LinkedIn is the world’s leading professional platform, with a solid presence in over 200 countries. Key decision-makers, managers, and recruiters engage in LinkedIn conversations that shape the course of business and the world at large. But to stand out from the crowd, B2B marketers need to think outside the box when reaching out to professional networks with relevant products and services.
A recent survey reveals that 73% of marketers believe that winning a customer’s attention today is a lot harder than it used to be a few years ago. That’s because so many vendors are fighting to win the attention of a similar professional audience on LinkedIn.
In this article, we’ll take a look at LinkedIn lead-generation win rates, and some helpful tips that will help you increase yours. Continue reading.
Lead generation win rate is the number of leads that turn into paying customers divided by the total number of leads that were generated in the campaign. So, for instance, in your previous campaign, you generated 100 leads. Out of the 100, 15 became paying customers. You can calculate win rate as follows:
15 x 100 = 15%
100
Lead generation is all about creating new opportunities for your business, and the success of lead generation efforts will largely depend on your understanding of its nuances. The volume and quality of leads are important indicators to measure the effectiveness of your lead generation campaign and, more importantly, your sales team’s efficiency.
Generally speaking, you want your win rate to be as high as possible. The higher your win rate, the more efficient your sales function is. A high win rate means that you’re successfully converting your leads into customers. If your win rate is low, it’s because you’re not generating enough leads, perhaps due to a poorly equipped sales team or an inefficient pipeline.
Your sales team could need more training, or perhaps, your lead magnet isn’t strong enough. If none of these issues manifest, there’s clearly something wrong with your sales process. Thankfully, there are several ways to aim higher and win more customers by adjusting your LinkedIn campaign (more on that later)!
Whether you’re just dipping your toes into generating leads or have been at it for a while, it helps to know what metrics to keep an eye on when calculating the win rate. Sadly, even with the best products, services, and sales team, not every lead will result in a completed sale. To put things into perspective, a whopping 79% of leads never make it to the bottom of the funnel owing to poor funnel execution and lack of support.
It’s common for businesses to have a wide range of win rates for different lead-generation campaigns. On the bright side, measuring win rate is relatively simple, but there’s a catch. You’ll need to identify a few key metrics first:
Once you have these three metrics, you can plug them into the following formula to calculate win rate:
Win rate = (Number of Paying Customers Obtained from a Campaign) / (Number of Total Leads from the Campaign) x 100
Still unclear? Let’s break it down with another example:
You’re a software development company enabling enterprises to create their own custom apps with the exact features they need without a coding background.
The sales and marketing manager initiates a 3-month lead generation campaign aimed at sparking conversations with businesses that would benefit from your product. By the end of three months, the sales team has reached out to 100 interested customers.
Of the 100, only 20 are willing and ready to buy. In that case, you can calculate win rate as follows:
[20/100] X 100 = 5%
But instead of giving up on the 80 potential customers who dropped off somewhere in the sales funnel, the LinkedIn b2b marketing manager should educate them on the benefits of the product and re-target them with exclusive deals and time-offers.
Unfortunately, generating leads on LinkedIn is no walk in the park despite being the world’s richest source of B2B leads. It is estimated that 80% of B2B leads generated come from LinkedIn, compared to Twitter’s 12.73% and Facebook’s 6.73 percent.
When it comes to lead generation, there are a number of factors that can influence your ability to win new business. How you present yourself, how much research you’ve done on the company and individual you’re reaching out to, and how well you understand their needs will all impact whether or not you bag the customer.
Here are the major factors that influence win rate and lead capture:
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to lead generation. What works for a Facebook audience will probably not work for a LinkedIn audience. Similarly, what intrigues LinkedIn professionals in the SaaS space might not interest professionals in advertising. Each audience needs special attention.
We’d like to assume that your marketing efforts are aimed at C-Level executives. In that case, you could consider a short, precise LinkedIn message that introduces your company, its value proposition, and its offering in the company’s tone.
Company reputation still matters today. Now more than ever, B2B customers are looking for trustworthy brands to do business with, and LinkedIn is leading the charge with its emphasis on high-value resources.
LinkedIn is the world’s most trusted platform, with 63% of its network convinced that the platform is “less likely” or “ not likely at all” to share deceptive information. Companies with a good reputation have a track record of providing high-quality services, producing high-quality content, and genuinely trying to solve customer pains.
Is your lead having a positive experience with your product or service? Or are they having the complete opposite? How easy is it for them to access the information they need from the get-go?
Nowadays, customers are taking matters into their own hands by choosing the businesses they want to do business with. Consider improving your customer journey and providing a seamless experience throughout their interaction with your business.
How good are the leads that you’re getting? If you have leads who are interested in your product or service and have a high intent to buy, you’re going to win more high-quality leads that are genuinely interested in what you have to offer.
