How to Fix Your Broken LinkedIn Lead Generation

If you’re losing money on a product, what do you do?

Do you rush to double production? No…?

Then why are you doing exactly that with your broken LinkedIn lead gen strategy?

It’s something Dana Lindahl, Founder at Legendary Leadgen, sees all too often with clients — the mystical thinking wherein lead gen problems are solved by doubling down.

Lead generation has changed. And you need to adapt.

Stop doubling down on your failed lead generation

Dana sees two ways that people are doing lead gen on LinkedIn: Those who do it well and those who do what the masses are doing.

Let’s address the second one first.

The overwhelming majority of people are doing lead gen, on LinkedIn, through “networking.”

Well…the pretense of networking.

I’m sure you know what I am talking about — you get a connection request on LinkedIn and you click on it. Who doesn’t want to expand their business network?

Then you get the hard-sell message in your inbox. Well, it was fun while it lasted.

This just doesn’t work anymore. Because we’ve all grown sick and tired of it.

So why, with COVID-19 and the end of the world raging, have so many companies doubled down on it?

“If the foundation is broken, you don’t just put more things on top of it, you fix the foundation”

DANA LINDAHL at Legendary Leadgen

It’s because they are desperate.

But yeah, just stop doing that.

First off, this strategy just annoys your audience. For every lead you get this way, who knows how many wells you’ve poisoned for future sales. And doubling down just exacerbates the problem.

Second, you’re making it harder for the rest of us who are doing things the right way. That audience annoyance spills over and makes all of our jobs more difficult.

So instead of pumping up the volume, pump the brakes and regroup.

Be helpful and human

So what is the right way to approach LinkedIn?

Being helpful.

See, the thing is, LinkedIn is the only content-deficient social network left. Facebook and Instagram are so saturated with content at this point, they’ve just become unbearable.

Plus, we’ll never be able to Rick Roll anyone again and that’s just sad.

What you can do is build trust with people by being helpful and human. LinkedIn doesn’t have enough people posting regularly, so you can take advantage of this.

By putting out helpful content in your domain, addressing problems people have and helping them solve them, you build yourself as an authority.

This content already targets those you want to target and, if it’s good enough, will be shared to their connections who you probably already want to target.

“Reaching out and providing your help and expertise without expecting anything back in return is going to pay dividends in the future.”

DANA LINDAHL at Legendary Leadgen

Keep in mind though, in order to make sure this content lands, you need to be human. Seek to understand before you seek to be understood.

Look at the content you are creating. How many “we’s” and “I’s” are in it? How many “you’s?”

In order to be successful here — as with anything in sales or marketing — you need to truly understand the problems your customers face and help them solve them.

Direct sales campaigns simply don’t cut it anymore. Now, it’s about being helpful and human.

The (other) biggest LinkedIn mistake

Still, there are other pitfalls to be aware of, too.

And chief among them is combining automation with poor targeting. In fact, Dana recommends you avoid automation tools altogether.

On LinkedIn, there is a motivation for Sales Navigator to show you every “lead” and “prospect” they possibly can so it appears they are doing a great job providing you with all these hefty lists.

But…did you notice the scare quotes?

That’s because a cursory scroll through some of these targets will reveal two things: most of the people on these lists are not a great fit and, well, there are some pretty weird job titles out there.

This is why it makes sense to move to a completely manual style for all of your LinkedIn leads.

If you’re spending so much time pruning or scouring these completely useless lists for hidden gems and tinkering with things in your automation at the quantum level to do this, then you may as well just take the time to switch to a manual approach.

Oh, and one final thing to keep in mind:

“Marketers ruin absolutely everything. The longer we keep doing one thing, the less effective it’s going to be.”

DANA LINDAHL at Legendary Leadgen

LinkedIn is ripe for the picking right now. The increasing demand for content and the platform’s apparent dearth in that area means you can see great results if you approach it right.

But it also means every other marketer out there is catching on to this same insight.

So the pressure is on to stop doubling down on annoying your customers and, instead, be helpful and human on LinkedIn.

This blogpost includes highlights of our podcast interview with Dana Lindahl, Founder at Legendary Leadgen.

Subscribe to hear this episode and many more like it. For the entire interview, you can listen to The B2B Revenue Executive Experience. If you don’t use Apple Podcasts, we suggest this link.