LinkedIn Marketing: 9 Business Development Actions Few People Use

What would be your answer if you were asked to name the five most important business development factors for your business? Would it be the most creative marketing, the best knowledge of your market, or your LinkedIn marketing action tips?

Yes. Of course, those answers are important. But are you wondering how LinkedIn can help you generate and connect with leads?

More marketing campaign examples.

LinkedIn is a top go-to social platform for generating leads and building trust with your ideal prospects. So you should want to manage your LinkedIn prospects more effectively.

Let us show you some LinkedIn business development action tips that will help:

LinkedIn marketing … join LinkedIn ProFinder

If you’re a freelancer or independent professional, consider becoming part of LinkedIn’s ProFinder network. This is a place where LinkedIn members can seek out experts for a service, such as designers, writers, editors, accountants, marketing consultants, web developers, and more.

To access ProFinder, click the Interests tab on the LinkedIn navigation bar and select ProFinder.

Here’s how ProFinder works. If businesses are looking for a provider, they answer a few questions about the services they’re seeking and specify a time frame and budget.

LinkedIn then connects them to the best local professionals from their vetted list. Businesses receive bids for their work delivered directly to their inbox.

If you want to apply to be a ProFinder provider, go to the ProFinder signup page. Answer the questions as prompted to clarify your areas of expertise and complete the signup process.

It’s important that you have current recommendations on your LinkedIn profile because potential leads will see them in your ProFinder profile.

Your Summary section could also be key to getting hired, so make sure your summary details are complete. It’s where you explain why you’re the best choice and what makes you credible, and describe the results you’ve achieved for others.

Note: After submitting ten proposals, LinkedIn may ask you to upgrade your subscription before they share more leads. Also, if you’re in the financial services industry, this probably won’t work for you because of compliance and price quote, which is mandatory when bidding on work.

Search people and get introductions

This method is slightly the other way round: Search for people you want to be introduced to and then figure out who in your network can make the introduction.

Here is how to do it: Conduct a search on Google for people you would like to be introduced to and then see who from your network could introduce you.

For example, conduct a Google search like:

site: www.linkedin.com AND (“keyword 1” OR “keyword 2″) AND (Berlin)

This will only work well if you have a clear notion of your target group and know exactly the right keywords to search for the right people. So pay attention.

Publishing content

LinkedIn allows you to publish content in so-called “Long-Form-Posts”. It also allows you to republish content, which has already been published somewhere else (as long as it is your original content – no need to say that using other peoples’ content is never ok).

Publishing on LinkedIn may not give you the biggest audience, but it has the power to give you a very targeted audience of potential customers and influencers from your niche.

Your post will not only be shared with your contacts and followers. Interested people can also find it via search either on LinkedIn or Search engines.

Optimizing your content for LinkedIn

When you guest post or publish content in a magazine, you are limited by the regulations of the blog or magazine concerning links or call to actions within the actual post. Not so on LinkedIn. You can freely link back to your site or landing pages. It is ezee-peezy.

And you should do it: Add a call to action, link to your site or a whitepaper. Whatever you want to achieve with your publishing efforts, make sure, you optimize your content for it.

Also, since you want your content to be found by your target group, make sure you use the right tags.

When you publish on LinkedIn: Do not miss the chance to connect with the readers of your posts in the comment section. If you get comments: Answer them! And if you manage to get into a conversation with some of your readers, consider to send them a contact request and take the conversation to the next level.

Be engaging in groups

The idea is straightforward: Search for and join some groups where your target audience is present and active. The best groups for your purpose are most likely not groups from your interest area – often in these groups, you will find more of your competitors than your potential customers.

Rather go for groups where your target group is present – and start the conversation about the relevant topics in the groups yourself. Be as engaging as you can.

Do not promote or only share your articles. In most groups sharing articles is either not welcome or it is not worth the effort because all everybody is doing is sharing content.

Be good at reading and commenting. That is the key.

What you are looking for is Conversations: Talk to people and ask questions, start a discussion – and connect to people.

Engage visitors to your profile

When you get a little more active on LinkedIn for instance with publishing and conversations in groups, most likely some more people will visit your profile on LinkedIn. You should regularly check who visited your profile and tried to connect or at least communicate with the people, you think may be relevant to you and your business.

