Best Practices to Approach Clients on LinkedIn as a Content Marketer
Most of you believe perfecting your digital marketing resume and sending it to potential clients works magic for you. That will help you attract clients. But that’s not how it works.
It’s all about network building at the end of the day.
This is where LinkedIn outshines all others. When you approach people on LinkedIn, they actively communicate with real people they can interface with directly. You don’t simply come across as a random name on a random piece of paper in an unexpected email that some stranger has sent.
In short, thoughtfully curated strategies and leveraging them on LinkedIn can help.
So in this article, we will show you the right approach to business networking and approaching clients on LinkedIn. Let’s begin.
Optimising your Linkedin Profile
Finding the right clients is all about strategy. And more times than one, it is also about appearances. So if you’re on the challenging path of reaching out to potential clientele, understand this:
You matter. Your profile matters. And your profile needs to be perfectly optimised.
Here are some ways to help you do this:
LinkedIn Headshot
It should look professional. Use a clean mugshot image with a light background.
Job title
A short but descriptive job title will suffice to communicate your current position in your niche and industry.
Profile summary
A profile summary should be about your strengths and experiences and not a storyline of your past projects. A brief but descriptive summary should be your one-eyed mark to follow.
Recommendations and endorsements
Your recommendations and endorsements are a seal of approval and a marker of your professional efficiency.
Profile banner
A custom-made banner about your content marketing expertise and the services you profile could catch the eyes of unknown users.
Upgrading profile and business page after project completion
Your active or past business projects show your competence in your field, so you should continually update your project and skills section to stay updated in the marketing game.
Do you want to know what a professional-looking, optimised profile looks like? Here’s a snapshot of Neil Patel’s LinkedIn profile.
Finding your potential client base
Before sending out business proposals in the form of short pitches to people in your network or email conversations, it is necessary to define what type of businesses or individuals would need your services.
You need to identify who you are, your brand, and what kind of clients you are gunning for.
You should not simply and mindlessly send endless proposals to people who would have nothing to do with your industry.
Long story short, you must be particular about who you contact.
You can accomplish this by segregating your client base into different groups. Doing this will make it easy for you to devise marketing strategies for specific audiences.
Targeting a niche clientele/audience results in a better response and conversion rate.
Pro Tip: Identify your target clientele. Define who you want to do business with instead of approaching anyone or everyone with a pocket.
- Starting with in-person contact rather than generating cold leads
For the sake of understanding, let’s categorise your leads into two:
- Cold leads
- Hot leads
People you have never done business with and are less likely to respond to your business proposal would go under the first bucket.
People with whom you already have business relations will go in the second bucket.
We advise you to first target the ‘hot leads’, a.k.a. Clients you already know. Because you already have or had working relations with them in the past, it is easier to connect with them and convert them.
There is no better place to do this than sending a friendly hello on LinkedIn and taking it up from there.
Leveraging LinkedIn groups to build a network
Sharing knowledge with your audiences and participating in group discussions could be a great way to widen your network and connect with potential clients.
By joining LinkedIn groups in your niche, you are interacting with a broader audience base and representing your knowledge to potential clients, thus showcasing your strengths and competence.
So whether you are looking for clients as a lone-wolf freelance marketer or via a company, there is no better place to start than LinkedIn groups.
If you haven’t already, make the most of LinkedIn groups now.
If you don’t know how you can simply enter your niche-specific keywords in the search bar and see the magic unfold. LinkedIn will fetch results related to the typed-in phrases.
The final chain of effects will be filtering out the search results according to groups. All the groups will be listed based on your search preference.
You can join groups according to the member base. How frequently is the group updated, so you don’t have to waste your energy and time on dead or silent audiences?
Creating insightful content
Publishing content regularly is a way to attract users towards your profile and showcase your ability to make good on real-world problems that your clients may be facing.
It is often said that sometimes you find clients even when you’re not actively looking for them.
But to accidentally bump into a potential client on LinkedIn, your activity status matters.
If you’re working for a company and you need to reach out to new clients passively, simply sharing work of your content marketing pieces on your own personal profile can help you fetch the same results that a paid-marketing campaign can get you, even if not on the same scale.
Doing the bare minimum of publishing one article daily on the platform can grow your profile popularity and attract decision-makers who have the scope of transforming into potential business clients.
Increasing your LinkedIn network
A higher number of connections means a higher chance of connecting with individuals who may be looking for your services. So step 6 to approaching clients on LinkedIn is by expanding your network.
There’s no such thing as ‘too many LinkedIn connections’.
People are resources, and this holds true with LinkedIn more than anything.
So go out and expand your network. We’ll be here cheering you on.
Personalising connection request message
While sending a connection request with default text will never increase your connections, a personalised message can do wonders. If you have known that person from a marketing event or through an acquaintance, mentioning these small details could never harm anybody.
Even if you don’t know them personally, just stating you are an avid reader of their blog or a regular visitor to their website can help you warm up with your potential clientele on LinkedIn.
Remember: One can only send personalised connection requests from their computers, not mobile phones. So it’s a good practice to send connection requests from your personal computers and use mobile phones to communicate with the present ones.
Maintaining your Lead Base
It is easy to build new connections and add more people to your network, and hard to convert them into potential clients.
Your connections are not just strangers connected with you through the LinkedIn thread. In reality, they have the strength to become your future business if maintained and nurtured accordingly.
Communicating with your potential leads on LinkedIn could be the easiest thing to perform on LinkedIn:
- Writing a thank note to new connections could be an effective conversation starter.
- Liking and commenting on your connection’s LinkedIn posts can really bring you out from that ‘stranger on the internet zone
- Congratulating your contacts whenever they join a new position or in the event of their promotions could be a great way to connect with them in person.
- Providing thoughtful feedback on the work or achievements of your clients in the comment section or a personal message can also forge a rapport with them.
Solving Common Problems of your connections
Many professionals face business-critical problems that you can easily aid with.
If a LinkedIn network is facing troubles that fall in your niche expertise, offering valuable advice and solving their problems through effective technique sharing is a significant breakthrough in how you connect with the world.
A selfless act like this can go on to help you generate these leads in the future.