By The PhantomBuster TeamIs LinkedIn B2B lead generation effective?
Yes, if you're looking to grow your sales with qualified leads by extracting lead data from LinkedIn.
But where do you even get started with generating leads from this massive pile of data?
Today, we'll show you how to use the LinkedIn platform to generate leads for your business.
TL;DR
LinkedIn is a great tool for B2B lead generation. It allows you to easily find key stakeholders and collect their contact information.
To use LinkedIn for B2B lead generation, connect with the right profiles, engage in targeted outreach, and automate these processes using appropriate tools.
Consider investing in sponsored content and LinkedIn ads to capture leads' attention.
To succeed in B2B lead generation on LinkedIn, start by fully optimizing your profile. Then, incorporate the data you gather from LinkedIn into your CRM.
Use advanced search options to identify the right people to connect with and consider investing in LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
Engage with potential prospects by joining relevant LinkedIn groups and utilizing lead generation forms for more than just outreach.
Lastly, automate as many LinkedIn activities as possible while adhering to the platform's guidelines.
PhantomBuster is ideal for LinkedIn scraping, lead enrichment, and lead engagement automation. if you're looking for a multi-functional LinkedIn automation tool that can be plugged into any lead generation workflow, PhantomBuster ticks all the boxes. Grab a 14-day free trial to see if it works for you.
Is LinkedIn good for B2B lead generation?
Yes, LinkedIn is one of the most effective platforms for B2B lead generation. It is filled with key stakeholders of multiple businesses across several industries.
You can easily find and scrape these profiles thanks to LinkedIn's advanced search filters and third-party automation tools.
How to use LinkedIn for B2B lead generation?
LinkedIn lead generation is pretty straightforward once you set the right foundations.
Here is how to use LinkedIn to get qualified leads, even if you're new to this platform.
Connect with relevant people
People are LinkedIn's currency, and the more profiles you connect to, the easier LinkedIn b2b lead generation becomes. However, it's all about connecting with the right people.
This platform has many search filters to help you find the right qualified leads.
You can filter by job title, industry, location, company size, and more.
As you expand your network, you'll grow your Social Selling Index (SSI Score) and have higher chances of the right people engaging with your organic content.
As you build a great list of connections, you can use this as a target audience for your lead generation campaigns in and outside of LinkedIn.
And you can fully automate the process.
Simply enter the search URL in your favorite automation tool and you scrape profile data to build lead lists and automate connection requests to grow your network.
Automate targeted outreach
Personalize your outreach instead of sending the same connection request message to all contacts to increase your odds of generating LinkedIn leads. First, try to build trust.
For example, you can send a personalized message based on the fact that the lead follows the same company page:
Or if you and you and your lead are in the same LinkedIn groups, you can send a personalized message touching upon this:
Even if you send out a large number of connection requests, attaching personalized messages is a breeze with the right tools.
Generate leads with sponsored content and LinkedIn ads
One of the fastest but most expensive ways to do LinkedIn lead generation is sponsored content and LinkedIn ads. Here are some of the most common formats you can use:
Sponsored content (images, videos, text, carousel): this type of content is displayed in potential customers' LinkedIn feeds so it blends in with their regular content.
Sponsored messaging (InMails): conversations and messages that go straight to your ideal audience as LinkedIn InMail messages.
Text and dynamic ads: displayed on the right side of the LinkedIn feed.
LinkedIn Lead gen forms: pre-filled forms that capture the interest of LinkedIn members, helping you turn them into paying customers.
LinkedIn B2B lead generation best practices and tactics
Still wondering how to use LinkedIn for business growth? Here are some best practices to follow so you can get more leads on LinkedIn.
Keep your LinkedIn profile optimized
If your LinkedIn analytics are not showing results, your profile may not be fully optimized for your target audience.
Consider doing the following:
Upload a professional profile photo
Create a clear headline that describes what you do and which pain points you solve
Add your most current details: who you work for and your most recent education
Update your work experience to highlight your most recent positions
Create a unique and memorable website URL with your LinkedIn profile
Doing all of these will help your target audience find you more easily and accept your connection requests more often.
LinkedIn profile annotatedEnrich your CRM data with LinkedIn
CRMs are not only for sales professionals. These tools have the most important data about your customers, and you should use LinkedIn to enrich it.
This way, you can create even more personalized, valuable content and close more deals.
For example, a LinkedIn Profile Scraper can help you keep your CRM up to date. On auto-pilot. No more manually checking lead details or contacting people who moved jobs and become unqualified leads.
Use advanced search filters to find the best prospects
LinkedIn has over a billion people, but only a select group makes for great LinkedIn leads. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to find those people; just use LinkedIn's proprietary tools.
For example, you can use LinkedIn's advanced search filters in combination with Boolean search operators to get highly targeted search results.
Looking for someone with a specific job title, industry, location, and company size? Try this search:
For example: (title:"physician" AND ("medical director" OR "chief medical officer") NOT "resident")
This search string helps you find different medical professions and can be added to your LinkedIn search.
Connecting with the right profiles leads to a better SSI, which in return leads to better results with LinkedIn lead generation.