Announce events or specials on your profile page

Now, this article is about generating leads. A common way to do so is to use a webinar or other special content. You build a landing page where people can download or register and where you collect email addresses in return.

When you have a landing page or are going to use a webinar, you can use the profiles section of your LinkedIn profile to make more people aware of your offer.

Simply announce it directly on your profile in the projects section. This makes especially sense when you are getting overall more active on LinkedIn, and more people visit your profile.

Employ third-party tools

If you want to manage your contacts, there are two third-party apps that can help in CRM and follow-up. These tools are sales aids that can save you time and keep your leads organized.

However, remember that nothing replaces building real, long-term relationships with your prospects. Test these tools for your individual sales strategies.

Dux-Soup offers both free and paid versions. The app is ideal for taking notes on your contacts. The Dux-Soup for LinkedInChrome extension will keep track of every LinkedIn profile you visit and let you make notes directly on the profile page.

Nimble is a great social selling tool that integrates easily with LinkedIn. It’s designed for social listening and engagement. The browser extension is available for Chrome and Firefox. You can try it for free with a 14-day trial; the cost after that is $25 per month.

With Microsoft’s recent acquisition of LinkedIn, it’s worth paying attention to what happens with Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 CRM. Who knows? Maybe there will be integration with LinkedIn in the future.

You may want to check out LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator product (which is available as a 30-day free trial) or a CRM such as Salesforce. Typically larger businesses will have the budgets and sales teams to support these products.

Download your LinkedIn connection data

You’ve spent years developing your LinkedIn profile, connections, posts, messages, and recommendations, and those details belong to you. Fortunately, LinkedIn lets you download that information as an archive.

While you can use the Export LinkedIn Connections feature, you can also do a full download of your data to get more detailed information about the people in your network.

To download your data, first, click your photo in the upper-right corner and then click Privacy & Settings in the drop-down menu.

Find the Getting an Archive of Your Data option and click on Change. On the next page, click Request Archive.

In a few minutes, you’ll receive an email message from LinkedIn that they’ve compiled the first installment of your archive. Click on Download It With This Link in the email.

Finally, click the Download button and save the archive to your computer.

Once you’ve downloaded your archive, you’ll have a series of CSV files.

In your Connections file, your contacts are listed by first name, last name, email address, company, and current position. You’ll also find any notes you’ve added to their profiles and the folders you may have tagged them in.

With this data, you can now leverage your connections for prospecting. One way to do this is to upload your ideal prospects to your CRM system.

Follow, track, and connect with your prospects on a strategic level. Your goal is to stay top of mind, and one way to do that is to comment on their status updates.

Also, consider uploading your contact list to a Facebook custom audience and creating an advertising campaign. Targeting your connections with Facebook ads is more likely to deliver results because you already have a relationship.

You can use this tactic to promote webinars, workshops, and more.

Don’t upload your LinkedIn contacts to your email list though. Remember, an email list is permission-based marketing. Adding people to your list who haven’t opted in is an easy way to lose trust with people you’ve worked hard to connect with.

Note: Your LinkedIn archive also includes all of the information in your LinkedIn profile, so you’ll have a record of key data such as your recommendations and endorsements.

LinkedIn marketing … nurture all relationships

Staying connected and top of mind with your audience is paramount to building awareness and developing trust. LinkedIn makes it easy to tap into what’s happening in your network.

Use native prompts to start a conversation

Take a look at the Ways to Keep in Touch box on LinkedIn’s homepage. These prompts are meant to encourage you to engage consistently with the people in your network, so take a few minutes a day to reach out to connections with a personal message.

If you do congratulate someone on an anniversary, new job, or promotion, go beyond simply saying “congrats.” Be specific and mention what you’re congratulating the person for.

Build a reputation as a trusted resource

It’s important to recognize that how we do business has changed. Today’s buyers have access to more information online. They’ve already made a decision on what to buy; the question is who they will buy from? People do business with and refer business to those they know, like, and trust. In other words, they buy from people who have taken the time to build a relationship with them.

How do you add value? By solving the problems of your prospects. Take the time to pay attention to what your prospects’ needs are. You have to be a problem-finder before you can be a problem-solver.

