Discover what times you should be making cold calls to maximize the chances your prospect answers the phone and eventually converts.
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.
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:
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 is encountering 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.
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.
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.
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 the profile speak to the needs of your ideal customers who’ll be visiting it.
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.
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.
"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:
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:
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.
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:
A finished LinkedIn summary might look like the following example:
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:
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.
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 to LinkedIn:
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.
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.
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 last 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:
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.
As you’re publishing articles and posts to 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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is LinkedIn’s paid version meant to help salespeople more easily find and connect with decision makers. It also helps them manage their LinkedIn prospecting activities. With it, you can use advanced filtering to find leads outside of your network. And you can then message them even if you aren’t connected. You can also manage your sales activity by saving leads, creating custom account lists, and adding notes or tags to leads.
Phantombuster is a growth automation and data extraction tool that helps salespeople automate their LinkedIn activity to grow their network quickly. It can auto-comment and auto-respond on posts and scrape LinkedIn profiles for data such as contact or business information. It can also automatically send connection invitations to a list of LinkedIn users. This is a great tool for those looking to growth-hack their LinkedIn presence and authority.
Meet Alfred is a diverse LinkedIn automation tool that focuses mainly on helping you create, manage, and track your LinkedIn selling campaigns and outreach using its built-in CRM system. It can also automate some of your outreach sequences, allowing you to send bulk InMails or connection requests. It’s best for those looking for a one-stop-shop tool for LinkedIn lead generation 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.
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.
Cleverly is a great option if you want to outsource your LinkedIn sales outreach and lead generation for affordable prices. The company focuses on building lists of leads, sending them effective LinkedIn messages, and providing you with a dashboard to respond to leads that respond positively to the messages, as well as to track metrics. Cleverly’s pricing increases depending on how many prospects you’d like them to interact with each month.
Pearl Lemon Leads is a marketing agency known for their personalized approach. They spend a lot of time learning about your business and needs in order to craft a specialized LinkedIn strategy that helps you achieve your goals. Though strategies vary, they often involve messaging leads, posting content, and enhancing your sales team’s profiles. Though pricier than Cleverly, it’s worth it if you want ongoing collaboration and a personalized experience.
Sculpt is a B2B lead generation company that specializes in creating and managing ad campaigns across Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram to book appointments with decision-makers for businesses. According to Sculpt, clients can expect booked appointments by the first 100 days, as well as higher than average cost-per-clicks and higher quality leads. Below is their social ad process explained:
If you’d like to check out in-depth descriptions of the top options, check out our buyer’s guides on the best LinkedIn marketing agencies for support with your organic and paid lead generation or the best LinkedIn advertising agencies if you only want help with paid strategies. There you’ll find each business's pricing, use cases, and core services so you can find the best fit.
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 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. When you regularly water your audience, leads will begin to sprout.