Why you should be using LinkedIn to boost your sales

LinkedIn company page
I

You’ve seen it before. You’ve set up your LinkedIn profile and you’re getting messages daily about people wanting to connect. But, how do you actually use LinkedIn to generate leads?

Knowing the opportunities that LinkedIn can provide and how to leverage them will give your business an unparalleled advantage over your competition.

The fact is that getting your prospective buyers attention is becoming more and more difficult these days. Traditional sales and marketing efforts are more expensive and not as effective as they once were. And, given that 90 per cent of decision makers (at least) never answer cold calls ,it’s getting more difficult every day to get in touch with your prospects.

With so much noise and changing algorithms on other social channels (we’re looking at you Facebook), standing out in the crowd ends up being a hit-or-miss result. Which is where you can gain an edge over your competition by using LinkedIn in your sales and marketing efforts.

Any business owner or sales professional knows that to keep cashflow going you need to keep your sales pipeline filled with qualified prospects. And LinkedIn is one of the best ways to do that in a consistent and professional manner. If you’re a sales director or manager, LinkedIn offers powerful advantages for your sales team that might be battling to meet their monthly goals because they are using old data and outdated strategies..

Here are just a few statistics that are likely affecting your ability to meet your sales quota:

  • The chance of closing on a deal drops by 50 per cent if you’re not the first vendor to connect with a prospect.
  • Three-quarters of buyers don’t believe that sales reps understand their businesses well enough.
  • And, buyers are more than halfway through their decision-making process before they ever reach out to a salesperson.

All of these stats highlight why it’s vital that you leverage a tool like LinkedIn to properly research, gain valuable intelligence and are first in your customers minds when they’re ready to buy what you have to offer.LinkedIn is not about hit-or-miss strategies, cold connections or struggling to be louder in an already active marketplace; it’s about deliberately building valuable, mutually beneficial relationships that will continue to serve both you and your potential clients.

When used correctly, LinkedIn enables users to learn about their prospects before reaching out and tailor their messages strategically and thoughtfully – something that buyers really appreciate.

LinkedIn also provides pertinent, timely information about your leads, such as whether they’ve recently changed jobs or changed positions within the same company. Leveraging this information will provide you and your sales team the upper hand over your competition that is still working with old and irrelevant information. Best of all, LinkedIn enables users to easily understand the pain points of your buyer so you can understand their needs and present solutions to their business problems.

If you are wasting money on old-school marketing gadgets like branded mouse pads or buying lists and hiring people to manage that data where it’s difficult (if not impossible) to track the ROI, then it’s time to consider incorporating LinkedIn to your sales and marketing strategy.

This article is the first in a series about how sales and marketing professionals can leverage LinkedIn to turn cold leads into warm prospects and generate more clients for their business.

Sue Cooper, Founder, Online Marketing Genies