ETA Expert Insights: Building a Process to Generate High Value Leads Using LinkedIn

By Tony Shap CPP, Director, Payment Solutions, Commercial Bank of California, and member, ETA Payment Sales and Strategy Committee.

LinkedIn has been one of the most popular social media platforms for young professionals and old professionals alike. Many people are now using the service in order to more effectively market themselves as an employee when they are looking for a job. It is great at helping you manage professional contacts as well as improving your networking.

Now did you also realize that there has been a growing phenomenon where businesses are going to the people on LinkedIn instead? No, they are not going out to recruit new employees – although that does happen. These businesses are utilizing the new and exciting form of Lead Generation that has been termed social selling.

There is a ton of opportunity to improve your sales using the Lead Generation strategy we have laid out here for you. This is a proven system that many people and businesses have used to generate over 10 new leads each day using the LinkedIn platform. This system is great for both business to business leads as well as business to consumer. According to recent studies, over 80% of business leads that are generated through social media are on LinkedIn so this is a strategy backed up with empirical data too.

Step by Step Guide to Lead Generation Using LinkedIn

Before we begin, let’s address the elephant in the room. We both know that you have probably already tried other systems to generate leads or at least have heard a pitch for something similar to this. Well, most likely that did not work out quite as well as you would have liked, otherwise you probably would not be reading this right now.

LinkedIn’s system is different from others that have been put out there. It is built off the back of years of experience in the field of B2B sales and field trials for numerous businesses. Most importantly, the data backs it up. Statistically speaking, the people who have followed this system have been able to increase Lead Generation significantly.

We are going to build an entire system for Lead Generation on LinkedIn, but let’s first start off with the basics. If you can follow just the basics, it will lead to a serious increase in your overall lead generating capacity.

Basics for Lead Generation

• Making the Optimal Account
• Outbound Sales Strategy
• Inbound Sales Strategy

Now – let’s get started. The first step involves setting up your LinkedIn account so that it attracts the best kind of traffic possible.

#1 Establish a Sense of Authority: Optimize Your Account

The profile that you keep on LinkedIn will be representative of your business. It will establish everyone’s first impression of you online. It is important that you keep this in mind when first designing it. There is such a thing as good profile design and bad profile design. Good design will amplify every other part of this process, and in many cases, can even bring in Leads all on its own.

There are steps you can take to make your profile better. We will go over three below. These all work together in order to optimize your account as much as possible. The better your account is optimized, the more effective each of the other steps in this process will be, so don’t worry if you feel like you are investing too much time into this step. It will almost certainly pay off in the long run.

Let’s go over a few of the key elements and rules for maintaining a high-quality account. Before you begin this process, you should figure out what niche you are going to serve. The more specific you can be with this step, the easier everything else will be in the long run. This will work for more generic-type firms, but it can be more difficult to break into a market that is not a niche market as a beginner.

Here is a quick example of what that looks like: instead of going after doctors (if that is your target demographic), you can target specifically doctors specializing in cosmetic surgery. You can narrow it down from higher-level concepts to small niches in most fields. This is so effective because the more targeted your messaging is, the more likely you are to have some responses.

Key Elements of Your Profile Strategy

• Create a Solid Tagline
• Target Your Audience
• Make Use of Visuals

The Importance of Your Tagline

The tagline really sets the tone of your whole profile. It is a statement by the company projected out to the world that encapsulates both its message and its vision simultaneously. It is both the most overlooked aspect of profile creation and the most important part. Like everyone has always said, “first impressions are everything”.

Most people make a simple mistake when crafting a tagline. They talk about themselves. You will very commonly see taglines that states where a person works and what position they hold. This is not effective. People are not interested in your job title – they are interested in what you can do for them.

An example of a good tagline would be something like this: I help cosmetic surgeons reduce the overall cost of accepting payments.

