LinkedIn Lead Generation: Strategies, Steps & Expert Tips

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LinkedIn lead generation is the act of engaging with potential buyers on LinkedIn to convert them into leads. B2B sellers do this by building relationships with decision makers using free tactics like direct outreach, then marketers support those efforts with paid strategies like advertising. Since LinkedIn’s users are there primarily to learn about industry trends and find ways to improve their businesses, it's an ideal environment for sellers to open up sales conversations.

How LinkedIn Lead Generation Works

Salespeople generate leads on LinkedIn by building authority on the platform, developing personal relationships with decision makers, and influencing them to take an action like signing up for a newsletter or accepting a discovery call. There’s a variety of free strategies you can employ, plus paid methods to then boost their effectiveness. We’ve sorted both types into a step-by-step process; while you can choose a few to try, we recommend following the steps in order.

Here is a process businesses can use to successfully generate leads for free on LinkedIn:

1. Build an Optimized Profile: Create a personal, professional LinkedIn profile that paints you as a credible and helpful member of your industry.
2. Build Authority on the Platform: Post insightful LinkedIn updates and publish content onto the newsfeed to start building a reputation as an expert with your target audience.
3. Create an Enticing Offer: Provide demos or short calls that’ll help leads learn more about your solution if you’re a seller, and create content like ebooks or webinars if you’re a marketer.
4. Make Your Offer to Ideal Leads: Pitch the offer over direct message to individual leads or post them in industry groups.
5. Boost Your Efforts With Paid Strategies: Run ads to expand your reach or use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to supercharge your overall LinkedIn lead generation strategy.

LinkedIn lead generation is powerful as a standalone strategy, but it's even more successful when part of a larger, more diversified lead generation approach. For example, many businesses will use it in tandem with cold email outreach so that each lead encounters the salesperson and brand frequently and from multiple angles. The same applies if it's one of many networks you’re using in your social media lead gen strategy.

The reason LinkedIn lead generation is so effective for B2B salespeople is that it enables them to form intimate connections with decision makers through a personal profile rather than a business page as you’d find in several other types of social media lead generation. Leads can see your face, scan your accolades, and read through the industry-related content and posts you share. In doing so, leads come to trust you as an expert and a peer and are therefore primed to accept an offer.

Who Should Use LinkedIn Lead Generation

LinkedIn lead generation is most effective for B2B salespeople wanting to make connections with other business professionals. Within the B2B sphere, there are many different use cases, but they can be boiled down to two overarching uses — sellers doing direct outreach/social selling and marketers running ads. Both are trying to engage and convert quality leads.

Let’s take a look at some more specific LinkedIn lead generation use cases:

On the other hand, LinkedIn is all but ineffective if you are selling a B2C product or service. For instance, a jewelry store should probably avoid spending time trying to get leads on LinkedIn. No one is there to buy jewelry. They’re there to learn about and do business. If you're looking for inbound B2C lead generation, check out our article on Facebook lead generation.

Best Free LinkedIn Lead Generation Strategies

There are free and paid strategies you can use to generate leads on LinkedIn. The free ones are primarily for salespeople and include strategies to build relationships on the platform with ideal leads and to warm them up enough to agree to a meeting. There is a process for generating these leads for free, which we outline below. Follow it sequentially for the best results.

1. Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile

First and foremost, create a LinkedIn profile that convinces potential leads of their expertise in the industry. This profile will be the first place leads on the platform go if they want to learn more about you, whether that interest in you is prompted by a post you shared or a message you sent them. Below, we’ll tell you how to paint yourself as an informed professional and also how to make your profile speak to the needs of your ideal customers who’ll be visiting it.

Study Your Target Audience

First, look over your ideal customer profile (ICP) and make sure you understand the type of lead you're trying to attract. Learn about their needs, pain points, interests, and more. Reviewing this information will help you craft messaging on your LinkedIn profile that speaks directly to your target audience. If you lack an ICP, build one or, for the time being, find commonalities between your current customers by jotting down their demographics and stated reasons for buying.

