Imagine you were at a networking event, and you spot someone you don’t know but would like to connect with. Maybe she runs a very successful business you would like to model yours after, a potential joint venture partner or perhaps a journalist who covers stories in your industry.
Would you ever walk up to this person and request them to promote your business, write an article or request for his or her time?
And if you do happen to try your luck, chances of them fulfilling your request would be little to none simply because you haven’t built a relationship with them.
Same goes for LinkedIn, I see so many people making the fatal mistake of promoting/pitching their product or service to me as soon as I connect with them. Quite frankly it’s lazy, it’s unprofessional, and it’s highly unlikely to get a response.
It might seem like common sense, but I can’t tell you how many people I see squandering this opportunity by sending brief or automated messages that don’t give people any meaningful reason to respond or engage.
This in turn can potentially burn the relationship with that person, have them report you to LinkedIn and even disconnect with you.
There are no short cuts to marketing success, before you start selling anything to anyone in today’s business world you must first build a relationship with them, showcase why you’re the expert and build the necessary trust for them to listen.
Now the amazing thing about LinkedIn is that it allows you to connect one-on-one with nearly anyone in the world, and then email market to them once there in your network.
If properly executed this can help you get your marketing message in front of 100’s if not 1000’s of key decision makers in your industry every single month.
I don’t know about you but I can’t think of any other social media platform that gives you the same capabilities!!
Below I’ve provided you a 3 step process on how to create a powerful email marketing campaign through LinkedIn, so you can start turning your connections into leads and sales for your business.
1. Segment your contacts
In today’s marketing world, it is more important than ever to reach out effectively to your customer. To do so, the keyword to focus here is on “relevance“. For example, a person in an executive role requires a different piece of content than someone in an intern role. What resonates with one audience doesn’t necessarily resonate with another.
Many people aren’t aware that you can segment your connections into topic categories within LinkedIn. LinkedIn allows you to segment (classify) your connections by subject areas. LinkedIn refers to this progress as “tagging”.
Tagging allows you to organize your connections by industry or subject. This is quite useful as it allows you to then tailor your messages to your network so they are most relevant to your members. Before you send your next email take one step back and segment your existing contacts to ensure everything you send is as targeted and personalized as possible.
2. End in mind
Once you have your contacts segmented, your next step is to design your call to action. This is the process of starting with the end in mind and really thinking about what action or step you would like your contacts to take once you have built a relationship with them.
This could be downloading a whitepaper, attending one of your webinars, phone meeting or even a face-to-face meeting. It really depends on the price for your product/service, target demographic and your company sales cycle.
For example at Linkfluencer, our call to action is a free LinkedIn webinar or a download of our E-book. This works particularly well for us because it allows us to educate our audience and showcase our methodology on how they can leverage LinkedIn within their business.
What action or step would you like your contacts to take once you’ve build a relationship with them?
3. The LinkedIn email marketing campaign
Now that you have your contacts segmented and designed your call to action, the 3rd and final step is to create an email marketing campaign where you provide targeted and very relevant content to your connections through a series of emails prior to promoting your call to action.
The purpose of the emails in the sequence is to establish you as the subject matter expert and build trust with your target market whilst remaining top of mind. These emails could include:
- Sending a link to an article that is relevant to them and their industry
- Sharing a business tip/strategy
- Download to your whitepaper
It’s about adding value before pitching your products or services. I essence it’s just common sense. It’s a lot like dating!
Author: Alex is an entrepreneur and founder of Linkfluencer, the world’s leading online community for LinkedIn training. He loves playing basketball, travelling and covering the latest stories on entrepreneurship. Connect with him on LinkedIn and Facebook