This works because it is tailored for a specific niche: cosmetic surgeons. It also speaks to their hot button issues: lowering fees. These two things are what you should focus on. Finally, it declares how you are a leading expert for that space.

All of these factors together create a great tagline. Here is a simple formula that you can use yourself. It keeps things simple and direct which is often the most effective way to communicate.

I help X with Y.

Where x is your target niche, y is what you will do for them.

Ultimately the goal here is not to get the prospect to buy but simply break their preoccupation and grab their attention. Hopefully, they decide to go ahead and click on through to your profile which is where the next step comes into play.

Make Your Profile for the Audience

The most common mistake you will see on accounts is that they focus too much on the owner of the account. It’s important to remember that no one cares about you… Just joking obviously, but still, most prospects don’t care all that much about who you are; they care about what you have done for others and can do for them.

That’s why you should speak specifically to the way you have conducted business with others. This is a good place to mention any of your most notable business successes. For example, I have helped cosmetic surgeons reduce their cost for accepting credit card payments over 30% since starting to work with them.

If you have any documents that show some official statistics for your business and how it’s helped clients, you can include that here. The end result of all of this is something that is more than a simple social media page. It will stand out from other accounts and really help to generate some interest in your business.

Engage the Audience Visually

Humans are visual creatures; that’s a simple fact. You can tell someone everything about something, but the chances are they will only retain a fraction of it. Show that same person a graphic with the same information presented visually, and all of a sudden, they will totally get it.

Here you are going to create a banner for your profile that is engaging to customers and prospects. There are some tools available online to help you do this easily that are available for free like Canva, Adobe Spark, and Bannersnack.

Your banner should include a few pieces of information as well as a call to action for the prospect. Typical information to include would be things like your phone number, email address, website, and company name. You should also put a phrase that urges the prospect to make a decision. A good example of a call to action phrase: Lower your payment processing fees. Call us now!

Building Leads Step #2: Reach Out to the People You Want to Win Over

Ultimately, this step will end up driving the most leads to you over time as long as you implement it well and follow the protocol. At its core, this is a fairly simple idea. Just like in most other outreach campaigns, what we are doing in this step is simply sending messages to prospects in order to hopefully generate a lead out of them.

When you start this process, it is helpful to remind yourself of a good perspective to have when sending messages. This is not a sales event but a networking event. You should try to approach and treat the people you are sending messages to like you would as a professional at a networking event not a customer in a store.

Steps to Outreach Messaging Strategy

There are a few steps to this process. There are two ways to do this: automated or manually. We are gonna start by looking at what it takes to do it manually. I’ve found that this is normally the best way to get people to understand what the goal is here and how to achieve it.

First Message: Initial Contact

The first message is basically just an icebreaker but there are a few things you want to try and accomplish with it. Obviously, this is the first time you are reaching out to someone so it’s important to make a good impression. If they haven’t seen your profile already, this could be the first time they are encountering you.

This message is a connection request message. The person who receives it can either approve the connection or block you, so there is only one shot with this one. In this message, you should ask your prospect a question about themselves or their business. You should align the question with how your business might help.

Example: Hey (first name),

I noticed your profile on LinkedIn that you’re a practice manager and I wanted to reach out and connect.

You can throw your tagline from earlier to the bottom of the message. This will help relate to the prospect who you are and what you might be able to do for them.

By crafting your message in this way, you can avoid the feeling of being sold. Many people do not like being sold to. They almost all love to buy, however. Try to keep a relational tone through your messages to play off this subtle bit of human psychology.

Second Message: Send Appreciation and Thanks

The second message is critical to get right. If you miss this step, you’ll almost certainly lose the potential client. Thankfully, this is a fairly simple step. The second message should serve primarily as a thank you for accepting the connection and to reestablish what was said in the first message in regards to their business.

A basic example would look like this:

Hey, (first name) Thanks for connecting with me on LinkedIn.

Since you’re a practice manager figured I’d reach out because this will be relevant to you. Did you know you can switch your payment processing and save on fees without having any downtime?

