Posted by Ben Kniffen in Uncategorized
When prospecting on LinkedIn, most people will look for clients via the “People Search.”
Targeting specific terms that usually key in on a prospect’s position within a company, they'll look for people that meet a certain criteria.
No doubt, this is a great way to find new prospects and grow your business. We do it every single day.
If that tactic has been working for you, no need to stop.
Yet no matter what level of success you are having on LinkedIn, you may want to look at another approach to prospecting that could take your results up another level.
That approach is utilizing the Company Search.
There are currently 2.5 million companies (and growing) listed on LinkedIn.
That’s 2.5 million opportunities you have to market your product or your services on LinkedIn. Yes, obviously a large percentage of those businesses won't be a benefit to you. But just a minuscule fraction of that number will be enough to keep you busy for years to come.
So why is focusing on a company any more beneficial than an individual person?
Focusing on a company gives you the opportunity to take more than one shot at getting in the door.
Targeting companies allows you to get more irons in the fire within a specific target. It also gives you the opportunity to get more employees and decision makers talking about you and your company.
If your message falls by the wayside with some of your prospects you still have other opportunities within the company.
When you only market to individual prospects, and don't consider others within their firm, you won’t necessarily get a second chance.
Market to individuals only and there will also be a lower chance of your company being discussed internally.
Okay, so now that you see the benefit to targeting an entire company, how do you get started implementing a plan that enables you to penetrate the company?
1. Identify a list of companies that will be a fit for your business to target.
This is easy to do in the company search section on LinkedIn. There you will find all sorts of filters you can use to narrow down your search of target companies.
You can filter by size, location, industry and so on and so forth.
2. Figure out how many prospects you can handle marketing to.
Your goal could be 300 prospects divided among 15 small companies or it could be 2,000 prospects divided among 2 large companies.
What matters is that you create a plan that you can keep up with and will be successful for you.
Determine how many contacts you can feasibly make and follow up with.
3. Identify who in the company you will be marketing to.
Based on how big the company is, you might only market to employees who hold a specific position or you could be marketing to the whole company.
Once identified, keep track of these employees on a spread sheet or within your CRM system.
Now that you have all your target prospects chosen and sorted comes the fun part…the marketing.
For this example of targeted company marketing I’m going to use the idea of promoting a free webinar, but you could really use anything.
The goal for this type of outreach strategy is to message all of your prospects within the company about some sort of branded content you have that will provide them some benefit.
Remember, the content you promote needs to be free. Now is not the time to try and sell your product or service.
This is the time to show your prospects that you are an expert in your field and why you can be a valuable asset to their company.
The great thing about this approach is that you know a large number of employees at the same company are going to be receiving the same message with the same branded content. Since they all work for the same company, this gives you the opportunity to tailor your content specifically for your target company.
Instead of providing one employee at “Company XYZ” with an offer to attend a free webinar about something that can help them improve business, now you can send 100 prospects an invitation to a free webinar specifically for “Company XYZ” employees on how to improve business.
Your content can precisely focus on your target company because only their employees are seeing it.
The employees who see the webinar will then know that you value their company, because your content was tailored for them, giving you a better chance to open a conversation with the right people.
Now imagine if you were able to do this for 5, 10 even 20 companies a year. You can easily see how this kind of tactic can put you ahead of your competitors and set you up for long term success.
So next time you sit down with time to prospect on LinkedIn head over to the company search instead of the people search and start bolstering your efforts by focusing intently on specific companies.
Hi, you got the point and it depends on situation as well how to target our market. That’s why setting goals is very important.
If we don’t have clear goals, we will not what we should target on Linkedin.
Good stuff Ken. I would add to that as well, one of my favorite quotes of late: “A goal without a plan is just a wish.”
Excellent article that should make companies and sales people aware of what they can find on LinkedIn, and help marketing people to create a better profile for their company so they can be found.
Good point Mark. Understanding how others might be looking for you is very important. Thanks!