How to Perfect Your LinkedIn Lead Generation Strategy

What is LinkedIn lead generation?

When it comes to generating leads on LinkedIn, there are some approaches that will always work well, while others are more dependent on the industry in which you operate and the specific demographics of your target market.

However, there are a few general tips that will help you to create a LinkedIn lead generation strategy that’s effective for your business.

First off, let’s get specific on what LinkedIn lead generation actually is. Simply put, LinkedIn lead generation is the process of capturing leads – or potential customers – through LinkedIn. 

The goal of LinkedIn lead generation is to create a connection with potential customers who are interested in what you have to offer.

Once you’ve captured their attention, it’s up to you to nurture that relationship and convert your sales leads into paying customers.

You can use a tool like LaGrowthMachine to improve your LinkedIn lead generation. By setting up automated sequences, you are relieved of all your manual sales prospecting actions on the platform.

🔎 Take this sequence for instance: You start by adding someone as a LinkedIn connection and once they accept you, you send them a first message. If they don’t answer after 7 days, you send them a follow-up in the form of a voice message.

That’s right, a voice message! LaGrowthMachine is the only platform where you can actually automate the sending of voice messages on LinkedIn.

This is quite revolutionary as voice messages are well-known to yield the best response rate in any outreach sequence!

In essence, you generate cold leads without even realizing it.

We’ll look into this throughout the rest of this article!

Why do you need LinkedIn lead generation?

Great question! 👍

With the multitude of other social media platforms available, you might be wondering why LinkedIn should be your go-to source for lead generation.

The answer is simple: in terms of lead generation, LinkedIn is statistically proven to come out on top.

LinkedIn is serious about reaching the masses. Currently, the platform has about 800 million monthly users; their goal, however, is to reach 3 billion, meaning that the LinkedIn arena is ripe with potential customers for your business.

Pair these demographic insights with lead generation-specific stats, and it’s evident that LinkedIn should be your number one social media platform for lead generation:

• LinkedIn is the favorite source of quality content for 91 percent of marketing execs. (source: LinkedIn)
• 45 percent of the people consuming LinkedIn content are in upper-level professional occupations. (LinkedIn)
• 80 percent of B2B leads can be attributed to LinkedIn, while Twitter and Facebook claim only 20 percent combined. (source: neilpatel.com)
• LinkedIn generates triple the conversions (aka, potential customers turned into paying customers) of Twitter and Facebook. (source: HubSpot)

Needless to say, if you’re not using LinkedIn for lead generation, you’re evading the eyes of some of your most likely customers.

In fact, it is one of our most privileged prospecting channels at LaGrowthMachine.

And for good reason! We get a 1 in 3 response rate for cold prospecting from some of our campaigns, just from the LinkedIn channel alone!

While you may want to improve your lead generation on LinkedIn, at LaGrowthMachine, we find that multi-channel prospecting works best. So try to see LinkedIn as an integral but still complementary channel to email, for example.

But then, how can you go about actually generating leads through the platform?

How to do LinkedIn lead generation?

Your lead generation experience on LinkedIn doesn’t have to be a roll of the dice – you can improve your odds of success with some careful strategizing. 

Here are our top picks for the best LinkedIn lead generation strategies:

Optimize your profile

In the world of digital marketing, to optimize something is to make it more visible and easier to find. Optimization on LinkedIn is simple once you know where to focus your efforts. 

Use a high-quality, professional image. 

Your profile image is the face of your LinkedIn presence, and it’s one of the most important elements for lead generation. Use a high-quality image that is clear and recognizable. LinkedIn recommends 400 x 400 pixels for the best results.

Fill out your profile completely. 

In order to get the most out of LinkedIn, you need to make sure that your profile is complete. This means filling in all of the sections, including your headline, summary, skills, and experience.

Your headline is particularly important to optimize. While it’s tempting to simply list your title, 46% of prospects care more about your headline than your work experience – so why not make the most of it? 

Use a headline that:

• States your value proposition – for instance, “Strategic Marketer with Proven Results”
• Shows your unique selling proposition – e.g. “Get More Leads in 5 Days Than You’ve Been Able to Generate in the Past 6 Months”
• Highlights your skills or expertise – like “Digital Marketing Expert of 15 Years”

You’ll also want to provide clear and accurate contact information so that potential leads can reach out to you.

Make use of keywords. 

Like Google, LinkedIn pays attention to the words you use on your profile so that it can present the most relevant results to potential leads. Use keywords related to your industry and job function to make it easier for people to find you.

• In your summary: You have roughly three paragraphs to fill with both relevant information and keywords. Try to pepper in keywords a few times, without being too spammy. Keywords are simply words or phrases that people would use to search for someone like you.
• In your experience: Be specific about your technical and transferrable skills. If you’re an accountant, for instance, you’ll want to list words like “accounting,” “finance,” and “spreadsheets.”
• In your headline: As we mentioned before, your headline is one of the most important places to put keywords. Try to include at least one in there.

