If you’re in sales, one of the major
challenges that you’ll come across on a regular basis is finding qualified
leads. You can buy as many lists as you can from lead brokers, or create
time-consuming marketing campaigns, but nothing can beat the effectiveness of
LinkedIn’s platform for finding a captive business audience in one spot. Other
than being able to use LinkedIn as a tool to find targeted prospects, you can
also use it to keep track of your competitors. By creating a profile for both
yourself and your company, you can also take advantage of the network to
connect with your target audience and drive traffic back to your website.
Making
LinkedIn Work For Your Company
As with other type of social media
marketing strategies, using LinkedIn to promote your business means you have to
keep your profile current and active. Don’t just think that because you set up
a LinkedIn profile that your work is done. It would be like going to a business
expo and standing in a corner hoping people will come to you. How would they
even know you’re in attendance? You’ve got to be proactive by directly reaching
out to other businesses and professionals and give them an opportunity to
experience what your company has to offer.
Here are some techniques that can help:
1)
Join LinkedIn Groups: A great way to
build relationships with your prospects is to join in on the various
discussions going on at LinkedIn groups. For instance, if you are involved in
import/export, then you can certainly find a group of professionals who are
discussing matters that would pertain to your industry. Join groups and get
into the game.
2)
Be a subject matter expert: Get involved
in LinkedIn Answer forums, especially those related to your industry and your
prospects. The LinkedIn Answers forum allows all members to post questions on
any business challenges that they are facing. This allows them to take
advantage of the platform’s peer-to-peer network, having any member to answer
and to respond to questions posted by any other LinkedIn member. There are several
advantages to this feature:
i)
It is an excellent way to gather
information and to be on the cutting edge of a particular industry or niche.
ii)
It is also a great way to communicate
with prospects and potential partners in a particular niche. If you answer
questions, you are positioning yourself as a subject matter expert in your
industry and people will turn to you for answers.
3)
Connecting your network with each other:
Build your social influence by connecting your contacts or members with each
other. Working to connect your network with other members on LinkedIn not only
helps you become known as an influencer, there also is an ancillary benefit – your
network will reciprocate the favour.
Although LinkedIn isn't the largest social
network, it is one that has the most business-oriented membership. You not only have all your prospects at one
spot, but can tap into a peer-to-peer resource that can help you build your
business. However, just like offline networking, you have to work at building
relationships with your network using the right techniques.