Study Quality Profiles in Your Niche

To gain inspiration for your LinkedIn profile, study the profiles of other successful sellers in your niche. Note the LinkedIn headlines, summaries, and banners that strike you as strategically savvy. And don’t be afraid to borrow the underlying principles of their messaging. For instance, if you like the structure of a peer’s summary, use it and tailor it to fit your own needs.

Use an Attractive Profile Picture

"Attractive" depends on what your ideal customers want to see from their vendors. If you’re selling to a new, casual startup, you can make your profile picture more informal. If you’re selling to Fortune 500 or corporate companies, you might want to skew to formal attire with a plain backdrop. Regardless, look presentable, friendly (smiling still works), and trustworthy.

Below are some different photo styles that work well:

Personable Photo

Add some personality to your picture like Matt Green does in his profile photo, playfully tugging at the tie and dropping an eyebrow. This style helps you come across as personable and fun, which might humanize you for your leads.

Action Shot

Show yourself in action like Lindsay Tjempkema, who is in the middle of a presentation in her photo. Showing yourself in your element is a great way to signal credibility. Plus, you’ll come across as confident — something that always helps you land meetings in sales.

Classic Professional Picture

Dress up in professional attire and flash a smile like Zach Ciliotta-Young. This classic photo makes decision makers see you as professional and trustworthy, which can be especially useful if you’re selling to corporate executives.

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Write a Headline That Hooks Your Target Buyer

Craft a LinkedIn headline that is short and to the point. It should make it easy for your potential leads to quickly understand who you are and who you help when they come to your page or see your headline in the messenger app. When a potential buyer finds that they fit the description of the people you help, they will be more open to having a conversation with you.

Here are a few effective LinkedIn headline formulas:

• I Help X Accomplish Y Through Z: Explain who your target customer is, the main benefit you provide to them, and how your product or service helps you do that.
• Job Title | Service 1 | Service 2: An example is "freelance B2B writer | long-form blog posts | ebooks." This tells the decision makers what you offer right off the bat and can also help your profile appear in LinkedIn searches, passively generating inbound leads.
• Your Unique Selling Proposition: A business owner might write “double your client base in 2 months with my Facebook ad strategy.” This makes people curious to find out how you provide such amazing benefits.

Your LinkedIn headline is a great opportunity to get people interested in you and your business. Ensure that it speaks to their needs, desires, or pain points for the best results.

Craft a Customer-Focused Summary

As a sales rep, use the about section of your profile to write a customer-focused story that demonstrates how you can help your clients succeed. This way, when a potential lead reads your summary, they’ll have a firm grasp on the value you offer. With this context, they should be more open to accepting your offer in step six, or, better yet, they may even reach out to you first.

Below is the process and structure for writing a sales-oriented LinkedIn summary:

• Mention Your Target Customer: Start your first sentence with the title or company type of your ideal customers.
• Name Pain Points Your Customers Face: List a few issues your average customer has, along with the cost of letting these problems fester.
• Introduce Your Solution: Describe how customers, including a few top brands, come to your company for help. Mention your company and the solution that helped solve the aforementioned pain points.
• List a Few Benefits: Build desire by talking about the positive results your clients often experience when working with you or purchasing your product.
• End With a Call-to-Action: Tell the potential customer what action you want them to take. Usually, this is asking them to call or email you to learn about your business.
• Give Your Contact Information: Write your phone number and email address so that leads can reach you.

A finished LinkedIn summary might look like the following example:

2. Post Updates Your Audience Will Enjoy

Now that you have a professional profile, start getting your name out there and engaging with your audience by posting insightful updates to the LinkedIn newsfeed once a day. This expands your network because the LinkedIn algorithm will place your posts on the pages of non-connections. Often, these are ideal leads who might then follow you. From then on, they’ll receive all of your posts. Down the line, you can make your offer to them in a direct message. 

Your LinkedIn posts can be any of the following:

• Your Thoughts on Relevant Industry News or Trends: For example, after a new law is passed, a commercial real estate salesperson might connect it to a historical example and draw a conclusion about how the law might affect its clients.
• An Update About Your Business: Perhaps you’re launching a new feature. In that case, quickly explain its benefits and give links to videos or articles so people can learn more.
• Your Industry Advice and Insights: For instance, a salesperson at a B2B fintech company might share ways small businesses can reduce operating costs this year.