This way you establish a friendly relational tone but can also advance the conversation towards what you were originally aiming for again. The more niches information you can include in the second message the higher response rate you are likely to get.

Third Message: Value Proposition

The third message is going to be where you finally drop the value proposition of your company. You should be sending the third message around five days after the initial contact. Do not wait too long or the lead might vanish.

This message is going to include a lead attractant. This is a term to describe anything that is free that might perk the interest of a prospect. An easy one would be to send a link to an article that is relevant to them. It should help them to understand more about what you are doing and what you can offer them. If you are lucky they will respond to this message by directly asking for more information. If they do not then we move on to the fourth and final message of the program.

Fourth Message: Go for the Close

This final message is where you go for the close. You should simply ask for a quick chat. This is a straightforward way of going to close the deal with a new client. It is direct and typically people appreciate when you do not beat around the bush too much.

Simply and effectively state how you can assist them and ask them if you can call them. Make sure to not state these in questions that can be answered with a no. If you are able to drop the question effectively and the prospect has been interested in the messages up to this point, there is nearly a 100% chance that they will agree to a meeting with you even if for just a moment.

Building Leads Step #3: Process Traffic Coming to You

The majority of the leads you generate through this process will come from sending outbound messages and following up with prospects, however, this doesn’t mean you should ignore the opportunity that incoming traffic represents. There are a few ways to increase this. The best would be to build a following on the site and produce regular high-value content. This can drive people to you interested in your messaging. It takes longer to build up, but the quality of the traffic is typically better.

How to Respond to Prospects who Come to You

As the amount of traffic you receive grows, you will inevitably receive connection requests. Here is where you get the chance to flip these new visits into leads.

Here is an example of a good response to these requests:

Thanks for sending me a connection request. I see you work at XYZ medical.

What made you decide to send me a request?

Executing the Strategy Effectively

The Old Fashioned Way: Manual Lead Prospecting

You have now crafted a system to generate and approach leads. It’s now time to go out and execute your strategy. Go over to the sales navigator and build up a list of people to reach out to. Take this list and then start working it, sending out your first message to each one.

From here, wait for responses and respond with the appropriate message from above depending on which step you are on. Continue following the steps until you convert each lead into a sale.

Modern Innovation: Automated Prospecting on LinkedIn

There are a number of tools you can use to automate the messaging part of this process. Now be sure to be careful as certain automation processes have been banned by LinkedIn. Take your time before automating to do your research. This isn’t a guide on automation, so we will leave that research up to you.

Multiple Channel Lead Generation

Once you start generating a good amount of leads through LinkedIn, it is time to take the system to the next level. You can integrate your LinkedIn system with other systems outside of the social media platform to really increase effectiveness. The best and easiest example would be to use an email campaign. Any time you get a new connection on LinkedIn, take note of what their email address is. Wait a few days and then add them to an email campaign. The email should include some information about you, your company, and a value proposition for this business. This lets you generate more leads from outside of LinkedIn.

Closing Comments and Notes on LinkedIn Lead Generation

So that’s it. That is the system you can use in order to generate a massive amount of leads using LinkedIn. Just follow these steps and you will almost certainly meet success. There are a few things to mention before we depart though.

Most leads eventually will fall off. This is because people do not take the time to cultivate the relationship. People don’t like being sold so if you go in for the kill too quickly, they will drop off. Prospects don’t usually like this. Take the time in order to have a conversation.

Final Tips and Parting Remarks

Some final tips and reminders. You are not on LinkedIn to sell anything. You are on there to get the phone call or meeting set up. If you are not getting the types of responses you are looking for, it is likely one of two things; either your profile is off-putting in some way, or, your messages are. Take some time to take a step back and reevaluate both. Reformat your profile and messages and go back out there and try again. Not everyone is successful at this on their first attempt. It’s the ones who keep trying that eventually always find success.