3 Ways To Get Qualified Sales Leads Using LinkedIn
Image via WikipediaMost people use LinkedIn as a contact management tool to connect with friends or former co-workers. Besides everyday social networking, LinkedIn can be used as a very effective sales prospecting tool. In this post I’ll show you 3 solid strategies to help you get qualified sales leads into your pipeline.
1. Nurture Your First-Degree Network
Other than sending or accepting a connection invitation, when was the last time you truly connected with the people in your first-degree network on LinkedIn? Many of these people may have hundreds of connections to your potential customers.
It’s a good idea to periodically reach out to these folks and offer them something of real value, such as an online resource or even a referral. And don’t discount the potential of a connection who isn’t in your same
industry. They might know someone who can help you. Take a look at their list of connections (if that capability is enabled) and see who’s on their contact list.
2. Use Advanced People Search
LinkedIn has an Advanced People Search function you can use to identify prospects who you can get introduced to through members of your extended network. This tool makes it relatively easy to build a preliminary prospect list using a combination of keywords, industry descriptions and job titles to find key decision makers at target companies.
Once you have assembled your list, you can sort your results by relationship. This makes it easy to identify people in your extended network who might be able introduce you to the person on your prospect list. But be careful when asking for favors from your contacts. This is why it’s so important to nurture them first in step 1. You don’t want to risk damaging your reputation by coming across as an opportunist.
3. Participate In Group Discussions
Another way to use the list you built using the Advanced People Search function is to identify the groups your prospects participate in, join those same groups and start participating in discussions. It is likely that you can offer significant value to group discussions by answering relevant questions and becoming a trusted resource within the group. This strategy takes some time to implement, but can often lead to excellent results. The key is to offer real value.
Continue to grow your network as you implement these three strategies by connecting with every new prospect and customer you meet. This will give you both a direct connection to your new acquaintance and access to their extended network of co-workers and friends. This will in turn give you even more potential prospects.
Start a Nurture Program
If you’re not already doing some kind of nurture program, you should start now. It is inexpensive (typically less than $500/month) and highly effective.
Nurture programs are designed to educate prospects about the value you provide – because almost any offering requires some education – and generate excitement and buzz about your company.
The idea is that you identify a small list of people – typically 100-200. Then you send them something every month.
Who goes on the list?
- Prospects who are already in the sales cycle
- Ideal prospects (people or organizations that you would love to have as clients)
- Influencers (respected individuals who could refer business to you)
- Business partners
- Maybe editors or bloggers who you want to have cover you
- Maybe competitors (if you want to annoy them)
- Maybe your best customers
- You (because you want to see what everyone else is getting and ensure the quality is high)
What do you send them?
Your goal is to educate them about your offering, so they fully appreciate the value. You also want to keep them up with what’s new with your company – to show that you have lots of interesting, exciting things going on.
We typically rotate between the following things:
- Case studies
- Postcards (often with a special offer)
- Press releases
- Educational articles authored by you or someone in your company
- Reprints of articles that have appeared about you in industry publications
- Reprints of articles written by others that support your point of view or help educate about a topic they need to understand to fully appreciate your solution
- Personal letters introducing something new that you are doing or making a special offer
- Giveaways (something cute and relevant to your company or offering)
You can do this by email, which is a good idea if you are nurturing people around the world. But we prefer direct mail, because so few companies use direct mail anymore that your mailings stand out more.
Keep in mind that prospects don’t know that you are only mailing to a couple hundred people each month. For all they know, you are blanketing the industry. And in a tough market, where many companies are cutting back on marketing, that’s impressive.
They get the sense that there’s a lot going on with your company – you must be growing rapidly and doing well for them to hear from you so often. That helps your credibility as well as gains you mindshare.
These programs are simple to put together too. Just define the goals for your program, pull together a list to start with, and line up the first 6 months of what you’re going to mail. Then turn it over to an administrative person to execute – you can do it almost on autopilot.
Just revisit the plan every 4 months or so, as your business needs change. Update the mailing list, and tweak the items you are planning to send as new ideas come up and new collateral gets created.
4 Ways to Get More Referrals
The vast majority of small businesses get most of their customers through referrals.
