
There are 700 million active users on LinkedIn—marketers, business owners, decision-makers, and more. These professionals hang out on LinkedIn in a completely different mindset than other social media channels. They are there to make business decisions, collaborate, hire, and outsource.
I’m not saying that other marketing strategies are all a fail against a strong LinkedIn strategy. But other platforms such as Facebook and Instagram have reached a stage where it’s pay to play. LinkedIn, on the other hand, is still in its early phase, so you can have all the organic attention you need.
And if you’re a solopreneur or small business—particularly B2B—LinkedIn can be a goldmine for you. As a copywriter, I built my business solely through LinkedIn, whereby 90% of my business came from the platform while I followed a marketing strategy that never took over half an hour for me per day.
That’s exactly what I’m sharing with you here today. How to:
Ready to build your LinkedIn strategy and work the platform to help generate more leads for your small business? Let’s dive right in.
This is your piece of real estate on LinkedIn. Visitors use it to learn more about who you are, what you do, if you can help them, and how.
Think of your LinkedIn profile as your website because we definitely are going to build it like one. Now follows a series of simple steps to perfect the key elements on your LinkedIn profile.
These elements can either make or break the deal. Many solopreneurs and small businesses don’t realize this and neglect to optimize them—but not you!
Upload a clear and appealing photo of yourself with a solid background. Try bringing out your personality in this image. A solid headshot will convey your personality to your ideal clients and help convey your professionalism.
This is what people see the first moment they land on your profile. In the banner image, you may want to convey:
I’ll explain how.
For instance, if you have a podcast, your banner image would include a picture of you in front of a mic recording a podcast with the name of your podcast, where people can find it, and your contact details.
If you are a published author, your banner image will have an image of your book along with the details where people can find it as well as your contact details.
Or like me, if you have a course or an offer coming up, that will be a part of your banner image.
I believe in having a healthy balance in your headline, between:
SEO-optimize your headline:
Introduce two primary keywords in your headline, preferably as early as you can.
Which keywords? Think about what people are typing in to search for you or your services. Let’s say you are a technology copywriter. Is someone more likely to search “freelance copywriter,” “technology copywriter,” or “technology writer”? Any keyword research tool might help you here!
More often than not, your customers are looking for a person rather than a service, so you might want to use “copywriter” instead of “copywriting.”
Talk to your ideal client:
Next, introduce who you help, how you help them, and what impact you make in your client’s lives or business. My current headline reads as follows:
LinkedIn Lead Gen Coach | Helping copywriters & content creators get consistent high-quality leads from LinkedIn | LinkedIn Strategist & Copywriter for B2B Technology Companies
Let’s face it. If someone is reading your About section, they are really interested in exploring what you do and who you are as a person.
The About section in your LinkedIn profile is like a short coffee conversation where you get to go more in-depth with your ideal client about your headline—how you can help them and why you are the best person for them.
Here’s a step-by-step breakdown of how to structure your About section for maximum impact and conversion.
Start with your ideal client’s pain points or desires and post them as a series of questions. Why do they come to you? What problems do they face in their business or life that you can help them solve? What do they aspire to become? (For more help with effective copywriting, check out these tried-and-true copywriting formulas).
In order to be sure of this part, you need to know your ideal client really well. Really nail this part to increase your conversion rate.
Then talk about what you offer and how you can help them:
Talk about your offer/service. If you have a coaching program or a copywriting package, mention its name, followed by a bullet list of the benefits of what you offer.
For example, a Pricing Mindset coach would say something like:
I offer you:
Next, add 2-3 testimonials from your clients.
This is the final nail to drive home the fact that you’re an expert, that you’ve had client success in the past, and that you can do the same again.
Finally, end the About section with a call to action. Should they email you? Mention your email address. Should they book a call with you? Leave your Calendly link!
Done! You now have a profile that accurately reflects who you are, who you help, and what you have to offer to your ideal clients on LinkedIn.
Next, let’s talk about ways to get your ideal clients to actually visit your LinkedIn profile.
LinkedIn is abuzz with content creators today. But that doesn’t mean you’re late. If you don’t do so already, now is the time to create content for LinkedIn that relates to your target audience and establishes your authority.
Here are three types of content that you should be publishing on the platform:
Why are you the expert on something and how can you convince your ideal clients that you are THE person for them and not one of the many vanilla options? Through content that showcases your expertise on the subject.
