Ever since the beginning of LinkedIn, B2B marketers have been trying to crack the code for B2B success.

With all these millions of professionals in one place, surely there’s some way to open up the floodgates to leads, isn’t there?

Yes, there is a way to open up the floodgates to success.

The conventional LinkedIn advice isn’t detailed enough: 1) Join. 2) Be active. 3) Get leads. What?!

So, how do you actually get leads?

Sure, you might accidentally catch a few falling leads, but in order to really win you need to do your own prospecting, LinkedIn style. How do you cut through the gaggle of job seekers and find qualified people to do business with?

In this article, I’m going to show you 6 tips that will help you better leverage LinkedIn to be a powerful B2B marketing tool.

1. Turn the company page into a lead generation page.

In order to make leads from LinkedIn, you have to be intentional. Leads don’t just fall into your lap. You work for them.

The best way is to turn your business or company page into a lead generation page. This is a course reversal from the typical company page, which shows basic information and facts about the company. Who reads that stuff anyway?

Your company page is a pipeline for LinkedIn leads to visit your actual company website.

Structure your company page in such a way that it leads up to a conversion action. The conversion action is a click-through to your website, either in the company description or your recent updates.

First, use an image that gets attention or creates interest.

Second, create a clear and compelling pitch in your company description.

This is where many companies falter. The company description should not be a dry explanation of how much you grew and how many offices you’ve opened. That’s not the stuff of lead generation.

The most important part of your company description is the first two lines because that’s all that LinkedIn displays. In order to read the rest of the description, the user must click “see more.” You’ve got to grab the user with your first couple of sentences, or they won’t read all that sparkling copy you created.

Now what? Now, they can visit your website.

That’s the path of the user who is interested in finding out more about your company — a prospect. It’s up to you to make your company website as conversion-ready as possible.

Third, make your Recent Updates section clickable and conversion-focused.

Just in case prospects don’t click through your company website on the company information section, you want to get them in the Updates.

As long as you’re regularly posting updates, you’ll have an active and engaging feed. The best way to gain leads from this section is to post updates that are directly aimed at your target audience. You can post blog updates, link to your infographics, and share other information, but keep this in mind: You’re looking for click-throughs from information-seekers.

Those are the basic steps to optimizing a company page. If you’re an industry that has broad appeal, you’ll probably see quite a few leads from this source. If you’re in a very small niche, your answers lie in the information below.

2. Create a Showcase Page.

LinkedIn created showcase pages for companies to promote individual brands that are extensions of the company.

Showcase pages are the perfect way to segment your inbound LinkedIn traffic. If you can create a business unit that is directly connected to a specific target audience, then you are in a position to create a Showcase page.

From your company page, click “Edit” and “Create a Showcase Page.”

Showcase pages were basically custom made for B2Bs to better generate leads.

Represent? Relationship? Audience? It sounds a lot like B2B marketing to me.

A Showcase page should target one customer segment and provide information that is relevant to them. Your Showcase page gets a larger header image, more above-the-fold update posts, and places to link back to your company. In this way, it differs from company pages in several key ways.

Here some tips for making your Showcase pages as powerful as possible.

Make it conversion-primed, just like your company page.

It’s important to keep the name of the page short, so it won’t be truncated in the display sidebar.

In the Showcase page name, use a word that your audience will understand and relate to.

Showcase pages are simply another way to spread the net a little bit wider and to gain even more targeted leads interested in your product or service.

3. Use Advanced Search

So far, I’ve explained two inbound techniques for gaining leads. Now, I want to explain how to go out and find your prospects. They may not come to find you, but you can go find them.

LinkedIn’s advanced search gives you an incredible way of identifying the exact type of people you are targeting.

From the LinkedIn header menu, click the search people icon, and the advanced option.

Even without the upgraded LinkedIn membership, you have a great filter for narrowing down your search.

The most powerful aspect of Advanced People Search is the center column, in which you can filter your search by location, current company, and industry, past company, school, profile language, and nonprofit interests.

The results are focused, giving me a chance to connect with these people.

The great thing about these results is that I can continue to filter them without having to go and rework my initial search.

The search filters are helpful because I can instantly see how the search filters will change the results of my initial search. Plus, I can gain insight into how a particular company or area may be a better target for my prospecting.

Advanced search is the single most powerful technique for directly finding targets.

Keep in mind that the bigger and better your personal network, the greater your chance of finding warm prospects. While LinkedIn’s advanced search does allow you to search the network as a whole, the best leads will come from people to whom you are already connected at a first, second, or third level.

4. Search Groups

Searching for people is a very detailed approach to looking for leads. It’s a great approach, but there’s another one: Groups.

At the time of writing this article, I identified 2,058,816 groups on LinkedIn. You can be fairly confident that there’s a group in your niche.

A great way to find blocks of leads is to search for groups, join these groups, maintain some level of activity in these groups, and nurture leads in that way.

Simply perform a simple group search using relevant keywords.

Group searches do not have the same advanced features that people or company searches have, but you can narrow down your search according to relationship level, category, and language.

Look for groups with the following features:

Highly relevant. The group must be a nearly exact match to what you are seeking in a target audience.

Active. LinkedIn ranks groups according to their activity level, so all you need to do is pay attention to how active they are in the search results. Select groups that are “very active.”

Medium size. There’s no “ideal size” since that depends on the nature of your business and niche. Keep in mind that you don’t want to get lost in a huge group where no one will notice you. You also don’t want to join a group that has too few people to matter. LinkedIn allows you to be a member of 50 groups, so choose carefully.

5. Start groups

LinkedIn groups offer a lot of great networking opportunities. One of the ways to get even more from the power of groups is to create your own.

As you join groups and interact with groups, you may identify an opportunity for another group to be formed. When you become the owner and moderator of your group, you gain leadership and recognition in the industry.

As long as you position yourself authoritatively and not in a sales way, you can form a place where your target audience can gather and interact.

6. Publish content

LinkedIn has a powerful content publishing platform, and if you’re serious about B2B marketing, you need to be using it.

By creating quality content, you can turn your strategy from outbound marketing—drawing attention through ads—and start building an inbound strategy where you draw in users interested in what you have to offer.

A great example on the company side of publishing is Adobe. While they could resign themselves to a stodgy, corporate tone and voice, Adobe isn’t afraid to share colorful and inspiring stories of their employees.

It draws attention to the brand, but in a way that isn’t pushy or too closely tied with sales.

If you have publishing access, be sure to use this platform for even more exposure. LinkedIn members who are publishing reports that they’ve experienced a lot of success.

Conclusion

This is a broad-level strategy that leaves you lots of room to trace down more precise strategies. LinkedIn offers a lot of opportunities and is the ideal resource for B2B marketing. But without the right knowledge, it becomes just another time-sucking social network. Next time you’re on LinkedIn, spend at least thirty minutes doing some advanced searches or group searches and see if you don’t come up with at least five prospects.