Posted by LinkedSelling in Uncategorized
When looking for more registrants and attendees for your webinars, most folks turn to 2 places. Their house email list and social media. While those things are good, if that's all you do you're leaving a lot on the table!
We've already covered some killer tactics for using LinkedIn to market your webinars in Part 1 and Part 2. Today in part 3, we're going to dive deep into one specific area of LinkedIn.
Promoting Your Webinar to Your 1st Degree Connections
Your existing connections on LinkedIn are potentially a great source of webinar traffic. They know and trust you, so they'll likely convert at a high rate. And if you've been steadily building your LinkedIn network, you probably have a decent database of connections built at this point.
But what's the best way to actually reach these people, let them know about your webinar, and get 'em to sign up?
Here are 5 tactics we use all the time, that work very well.
1. Status Updates
Status updates are the posts you see on your home page. Here's an example of one, from one of my connections, sharing a link to a YouTube video:
The more connections you have, the more people will see these updates.
And they're a great place to spread the word about your upcoming webinar! Just like the example above, all you need to do is write a short one or two sentence blurb, include the link to your registration page, and boom! Click “share” and the update will be broadcast to your entire network.
If you really want to amplify this, consider utilizing the LinkedIn profiles from multiple people on your team. The more people on your team that are sharing these updates, the more traffic you'll drive to your webinar landing page, which will obviously result in more signups!
2. Message Your Connections
This one is potentially the most powerful tactic. Yet most people sleep on it, because it requires effort.
The very best way to insure that your message gets in front of your connections is to personally send them a message! And there are two ways to do it.
First, let's look at the easy way to do it (which does NOT get nearly as good of results).
LinkedIn allows you to message 50 connections at a time. Awesome, right? Not so fast.
The big downside to this is that you can NOT personalize the message. Thus, everybody receiving it knows you're just blasting all of your contacts.
Here's what one of these messages looks like:
Seems really impersonal right?
Luckily there is a better way to do it. But it requires more manual effort, so most people don't.
What's this “better way” you ask?
Manually messaging each of your connections one at a time.
As you might suspect, when you send a 1-to-1 message personalized with their first name, the response rate goes through the roof. Because there is no automated way to do it within LinkedIn, these messages really stand out. The recipient feels like you just sent it to them!
Here's what one of these messages looks like:
See how much more personal that is?
That's why these messages get such a high response rate! Does it take more time? Yes.
But it dramatically increases your results.
3. Retarget them on Facebook
File this one under “stealth tactics that nobody else knows about.”
Many people don't know this, but you can export the email address of all your LinkedIn connections.
Then, you can take that data and upload it into Facebook's ad platform to create a “custom audience.”
And with that, you can serve up highly targeted ads that only these people will see!
For a super detailed breakdown of how to do this, check out Ryan's article How to Target Your LinkedIn Connections with Facebook Ads
We also have more in depth training including step-by-step screencast videos inside our members-only training program Linked University.
4. Email your connections.
Sometimes we get so focused on one given tool (like LinkedIn) that we lose sight of the bigger picture.
I always recommend you message your connections on LinkedIn first.
But an email can provide a nice second touch point. Again, a personalized one-on-one email will get you the best results.
Just like the example LinkedIn message above, keep it informal and personal. Just like you'd send to a friend.
As soon as you start getting all pitchy and whatnot, your message will look like a press release. People don't like that.
You might be thinking though, “Hey, can't I just take all of those emails I exported and blast 'em with my email software?” Sure, you can. But it's not recommended.
For one, it will piss a bunch of your connections off. Most folks don't like it when you add them to your email newlsetter without their permission.
Second, your email service provider might take notice and shut your account down. If too many people unsubscribe or report your email as spam, it can trigger a red flag causing them to put you in time out. Sometimes for good.
Don't want to stand in the corner? Then don't do that.
5. Call them on the phone!
Building on the last tip (email), why not take it one step further? By picking up the phone!
At the end of the day, you're trying to convince people to sign up for your webinar. The means by which you do that don't really matter. It's results that matter.
And phone calls are a proven strategy for getting prospects to attend webinars. In fact, there are agencies that specialize in doing just that! You can hire a firm like Beep Directed Voicemail to run webinar lead generation campaigns utilizing any list you provide them, including your LinkedIn connections.
If you are looking for powerful LinkedIn marketing solutions, call us to discuss what kind of results our world-class LinkedIn Marketing Agency can provide your business.
~~
