Lead Generation | LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

Today, the B2B buyer process is growing far more complex. On average, it is longer and more self-guided, with a rising number of stakeholders involved. And it’s not just different individuals within an account that influence purchase decisions; it’s different departments. Our research shows that anywhere from 3.1 to 4.6 groups - such as IT, finance, and HR - can hold sway.[2]

In this environment, cultivating trust and taking a long-term view with relationship-building are smart plans.

Because B2B purchase decisions are complex, and often weighty, stakeholders look to experts to gain confidence. Data shows that the typical buyer consumes 7 to 10 pieces of content before making their choice; LinkedIn is home to more than 575 million professionals, including 2.8 million decision makers and 260,000 C-suite executives.[3] Around the globe and across industries, professionals are participating in the conversation by sharing meaningful and insightful content with this community.

With trust playing an ever-more important role in shaping brand perception and consumer confidence, marketers today are uniquely positioned to build meaningful relationships with customers. 75% of would be buyers say thought leadership helps them determine which vendor to put on their short list. And then in terms of where to share your content, 70% say LinkedIn is one of the most trusted sources of information, as much as leading publishers WSJ.com and Forbes.com.

To build trust with your audience, you first must develop a strong understanding of its interests, opportunities, and challenges. The wealth of B2B buyer data available through LinkedIn helps facilitate this learning. Marketers use LinkedIn to leverage information at their fingertips to reach targeted prospects with relevant, helpful content in the right context. It’s a proven formula for B2B lead gen success.

Three factors set LinkedIn apart from other channels as a B2B lead generation platform:

To really zero in on your best prospects, it is advisable to layer your targeting parameters so you can hit those sweet spots while maintaining a sizable audience. For example, you can target ads for job function - which is rather broad - as well as seniority, to really drill down to those key decision makers you want to engage. You can also layer job skills into your targeting scope to capture those specific professionals that fall into your wheelhouse.

LinkedIn’s extensive filters provide tons of flexibility for mixing and matching. Test different combinations early in your campaign to find your sweet spot.

That’s because numerous stakeholders and departments are routinely involved with purchase decisions, and increasing levels of churn mean your key contact may not stick around long-term.

Our research shows that the typical B2B buying decision is influenced most heavily by these five departments: IT, Finance, Business Development, Accounting, Operations. Naturally, plenty of others can hold sway depending on the vertical. As such, your B2B lead generation campaigns should aim to reach various parts of an organization, ideally with customized messaging that resonates specifically with these functions.

While the executive and manager levels are obviously valuable to reach, don’t focus on them exclusively. Forward-looking marketers with an eye on sustainable lead generation are working to reach the full committee of today and tomorrow.

Junior people may not sign the checks, but they often do a lot of the legwork, meeting with vendors and putting together media plans. Also, many will eventually be leaders; in some industries like tech it takes only a few years on average to go from junior to senior.

Thought leadership content helps drive strategic brand awareness, but that’s not the only objective it fulfills. When executed effectively, this type of content can also directly impact lead generation, because of its considerable importance to those varied decision makers and influencers mentioned above.

One study found that 74% of buyers choose the company that was first to add value during the purchase journey.[4] So there is immense value not only in delivering useful information and guidance that meets a prospect’s needs and solves their problems. That’s where LinkedIn can be a key asset for your thought leadership strategy.

Brian Solis

You can use LinkedIn targeting filters and Matched Audiences to segment your audience by stage in the funnel, and align content accordingly. For lead generation purposes, you’ll really want to hone in on those prospects that are in the “Interest/Consideration” phase.

So, for example, has a member already viewed a product page on your website? You can use Website Retargeting on LinkedIn to serve up additional product info or promote a free trial. Do you have a list of prospects that are already in your pipeline? You can use Contact Targeting to reach them on LinkedIn with specific content that drives them forward in their journey.

