched audiences feature to whip up new lists of similar contacts to really flex their personalization abilities. Personalizing can look like adding names, custom greetings, or introductions that supply better context for your message.

Sales Navigator

LinkedIn Sales Navigator helps businesses keep an eye on news and company updates in real-time from both clients and prospects. It’s also a way to search through company profiles using advanced filters, get new recommendations on more quality leads that may be right for your team, and easily integrate data from your CRM to save those leads for future use.

When to Use Sales Navigator:

• When looking for extra help at any stage of the buyer’s journey
• When building contact lists for email marketing, ABM, and LinkedIn efforts
• When you need a way to keep up with professional updates on contacts

Tips to Get Sales Navigator Right:

• Get a Sales Navigator subscription plan that fits your marketing or sales team’s needs, level of reliance on LinkedIn, and available time to use all of this tool’s features. Certain plans add extra InMail “credits” and number of saved leads, so if you’re really going to take advantage of Sales Navigator’s capabilities for targeting and engaging with people on LinkedIn, a bulkier plan could be worth the price tag.
• Sales Navigator offers insights that can boost your account-based marketing, digital marketing, or inbound marketing strategy. The feature that allows you to see who viewed your profile recently is a not-so-sneaky way of discovering which people are truly interested in your organization and what you have to offer. This means they’re likely more interested in content you’ll share with them than users who are unfamiliar with your profile or brand.

Start Getting Qualified Leads Now

Are you ready to use LinkedIn to connect with potential customers? Explore your options with Sponsored Content, InMail, and Sales Navigator. If you can fit these social media marketing tactics into your budget over the next few months, they can really take your marketing and sales strategies to the next level. Just remember that maintaining organic efforts on LinkedIn—being present on your profile and continuously sharing updates—is still a necessary foundation for driving more engagement from the next perfect potential purchaser.