Invest in LinkedIn Sales Navigator
A free LinkedIn account will only get you so far.
You want to invest in a LinkedIn Sales Navigator account for the best lead gen efforts.
Some of the benefits of using Sales Navigator include:
Unlimited searches with Boolean operators
TeamLink to get introduced to your team's connections
AccountIQ for AI-driven lead gen insights
SmartLink to get valuable insights about your content and who engages with it
CRM synchronization
Join and leverage LinkedIn groups
One of the easiest ways to find like-minded professionals is to join LinkedIn groups.
These are people in the same industry with similar interests and pain points. Engage in these groups and create practical content geared towards your common interests.
Being a part of the same group is a good value proposition you can use for automated personalized messages and sponsored InMails.
Leverage LinkedIn lead generation forms differently
LinkedIn lead gen forms help you collect crucial information from potential leads.
Use that information to send relevant content and engage with the leads in a natural way.
This way, you can warm up the new lead before sending them an actual offer. Engage with their content, like their posts and comment on them, and follow their profiles.
With thousands of profiles, this can be a lot of work. This is why it's smart to use pre-built automation for LinkedIn.
For example, PhantomBuster allows you to set different automated actions on LinkedIn to engage with your leads and warm up the connection before sending connection requests or sales messages.
If you don't already have a list of profiles, you can use PhantomBuster to enrich an existing list from a CRM or create a new one from scratch by scraping LinkedIn data.
Generate qualified leads with LinkedIn events
Generating leads from events is easy with LinkedIn. With the right tools, you can automate LinkedIn event invites, helping you safely invite a large number of profiles.
As invitees start confirming, you can scrape the list of attendees for lead generation purposes.
It does not matter if they actually attended the event or not. The fact that they confirmed participation is a strong enough purchase intent signal for you to act on.
All it takes is the LinkedIn event link to get started.
It takes just a few minutes to get a list of event attendees' profiles.
Now, use automation to connect with each lead through a personalized message related to the event's topic.
This helps you break through the noise and get a response from the lead while, for example, giving relevant information about the event.
Automate LinkedIn lead generation where possible
Whether you run a LinkedIn page or profile, sending personalized messages and engaging with other people can quickly become a full-time job.
Instead of doing LinkedIn lead gen manually, you can automate many processes with the right tools.
Here are some of the things you can automate:
Sending connection requests with personalized messages
Engaging with LinkedIn content (liking and commenting on posts, following relevant profiles)
Enriching lists of leads with LinkedIn profile data
Inviting people to attend events or follow company pages
Automatically endorsing people in your existing network
Exporting lists of employees from certain companies
And much more
Automating all of these actions is perfectly safe as long as you abide by LinkedIn's limits.
Best B2B lead generation tools
You can rely on automation tools to keep your existing audience engaged and generate new leads on LinkedIn.
These are some of our top picks to help you stand out in front of your targeted audience and win new business from LinkedIn.
PhantomBuster
With PhantomBuster, you can automate all the crucial aspects of LinkedIn lead generation and engagement. Save valuable time and money by automating the tedious parts of building a network.
Some of PhantomBuster's features include:
Scraping and exporting lists of leads and their contact information
Lead enrichment with AI automations or from LinkedIn profile data scraping
Updating your CRM with fresh lead data
Automating connection requests and personalized messages
Automating page and event invites
Automated LinkedIn engagement: auto-follow, auto-like, auto-comment etc
PhantomBuster pricing starts as low as $56 per month, which gives you 20 hours of execution time. You can test it out with a free trial today.
Hubspot
Hubspot is a leading CRM platform that integrates directly with LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
With the two platforms combined, you can target your ideal customer profile with relevant content directly from HubSpot.
Key features of this integration include:
Creating LinkedIn advertising campaigns directly from Hubspot
Detailed ad targeting based on CRM account data
Tracking campaign performance from the CRM dashboard
Real-time notifications in the CRM whenever campaigns generate new leads
HubSpot and Sales Navigator integration require a LinkedIn Sales Navigator license and a HubSpot Sales Professional or Enterprise plan.
Hubspot's Sales Hub Professional starts at $90 per month per seat, but this might not be the best solution as your team grows. You can't use it to update Hubspot CRM with LinkedIn data.
Try PhantomBuster and HubSpot integration for continuous updates using LinkedIn data.
Lusha Chrome Extension
Lusha is a sales intelligence solution that helps you find new business opportunities while staying compliant with legislation such as GDPR and CCPA.
With Lusha's Chrome extension, you can simply head to LinkedIn and reveal the contact data of just about anyone with a few clicks. Some of its features include:
Single and bulk enrichment of contact data
Contact sync through direct HubSpot and Salesforce integrations
LinkedIn Sales Navigator integration
Usage analytics and team management
Lusha pricing starts at $36 per user per month when billed annually. This gets you 480 phone numbers to scrape per year (40/month) and unlimited emails.
Conclusion
Using LinkedIn the right way can be highly beneficial for your lead generation efforts. You can connect with specific audiences and generate leads for your business on autopilot.
To get great results, you need automation.
Grab your free trial of PhantomBuster today and enhance your LinkedIn lead generation efforts with powerful automation features.
