How to Use LinkedIn to Acquire New Clients

LinkedIn is one of the most powerful social media tools you can use to grow your business. It can help you increase brand awareness, build authority, generate leads, meet new partners, and much more.

But like many other marketing tools, LinkedIn takes some time to get right. You need to put the right strategy in place and execute it well.

The good news is that there are plenty of ways you can leverage LinkedIn to grow your business.

In this article, we outline 10 ways you can use LinkedIn to generate more clients for your business.

Get the most out of your LinkedIn profile

When trying to improve your LinkedIn profile, you should focus on two areas.

First, think about who your ideal customer is. Second, make your LinkedIn profile reflective of who you are. Clients are looking for specifics in your profile, but they also want someone who can bring something special to the table.

Act as though your profile is the sole factor in a client’s decision to engage you, because in certain cases it may be.

Identify your ideal customer

Get as specific as you can be when describing your target audience; this will help you narrow down your search and weed out unqualified prospects.

Which jobs do they have and what do they do? Which types of businesses do they work for, and what do those businesses specialize in?

In order to find your ideal customers on LinkedIn, it might be helpful to first develop a thorough profile of your ideal customer through the use of marketing personas.

Leverage your personal connections

It’s more convenient to operate with warm leads instead of cold ones. Send a connection request to people you’ve met in your profession at business events, and include a warm, personal comment about how you two met.

Networking proactively is a good idea even if the individuals you meet aren’t likely to become customers.

To make the most out of your connections, you can use a LinkedIn connections app to add tags and notes to your contacts. That way, you can keep track of the feedback you receive from potential customers, and utilize LinkedIn tags to your advantage to bring up a previous conversation and personalize your approach.

Always personalize connection request messages

Avoid using LinkedIn’s pre-written connection requests. Spend the time it takes to compose a brief, heartfelt note.

An interesting fact to mention is whether you have met this person before or if you share a mutual acquaintance with them. Writing a thoughtful note to someone you don’t know is more challenging, but you can still express your appreciation for their work by letting them know how much you love reading their blog or appreciate their efforts in any other way.

Personalizing your message improves its chances of being accepted and makes the receiver more interested in future interactions with you.

Don’t forget to follow up

Send a follow-up message of gratitude to each individual who accepts your LinkedIn connection request. Take care of it as soon as possible, preferably within 24 hours.

Saying thanks is a  great excuse to start a conversation.

Another way to break the ice is to ask a question or make a remark on the other person’s performance or accomplishments.

Find relevant LinkedIn groups

Join several groups on LinkedIn that are relevant to your field, specialty, or areas of interest in order to expand your professional and personal networks. Gathering with like-minded people is a natural approach to networking and finding new customers.

Research the communities your leads have joined. Join the most relevant groups that meet the demographic profile of your ideal clientele if you aren’t already a member.

Not everyone uses LinkedIn Groups, but if you discover a prospect that does, you have a great chance to get on their radar in a way that demonstrates your experience and trustworthiness by participating in relevant discussions.

Publish valuable content

Improving your online and offline credibility through the publication of unique, high-quality content is a LinkedIn best practice.

Sharing useful content can help you build authority in your field, demonstrate your expertise, and position yourself as a thought leader.

If you maintain a blog, you may increase the exposure of your pieces by submitting them to Pulse, LinkedIn’s in-house news aggregator. LinkedIn statistics on published articles might be a useful sign that you’re heading in the correct direction.

Over to you

To get the most out of LinkedIn, you need to have a comprehensive, optimized profile, actively engage in relevant groups, and leverage your personal connections. All of these efforts go hand-in-hand with sharing useful, insightful content.

Give these tactics a try, and be patient.

It will take some time to grow your list of leads and start making sales, but you’ll get there soon.