Using LinkedIn to Generate Business Leads

LinkedIn is 277 percent more effective at generating leads than both Facebook and Twitter, according to a study conducted by HubSpot, with a 2.74 percent visitor-to-lead conversion rate. This year, fish where the fish are biting for your brand’s lead generation strategy.

Think of LinkedIn as a catalog of professionals that includes profiles on their background, experience, and past employers. For vetting potential franchisees or employees, this is a valuable resource that should be utilized whenever possible.

“For every candidate I get, I connect with him or her on LinkedIn, do a brief background check and see who they are connected with,” said Scott Thompson, Vice President of Franchise Development at Premium Franchise Brands.

Brands can also save time and money by getting in front of the right individuals without traveling to an event.

“For someone in franchise development, it’s a time saver. I can spend a few hours boosting content to thousands of people that will open doors to new leads and even get our brand name in front of people that haven’t even thought about a franchise opportunity with our brand before,” said Thompson.

LinkedIn also allows for your executive team to showcase their own expertise and position the company and each employee as a thought leader in the industry. By filling out profiles with experience and publishing content about the industry on the platform, employees can be seen as leaders in the space.

“We are beginning to use LinkedIn to make sure prospective franchisees--or someone who may not even know they are a prospective franchisee--sees our team at Sylvan HQ as leaders in their fields,” said Amy Przywara, CMO at Sylvan Learning*, about the company’s developing LinkedIn strategy. “We are constantly seeking individuals who want to turn their passion into a business and we want our team’s profiles to reflect that.”

As franchise development strategies need to include a more targeted approach, social media and digital marketing allows for a more effective way to reach a number of targeted individuals through advertising and content marketing pieces. Thompson explains that at Premium Franchise brands, their LinkedIn strategy includes creating specific landing pages for target markets where content will be boosted to specific individuals. Taking advantage of targeting capabilities is key for a forward-thinking strategy that is different from the one size fits all approach of the past.