Of course, it’s not always easy to know which keywords will rank highest in LinkedIn’s search engine. You can use software tools like Semrush and Ahrefs to help you find out which keywords are being used most often by your target audience.

Keep up regular maintenance. 

Like any other digital marketing asset, your LinkedIn profile needs to be maintained on a regular basis. This means regularly updating your information, adding new content, and reaching out to new connections.

The best way to stay top of mind with potential leads is to provide valuable content consistently. This could be in the form of:

• Blog posts
• Infographics
• Articles
• etc.

Basically, any type of content that provides value to your target audience and helps to establish you and/or your business as a thought leader in your industry!

Optimize your business page(s)

Did you know that company LinkedIn pages receive six times more visitors if they upload a profile image? Just as you would in your personal profile, make sure your company page is complete and uses a high-quality image.

In addition to having a complete profile, you’ll want to optimize your company page for keywords. Again, use your own judgment and the help of software tools to determine which keywords are most relevant to your business audience.

Post content regularly and interact with your audience

LinkedIn is always watching, creepy right? 👀

Not really, it just wants to provide users with the most relevant content possible.

So how do you get noticed?

Well, LinkedIn’s algorithm pays attention to a few key metrics. Keywords are important, as are the number of times people click on your posts and profile.

The algorithm will also compare the number of views your content receives to the number of people who click on it. 

All of this points to a need for relevant, engaging, and valuable content.

What do your potential leads want to know? What are their pain points? Address these questions in your content, and you’ll be well on your way to success.

In addition to posting content, make sure you’re interacting with your audience. Reply to comments, start discussions, and offer valuable insights. The more engaged you are, the more LinkedIn will take notice.

And of course, be consistent about it! LinkedIn recommends posting two to five times per week.

You can also use LinkedIn marketing for B2B businesses. Research suggests posting on weekdays between 11am and 2pm for best results. 

Use a mix of SEO and Paid Advertising for your content

Once you’ve taken care of your SEO, it’s time to think about paid advertising.

LinkedIn Ads are a great way to target your audience in a highly specific manner based on their job title, company size, or other factors. You can also use LinkedIn Ads to retarget people who have already visited your website.

LinkedIn Ads are a form of paid advertising and work similarly to Google or Facebook Ads:

You create an ad, choose your target audience, and set a budget. LinkedIn will then place your ad in the appropriate place for maximum exposure.

There are a few things to keep in mind when creating your LinkedIn Ads:

• Use clear and concise headlines.
• Keep your ad copy brief, but make sure to highlight the benefits of working with you.
• Use images that are high quality and relevant to your target market.
• Target your audience carefully – LinkedIn allows you to laser-focus your ad by job title, company size, or other factors.

Leverage your existing network

If you’ve already built quite a network for yourself, there’s no need to start out cold. Leverage your existing relationships to get in touch with potential leads.

Here are a few tips for getting started:

• Use LinkedIn’s Advanced Search Filters to find potential leads. 
• Connect with people you know and trust, and ask them to introduce you to people that would be beneficial to you.
• Send personalized messages to potential leads. Don’t just blast out a generic message – take the time to personalize it and make it relevant to the person you’re contacting.

LaGrowthMachine is amazing for these types of sequences as you can not only carry out all these strategies using the templates available in the tool, but you can do this at scale thanks to automation!

LinkedIn Groups can be another great way to connect with potential leads and grow your network, too.

Not only are you able to connect with people who share your interests, but Groups can also be a great place to share your content and get in touch with potential customers.

Before reaching out, take time to think about what you can offer potential leads. What’s in it for them? The last thing you want is to appear desperate to your existing network.

Display your value to potential customers

LinkedIn offers a number of ways to show off your work experience, past successes, and skills to potential customers. Here are a few tips for doing just that:

• Add examples of your work, such as case studies or white papers. 
• Highlight your past successes, and make sure to showcase the benefits of working with you. 
• Share articles, blog posts, and other content that is relevant to your target market.
• Leverage the “Featured” section on your LinkedIn profile to make sure your most important content is easy to find.

With a little effort, you can make sure your LinkedIn profile is primed and ready for lead generation. 

Top 5 LinkedIn lead generation tools

With the above tips in mind, it’s understandable that you’d be feeling LinkedIn lead generation overload. Coming up with a lead gen strategy is daunting – but with the wealth of tools at our disposal, it certainly doesn’t need to be. 

LaGrowthMachine

We take a visual approach to lead generation. After all, why make things harder than they need to be? Trusted by companies like Hiresweet, PayFit, Gymlib, and more, our tools help you quickly find and connect with potential leads. And we make it easy to track your progress – so you can see what’s working and what’s not.