You want to become a valued resource.

To do that, share relevant articles as LinkedIn status updates or as direct messages to prospects, letting them know you want to help. Focus on giving, not selling, as you build your relationships.

Focus on giving to develop meaningful relationships with prospects

Remember, building relationships with your ideal prospects requires consistency. You need to deliver valuable content and meaningful conversation. Keeping these points in mind will help you win trust and get the opportunity to ask for a meeting or phone call.

The bottom line

These tips will help you organize and focus on your ideal prospects on LinkedIn, but you’ll have to do the work of building relationships. Show up consistently and offer value to those you serve, because ultimately that will be your competitive advantage.

Looking to create a smashing brand image?

Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?

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Call Mike at 607-725-8240.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?

Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed how reasonable we will be.

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The Subtle Art of Storytelling Stories by Employing These 7 Examples

Sometimes reality is too complex for us. The art of storytelling does a great job of giving a meaning that can be remembered. Let me ask you a simple question. How do you make your ideas more compelling?

Even if your message is true and important, it’s hard to reach a general audience with facts alone. Improve with better storytelling stories. Make them memorable – stories have the remarkable power to captivate and inspire people.

Do you like to hear a great story? How about telling stories? Great storytelling. They can be a fantastic way to spread ideas. Facts are meaningless without a contextual story.

Don’t tell facts to influence, tell stories. The more you improve storytelling, the more your influence … it is as simple as that.

American Express’s Open Forum, for example, succeeded because it created stories that supported the narrative of the company’s commitment to small businesses. Pepsi Refresh, on the other hand, failed, in part, because it was unable to connect stories of social responsibility with what had always been a carefree lifestyle brand.

Great storytelling is infinitely more than simply producing content. It is, in fact, no less than helping customers connect with the soul of your enterprise.

The truth is that every business has a story to tell – even if they don’t know it – and that’s where improving your storytelling becomes very important.

Here are seven ways that will improve telling your stories to make your marketing stand out from the crowd, plus some excellent examples to learn from:

Storytelling stories … use personalization

What makes you stand out? What uniqueness can you exploit to make you more visible, get people’s attention and give them something to relate to?

Giving your business that personal story and building in your personal touch will make it truly memorable.

Take the Mast Brothers. Have you ever heard of these guys? You likely will soon. They make chocolate. They craft it and pour themselves into every step of the process. And it shows.

They are quirky with a strong personal style. And, more than any other chocolate manufacturer, they are totally dedicated to producing top quality, luxury, handcrafted chocolate. They made a video to tell the story about themselves, what they do, and how and why they do it.

The video ticks all the boxes: it demonstrates their uniqueness, it’s beautiful to look at, it shows personality, it’s engaging, and it takes the audience on a journey.

And I, for one, couldn’t wait to get hold of one of their chocolate bars after seeing it.

Create a point

Every story should have a point. How often have we been regaled with high drama and intricate detail, only to have no payoff? Most of us have seen The Wizard of Oz and can sing out in unison Dorothy’s final words in the story, “There’s no place like home.”

Without that, and without her realization of what she values, her adventures are all for naught. Make sure you have a payoff in your own stories.

Employ dynamics in storytelling

Be dynamic with your storytelling. Nothing is more important to narrative content than imagination and the ability to create curiosity.

Give vivid descriptions and use emotional hooks and curiosity to get people fully engaged. Be creative, not only with words and images but also with the methods you use to convey them. Don’t be traditional. Be edgy.

Here is an example from “The Waffle Shop” in Pittsburgh, PA. Part of a trend to support performance art within the urban core, it is run by college students. The shop brought together people from all walks of life united by the draw of their live streaming talk shows and their waffles.

The shows were shot in the middle of their busy restaurant and included “Waffle Wopp” for teenagers with live music and fun interviews. Anyone could take part in these shows.

The aim was to produce a creative non-profit and for-profit combination model with social impact to stimulate local public dialogue, while simultaneously generating revenue to sustain itself. They had a runaway success, too, so much so that the experiment became a permanent fixture.

Develop your story in ways and formats that appeal to your target audience and make it easy for them to share. Take advantage of the full range of media with a potentially global reach that the internet has to offer.

