Anyone who’s ever tried their hand at LinkedIn marketing or has engaged with an agency for it will have surely come across the age-old tool – LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms. We’re sure you might have too! They’re the most well-liked and widely used ways of LinkedIn lead capturing (and probably the most convenient one too!)
However, the true query is are lead gen forms really as effective as marketers would really like you to imagine? We disagree. The truth is that marketers prefer lead gen forms as they’re the fastest method to show results on LinkedIn. You run a LinkedIn ad, a bunch of individuals see that ad and share their contact information and also you get praised for turning in so many leads so soon.
Hold on – but who’s checking the standard of those leads? How lots of these actually convert? Marketers often dodge that bullet by saying that it’s the sales team who has to make the fitting calls to convert these leads. While they pass the buck, not many admit that the leads they’re handing over to sales are literally weak leads.
All That’s Wrong With LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms
Consider any LinkedIn Lead Gen Campaign where you’re using the shape – what’s the usual approach? You’d first find a bit of content a.k.a a lead magnet (video/webinar/podcast/event/article/case study) that you’re thinking that your audience could be fascinated with after which gate the content with the LinkedIn Lead Gen form.
Since LinkedIn conveniently auto-fills most of the main points of the person, most people who find themselves even remotely fascinated with the content piece you’re offering quickly fill in the shape and get access to the content. The challenge – they won’t really be fascinated with your brand.
So, what you get out of such a chilly campaign are weak leads. These leads know nothing about you, have never even visited your website, and don’t have any exposure to your brand, by any means. They’re just fascinated with the lead magnet that does little or nothing to sell your brand or construct any brand affinity. It’s highly unlikely that simply because they shared their contact information, they’d book a call along with your sales team – and even in the event that they do – they’d barely show any interest in your offering. Essentially, they’re the weakest of leads that result in the bottom conversion rates of becoming a paying customer.
How To Get Conversions and Revenue From LinkedIn Without Lead Gen Forms – The Layered Approach
After quite a lot of trial and error, misses and hits, we, at Impactable have give you a layered approach to getting leads that (actually!) convert from LinkedIn. By now, you’ll have realized that the rationale lead gen forms generate weak results is that they’re most frequently utilized in the initial cold layer which implies leads you’re capturing should not aware of you. So, we decided to alter that.
Layer 1: The Cold Awareness Layer
Instead of constructing the lead gen form the primary cold campaign that’s reaching our audience, we added a unique layer.
Depending on the brand we’re working with, we put cold ads in the shape of single images or videos in front of the audience to make them aware of the brand – who they’re, what they provide and what the brand is all about.
More often than not, we hit with:
- Either a chilly layer of ads that give attention to the most important pain point that the brand is solving
- Or, an easy ad about who we’re, what we sell, and who we work with.
With this layer, we filter out the goal group that is definitely showing interest within the brand’s offering by interacting with the ad, clicking on it and visiting the corporate page or the brand’s website (yes, we track all of it!).
Awareness layer ad example
Then, we hit this smaller group with our second layer – probably the most crucial a part of our strategy.
Layer 2: The Soothing Credibility Layer
Once we’ve generated interest, now we retarget these individuals with content that will construct brand credibility. For any result in convert, they should know you can be trusted. To try this, we construct the second layer that has content that helps them overcome their hesitation. This can include
- Client success stories/case studies
- Press releases where we’re within the news, where we made some top ten list, or where we announced some partnership
- Client testimonials
- Videos/Content of us actually demonstrating our expertise
Credibility layer ad example
You’d notice that we’re still not using lead gen forms on this layer – we’re just constructing a brand perception that
- Generates trust for the brand
- Creates demand in your offering
- Projects you because the go-to option and the go-to expert in your space.
Essentially, you might have to retarget the individuals who’re fascinated with you a minimum of 2-3 times before you get to the ultimate layer.
Layer 3: The High-Intent CTA layer
This is the ultimate nail within the coffin that you simply re-target your interested audience with. In this, you employ ads with direct CTAs for conversion and capture high-intent leads. That’s while you convert directly from LinkedIn in the shape of booked calls or demos.
Here’s a visible breakdown of our layered approach.
If you’re wondering if this strategy works, here’s what data shows. We began using this strategy around March 2022 and you’ll be able to take a look at the progress since then on this image. An 80% increase in conversion rates says all of it, right?
The results of the layered approach
Why did this strategy work?
Imagine a movie that directly begins with the climax – with zero build-ups. You’d probably not be fascinated with the movie anymore. That’s why our strategy works. Instead of directly capturing lead information in a form and following up randomly – we add the build-up to our campaigns in the shape of those retargeting layers.
Only after interacting with a few ads, and visiting our website, time and again, we hit the leads with actual forms or strong CTAs like book a call. That way not only the leads are more comfortable and assured about sharing their information, but in addition we find yourself filtering out those that should not. Moreover, your sales team saves quite a lot of time becomes the leads already consider you as an authority and trust your brand.
It’s not like someone got your checklist, and you then jump on a call with them, and you might have to inform them who you might be, what you do, and why they need to trust you – 70% of that has already been done through promoting.
In fact, the individuals who have booked a call along with your sales team are those who’ve an issue > imagine that your brand can form it > have just a few queries > and need to maneuver ahead in the method.
As a result, we’ve witnessed that through these campaigns, the show-up rates for calls and meetings are much higher, the close rate of those meetings is significantly better and the deal sizes are much larger. Here’s a peek into our campaign conversions.
Campaign conversions with the layered approach
The results of the layered approach
All that’s mere since you built up trust with them through creating demand, creating trust, after which capturing it.
The Final Thought
We’re not completely dismissing lead gen forms on LinkedIn – they’re useful. In fact, what we try to place forth is that as an alternative of coming up with one-off lead gen campaigns and capturing cold leads, plan well-thought-out, multi-layer retargeting campaigns. That way, you’d not only generate more relevant leads but in addition closer larger deal sizes.
Lay down an entire multi-campaign plan and choose content, and CTA for every, that’s when you’ll be able to create a funnel and nurture leads which might be real. Also, you’ll be able to all the time use a lead gen form in considered one of these campaigns, so long as it’s not the primary one.
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