Generally, B2B leads are qualified at the marketing level (Marketing Qualified Leads, or MQLs) and the sales level (Sales Qualified Leads, or SQLs). Sales-qualified leads are determined to be ready to make a purchase by the sales team. When calculating your lead generation win rate, don’t forget to specify whether you’re using MQLs or SQLs.
There are plenty of ways in which you can improve your lead generation on LinkedIn. The first step is to keep your profile up-to-date and active. How do you ask?
By keeping an eye on trends and reading through discussions, you can get an idea of what might interest your target audience. But there’s more:
Find out what your audience is looking for in a product or service, and then offer that. You’ll have a much better chance of winning new customers if you’re marketing to people who are already interested in what you have to offer. If your target audience already knows the value of your product, then they’re more likely to buy from you.
Understanding your audience also comes down to being able to pinpoint their pain points. You don’t need to be an expert in your industry to find out what challenges keep your target customers up all night. All you need to do is ask. You can poll your existing customers to find out what unique challenges they face and work on a solution.
You can also take advantage of social media platforms where you can ask your potential customers what they would want to see from you in the future.
In order to maximize the number of leads you’re generating, you’ll want to be strategic about where you focus your attention. You don’t want to try to do everything at once because that will only spread you too thin. For instance, reaching out to a large pool of clients in your industry and related industries only spreads your efforts too thin.
Instead, strive to identify your ideal customer profiles and focus your efforts on them. To achieve this, you could use some insights about where your leads are coming from.
LinkedIn has provided LinkedIn campaign manager and LinkedIn Page Analytics tools for businesses. Some key areas of interest to keep an eye on include:
Once you know where your leads are coming from, you can come up with ways to increase the volume of leads and win more deals from a healthy mix of sources.
A lead magnet is something that will incentivize your leads to take a certain action, for instance, visit your website. It could be something like a free ebook, webinar, or guide that’s related to your product. The goal is to spark interest from your leads so that they’re more intrigued to check out your product.
Your lead magnet should be something that excites your leads and gets them interested in your product. It should be relevant to your business and something that your target audience wants to read, listen to, or watch. You can offer webinars, whitepapers, videos, or something else related to your product.
Remember, a good lead magnet will give your leads just enough information to pique their interest and get them excited to learn more about your product.
Lead nurturing is the process of creating a relationship with your prospects. It is a vital part of any inbound marketing strategy but is especially helpful for B2B businesses where buying cycles are typically longer.
The most important thing to keep in mind when creating your lead nurturing program is that it should be highly personalized. As you can imagine, there’s a wide range of interests, problems, and buying intentions among your prospects. By personalizing your LinkedIn message, you can better address those differences and make sure that your products are relevant to their interests.
To do this, consider starting with a clear understanding of your most engaged and interested prospects. You’ll want to create a detailed profile for each one, including information like their job title, company, and common problems they’re trying to solve. Next, target them with content that would be of interest, depending on their place in your buying cycle.
While it is widely acknowledged that the best leads come from in-house LinkedIn b2b marketing activities, B2B marketers often find it hard to close the loop between lead generation and sales conversion.
Outsourcing your lead generation can be a great idea, especially if you lack the resources to go it alone. Outsourcing your lead generation can help you scale your marketing efforts, which is important if you’re trying to win more customers and close deals.
If you struggle with generating quality leads, you may want to consider hiring a lead generation firm. Outsourced lead generation services bring vast skillets, expertise, and technologies to help you find leads and turn them into customers in no time. This way, you have more time to focus on what your team does best!
Are you struggling with generating high-quality B2B leads for your business? We get it. Generating high-quality leads doesn’t get easier with LinkedIn, and that’s why we’re here to help with our No-Risk Sales Service.
Outreachly’s No-Risk Sales Service is a fully-managed lead generation service that helps B2B marketers take full charge of their lead generation activities. Our dedicated campaign managers come from different backgrounds in LinkedIn B2B marketing, having designed and implemented dozens of successful LinkedIn campaigns.
Our No-Risk Sales Service enables your sales-hungry team to generate the number of leads you want at no risk. That’s right! We take care of the entire lead generation campaign, from content creation to engagement, and deliver hot leads directly to your inbox. Need sales-ready meetings? Try our Positive Replies and Booked Meetings Service! We only charge a low-fixed rate for all positive replies and booked meetings on your calendar.
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There’s no fixed win rate for LinkedIn lead generation. It all falls down to your industry, product, or service and the implemented lead generation strategy. As such, it’s evident that B2B marketers need to ramp up their lead generation efforts without losing sight of the end goal – to win high-quality leads for new business opportunities. If you’re having trouble generating leads for new business, consider outsourcing the task to seasoned professionals!