Author: Lisa Wozniak

Are your customers hanging out on LinkedIn? Are they on other social media platforms? Where are they? This is the question many small business owners are asking themselves when considering how to go about marketing their business. Today, we’re going to take a look at how to go about finding your ideal clients using LinkedIn. I know what you’re thinking; isn’t LinkedIn just for people looking for a job? The answer is no. LinkedIn is a huge social media platform full of working professionals who have needs and buying habits just like you and a platform for finding them that’s more specific than you might imagine. So let’s get started.

To get started, you’ll want to start at your home page and look for the “Advanced” search option next to the search bar.

LinkedIn Search

Once you select the Advanced option, you’ll come to a new screen that will allow you to identify exactly what you’re looking for.

LinkedIn Advanced

 

Here’s where the magic begins. You can narrow your search by keywords, location, industry and interest. So, for the sake of this example, let’s say that you sell athletic clothing. (Note: we did this same search using Facebook. To read this blog post, click here.) To begin with, you will want to compile a list of search words and/or companies that will apply. In our example, we’re going to use Beach Body Fitness ™ as a search of people who need athletic wear. It just makes sense. If you are someone who follows Beach Body, you are likely physically active, or want to be, and as such need athletic wear. Consequently, in our keyword search, we will type in Beach Body.

LinkedIn Save Search

Voila! You now have a list of potential customers who will need athletic clothing. From here you can connect with them individually through the Connect button on the right. To accomplish this, create an effective marketing message introducing yourself and your product line and how to connect with you and paste this into your welcome message after you select the connect button. You can also use this information to get involved in some LinkedIn advertising designed to advertise to your target market. In either case, you’ll want to save your search as you work through this process and make these decisions. To do this, select the option to Save Search in the upper right of your screen.

LinkedIn Saved Searches

In this pop up screen you’ll notice that LinkedIn will give you the ability to save up to 3 people searches at one time. This will be incredibly useful to you as it allows you to create different searches with different keywords, locations and industries. The other wonderful option to this process is that LinkedIn will automatically be running these searches for you and give you your results via email in a time frame that is most meaningful to you. ( i.e. weekly or monthly etc.)  As you work through this process, if you feel that 3 saved searches is not enough, you have the option of upgrading your account to include additional searches.

What’s so fantastic about this process is that it works for both product and service related industries. Let’s look at the same search results as though your target market is medical professionals. If your business focuses on the needs of dentists (let’s say your business sells x-ray equipment) and they are your ideal clients, you merely have to use Dentist as your keyword search. You’ll receive the same abundant list of ideal clients that meet the criteria you’re looking for.

LinkedIn has done so much to help the needs of the small business owner to find their ideal clients. As a business owner, you really have to wonder, Are Your Customers Hanging Out On LinkedIn? My guess would be the answer to that question is a strong YES!

We’d love to hear how LinkedIn is helping you find clients for your business. Please share your success stories in the comments below. Want other tips for growing your small business through marketing? Visit our website at www.wozmarketing.com

2 Comments

  1. Miriam Vineyard

    Absolutely fantastic article! I found many tips! Headed to the office now to apply this!

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