By posting regularly, you’re essentially making yourself a go-to resource for your audience. Decision makers in the industry will look forward to your posts, and perhaps even comment on them, thereby giving you another avenue for building relationships — simply reply to the comments when appropriate. This not only makes potential leads feel more comfortable with you, but it also helps the LinkedIn algorithm, which expands the post’s reach.

3. Publish Articles Relevant to Your Niche

After you’ve mastered posting, start building more authority on the network by publishing articles relevant to your niche on a regular basis (1–2 times a week). This works because when decision makers have seen your articles, they’ll be more likely to reply to your direct messages later on. You can use LinkedIn like a blog and publish them directly on the platform. Or you can share articles you’ve published off-platform on your website or another one like Medium. 

Here are some types of valuable articles to write and publish on LinkedIn:

• Guides Addressing a Common Problem: How-to guides help your target audience overcome common issues. Example: A CRM software salesperson shares tips for cleaning up disorganized pipelines or workflows.
• Articles Explaining Industry Trends: These teach readers how to navigate a new environment and seize opportunities after an industry shift. Example: An SEO agency salesperson sharing an article on a new blogging tactic after a Google algorithm change.
• Case Studies About Happy Customers: Success stories will show your audience how your business helps companies like them. Example: A financial advisor sharing a story about a client who successfully saved for an age 70 retirement starting at age 60.

You don’t necessarily have to write the article yourself for this tactic to work. The article could be written by your marketing department or even shared from another publication. However, for optimal reputation-building purposes, writing it yourself is most effective. Then decision makers see you as a knowledgeable authority. If you don’t have time to write it, note a takeaway from the shared article at the top of the posting.

4. Choose or Create Your Offer

You need something to offer to your potential leads on LinkedIn. Accepting this offer is what converts them into leads. For salespeople, the offer typically takes the form of a short phone call to learn more about a specific product or service that can help the decision maker’s business. In this case, no creation is necessary, aside from preparing the structure of that sales call.

On the other hand, businesses using paid strategies like LinkedIn advertising (we'll discuss paid strategies below) might also create a lead magnet they can offer in their ads in an effort to collect a potential lead’s contact information. Lead magnets on LinkedIn often take the form of ebooks, webinars, product demos, industry reports, or other helpful resources.

Typically, having both offers is most effective. Salespeople can directly ask people in their network to take meetings, while marketing can capture contact information and nurture leads who aren’t ready to take a meeting yet. For more on creating an offer, check out how to create a lead magnet you can run in your LinkedIn ads or post in industry groups, which we'll talk about next.

5. Participate in Industry Groups

Now that you have some credibility on the platform and a valuable offer, start participating in industry groups filled with potential leads. There you can add value to the members through sharing content, answering member questions, or even recommending your offer from the previous step. In time, group members will begin to view you as a helpful member of the group who they would enjoy doing business with, hence, they’ll be more likely to accept a call with you.

Below is an example of some LinkedIn groups:

To successfully build authority in LinkedIn groups, follow these steps:

• Join Relevant Groups: Find groups that will house your target buyers. For example, if you sell to property management professionals, join a residential management group. If you sell to salespeople, join a sales best practices group.
• Share Relevant Content: Share content on the general LinkedIn feed and in industry groups. Post helpful tips, analyses of industry trends, or helpful blog posts. Also, recommend your offer if it can solve an issue a member mentioned.
• Interact With Group Members: Answer questions, like their comments, and, if it makes sense, mention them — @{their name} — in your comments on posts. This builds camaraderie with group members. Focus these efforts on potential leads.

Aside from joining relevant groups, you can also create your own LinkedIn group to which you can add LinkedIn users who fit your buyer persona. Make sure the group is named something relevant to your buyers. For instance, if you sell to B2B SaaS salespeople, you might name it B2B SaaS Sales Trends. This is another great way to build authority on the platform.

