LinkedIn Magic and How You Can Woo Your Dream Clients on LinkedIn

Ask most people how they use LinkedIn, and you’ll probably get more or less the same answers — for networking, or at the very least, for impressing recruiters while they’re applying for jobs. However, if you’re just using LinkedIn for networking, you’re missing out on some of its game-changing features.

When you strategically use LinkedIn, it can become a powerful tool for growing your business and building your reputation. Take a closer look at these three key ways to get the most out of LinkedIn.

Showcase Pages

Showcase pages are like LinkedIn pages within LinkedIn pages. These mini-websites are a great — but underutilized — type of social media marketing.

They’re a place for you to shine the spotlight on certain brands or projects. LinkedIn also lets you share your showcase pages with targeted audiences, which maximizes your chances of landing new clients!

What should you include on a showcase page? Because showcase pages are meant for social media marketing, you’ll want to select topics or organizations that show off your skills or expertise. Here are a few examples:

• Recent design projects, especially if you’ve worked with commercial clients
• Local or artisan brands you partner with, like custom furniture builders or artists
• New or distinctive services you offer
• Any collaborations you’ve done with other designers or architects

If you want your showcase pages to really catch the eye of potential clients, make sure you have high-quality photos, too!

Newsletters

Once you’ve piqued a possible client’s interest, you want to make sure they don’t forget about you — but without becoming a nuisance. Newsletters are an ideal way to do just that.

You might balk at the idea of creating even more content. But don’t worry — you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to create an incredible newsletter! Instead, you can give your blog content a second life on LinkedIn.

Most people who read your blog are already familiar with your work and your website. After all, most business blogs are tied to company websites. By connecting your blog posts to your LinkedIn page, you’re presenting them to a broader audience and hopefully bringing in a few new clients in the process.

Looking for ideas for your own newsletter? Check out Behind the Design’s LinkedIn page and subscribe to our newsletter.

Lead Generation on Your Company Page

How do you reel in your dream clients? You perfect your lead-generation technique. LinkedIn makes it easier than ever for would-be clients to get in touch with you.

Lead generation forms are connected to your LinkedIn ads. If someone is interested, they can click the ad, and LinkedIn gives them the option to send you their contact information. Because these fields are pre-filled with the lead’s LinkedIn information, they can send you their information in just a couple of clicks.

Lead generation forms also include helpful analytics, including:

• Form fill rates
• Cost per lead
• Conversion rate reporting

Getting started is simple. On your company's LinkedIn page, go to your edit page and click “lead gen.”

These forms can be used for generating leads in general, but they also do especially well with promotions. For example, suppose that you have a promotion offering new clients 10% off your services. If someone is interested, they’ll see that you’re running a promotion and will feel a sense of urgency.

They’ll want to click your ad and send you their information before they forget. It’s up to you from there. Once you’ve gotten a new lead, make sure you follow up!

Long-Form Content vs. Short-Form Content

When you’re developing a content marketing strategy for your business, you generally want a mix of short-form and long-form content. Each one has a different set of advantages. In a world where consumers are constantly inundated with information, short-form content has several advantages, such as:

• It’s more mobile-friendly
• It’s easier to consume
• It’s faster to produce

Consumers also tend to find short-form content more memorable.

However, long-form content has its own set of advantages, including:

• It’s often more authoritative
• It’s often of higher quality or ultimately of more value to the reader
• It’s easier to repurpose parts of it by publishing those parts as short-form content

So which of the two is more appropriate for LinkedIn? The goal of LinkedIn is to create deep and lasting engagement. Most marketers believe that long-form content does a better job of accomplishing that objective.

On a regular Google search, you need content that jumps out at the reader if you want to get a click. However, on LinkedIn, the way to stand out isn’t with catchy headlines or short, entertaining articles; it’s through demonstrating expertise and thought leadership. It’s much easier to do that with longer content pieces!

Digital Storefront

In today’s largely digitized world, few designers and architects maintain physical storefronts. But when potential customers first click over to your company's LinkedIn profile page, they often evaluate it much like they would a storefront.

If it looks out of date, only has poor-quality images, and generally looks low-effort, a customer will probably go somewhere else. On the other hand, if your profile page is current, has compelling visuals, and showcases a clear brand voice, it’s much more likely to be successful.

Here are a few tips for making LinkedIn a quality digital storefront:

• Define your brand voice, which will guide the rest of your decisions
• Plan an aesthetically pleasing layout that’s easy to navigate
• Keep the copy on your page minimal but personal to your brand
• Choose high-quality visuals, such as photos of your best work

Once you’ve applied these tips, you should have a competitive digital storefront. But don’t just create your storefront and then leave it be. Customers want a storefront that looks current.

Service Market Page

Your business’s main profile on your LinkedIn is your digital storefront. But what if you want to advertise with digital billboards? That’s where service pages come in.

These are pages dedicated to the different services you offer. For example, you might include one service page for consulting and a separate one for your design services. If your main profile is your digital storefront, your service pages are departments in the store.

Make sure that the tone of voice, fonts, visuals, and other elements of your service pages coordinate with your main page. Otherwise, site visitors will have a confusing, disjointed experience. If you walked into a high-end boutique and found a section that looked like an aisle in a dollar store, you’d be confused, too!

Event Hosting

LinkedIn is a place for building credibility. And what better way to build credibility in your field than by hosting an event? On LinkedIn, you can create pages for both in-person and digital events. This way, you can send invites and monitor who’s planning on attending.

When they’re planned carefully, events can allow you to show off your knowledge and skill. They also might help you build your professional network. Here are some examples of LinkedIn events you might want to create:

• Online workshops
• Seminars and panel discussions
• In-person meetups for interior designers and architects

LinkedIn offers you a range of options when it comes to hosting events. If you want to host your event in real-time, you can stream an event with LinkedIn Live. You can also stream audio-only events so that your audience gets the experience of listening to a live podcast.

Wondering How to Promote Your Interior Design Business?

At Behind the Design, we are dedicated to building a stronger community for interior designers and architects. We offer the support and educational resources you need to grow as a professional.

If you aren’t sure how to get design clients or how to expand your business, Behind the Design can also help you with marketing strategies. Because we’re uniquely attuned to the needs of professionals in the industry, our marketing for interior designers and architects delivers tangible results using an approach tailored to your clientele.

If you want to learn more about marketing strategies for interior design,  get in touch with us today!