How's your LinkedIn account working for you? Is it generating new leads? Are you engaging with other authoritative leaders in your field? Are you leading and/or contributing to conversations and content on a regular basis?
If LinkedIn plays a part of your company's inbound marketing strategy, you want to make sure it really does play its part. It should be working for you at every stage of the buyer's journey, meaning your LinkedIn contacts are able to engage with you in alignment with your sales funnel. In order to do that, you need to:
- Target your ideal clients and group members
- Segment information accordingly
- Stay engaged
Once you've got the first two bullet points in line, drip marketing is a simple and smart way to stay engaged with your network and do in a way that strikes the right chord with them.
While interactions with your LinkedIn network may not be as straightforward as your Facebook or Twitter communities are, a drip-oriented inbound marketing strategy will not be all that different from what you're used to.
Tips For Creating a Successful LinkedIn Drip Marketing Campaign
- Build and customize your database. If you do your homework, you can wind up with a customized LinkedIn database of names that number in the thousands. By "homework" we mean that you understand your ideal prospects and customers—their industries, job titles, professional affiliations and so on. With that information, you can sleuth the world of LinkedIn and go hunting for just the right leads. A fine-tuned LinkedIn database contains the people who are most likely to see and respond to your content.
- Segment information. Odds are, your network is going to include both colleagues and other industry leaders as well as prospects. This is a great thing. Depending on what your company sells, other industry professionals can be a fantastic means of gaining word-of-mouth referrals. Prospects are, of course, prospects. But in either case, the more you can segment your LinkedIn network, the more accurately targeted your campaigns will be, ensuring everyone gets information that is relevant to them.
- Nurture people, not statistics. All of these efforts have one primary goal: to nurture leads into sales. So after you've segmented your network, start thinking about your forthcoming campaigns in terms of nurturing, remembering that you're reaching out to people with real needs and feelings. Meet people where the are, provide the information and education they need at that stage of the game and gently lead them to the next stage. Repeat.
- Drip, drip, drip. Drip marketing got its name from the idea of drip irrigation. With plants, the goal is to deliver water to the source in the most efficient and cost-conservative way possible. With people, the goal is to deliver your company's message using the same approach. Plan to drip relevant messages into segmented networks and groups on a daily, weekly, monthly, etc., basis. The idea being that they are continually reminded of your presence in a non-obtrusive way, keeping your brand in the forefront of their minds. The more you pay attention to where they are in the sales funnel, matching the content accordingly, the more successful you'll be.
- Be diligent. If your content is apropos and well-timed, it will be welcomed. Pay attention to what your network responds to. Did they leave an eBook untouched? Use simpler, faster video content first. Did they skip the video presentation? Send them an awesome infographic. Don't be shy about a "perpetual" approach. It can take dozens of "touches" to see real results.
If sales seem to be lagging, rethink your LinkedIn inbound marketing strategy and use a drip marketing approach to get that sales funnel flowing again.