If you follow the bulleted steps routinely, you’ll start to grow on the group members’ awareness. Then, when you direct message them and ask them to accept your offer, they’ll know you as an expert and be more willing to have a call with you. Next, you’ll learn the effective strategy for direct messaging these potential industry group leads and others on the network.

6. Connect & Reach Out to Prospects Directly

As you’re publishing articles and posts on LinkedIn, you should also be connecting with and direct messaging people who seem like quality leads. These could be people from a prospecting list or someone you found during your authority-building activities, perhaps in a LinkedIn group. Through InMail, start to form an even more personal relationship with these people, and after sending a few value-providing messages and starting a conversation, make your offer.

Direct message these types of potential LinkedIn leads: 

• Users on Your Off-Platform Prospecting List: Check if leads from your CRM have professional LinkedIn profiles and message them. This is a perfect addition to cold emailing or cold calling cadences.
• Decision Makers in Related LinkedIn Industry Groups: Reach out to people in industry groups who fit your ideal customer profile. Consider also adding them to any off-platform prospecting list.
• Potential Leads Engaging With Your Posts/Articles: Message people who fit your buyer persona and have commented on, liked, or interacted with your content. The more often they have, the more likely they are to respond positively to the message.

To engage these potential leads over direct message, ask them to connect with a short message describing why this connect is mutually beneficial. When they accept, thank them for connecting. A week later, send another piece of content they might find helpful. Finally, after you've built enough rapport, pitch your offer, explaining why you think it will be valuable to them.

Keep in mind that while these potential leads are going through this direct messaging cadence, they’re also likely seeing your posts on the network, interacting with a few, and becoming more and more familiar with you and your brand. This is the magic of LinkedIn lead generation. People are much more likely to say yes to your request for a call if they feel they know you.

To bypass LinkedIn's messaging limits and improve outreach, salespeople often pay for Sales Navigator, which allows for longer connection messages, or sponsored InMail, which sends messages to many people at once. We’ll talk about these paid strategies and others in the next section, but if you want to pay for a team of experts to do the paid strategies like running ad campaigns for you, skip ahead to learn about the LinkedIn lead generation companies below.

Best Paid LinkedIn Lead Generation Strategies

There are four main tools you can pay for to supercharge your lead generation efforts on LinkedIn: sponsored content, sponsored InMail, LinkedIn lead gen forms, and Sales Navigator. You can use these independently or together for the best results. We recommend doing the free strategies first and then sprinkling on paid methods to get your offer out to more people.

1. Use Sponsored Content

Sponsored content consists of the native ads on LinkedIn, from video to carousel image ads. The main goal of these ads is to direct traffic from LinkedIn to your website, where you'll capture their contact information using the lead capture strategy you employ. Sponsored ads show up on the feeds of your target audience, which you define using LinkedIn’s ad functionality.

2. Employ Sponsored InMail

Sponsored InMail are auto-personalized messages that are sent in bulk to the inboxes of members in your target audience whom you are not connected with. The goal of the sponsored InMail is to get in front of a lot of potential leads and get them to take a certain action, whether that’s downloading a white paper or taking a phone call with you. This helps salespeople initiate sales conversations with more people than they’d be able to manually.

To set up these messages, choose your audience, budget, and objective (lead generation). Then pick the sender name and craft the message (under 500 words), including a call-to-action button that leads can click to submit their information and accept the offer. This button can either open to a lead gen form or take them to a URL. Users can also pick custom fields like “job title” so it populates with the recipient’s information, making it feel more personalized.

After the messages have been sent, you can also analyze their impact. For example, you’ll receive data about the titles or types of companies that interacted the most with your messages. This intel allows you to adjust and optimize your messaging for the next round of InMails, while also helping you narrow down whom you’ll reach out to manually.

3. Leverage LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms

LinkedIn lead gen forms allow you to collect lead contact information directly on the LinkedIn platform. Instead of having to jump to your website to fill out the form, leads can do it right on the platform. These can be attached to sponsored content or sponsored InMail at no extra cost. Unless it’s a custom question, lead gen forms auto-populate fields with the lead’s information if LinkedIn has it on file. This makes it quick to fill out, which can increase conversions.

