Your LinkedIn life is about building connections, nurturing relationships, and generating leads that could turn into your clients. Building your LinkedIn sales funnel isn’t, however, a once-off job. A well-structured LinkedIn sales funnel can guide your potential clients from initial awareness to final conversion, where they go from connection to customer.
What is a sales funnel?
A typical sales funnel takes people through various stages, turning them from a lead to a client. Your LinkedIn sales funnel has five key stages, that reflect the same stages of a typical sales funnel:
- Awareness: This is the stage where your potential clients first learn about your services and offerings. On LinkedIn, this stage occurs when people discover your content or profile. People may become aware of you through your engagement with content, comments, or articles.
- Interest: The Interest stage goes beyond awareness, where people may start expressing an interest in learning more about you. They may begin engaging with your content, visiting your profile, or sending you a connection request on LinkedIn.
- Consideration: At this stage, people are evaluating your offerings against their needs. They may look for more detailed information about your products or services. On LinkedIn, this will be when they comment on a post of yours, ask for your insight, or send you a message to connect further.
- Intent: The Intent stage is where things get serious. People show intent when they download your resource, request a meeting, or ask for a quote.
- Conversion: Well done, you’ve reached the final stage of the sales funnel, where your connection becomes a client. This is the ultimate goal, turning prospective clients into paying customers through effective follow-up and nurturing strategies.
How to build your LinkedIn sales funnel
There are six ways you can build your LinkedIn sales funnel, with each of them being just as important as the other. When you spend time getting your foundation right, you secure your ability to manage and build your LinkedIn sales funnel.
Optimise your LinkedIn profile
Your LinkedIn profile is the foundation of your sales funnel. Consider your LinkedIn profile as a type of landing page. It should effectively communicate who you are and what you offer. Make sure to use a professional headshot for your profile picture. Pair this with a compelling headline that reflects your unique value proposition. Instead of simply listing your job title, a bold statement that reflects your expertise and focus. Make sure your Summary section outlines your career story while emphasising your expertise and services, incorporating relevant industry keywords to enhance searchability. Use your Featured section to showcase valuable content like case studies, testimonials, or lead magnets that can attract potential clients.
Create Top-of-Funnel content
The top of your sales funnel aligns with the awareness stage. For the audience that sits at the top of your sales funnel (TOFU), focus on creating content that raises awareness and generates interest in your offerings. This type of content is primarily educational and often breaks down complex problems or concepts into easy-to-understand narratives. You can also share insights and tips, or highlight industry trends. For your TOFU content, short videos and infographics often work well, helping you to capture people’s attention and convey information in an easily digestible format.
Nurture your leads with Middle-of-Funnel content
The middle of your funnel (MOFU) aligns with the stages of interest and consideration. Now that you’ve got their attention, it’s time to nurture those leads. Start by providing access to more in-depth content, like eBooks, guides, webinars, or case studies. Your MOFU content should act as a lead magnet, attracting people to share their contact information with you. Through your MOFU content, you can start building your mailing list for future outreach.
Direct outreach for the Bottom-of-Funnel
You’ve done it! People are moving into the intent stage of your LinkedIn sales funnel. This is when your conversations turn direct and personal. It’s during the bottom-of-funnel (BOFU) stage that you begin connecting with people directly and carrying on the conversation off-platform toward conversion. Get in touch with the people who have moved into the intent stage of your LinkedIn sales funnel with:
- Personalised connection requests: Take the time to create personalised messages for your connection requests, and establish a common ground between you and the person you’re connecting with.
- Follow-up messages: Once you’re connected, send a follow-up message thanking the person for accepting your connection request. You can also start to offer them additional resources or insights or ask questions related to their interests, to start a conversation.
- Engage with their content: Make sure to actively engage with the content they post on LinkedIn. Don’t go too hard on your sales approach here. Rather, engage thoughtfully and regularly with their content, to continue your conversation with them.
Close the deal at conversion
When the time comes to close the deal, make it as easy as possible for your leads to convert. Set clear paths for people, using strong Call-To-Action messages, that encourage people to schedule a call or get in touch with you. Don’t leave it there though! Implement a systematic follow-up strategy for leads who have shown interest, but haven’t yet converted. Send them reminders about upcoming events, special offers, or other opportunities to get in touch with you to close the deal.
Measure your success
You can’t manage what you can’t measure. You must set key metrics that enable you to measure your success. Track your engagement metrics and analyse your conversion rates to see how people move through your LinkedIn sales funnel. This will also help you identify any bottlenecks in the process. Once you’ve gained a clear understanding of how your LinkedIn sales funnel performs, adjust your strategies in line with what the data says. Commit to continuous improvement, and you’ll soon see continuous results.
Your next deal could be just a connection away. Start building your LinkedIn sales funnel, and set yourself up for success.
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