Using LinkedIn to Generate Real Estate Leads for Free

By  //  June 20, 2021

There is a lot of buzz about LinkedIn at the moment, certainly in the marketing and sales world. With LinkedIn pushing for market share as a content and social media platform, its organic reach (how many people see your posts) is much greater than on any other social media platform.

This organic reach means that you can grow a highly targeted network if you successfully create educational, inspiring, and entertaining content with posts, articles, and comments that bring value.

LinkedIn is a goldmine for sales executives, with 75% of all registered LinkedIn users, have incomes over $50,000 per annum. A recent survey of business executives found that 70% of them logged into LinkedIn at least once er day. Another survey concluded that most LinkedIn users would purchase from a business that they discovered on the platform.

Be Specific

Outreach only to your ideal clients. Don’t use the bulk approach of emailing to everyone that you can find on LinkedIn. Define your ideal business client and approach them specifically. If you connect to a perfect client, even if they don’t buy from you, they can help you find other people in your target market.

If, for example, you run a digital marketing company, your LinkedIn network may consist mainly of LinkedIn users who also work in the digital marketing space. This is good for growing your network but not suitable for lead generation. You will probably want to be targeting business owners with a set amount of marketing spend available to them.

Only accept requests from people in your target market.

Optimize Your Profile

In terms of LinkedIn, you want to optimize your profile so that it is easy to find on relevant searches on the platform.

If for example, you are a freelance PPC executive, use the words “freelance PPC executive” or “freelance Google Ads manager” in your profile. If you are looking for local clients, you could add the name of your city or state in their too – for example – “freelance Google Ads manager in Chester.”

Just make it look natural and only use the specific phrase once.

Whatever you do, make sure you fill in every element of your LinkedIn profile. Research suggests that those individuals who 100% complete their LinkedIn profile set up, are “40x more likely to receive opportunities through LinkedIn”. Be sure to use a vanity URL if possible too. If you work in PPC or with Google Ads – see if you can use a profile URL that includes some of those terms.

Post &Engage

To get the most out of LinkedIn, you will need to be active. Post and upload content that includes videos with captions. Videos tend to perform well on LinkedIn, but only if they are uploaded directly to the platform.

Do not post YouTube links, as linking to external websites will kill the reach of your post. there are apps such as Voicella which will automatically add captions to your videos for you. video tends to do well because not that many people use video content. People tend to post links or post text-based updates.

Documents that provide value such as pdf step-by-step guides, PowerPoint slides presentations and images tend to perform well too.

Joining and participating in relevant LinkedIn groups can also be a great way to build a relevant network and engage with your target audience. Remember to join groups that represent your target audience however and not necessarily your industry. For example, as a Google Ads freelancer, you may want to join a small business owners group, rather than a digital marketing group.

LinkedInBoolean Search

With LinkedIn’s Boolean search function, you can search using keywords, combined with operators such as AND, NOT and OR. If you want to target using exact phrases, put the word or phrase in double quotation marks.

For example, to search for project managers, search for “project manager.”

Combined with the Boolean operators this can be quite a powerful and precise way to search. For example, you can could find managing directors that work in finance, by searching for “managing director” AND “finance”. Remember to click on “people” within the search results page to get the relevant results.

If you sign up to LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you can combine the additional search functionalist with the paid-for-service, with Boolean search to get really specific results. With Sales Navigator, you could, for example, search for people who attended specific universities and are second-degree connections.

With Sales Navigator, you can also look at the profiles of all the people who viewed your own profile in the last 90 days. If these people are relevant in terms of your target market, then send them a connection request and a follow-up message.

Sending Targeted Outreach Messages

Before you message someone, take the time to look at their profile, their company website, and their recent activity on LinkedIn. Another good tip, is that when you message someone, include a link to their website.

For example, you could link to their blog and include an insightful comment. When a link is used within a message, a preview image will usually be generated – if this includes the recipient’s logo or website URL, they are likely to pay more attention to your message.

Aim to Get People on the Phone

Despite the power of technology and digital marketing, the ultimate sales leads is not acquired and qualified via a LinkedIn message. A phone call remains the most time-efficient and powerful way to qualify a lead and close a sale.

Rather than pushing for a sale on LinkedIn, whether it be with an outreach campaign via email or some kind of advert, the call to action or desired action can often, and should often be a phone call, rather than a sale directly.

Before you speak to someone, do a bit of research. Look at their profile, read their about section, their past employment, their testimonials and recommendations. Google their name and their employer and take a look at their website. Check out any mutual connections and look at their recent posts and activity.

You can send them an invite to schedule a call, using a tool such as HubSpot’s appointment and meeting scheduler. If you are worried about missing a call, you can always use a phone answering service as a backup.

You can add your phone number to your contact information, and make sure it is on your LinkedIn company page.

Conclusion

LinkedIn is a powerful social media platform when it comes to lead generation. Right now, organic reach is vast, but it won’t always be that way, so be sure to make the most of it. In 2012 Facebook was a great platform for free lead generation, but now it’s extremely hard to generate leads without paying for advertising.

Set aside time to create LinkedIn content. Spend one day per week and write out your content for LinkedIn and any other social media platforms that you use. Split each piece of content up so that every day you have updates on your company and LinkedIn company page. You may also need to shoot videos and edit them.

Remember to engage with people if possible, before sending personalized messages and connection requests.