In recent years the broad accessibility and freedom of information offered by social media has opened up many avenues for those marketing their business. They do this by generating ‘leads’, grabbing the attention of consumers/potential customers, and sparking initial interest that will hopefully lead to an enquiry and eventually a sale. Find a path to hot leads and you could see a spike in targeted consumer interest that rises further through word of mouth, which spreads fast on social media sites. LinkedIn has become an important area of focus for many businesses because of its status as a form of social media specifically suited to working professionals.
What are hot leads?
If a regular lead is the general consumer who requires further gradual persuasion to take interest in a product or service, hot leads refer more to those who currently have a pressing need that your business is ready and willing to satisfy. They generally won’t need much persuasion if they already feel you’re offering what they need and are closest to the buying stage of what we call the sales cycle. Most likely they also have the budget ready to buy what you’re selling.
So it is perhaps no surprise that the professional environment of LinkedIn is a good place to find and nurture these hot leads. But generating them still doesn’t happen without effort on your part. Here’s a few tips for harnessing this site and finding those crucial hot leads:
Build personal relationships
A general advertising campaign can work for initial leads, but when chasing hot leads a more personal approach can pay dividends. The key here is seeking out audience engagement rather than waiting for them to find you. LinkedIn is perfect for this for a couple of reasons.
It is very easy to search for others with similar professional or personal interests, but even better than this is that the site has specialised groups for people with specific interests. Whatever service or product you’re offering, you’ll most likely be able to find a group on LinkedIn filled with people eager to hear about it. Introduce yourself and add that personal touch; you’ll be generating hot leads in no time.
Produce a video and get creative
Another great way to generate online interest is by giving your business its own unique voice. A well-produced promotional video can be an excellent tool both for attracting a hot lead or two and for helping spread word of mouth to others. But this doesn’t have to be a run-of-the-mill promo video that goes through the motions. Get creative with it, inject humour and/or creative design elements while also making it informative. Give your audience the assurance that your business is run by humans, not algorithms, and before long hot leads will start to appear.
Team up with an influencer
Influencers are a major part of online marketing today as they often have a decent following with similar interests to each other and will advertise products they feel could be helpful to that audience. It is worth seeking out an influencer in your field or something similar with whom you may be able to team up to take advantage of a ready-made pool of potential leads. This also adds a personal touch to your product, though in this case the influencer would be your surrogate. Their audience can become your audience in a mutually beneficial partnership.
There are plenty of other ways to generate leads on LinkedIn and other social media sites of course, but hopefully these steps have given you the ideas to get started.