While you probably use social media all the time, you might be underestimating the power of LinkedIn for growing your business! Developing a LinkedIn marketing strategy will help you network the right way and strategically grow your business. But how do you do it?
Learning to create engaging content, connect with the right people, and join conversations within your niche is a good place to start. You can even kickstart your email list when you know how to utilize this platform.
Here’s how to grow your business with an effective LinkedIn marketing strategy!
What Is LinkedIn?
First thing’s first: what actually is LinkedIn? It’s a social media platform focused on all things business. With hundreds of industries, you’re bound to find people who are looking for what you have to offer!
It’s an incredible platform for networking, forming connections, and even finding possible collaboration opportunities. Beyond that, LinkedIn presents amazing opportunities for building brand awareness and generating leads inside your niche!
LinkedIn is driven by relationships and connections, which is why knowing how to create a LinkedIn marketing strategy is important!
Millions of people use LinkedIn every single day. While you might view LinkedIn as a platform for employers and people seeking jobs, it’s really so much more.
Why You Need a LinkedIn Marketing Strategy
Developing a LinkedIn marketing strategy is a little more complicated than other platforms. It’s important to avoid overt selling and marketing…instead, you’ll need to take a totally different approach.
Spam, promotions, and sales posts don’t do well on LinkedIn whatsoever. Instead, you’ll need to focus on value and education in order to generate leads organically!
But it’s important to remember that an organic LinkedIn marketing strategy can still be super powerful. When you learn to do it the right way, you’ll see amazing results.
How To Create a LinkedIn Marketing Strategy
1. Start Discovering Highly Targeted Customers and Connections
Here’s a secret: you can target leads better on LinkedIn than any other marketing platform.
From honing in on your niche to finding experts interested in what you have to offer, there are so many ways to find your ideal audience!
Especially in LinkedIn’s search feature, you’re able to find super-specific demographics. On the flip side, you can target the content you create so that you’ll show up in specific searches and for specific people!
2. Stay Top-Of-Mind With Your Customers & Clients
In your LinkedIn marketing strategy, you’ll need to focus on reminding potential clients that you’re present, you’re helpful, and you’re available! As a service provider, you need to reach out and repeatedly connect with people in order to see results. The same goes for LinkedIn!
Remember that it’s all about relationships. Engage with other people’s content, provide value, and follow up on messages.
You’ll want to make sure you always respond to comments, messages, or even connection requests! That’s a key part of any good LinkedIn marketing strategy.
3. Focus On Growing Your Email List
Growing your email list is so important in helping your business be successful. That’s a huge part of why your LinkedIn marketing strategy should focus on your email list!
Here’s how to do it.
Whenever you snag a new connection on LinkedIn, it’s time to get personal. Write a little message thanking them for connecting and inviting them to join your email list. You’ll be surprised how many people sign up just based off of that one message!
You can create a template for this, but be sure to highly personalize it for each connection you make! No one likes receiving a message that feels impersonal.
Be sure to also include a note about the benefits of being on your email list. What will they receive? What will you do to support them in return? Reciprocity is really valuable here.
As a bonus tip, remember that you can subtly promote your email list within the educational, value-based content you post on LinkedIn! We’ll get to that content in a second, but consider dropping a line about getting more tips by joining your list.
4. Be Consistent In Posting High-Quality Content
If you’re creating a LinkedIn marketing strategy, you need to think about the types of content you’re going to post. Your content should be targeted to your ideal customer and relevant to whatever problem you solve for them!
There are two main goals for your content:
- Teaching people how to solve a problem or improve something in their lives
- Establishing your expertise, knowledge, and brand within your niche
Whether you pull snippets from your blog content, share snapshots of your work and testimonials, or develop funny memes, provide genuine value.
That’s what will draw your leads in and help convert them to customers or clients.
6. Consider Joining LinkedIn Groups & Actively Participate
One really essential component of your new LinkedIn marketing strategy is to join groups.
Groups are one of LinkedIn’s most powerful features for connecting with people in a deep way. Join groups that are relevant to your business and niche. Answer questions, join the conversation and, as always, offer real value!
You can also send those personalized messages to members of groups you’re in, even if you haven’t connected with them yet.
To take your LinkedIn marketing strategy to the next level, you can also start your own LinkedIn group. You can message members of other groups, provide value, and then encourage them to join your group for even more tips. This means all of your best leads land in one place!
With groups, you can form amazing relationships and provide value to the right people in a more personalized setting. Just remember—focus on value, not overt sales posts!
How (& Why) To Track Your LinkedIn Marketing Strategy Success
Like any marketing strategy, tracking your metrics is actually the most important step!
To fine-tune your LinkedIn marketing strategy, you need to consistently evaluate its success and adjust from there.
Which posts are performing well? Are your messages generating leads? How many of your website visitors, email subscribers, or even conversions are coming from LinkedIn?
Using a CRM, or customer relationship management program will help you track which leads are coming from LinkedIn.
Even better? Try using Google Analytics to track traffic sources like LinkedIn. This will help you evaluate what’s working (and what isn’t) so that you can improve and find more success. The best way to do this is tagging your links so you can track them and know which campaigns are driving the most traffic to your website and which ones are resulting in the highest conversions.
Building a LinkedIn marketing strategy for your business is a great idea! These tips will help you get started and solidify your presence on LinkedIn without tons of extra stress. Once you have the basics down and start tracking your metrics, you can fine-tune your strategy to maximize your results.
Maximizing your traffic doesn’t have to be overwhelming!