Employee Advocacy

This should be a fundamental baseline that elevates everything else you do from a social media lead generation standpoint. There are many business benefits to employee advocacy, ranging from a more engaged workforce to extended reach to brand ambassadorship and beyond.

In simple terms, each of your own employees have their own personal networks, and through advocacy you can connect with these audiences genuinely and authentically. A strong employee advocacy program will bolster marketing efforts in general, whether focused more on branding or lead gen.

My Company tab is a feature that optimizes employee advocacy directly on your LinkedIn Page. Using this feature, marketing can easily equip the workforce with customized content to share, increasing its reach and authentic impact with audiences. This proves especially helpful for alignment with sales, as the marketing team can distribute documents for reps to share on social feeds and during prospect engagements, while also receiving feedback on what’s resonating.

One of the big challenges marketers face when trying to generate leads online is the ask. Not only are you requesting someone’s contact information in order to reach out, but you’re also asking busy people to manually type those details out. On a mobile screen especially, this can be a pain.

Lead Gen Forms on LinkedIn eliminate this friction by automatically populating these fields based on a member’s profile data. It is also very easy to track and manage your leads with this tool. You can integrate this functionality with Sponsored Content or Message Ads; and our internal data shows, for instance, that Lead Gen Form campaigns increase conversions by 2-3x when compared to standard Sponsored Content campaigns.

Because, chances are, your boss wants to see the fruits of your labor. Use conversion tracking to understand how your ads are driving business results. Compare metrics, like clicks, impressions, and social actions, to learn which campaigns and ad creatives are most effective. Learn more about your audience, on and off LinkedIn. Clearly demonstrating lead gen performance is essential to reshaping the narrative around marketing as a cost center, and giving the department its rightful due as a bona fide revenue driver.

One of the biggest mistakes B2B companies can make is to measure their leads based on quantity, rather than quality. The bottom line is that one hundred unqualified leads are far less valuable than 10 qualified ones, and any member of your sales team will surely tell you the same. At LinkedIn, we strive to provide marketers with tools to get a deeper look at the quality of their leads, rather than strictly volume.

Because of its professional user base and the rich, accurate data that it yields, LinkedIn tends to deliver higher-quality leads than most other channels. Data from HubSpot finds that LinkedIn is 277% more effective for lead generation than Facebook and Twitter.[10]

By taking advantage of LinkedIn’s Conversion Tracking, you can gain a more comprehensive view of ad performance than even Google Analytics is able to provide. That’s because in addition to measuring post-click events (e.g., person clicks an ad and then goes to your website to complete a desired action), they also measure post-view events (e.g., person sees an ad, visits website and converts later).

As most sophisticated marketers are aware, lead generation campaigns aren’t always about instantly turning an unfamiliar customer into a lead. Ads can produce results for your company even if the viewer doesn’t convert on the spot.

If you’re already comfortable managing and measuring leads in your existing CRM or marketing automation system, no sweat. You can sync up with platforms like Marketo, Driftrock, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and Zapier (find a full list, and setup instructions, here).

By combining the powers of Campaign Manager and your own systems, you can augment and extend the value of LinkedIn’s rich first-party data. On the lead gen front, marketers are able to run engagement programs with automated customer outreach, monitor and manage social media, apply specialized Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tactics, further personalize their content, and more.

Even the most well informed lead generation marketing is guesswork to a degree. We never know how campaigns and programs will play out until we see them in action. As such, it’s critically important to keep a close eye on your analytics and continually optimize.

A/B testing is helpful for tweaking ad creative to improve visibility and engagement - we recommend running three to four ads simultaneously, and choosing the best ones week over over week - but when assessing bottom-line results, you’ll want to dig deeper. Use Conversion Tracking to learn which campaigns are generating the most leads, and double-down on them. Consult your Website Demographics to identify the audience traits most conducive to conversions, and adjust your targeting scope accordingly. Work closely with the sales team, and combine the powers of Campaign Manager and Sales Navigator for a full 360-degree view of your pipeline.