If you are an app design expert, showcase your expertise and know-how by talking about the various designing methodologies and philosophies, what mistakes most companies make when designing their apps, how a simple design element can impact the user experience, and so on.
Whether you want to do video collaborations, post simple text content, image content, or podcast episodes is entirely your choice!
Facts tell, stories sell. People relate to people. What stories can you share on LinkedIn that will make you more relatable to your ideal clients? Think about stories that have been formative in your life. Stories that have shaped the way you think and behave. Have you overcome any challenges? Of course, you have. We all have.
Share your stories of vulnerability, struggle, and triumph to allow your ideal clients to relate with you on a human level.
The most powerful content when conveying to your ideal clients on LinkedIn that you are the person for them is your results. If you don’t have numbers and outcomes to show the transformation you facilitated for a client, your words will carry less clout.
Share your experience of working with a client, any challenges you faced during that project, and what sort of transformation you were able to achieve for them. For instance, for a landing page copywriter, this might mean conversion numbers from their landing page.
For a life coach, this might be the story of a client’s journey through their program. Tangible or intangible, your results for your clients are key!
By focusing on creating content on LinkedIn in these three areas, you are sure to create some buzz and generate leads around your services and offers.
Pro tip: Add a call to action to work with you, download your freebie, join your email list, etc., at the end of results-based and expertise-based posts, but not more than twice a week!
The next component to generating leads on LinkedIn is your LinkedIn connection strategy. If you are just starting out on LinkedIn, reaching the magical 500 connections will be your first priority. A lot changes and improves when that happens, including the engagement with your content, how often you appear in search results when your ideal client puts in your primary keywords in the search bar, and more.
Start by connecting with people you already know. This will rule out the possibility of you entering a deadlock:
“People don’t connect with me because I have only a few connections and I have few connections because people don’t connect with me.”
Then, start moving on to your ideal clients.
How to find your ideal clients?
Let’s say as a business writer or copywriter, your ideal clients would be marketing managers or content executives at companies.
Type in what keywords describe your ideal client in the search bar on LinkedIn. Set the available filter options. And hit search.
From the search results, qualify your prospects based on where they’re based, how big a business they run, etc. after you qualify someone as your ideal client, wait up!
Before sending them a connection request, engage with their content with thoughtful, value-add comments. Thrice to be sure that they recognize you when you send them a connection request after. (P.S. for more help with networking emails, check out our networking email templates and subject lines post).
The final step to generating more leads on LinkedIn is to engage. Look for the right conversations to partake in inside the most popular hashtags in your industry. These might be #business, which has 3,620,695 followers as of this moment, #entrepreneurship, which has 22,837,112 followers, #LinkedIn, which has 1,094,074 followers, or #sales with 5,854,934 followers.
You might also want to explore more niched-down hashtags as per your industry and service. For instance, #copywriter with 17,562 followers or #copywriting with 639,916 followers.
The point is to be intentional with where you hang out on LinkedIn. For strategy purposes, you might want to list five hashtags that you consistently engage in for two months and then you might want to switch them up.
Think about:
Now, as you explore these hashtags, engage with five posts a day. Pick these posts judiciously and try offering as much value as possible as you comment on and engage in these conversations.
As you do so, you will start getting more visible and people will start checking you out. Building the right conversations among your ideal clients can be a super powerful way to establish your expertise.
Keep in mind, this is strategy #2 from the previous section—engaging with the content that your ideal client posts.
The one thing that makes a difference in what results you get from all of the things I’ve talked about in this post is consistency. Consistency is a game-changer. Because not everyone hits the gym every day. Not everyone reads a page every day. Not everyone posts on LinkedIn every day. Not everyone engages on LinkedIn every day.
And every time you do something consistently, you are leaving those behind who didn’t feel like doing it today. But most importantly, you are creating a compound effect that gives you the best of results whether in your business or personal lives.
Building a strategy that’s doable is more important than building one that’s perfect.
So create your own game plan for LinkedIn and your ideal clients will line up for you.
Divya Agrawal is a LinkedIn strategist and founder of the LinkedIn Lead Gen Academy for coaches and copywriters. Download the Find your Ideal Clients On LinkedIn- a Mythbuster and Kickstarter Guide.
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