This entry is a follow-up to my previous article in the Growth Hacking series: “Startups – How to get your first customers?”. I recommend you check it out if you’d like more information about the basics of the Growth Hacking methodology.
The content of this article is based on a talk organized by the Axel Springer & Porsche accelerator and presented by Daniel Levelev (Le Wagon, Growth Acceleration). Check out his great work too!
Here, I’m going to present you some tips & tricks to incorporate LinkedIn into your Growth Hacking processes and how to leverage the platform into a sales channel, mainly for B2B. Enjoy!
This one is a no-brainer but it’s still important to mention and there’s actually a lot you can do to optimize your LinkedIn profile.
– First of all, complete your profile. There’s a completion bar that you can observe on your profile page, let’s aim for 100%.
– Create a custom URL that includes your full name, it’ll be easier for people to find you.
– Take a nice picture! Smile & zoom on your head, preferably opt for a neutral background.
– Chose the right keywords to complete your profile. You would like to be found because you did some back-end development & SEO but you’re also keen on copywriting? Add it to your profile.
– Avoid buzzwords and old school sleazy BS though. “Helping people do this & that…” was cool a few years ago, it’s not anymore. Would you find it interesting if my tagline was: “Helping you become a Growth Hacking master by adding value for your customers at every step of the process?” No, because it’s BS! You’d prefer seeing: “Teaching you the basics of marketing techniques & how to incorporate them into your Growth Hacking processes.”
– Which leads me to your headline, choose it carefully & mindfully. It’s the first sentence on which people will base themselves to evaluate you. As we all know, first impression matters & it matters the most.
Wait there’s more…
– Complete your summary based on the previous pieces of advice and do not forget to add external links to your website (if you have one), but also to any other media that can further your goals.
– Fill in your job descriptions. And here’s a small tip here, you can have multiple job descriptions for one job. Jump on the occasion and create many if you feel like there are various sides of a specific work you’ve engaged in.
– Recommendations & skills are especially important for LinkedIn SEO. When a new position opens in your favorite company, the HR representative will compare the required skills she/he has filled for the position, and match it with the applicants that demonstrate the best possible fit. Furthermore, it increases your credibility as a seller.
– Endorsements. It’s great to get some endorsements, it’s better to give some in return. Who would want to work with someone heavily endorsed but which never gave some back?
– Status updates & posts. Please, post original content & articles. First of all, it allows your network to know that you’ve got some knowledge to share and that you’re gladly sharing it with them. Second, it helps regarding your profile’s visibility & credibility.
Crafting a nice profile is great, now it’s time to start selling. Though, how do you start selling?
By engaging in one of the most important activities in marketing, defining your target audience/group. The easiest way for you to define your target group on LinkedIn is still to subscribe to Sales Navigator.
Yes, it’s pretty expansive (50 euros/month) but it’s also pretty amazing. Just as a reminder, LinkedIn represents a network of more than 610 million users, and there is a lot of CEOs & decision-makers out there!
Sales Navigator is a big database of LinkedIn profiles that you can scrap thanks to a broad range of filters. You can either search by “Lead” which is a single professional profile or by “Account” which represents a company profile.
Thanks to this tool, it’s simple to select your targeted group but I still recommend you define your User Personas first hand to have a concrete idea on who you’d like to reach out to.
The scope of Sales Navigator doesn’t stop here though as you can see your social selling index compared to other people in your industry/field, send InMails, observe who has looked at your profile, etc.
More info here.
In the following sections, I’ll address how you can draft LinkedIn Ads based on the target group you’ve defined thanks to Sales Navigator & how you can automatize your network expansion.
There are 3 types of Ads on LinkedIn:
And 2 types of networks:
– The main LinkedIn network with its 610M users.
– The Audience Network which represents the banner ads on 3rd party websites.
Furthermore, your Ads can serve different types of purpose/objective:
You should define your audience based on the insights you’ve drawn from Sales Navigator.
Reflect upon & choose from the most relevant criteria:
– Company
– Demographics
– Interests
– Education
– Job Experience
The structure of your LinkedIn Ads should look like this:
Regarding your budget, you can try things out whatever your funds are. I would advise you to launch multiple Ads at the same time and observe which one performs the best. Then? Double down on it.
Regarding the automation process on LinkedIn, there are many truly marvelous tools at your disposition to help you reach out to your Sales Navigator target group & build meaningful relationships.
I would recommend you to check them out and see what you feel is the best for you. Those tools come with detailed guides on how to use them but don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you feel stuck somewhere.
– Zapier – Automation (get notified of any actions happening on your online social platforms & tools)
– LinkedIn Helper – Automation (integrated into Sales Navigator, helps you connect to leads, send personalized messages & overall broaden your network)
– Integromat – Data Scrapping & Automation (lots of apps & tools automation)
– PhantomBuster – Data Scrapping & Automation (lots of apps & tools automation)
My insights:
“With great power comes great responsibility, please don’t spam!” – Whatever uncle of Peter Parker.
No one likes to get pushed too much so use terms that are not directly related to the selling lingo.
Spend some time drafting a mindful & relevant template for your automatized messages. Even if you’re going to reach out to 100 people per day, the goal is to optimize your conversion rate!
Please, do not spam users and be moderate when you add links to your
. Have a reason for sending a link and always try to further the relationship first.Always prefer building relationships over directly trying to sell, you can always follow-up with an offer later!
Respect the daily limits that automation induces. More on how to never get banned due to automation in this article.
To find anyone’s phone, e-mail & even personality.
Tools: Lusha (phones), Pipl.com (phone & e-mails), Crystalknows.com (to know anyone’s personality)
Do things that don’t scale, very brainy & when it works; double down on them!
Connect your audience on LinkedIn & invite them to your event!
Tool: beautiful.ai
Come join us for an intense one-day workshop and master Customer Journey Mapping, a technique that will open up new doors for your business!
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