Zero-Spend LinkedIn Lead Generation for New Business

LinkedIn is a great place to market your new product or service. LinkedIn has a large user base that’s there to make professional connections.

When it comes to lead generation, there are great paid options for reaching people on LinkedIn. That’s including, but not limited to, several forms of advertising and LinkedIn Sales Navigator. But you don’t have to spend a dollar to do it if you don’t want to.

You can generate LinkedIn leads on a budget simply by creating a conversation around your product or service. When you do this the right way, you generate brand awareness, interest in your offering, and ultimately leads.

Cover the Basics

Ensure that you have a company page for the business that you’re launching your new offering through. Also, make sure that your company page mentions your new offering and links to it.

You should post about your offering on your individual page and your company page. Pin a post on your company page mentioning your new offering.

Don’t forget about your individual profile in your marketing efforts. Your individual profile should mention your company and new offering.

Covering your basics like this ensures that as you continue to do the work to generate interest in your offering, your audience has the opportunity to connect with your work.

Create Meaningful Content for Your Target Audience

Once your basics are covered, your next step is to create meaningful content for the people you think will be interested in your offering. For example, what questions or concerns does your ideal customer typically have? What problems does your offering solve for your ideal customer? Write a post about it. Then write another. Aim to post at least 1-2 times a week.

Try to work in full-length articles once or twice a month. Articles can dive deeper into the world of your ideal customer than your regular posts do, and be more engaging and meaningful to the people that you hope will buy from you.

Try not to make it too self-promotional in your content. It’s good if your offering helps your ideal customer and you mention that, but remember that the post is more about your audience than your offering. If you’re selling more than you’re helping, the prospect will feel it, and likely not engage with your brand. If your content isn’t resonating with your prospects, it’ll hurt your lead generation.

Find Groups to Participate In

Join conversations that are relevant to your business by joining groups on LinkedIn. Groups are a good place to find people that are connected by an industry, business function or other common interest.

When you find a good group to participate in, make sure to genuinely participate in the conversations, don’t just promote your offering. A shameless plug here and there doesn’t hurt, but you should strive to provide genuine, organic engagement 3 times for every promotional post that you make.

You can even share your meaningful content in these groups, but remember, if it’s about your offering, then you should consider it to be promotional, and you should be helping others 3 times in between your promotion attempts.

Perform Warm Outreach

You will want to keep an eye on those who engage with your content. If someone likes your content or views your profile, you can reach out to them with a LinkedIn message. Since they have already engaged with your content, they will have warmed up to your brand and will be more likely to respond to your message and potentially become a lead for your offering.

Avoid blasting messages to people who haven’t engaged with your content. Sending messages to people who haven’t engaged with your brand can seem spammy, and it can be a waste of your valuable InMail credits. Messaging people who haven’t connected with your brand or offering is a lose-lose for everyone involved, but focusing your outreach on people who have engaged with your brand or offering is an effective strategy.

Always include a call-to-action in your outreach messages. Try and stick to just one call-to-action. Remember, the idea is to encourage them to further engage with your offering. Invite them to view your website or demo your product. They may first check out your profile and company page, but if you’ve covered your basics as we described earlier, then they’ll find a way to engage with your offering there as well.

Follow these steps and people will gravitate towards your content, your profile, and ultimately your new offering. As you get traffic for your new offering, remember that leads are largely a numbers game. The more traffic you generate, the more leads you’ll eventually get as a result. Best of luck!