Referrals are the leads that are most likely to close, and they are usually effectively free.
So why are you not doing more to increase the number of referrals you get?
The problem is that most people are reluctant to ask for referrals. It’s true for you (I’m sure it is!) – I know it’s true for me, and it’s almost certainly true for everyone who works for you.
But there are ways to generate more referrals that are practically painless. Let’s look at a couple of those…
1. Create a tag-team referral process
The best time to ask for a referral is right after someone has become a customer. They are enthusiastic about your company, and referring someone else to you validates and reinforces the decision they have just made. But sales reps can be very reluctant to ask for a favor at this point – they just got the purchase order and they don’t want to jeopardize that.
So make it easy for them. Set up a system where the sales rep calls to say thank you and tell them what the next steps are. Perhaps you need to schedule a kickoff call or meeting. Have the sales rep say that Sally will be calling to schedule the kickoff call, and when she does that she will also be asking if they know anyone else who might be able to use your solution.
That’s easy, right? Your sales rep is not asking for a referral. She is simply saying that in the future, they will be asked for a referral.
It’s easy for Sally too. Sally can now call and go through her checklist with them, schedule the meeting, and say that as Mary (your sales rep) may have mentioned, she would like to ask if they know of anyone else who might be able to use your solution. The question is no longer a loaded one, and it is not being sprung on them.
It’s easy for your customer too. They have had a chance to think about it, and if they know someone, chances are pretty good that they will have that person’s contact info handy. If not, they are prepared for the question and can graciously decline.
2. Have a scheduled referral contest
Let customers know that sales reps will be competing to see who can generate the most referrals in the month of April. That gives the customers a chance to think about it and be prepared for the question.
Then sales reps can email or call customers, tell them they’re trying to win, and ask if they know anyone. When it’s a game, it’s more fun to participate. And when you ask for referrals in a light-hearted way, it is easier for everyone.
3. Segment your referrals
Go through the following groups in your head, and try to find one individual or company in each group that might be interested in referring business back and forth. Then go ask them!
- Competitors
- Companies that sell products or services that are typically sold in conjunction with yours
- Companies that sell products or services that are typically needed before yours
- Companies that sell products or services that are typically needed after yours
- Consultants who work in your industry
- Service providers who work in your industry
- Accountants, lawyers, recruiters and other professionals who work in your industry
Yes, the first item on that list was competitors. Almost certainly your products or services are not identical. Each of you is stronger in certain areas. Refer business back and forth in the areas where you don’t overlap.
4. Consider other touchpoints
Where and when else do customers or prospects touch your company? Can you build in referral processes there? Here are a couple more places to look at:
- Your website (refer a friend button)
- Customer service/tech support (after the satisfactory resolution of their problem)
- Email marketing or email newsletters (ask recipients to forward the email)
If you work on adding one new referral source each month, in less than a year you will be generating a substantial number of new, high-quality leads.
Add One New Pillar to Your Marketing Parthenon
The concept of a marketing Parthenon originated with Jay Abraham, a brilliant marketing guru whose ideas have profoundly influenced many marketers and business leaders.
Most companies get leads from one or two marketing strategies – techniques they have mastered and are using very effectively to drive revenue.
But if you expand the strategies you use – developing a number of marketing techniques that work for you successfully – your company will be built, like the Parthenon, on a more solid and sturdy foundation.
Then if one of the pillars breaks, your company is still secure because you can rely on the other pillars to hold it up.
Think about where you get your leads – and your website doesn’t count, because it is really just a funnel for converting traffic into prospects. Where do your leads really come from?
I bet you get most of them from just a couple places.
This month, try experimenting with a new method of generating leads. Set a goal of building one new pillar – mastering a new marketing technique and making it work for your business.
In my next couple of posts, I’ll talk about three low-cost pillars you can try.
How to Allocate Marketing Funds
Continuing that last post…
Of course you want to invest in lead gen. That goes without saying. But how much effort do you put into education and credibility?
It depends on what your biggest marketing problem is… Which of these statements is closest to your situation? Read more
Subscribe by RSS
Connect with Me
-
