Searching for leads as a freelancer can feel like trying to find a needle in a haystack. That’s to say, it is nearly impossible with an edge.
LinkedIn can be your trusty magnet ready to pull those golden needles right to you.
However, it’s not just about being on LinkedIn. You have to master it. From zeroing in on your dream clients to giving your profile the sparkle it deserves, there’s a method to the magic.
In this post, we’re sharing this method along with best practices you can use to generate leads on Linkedin.
Define your ICP
Defining your ideal customer profile (ICP) can help you focus your lead generation strategies and content so you connect with the right people and businesses on LinkedIn. You’ll also better understand your customers’ wants, needs, and goals — so you can serve them better.
Your ICP consists of the type of person or business that is most likely to benefit from your services or products. Focusing your prospecting strategies on your ICP will also help you optimize your time on LinkedIn.
To better understand and define your ICP, you can:
- Analyze your existing LinkedIn connections, looking for patterns and types of people or businesses who already interact with you.
- Look for key attributes among your connections or existing customers that make them an ideal customer
- Create a buyer persona or document that helps you clearly track critical information about your ICP, such as title, responsibilities, industry, motivations, size of company, and more
You can also use LinkedIn to help you find additional potential connections that may fit your ICP and learn more about them. For instance, if you’re interested in providing services for veterinarians, you can enter ‘veterinarians’ into the LinkedIn search box to generate possible leads.
While this gives you some names of people, you can also look at the Groups, Posts, and Companies options. These sections will help you find groups your ICP may be interested in and the types of posts they may read. This information can also help you learn more about their interests, needs, and what kind of content they’re reading on LinkedIn.
You also can use LinkedIn’s advanced search filters to help further refine your search, such as filtering by locations and connections.
Then, once you know who your ICP is, start building out prospecting leads. It can help to connect your LinkedIn profile to your sales and marketing platform, like HighLevel. This way you can track how often prospects engage with you on Linkedin.
Optimize your LinkedIn profile
When using LinkedIn to generate leads, potential connections and prospects will likely go to your LinkedIn profile to learn more about you, your services, and your background. Therefore, you want to make sure your profile is complete and optimized to show how you can help your ideal customers.
When completing your profile, you’ll want to:
- Fill out all sections and make sure it’s clear who you serve and how you help
- Choose a profile photo of yourself that is in line with your brand
- Add a background image that showcases your business and helps a visitor immediately understand what you do and who you help
- Write a compelling About section that relates who you are but also shows how you help your ideal customer because an About section isn’t just about you — but about how you can help
- Request recommendations
- Customize your profile URL so it’s easy to share
Engage with posts that match your ICP regularly
LinkedIn provides an opportunity for you to engage with potential clients, build rapport, and create genuine connections. To do this, make time regularly to engage with content and posts that your ideal customers are reading and posting.
Doing this helps show your genuine interest, can provide the opportunity to engage in an exchange with your ICP, and provides a chance for them to see your viewpoints and expertise.
Treat these interactions like a conversation. It’s not about you. It’s about authentically interacting with your ideal clients on topics they’re interested in.
Reply to comments on your posts
A great way to build relationships is to respond to comments on your posts. When possible, further engage with them by asking a follow-up question related to their comment or providing a resource or helpful information.
Again, this allows you to start building a conversation with them and makes an impression — turning a cold lead into a warm one.
Collaborate with others
Another way to build up your connections, build relationships, and generate leads is to collaborate with people with a similar audience. This collaboration allows you and the other person to potentially make new connections with each other’s existing followers.
When collaborating, you can get creative with what you do. Just be sure the information you share is of interest to your (and your collaborator’s) ideal clients.
Some ways to collaborate include:
- Intentionally sharing each other’s posts
- Creating content together, such as a written post or video, that you each share in your feed
- Interviewing experts and posting the video on your feed and asking them to share it as well
Collect and showcase testimonials on your profile
Testimonials build credibility, trust, and are social proof that your services are valuable and can address your customers’ pain points.
Ideally, you’ll want to regularly gather testimonials as you complete projects or get new customers. Testimonials can be written statements or videos. You can share them on LinkedIn by:
- Including screenshots of written statements or videos in your LinkedIn profile, such as in the Featured section
- Request recommendations from satisfied clients through LinkedIn
- Create posts from your written or video testimonials and share them as part of your content strategy, which also helps potential leads see that you’re actively working and shows the types of services you provide
Batch write your LinkedIn posts
Posting regularly helps you stay top of mind with your ideal clients, lets you share your viewpoints and expertise, helps build relationships, and creates opportunities for conversations with your ideal audience.
However, posting regularly can get overwhelming for many people.
To help, batch write your LinkedIn posts in advance. You’ll be able to avoid writing rushed posts at the last minute and this can help you better plan your content strategy.
To help with writing posts in batches, consider:
- Setting aside a specific time each month to brainstorm topic ideas
- Looking at how past content you’ve posted has performed for additional help with generating content that appeals to your ideal clients
- Setting aside a specific time each month to write the content and create any visuals
- Identifying any long-form content you’ve created that you can break up into smaller meaning pieces to share as shorter posts on LinkedIn
- Use HighLevel’s Social Planner to schedule your LinkedIn posts and reply to comments.
Avoid writing “fortune cookie” LinkedIn posts
When writing posts, you want to focus on content that adds value for your ideal clients. Creating interesting and meaningful content will increase the likelihood that people will read your posts and leave comments.
This means you’ll want to avoid overly general posts or basic advice that your ideal audience already knows, or that’s so obvious it won’t resonate or build credibility with your ICP unless they are an absolute beginner. Additionally, posting about topics that aren’t interesting or helpful to your ICP will make it more likely that they’ll start to skip your posts or even unfollow you.
To create engaging content, consider:
- Focusing on your ICP’s interests and pain points, reading content that they are interested in, and paying attention to the questions they have or types of comments that leave on other posts — this can give you clues on topics you can discuss that will engage them.
- Creating a variety of kinds of content, such as written posts, infographics, videos, or slideshows.
- Share your expertise by providing tips or tutorials.
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In sum, LinkedIn can be a critical resource to help you build connections and genuine relationships with your ideal clients, colleagues, and professionals in related jobs who you may want to partner with.