Think apps, videos, audio, and images for high-level engagement, and ALWAYS give your audience the opportunity and incentive to share easily.

Whatever techniques you use to tell your story, always factor in the nuances of those particular platforms, as the things an audience expects and how they interact differ vastly depending on the arena.

Create emotion

The first time I saw Apollo 13 I was on the edge of my seat asking the question: “Will they make it back?”

On the edge of my seat, I watched as the characters struggled, toiled, prayed to get the astronauts home.

Then I took a step back…:”Wait. I was there when this really happened. They make it back!” So what compels me to watch the remainder of this film every time it comes on?

Ron Howard has the uncanny ability to make the audience care about what happens to the characters. Whether it is through the riveting soundtrack, poignant conversations between husband and wife, or struggles between colleagues, we care.

Create stories that cause us to feel, to empathize, and to understand are critical. Emotion should be created in every facet of the story: words, images, voice, and music. That should be your objective.

Be engaging

Most of us are blessed with a plethora of creative ways to convey our message and get people involved. Interactive content offers a much more open-ended platform through which to tell stories and get people highly engaged.

Your audience can be involved in the stories you create as part of your narrative. They even can be the central characters.

This can be seen working particularly well across social media where campaigns often seek to involve individuals in this way.

Ask your audience members to tell their own narratives, and then intertwine them with your own. This makes them feel valued and also gives something back by involving them as part of something bigger.

And it gives them a place to return to on your site again and again. Let them share their experiences with your brand through product usage ideas, advice and tips, and, of course, success stories.

A great example of this kind of strategy can be seen on the Google website. Google wields the awesome power of its customer success stories with style.

Their “Google Apps for Business” webpage (below) features a photo collage of happy customers.

Through sharing their stories, Google’s clients actually are doing all the marketing legwork for them, enticing new customers to be part of their exclusive Google business community full of real people who have experienced real success.

Amazing engagement technique, yes?

Make the audience care

Whenever I am fortunate enough to see and listen to remarkable stories being told ‘live’ in action, I am struck by their power to pull listeners in, much like a gravitational force that’s impossible to resist.

The best way to pull your audience in is to make them care … emotionally, intellectually, aesthetically. But how do you make the audience care? This is the most fundamental question of all.

There is no single answer. One important answer is having empathy for your audience and trying to craft your story and design your content always with the audience in mind.

You may be wondering …

Stories in all their many forms are never just about transferring information alone. We are emotional beings, like it or not, and to make the audience care enough to listen to you, you have to evoke in them some kind of emotion.

See our article on the Guinness storytelling strategy in this regard.

Have a central theme

Cohesion is vital to successful storytelling. Simply collecting a bunch of stories without much consistency is a quick way to lose the interest of your audience.

You must have a strong central narrative theme to tie them all together. The theme should support your core values, goals, and vision.

So what does this mean in practical terms? Well, rather than thinking of each storytelling campaign as an individual tale, think of them as stand-alone elements sheltered beneath a pervasive umbrella theme.

In other words, the umbrella is the core that distinctly unifies all the stories built around the experience you want your audience to have.

Thinking of your story strategy in this way gives you an incredible amount of freedom with your content. As long as your content follows the same theme, storytelling will bind it together.

For example, in the recent “live positively” campaign by Coca-Cola, all of the content is based around the “live positively” theme. The scope for content that fits within that umbrella is endless, which means they are never short of ideas.

Incorporating such a wide range of topics shows their versatility as a brand and gives them a multitude of ways to connect with their audience, thus widening their appeal. In this particular instance, the folks at Coca-Cola also cleverly have positioned themselves as having a very human, caring side.

This draws attention away from any bad publicity over negative health issues regarding their products, and instead, develops their reputation and association with positivity and vitality.

That’s very sharp on their part, isn’t it and you can make the strategy work for you too.

The bottom line

Great storytelling and stories are a very integral part of being engaging with your community. If you want to engage your customers and create a memorable experience at the same time, you must master the psychology of storytelling. Give them a try today.

Need some help in capturing more customers from your social media marketing or advertising? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with your customers?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to innovating your social media strategy?

Do you have a lesson about making your social media better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find him on Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.