Welcome to my third post discussing a simple LinkedIn marketing system. The last two posts explored Profile and Propagate, if you haven’t read them yet I suggest having a quick look before reading further. Now it’s time to look at promoting your business on the platform.
Promote: the Third P of LinkedIn Marketing
Each time someone connects with you or views your profile it can be considered a touch point for your brand. Developing your burgeoning network and providing further touch points around your brand and company offering, is an efficient way to begin sourcing leads. You can do this in two simple ways by:
- engaging with accepted connections
- posting value-add material.
Engaging with Connections
If someone accepts your invitation to connect, it indicates that they have some interest in what you have to offer. Developing a simple conversation script that generates further touch points is a quick method to uncovering leads. A simple script, where you only move down the process following a response from the contact, might look like the following:
1. Hi, Thanks for connecting, Regards, Chris.
Customer response: No problem. My pleasure.
2. How are you finding the market at the moment, keeping busy?
Customer: Pretty busy at the moment.
3. We’re pretty steady at the moment. How do you manage your contaminated land issues?
Customer response: We manage it well at the moment, but could do with some extra field staff.
4. If you need any advice on contaminated land investigations, feel free to give me a call.
Making the messages short keeps things to the point and incites a reply. No one wants to read long boring messages on the platform. While each response is tailored to each of the Lead’s reactions, a simple script like this can maintain consistent messaging and speed up interaction times.
Posting Value-Add Content
Regular posting on LinkedIn for your target audience is another simple way to keep your company offering front of mind. These posts should not be sales focused but rather adding value through teaching, providing new information or looking at things from a different perspective. Use this opportunity to cement your position as a specialist within the industry or niche.
Relevant posts centred on your offering form valuable touch points that get your customer base thinking about what you do and not what you sell. This is a small but significant difference in gaining the trust of the buyer. Consistently posting two posts a week is enough to start gaining traction and leads. Don’t forget that results won’t happen overnight, consistent action is a must to achieving growth.
Messaging
If you are not sure how to message your offering appropriately, I’d advise reading Donald Miller’s book, Building a Story Brand (Miller 2018), and following his methodology to define your customer, cementing yourself as a guide and mentor around the problem you are helping them solve.
Reading the book and completing the Story Brand Script will set you in the right direction. It recommends putting the customer at the centre of the messaging not yourself. Posts should be about how you make the customer the Hero and what their world will look like with you guiding them. Do not post about how great you are as a business, people aren’t interested in that.
Consistency
Being consistent in adding connections and posting within LinkedIn will yield leads. It is crucial that when someone shows interest in your offering, you respond quickly. Make sure to take the conversation off LinkedIn as quickly as possible. Transfer to email first and face-to-face once the lead is qualified as an opportunity. The discussion should form part of your systems and not be held within a third-party platform.
Final Thoughts
This ends the final part of my series on simple LinkedIn marketing. I think you will agree that getting your company brand recognised on this platform is actually pretty straightforward. Put some time aside this week to revisit your LinkedIn strategy and let me know how you go.
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