Why Automated Lead Generation On LinkedIn Isn’t the Answer
Ever been tempted by businesses that claim they can generate you large LinkedIn networks, and deliver great quality leads for your business, with ZERO input from yourself? This blog is for you if so…
I may as well jump straight to the punchline – don’t give them your money!
This isn’t a criticism, I know exactly how appealing these companies can be.
You’re a flat out business owner, probably running a small team, with barely a moment in the day. You need leads and opportunities, but you absolutely do not have the time to mess around on LinkedIn, and you definitely don’t want to be one of those annoying, cringe people who does nothing but shout about your latest success in your posts.
Let me tell you, there is a different (and much more credible) way! But, before I explore that, let’s look at why you shouldn’t be tempted by businesses that claim to do everything for you.
The first thing to know is that most people seriously hate automation. Messages or emails that are not written by humans usually scream automation to the reader, even when you’re told they’ll look and sound genuine, including if they come from your email address.
What’s more, CEO’s don’t bother reading LinkedIn InMails either. I know this, because this is what several CEO’s have told me. This is largely because the product or service being pitched to them isn’t relevant to what they do (there is SO much malpractice on LinkedIn in this area). They know it’s a generic spray and pray approach, or it’s simply a cold, hard sell. With zero efforts put into any sort of relationship building, it’s not surprising that this method simply does not work.
So, what do CEO’s, leaders and decision makers really value on LinkedIn?
Authentic, genuine conversations, with real people.
Which leads me on to tell you a story.
The reason I’m writing this blog now is because a recent phone call with a team running a highly successful business was the final push I needed to set my keyboard on fire.
Earlier on in the year they’d paid a B2B lead generation business I won’t name, a LOT of money. Upwards of £10k in fact. On the promise of getting quality leads generated for their very niche area of business.
You can guess what I am going to tell you next.
They didn’t get one meeting generated from the activity.
Not one single one!
They recognised it hadn’t been a good investment (!), and were open to listening to suggestions of what could be a more credible approach.
The lead generation activity had generated multiple new connections and was sending out a course of emails, supposedly from the founder of the business. Only of course, he wasn’t writing them, and he wasn’t active at all on LinkedIn.
Not one piece of content was being shared from either himself, the team, or his company page. No relationships were being built, and there was zero time being spent on LinkedIn.
Now you know what’s coming next.
If you want success, you have to be doing more than generating cold emails from email addresses scraped from your connections profiles.
Authentic and credible use of LinkedIn, which will build and generate REAL business relationships and conversations, is built through personal and genuine use of the platform.
So, we go back to one of the first points made in this blog. You’re a busy business owner, with limited time for LinkedIn. However, there are ways to optimise your time on the platform and to tactically increase your reach through your network.
You might want to get help creating content, which you can share from your profile through a third party scheduling tool. But conversations in your direct messages, with the key decision makers you want to build a relationship with, should always be done by you.
Authentic And Genuine Use of LinkedIn Can Be Optimised By Training Teams And Employees
A team effort on LinkedIn is also much more likely to deliver success.
Just one person in the team being active will feel hard. But, if you’re a team of five for example, and four of the five members are trained up to use LinkedIn, have standout profiles showcasing their skills and the business, AND share powerful content, just imagine how much that will extrapolate the reach of your brand awareness on LinkedIn.
Achieving that simply requires your investment into training your team to use the platform credibly, and adopting the mindset that using LinkedIn is a daily business conversation. Content can be discussed in team meetings, colleagues can be encouraged and congratulated on progress made, and the whole team can feel part of the LinkedIn strategy and success.
Food for thought I hope!
I hope you enjoyed reading this blog! I would love it if you would connect with me on LinkedIn here and say hi in the direct messages. If you’d like to find out more about my LinkedIn packages to support company pages, content strategy and group training, head here.