The above photo shows the setup process for lead gen forms. First, write an intriguing offer headline and some details about the offer. Then pick which pieces of information you want to collect from the leads. Popular options include first name, email address, and phone number. You can also create custom fields if you want to ask other questions.

4. Utilize LinkedIn Sales Navigator

LinkedIn Sales Navigator can help salespeople maximize LinkedIn’s potential as a lead generator. The tool’s filtering mechanism enables you to generate lists of LinkedIn users who fit your ideal customer profile. You can then message individual people you think might be a good fit without being connected to them. But that’s just scratching the surface of its functionality.

Here are some of LinkedIn Sales Navigator’s most useful lead generation features:

• Common Interest/Hobby Intel: The common panel in Navigator tells you what you have in common with LinkedIn members, so you can more smoothly start conversations with potential leads in InMail.
• Alerts for Warm or Hot Leads: LinkedIn will send you alerts when a saved connection has a trigger event (e.g., promotion) signifying a potential new need for your solution. This can help you find opportune times to make your offer.
• Lead Recommendations: Get pre-vetted leads sent to you based on your historically saved leads and account presets. Also, see Navigator’s recommended decision makers and influencers at your target accounts.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator primarily shines in its ability to help you find decision makers and intelligently start conversations with them through InMail. It can especially help you to engage these decision makers as your peers and build mutually beneficial relationships. Along with Sales Navigator, there are other software tools to help you with LinkedIn lead generation.

Top 3 LinkedIn Lead Generation Software

These tools, mostly software or browser extensions, can help you automate and enhance your LinkedIn lead generation process. They can manage your social selling activities, automate the growth of your network, and more. Whether you're focusing on free strategies, paid ones, or our recommended combination, there are tools to assist you.

The top features these lead generation companies offer include advanced lead search, bulk InMail and connection requests, and activity automation. In addition to software, there are companies dedicated to helping their clients generate leads on LinkedIn. We'll look at a few of those next.

3 Best LinkedIn Lead Generation Agencies & Companies

LinkedIn lead generation companies are agencies or consultants that do your LinkedIn lead generation activities for you. These companies typically handle paid strategies like setting up and managing advertising campaigns on the network, often with the goal of booking appointments for your sales team. Marketing agencies might also help you enact free strategies like optimizing your profile and posting content, thereby growing your presence and building authority.

Consider reaching out to any of our suggested agencies for a consultation, demo, or free trial before committing to an agency. Ultimately, any of these options are great choices to help your business both create and manage your paid outreach strategies on LinkedIn.

Benefits of LinkedIn Lead Generation

LinkedIn is where professionals talk business, read up on industry trends, and look for new products and services that can help them grow their business. These intentions of the members make it a perfect environment to kick off sales conversations and generate leads.

Here are some other benefits of using LinkedIn for lead generation:

B2B salespeople leveraging LinkedIn should have an easy time finding people with buying power, forming relationships with them, and converting them into high-quality leads.

LinkedIn Lead Generation Challenges

When deciding to invest any amount of resources into LinkedIn lead generation, whether that's time or money, it's important to understand some challenges or drawbacks sales teams might face. This includes a lack of targeting traffic, delayed lead nurturing, and factoring in the typical cost of the paid strategies or outsourcing to an agency.

Even after considering these disadvantages or challenges to LinkedIn lead generation, it can still be a valuable tool for marketers and salespeople alike. Taking into account these pros and cons, and that there are both free and paid strategies, LinkedIn lead gen can more often than not be a smart move for most businesses to consider.

Bottom Line: LinkedIn Lead Generation

LinkedIn lead generation is the ongoing process of engaging with ideal customers on the network. The more positive interactions you have with your audience members, the better the results. That’s why, more than anything else, you must stay consistent in your efforts. Each day, dedicate time or money to enacting the above strategies. Next, check out our guide on lead nurturing to learn how to begin the nurturing stage with your newly generated leads.

This article was written by Sam Rinko and updated by Allyssa Haygood-Taylor.