With LaGrowthMachine, you can make the most of features like:

• Complete automation. Using smart prospection, we help you reach out to leads across multiple channels in an automated yet totally human way. 
• Multi-channel templates. Instead of coming up with a strategy from scratch, use our templates to quickly target new leads through all of your socials.
• Unlimited enrichment. Your data isn’t your limit. With LaGrowthMachine, you can find additional data to enrich your leads, including social profiles and contact info. 
• Easy imports. Whether you choose to import your contacts from LinkedIn or a CSV file, we make it easy to get started.
• Analysis and insights. Our precise data collection helps you to monitor your progress and make the most of your lead gen strategy.

Simply said, LaGrowthMachine is the ultimate lead generation tool on LinkedIn. Take it for a test drive here. 

Waalaxy

Waalaxy is software that’s very user-friendly and, as a result, frequently used as an ideal first step into B2B automation technology.

Not unlike LaGrowthMachine, Waalaxy also provides the ability to easily send sales messages via LinkedIn and Email with ease.

However, since they used to only work on LinkedIn automation (ex. ProspectIn), you will have great results on this specific channel!

A few of the features that make Waalaxy an attractive prospect include:

• Chrome extension, no need to download any application
• Automatic outreach messages
• Advanced search filters to help find leads quickly and easily.
• Automatic duo-channel follow-ups to ensure no leads slip through the cracks.
• Integrated inbox for an extra price

Overall, Waalaxy is a great option for businesses looking to dip their toes into B2B automation without being overwhelmed by complex software.

On top of that, Waalaxy offers a 1-week free trial that can be extended for another week if you need more time to explore the platform.

Lemlist

Lemlist is another powerful B2B multichannel automation tool that can help you scale your outreach efforts and generate more leads.

The app is not as easy to use as Waalaxy for instance, it’s quite the advanced platform, but it does offer some great features that make the extra effort worth it.

These include:

• Their lemwarm function allows you to warm up your email to avoid ending up in the SPAM folder
• Advanced personalization options, such as custom fields and dynamic images
• A/B testing to optimize email content and increase open and click-through rates.
• Countless seamless integrations with other tools
• Also a plugin, so no need to download an app on your computer.

Overall, Lemlist is an excellent choice for businesses looking to expand their outreach efforts beyond LinkedIn and into other channels, maybe your audience wants to be contacted by phone?

With its user-friendly interface, robust features, and top-notch customer support, Lemlist is a great investment for any business looking to scale its outreach and generate more leads.

Expandi

Like LaGrowthMachine, Expandi.io is serious about connecting you with potential leads. They use smart automated sequences to contact leads and follow up, making it easy to find the right prospects.

Expandi has a special focus on LinkedIn and email outreach. Their best features include:

• LinkedIn outreach using a secure, cloud-based solution that targets the ideal audience. 
• Automated email outreach that takes the grunt work out of lead generation.
• Personalized GIFs and images to catch attention and create a connection.
• Smart Sequences that help you to follow up with potential leads in an automated and situation-specific way.

Expandi offers a 7-day free trial so you can test the platform and its features before committing to a subscription.

Zopto

Another quality and well-loved lead generation tool is Zopto. Like the others, it features powerful automation with minimal hassle or time wasted. Here are the key features to note:

• Advanced filtering uses hundreds of criteria to reach only the most qualified leads.
• Cloud-based automation tools manage multiple profiles whilst mimicking human behavior for more successful contact.
• Robust tracking and analytics so you can see what’s working and what isn’t, as well as adjust your strategy accordingly.
• Seamless integrations with other software make it easy to get started – no need to waste time importing data.

Zopto offers a free demo for new users so they can see the tool in action before committing to a purchase.

These are just a few of many tools available, so there’s no need to brave your LinkedIn lead gen strategy alone. With the help of these or similar tools, you’ll be generating leads like a pro in no time.

The main takeaway:

In 2023, lead generation is a must – and LinkedIn is the perfect platform for reaching your audience. Not only is it used by millions of professionals and prospects every single day, but it offers powerful tools and features for lead gen success.

When it comes to LinkedIn lead generation, make sure you are taking the time to optimize your profile. First impressions count, and whether we like it or not, most people judge books by their covers. Use a great profile picture, a well-written headline, and keywords throughout your profile to make sure you’re easily found by those looking for your services.

Then, focus on creating valuable content that targets your ideal customer. This could be in the form of blog posts, infographics, videos, or even just a great LinkedIn profile. When you provide valuable content, you become a trusted authority in your field – and potential customers are more likely to reach out to you.

Our LaGrowthMachine can help make LinkedIn lead generation easier than ever. With complete automation, unlimited data enrichment, and visualization allowing you to see your strategy progress at a glance, you’re set up for lead gen success. 

Remember, too, that some of the best prospects are found when you step out of the box. Don’t be afraid to try new strategies and see what works best for you and your business.