Did you know that more than 670 million professionals are gathered on LinkedIn, 303 million of them are active daily and an average of 30 million companies are represented? Isn’t that huge for one platform? This is why prospecting on LinkedIn is a fundamental asset for companies, because the network allows them to find new customers. Here are the good avenues to explore.
The first step: take good care of your LinkedIn profile
The first thing your prospect will see is your LinkedIn profile, which also serves as your resume. It reflects your image as well as that of your company. The quality of your profile is essential for you to succeed in your prospecting on LinkedIn and achieve your goals. You must offer a clean profile established with professionalism in order to impress your visitors, whether it is your direct visitors or prospects that you will approach and who will then come to visit your profile. But how do you do it then?
To be successful, first fill out your profile 100%. Each field must be completed. Your professionalism must be felt at first sight, because a non-complete profile is not interesting compared to a well-filled profile.
Give relevant and interesting professional information to titillate the minds of your prospects. You can also inform them about your expertise, your portfolio, professional references… Humanize your profile with a short summary of your background and all the passion you have for your activity.
Also, consider changing the URL of your LinkedIn profile. Change the series of numbers automatically generated by LinkedIn and instead put your name or your company’s name instead. In order to generate traffic, you should also share links that will take your visitors to your company’s website or other social media accounts.
Define your target profile
LinkedIn brings together experts from many fields. The platform presents itself as a large base of professional contacts around the world. Among the lot, you must define your ideal profiles. In order to achieve this, ask yourself the following questions:
- In which sector should your typical profile work?
- What should its function be?
- What type of structure is it?
- What should his expectations be?
- What are the main issues it faces?
In addition, this step will not be difficult, because the information provided by each profile on LinkedIn is for professional purposes and therefore relevant, unlike some social platforms such as Facebook. Thus, you will easily get the right information to better qualify your leads and optimize your approach. When you know the criteria of your persona, you can easily offer content that is largely adequate to meet the needs of your prospects.
Advanced search on LinkedIn: a very practical tool
After defining your customer profile, sort through your prospects using advanced search on LinkedIn which is very effective. Different filters are at your disposal to allow you to find your ideal lead. These filters are composed among others of keywords, company, field of activity, function, place or interests.
The various interactions on publications
To prospect on LinkedIn, you must also create and share quality content with high added value on your network. The number of likes, shares or comments you receive on your posts is also a clue to determine qualified leads. These people view your profile and interact with you. This clearly means that they are affected by the issues you are addressing.
If your content is good, it can cause your contacts to share it with others. You will thus appear within a new community in which potential customers can find themselves.
On your side, you can also like, comment and share the publications of your prospects. A very good way to show them the interest you have in them. Even let a grain of your personality shine through and demonstrate your knowledge from your feedback so you can earn a place in your prospect’s mind. The latter will remember you easily and will be led to use your services more on the day he needs them.
Integrate focus groups
Newsgroups are one of the best sources for finding qualified leads on LinkedIn. These are groups where prospects usually share the issues they face and the questions they have. In other words, topic groups are the most convenient for engaging with prospects on LinkedIn. It is also a good way to make yourself known by your prospects.
Thus, you need to join the most relevant groups that affect your business. You will easily distinguish the most qualified prospects among the members. Contribute to groups by helping members and sharing interesting content.
Discussion groups are also effective in developing your e-reputation. Members will be more interested in your profile and can then add you. Moreover, you can also identify your leads and send them invitations to join your network.
Use the right support
Many media can be leveraged to find new customers. Among them is the emailing campaign. Indeed, personalized emails relayed via LinkedIn are excellent ways to prospect and generate more qualified leads. All you have to do is personalize the content of your email based on the information collected from the target prospect.
These are the main lines to consider when prospecting on LinkedIn. Like all customer prospecting work, prospecting on LinkedIn is not easy and requires a lot of effort on your part. But to carry out this mission, the main thing is to really understand the needs of your target customers and always approach in a personalized way. You can also opt for LinkedIn automation to make the job easier.
