So, you know you want to feed more qualified leads into your funnel, and you know that Linkedin is a great repository of prospect data, but how on earth do you get that data out of Linkedin, into your CRM and onto a nurturing journey?
Well, you could use a third party tool to scrape contact data from your Linkedin connections and then just load them into your email marketing solution. So what if you end up with a load of private email addresses that result in you getting blacklisted due to user complaints, and your brand’s reputation gets slaughtered…
Okay, scrub that…
Or, you could use Linkedin’s own Lead Generation solution, which provides a consent led approach to pulling leads out of Linkedin and into your marketing automation platform of choice.
Now, I’ll pre-fix this how to guide with a disclaimer.
Linkedin Lead Gen forms are horrible! Like, head slamming against the desk with pencils up your nose horrible. They’re unintuitive, buggy, and at times completely nonsensical. Even basic capabilities, like the ability to delete or edit posts and forms after you’ve created them, simply don’t exist. Oh, and they have to be attached to other promotions, so you end up having to pay twice! (they don’t tell you that in the above video!)
So, why on earth would we be recommending the solution?
Well, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it (and Linkedin’s advertising revenues would be considerably higher that they are – see below, courtesy of WordStream)
Linkedin ad revenue
And if everyone’s doing it, including your competition, then your message is going to get lost in the noise. So, perversely, it’s because Linkedin’s data is so good (all 450 million users), but their advertising is so bad, that now is actually a great time to start targeting those users.
So, what does the lead acquisition process look like?
To put it simplistically, a bit like this…
Step 1. Create a relevant value-adding post on LinkedIn
Step 2. Attach a Linkedin lead capture form to your post
Step 3. Use a Zapier integration to pull leads from Linkedin into your marketing automation platform (for the purposes of this guide, we’ll be using Kulea)
Step 4. Use your marketing automation platform to deliver on your form promise i.e. email across a report/white paper
Step 5. Automate your nurturing and follow up campaigns and when the time is right, pass the lead across to sales
Of course, with Linkedin, the above is easier said than done, which is why we’ve put together a helpful (we hope) step-by-step video to walk you through the process ourselves. If at any point in time you hear the sound of heads slamming into desks, stop watching!
Integrating your Linkedin Lead Gen forms with your marketing automation need not be painful!
Do drop us a line if you have any questions – we’re only too happy to help.
