If you are a small business operating within the B2B space, chances are you are active on LinkedIn to build and maintain relationships with various colleagues and clients. But, are you using LinkedIn to its full potential? Earlier this year, the social network for businesses introduced their LinkedIn Lead Gen Ads which are designed to help business account holders on LinkedIn make the leap from networking to generating leads on the platform.
LinkedIn’s new development has a lot of potential, but like everything to work well, it needs to be done right. Let’s see how you can do that.
What are LinkedIn Lead Gen Ads?
LinkedIn Lead Gen ads run within the LinkedIn app (not on desktop, interestingly enough) and work alongside your traditional ad as an additional tool to garner better results from the existing ad.
They allow you to specify what type of information you would like to collect from your new leads. This may be an email address or a combination of different information. You can specify up to 7 types of data you would like, though generally selecting three or four fields is optimal.
LinkedIn then does the hard work for the new lead, instead of having to type in their personal information themselves, in order to avail of your lead magnet, the information is collected from their profile automatically by LinkedIn. This should cut down on typos in contact details making the data you receive more reliable on the whole.
The set-up process is quite straight forward, you fill out a form which you can find in the Account Assets menu of the LinkedIn Campaign manager. Consider how you complete the form carefully as once it has been submitted you cannot make changes to it and will need to start again. Each part of the form should be designed carefully with your target audience in mind. Avoid the desire to rush it to get it active as quickly as possible, a well-worded campaign will produce better results than a hastily created one.
Why would you want LinkedIn Lead Gen Ads?
As a business, social networking has two main objectives. Firstly, generating new business and secondly, nurturing positive relationships with our existing and potential clients. The first part of the equation is generally taken care of by running ads while the second part is more to do with how we interact with people on an on-going basis.
However, getting to the point where a potential lead gives you their information can be tricky, though they may click through your ad, there is no guarantee that they will progress to fill in the subscription box. That is where LinkedIn Lead Gen ads come in.
As we mentioned, this type of ad is not a standalone offering, it runs in conjunction with your existing ad to help you get a better return on your efforts. What is that better return? It is the data, highly prized today don’t forget, that your potential leads allow you to have in return for the lead magnet you are offering.
Using Lead Magnets
We have mentioned lead magnets twice, so let’s take a minute to discuss this part of the LinkedIn Lead Gen ads. Anytime you are trying to generate new leads, an agreement of sorts takes place. If it is a face to face meeting the agreement may be that you will work together for mutually beneficial ends. When the interaction takes place online, or in an app like LinkedIn, generally the agreement is that you will provide something of value to the potential lead in exchange for being able to contact them about your products and services in the future. In order to do this, the potential lead entrusts you with their contact details.
The item that you offer in return for the leads data is called your lead magnet – and it has to be worth parting with our personal data. While LinkedIn Lead Gen ads take a lot of the hassle out of the process, you must ensure that your offering is top notch in order to attract those leads in the first place. You may offer a free e-book or access to a webinar, but whatever it is, remember that as first contact with your business, it needs to create an excellent impression to keep this new customer continuing down the sales funnel and completing the sale at the end.
If you have created a compelling advertisement to run on LinkedIn and you have a company page on LinkedIn, there is no reason why you can’t try out LinkedIn Lead Gen ads to see how they work for your business. However, once people start to click through and provide their details to you, it is up to you how you make best use of this information. You can easily download it from LinkedIn at any point for up to 90 days after contact with the individual. Now that you have been granted access to your lead’s inbox, what will you do now?
If your small business is struggling to get the time to maintain your presence on social media, don’t fall behind. Let us at Effector help take the pressure off so that you can continue to do what you do best!
