Navigating multi-month sales cycles. Balancing inbound and outbound strategies. Creating dozens of marketing and sales touchpoints. For many B2B companies, guiding prospects from awareness to conversion isn’t exactly straightforward. But with a thoughtful LinkedIn lead nurturing strategy, your team can make the process much more efficient.
In this article, we’ll cover how to run B2B lead nurturing campaigns on LinkedIn—including expert advice for incorporating inbound strategies, outreach tactics, and paid campaigns into your approach.
Agorapulse makes LinkedIn publishing, engagement, and reporting easy. Get a free trial of Agorapulse to test our social media management solution with your team for 30 days.
Why LinkedIn Is the Platform for B2B Lead Nurturing
With more than 1 billion users, LinkedIn is easily the world’s largest professional networking platform. It’s particularly helpful for lead nurturing because it allows teams to:
- Research prospects by reviewing their member profiles and using tools like Sales Navigator.
- Build relationships with prospects via organic content, direct messaging, and paid campaigns.
- Establish thought leadership by sharing original insights about industry trends and challenges.
- Target prospects using audience data and retarget with engagement signals.
Plus, LinkedIn makes it easy to create and share content that appeals to decision makers at various stages of their buyer’s journey. With paid or organic campaigns, you can share top-of-funnel content that promotes awareness and introduces prospects to your product or service.
You can also publish middle-of-funnel content that promotes consideration and builds trust through thought leadership. And you can post bottom-of-funnel content that promotes conversions by comparing your brand to the competition and sharing real customer results.
How to Plan Your LinkedIn Lead Nurturing Strategy
The first step toward launching a lead nurture campaign is planning your strategy.
Let’s walk through setting goals, conducting audience research, and mapping your buyer’s journey.
Decide on campaign goals
Start by setting an end goal for the campaign. I recommend setting SMART goals to get as clear as possible.
For example, say your main goal is acquiring 100 new customers before the end of the next quarter so your company can meet revenue goals.
Break down that goal into realistic steps for each stage. Use data from past campaigns to help you set realistic key performance indicators (KPIs).
For example, you may need to generate 1,000 marketing qualified leads (MQLs). To secure 1,000 MQLs, you may need to engage 10,000 prospects who fit your ideal customer profile (ICP).
Once you’re clear on the goals you need to achieve, you can successfully plan lead nurture campaigns and allocate resources to the right tactics.
Conduct audience research
One of the most important elements of any lead nurture campaign is focusing efforts on prospects who are a good fit for your business. To find the right prospects, use an audience research tool like LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
To get started, use Sales Navigator’s filters to plug in ICP details like industry, company size, and location. After finding accounts to target, drill down and identify the decision makers to engage.
Alternatively, use Sales Navigator to filter by buyer persona. This process helps you find leads to interact with based on their job title, company, interest in your business, and other factors.
Plus, Sales Navigator makes it easy to monitor both accounts and leads for new hires, job changes, and new LinkedIn content.
Map your buyer’s journey
The clearer you are on your buyer’s journey, the easier you can nurture prospects. After all, when you know the steps leads typically take as they move from awareness to decision, you can replicate them for new prospects.
To map out your buyer’s journey, pinpoint the kinds of content prospects typically engage with at each stage. Clarify what they’re thinking and the problems they’re solving. Then, identify the touchpoints that get prospects to take the next step.
For example, watching a live video from your team might get them to sign up for your email marketing list. And seeing a compelling customer story may get them to book a demo or take a free trial.
5 Types of Content for Your Organic Lead Nurturing Strategy
Test out these organic LinkedIn marketing tactics to see what resonates with your target audience and what moves the needle at each stage of the buyer’s journey.
1. Company highlights
Company news like fundraising announcements, product launches, and employee achievements can all capture leads’ attention and increase their trust in your business. But instead of sharing these highlights from the company’s perspective, consider publishing them from an employee’s perspective.
Lindsay Ashcraft, Social Media & Video Manager at Apollo.io, explains, “At Apollo.io, one tactic we love using on LinkedIn is to tap into featuring employees who worked behind the scenes on a product launch and let them tell that story from their own lens.”
“We find it tends to drive the most traffic and awareness because it feels a bit more personal. It also lets the company publicly recognize the work of employees while showcasing company values, which can ultimately influence consumer decision-making.”
For example, this Apollo.io LinkedIn post details a launch from the perspective of the Director of Product and Principal Product Manager.
2. Thought leadership
Industry insights and thought leadership are also great for building credibility and establishing your B2B brand as an authority in the space. While you can certainly publish this content from your company page, it can be even more effective when your executive team posts it from their personal profiles.
Ateendra Sharma, Senior Digital Marketing Manager at Scrollmark, shares, “LinkedIn has been a key channel in our ABM and outbound program, with our CEO leading our organic presence.”
“Our CEO publishes a weekly Monday newsletter on LinkedIn, covering three key themes: industry funding and M&A updates, ecommerce and retail brands that are blowing up, and social platform updates and features.”
Ateendra elaborates, “This is complemented by our CEO’s deep-dive content analyzing social media marketing strategies of successful brands. This founder-led content strategy positions our CEO as an industry thought leader while creating natural conversation starters for outreach.”
For example, Scrollmark reposted this thought leadership piece by CEO Akshay Madhani to make the content more visible to the brand’s followers.
3. Product demos
When you want to introduce prospects to your product, brief demos are helpful for showing exactly what your product does. For example, this Zapier LinkedIn post highlights the automation platform’s latest AI-powered tool.
Another option is hosting video content in real time via LinkedIn Live. When you livestream product demos or launches, you can interact with prospects, answer questions, and provide more customized content.
4. Social proof
From client testimonials to user-generated content (UGC) to influencer content, social proof is invaluable for nurturing leads. Since this content comes from a customer’s perspective, it often comes across as more authentic—which can deliver better results for your brand.
“In my role, I focus on turning initial interactions into meaningful business relationships through high-value content and one-to-one engagement,” shares Edward White, Head of Growth at beehiiv. “LinkedIn’s been key to our approach.”
“One of our team members recently shared an article on beehiiv from Self Made Millennials, and it performed really well. It resonated with our audience because it breaks down beehiiv’s benefits in a way that clicks with creators looking for reliable newsletter tools,” Edward explains. “Content like this tends to spark real conversations and helps us build connections with those interested in newsletter growth.”
Here’s more social proof shared by the beehiiv team. This LinkedIn post highlights a recently acquired beehiiv newsletter, which is likely to get the attention of creators looking to monetize their work.
5. Original research
Survey your customers, poll industry experts, or pull data from your software platform. By compiling this original research and turning it into a compelling storyline, you can create content that speaks to your target audience.
For example, this Tropic LinkedIn post features data from a survey of 150+ finance and procurement leaders. The post links to a lead magnet, which the company can use to collect email addresses and follow up with leads.
Creating a consistent posting schedule is easier with Agorapulse. With our social media scheduling platform, you can publish text posts, carousels, and videos to your LinkedIn page or your personal profile.
Need your team to review content before it goes live? With our approval tool, you can loop in your team and get the green light before publishing content to LinkedIn.
Want to add more resources in the comments of your LinkedIn posts? You can schedule the first comment in Agorapulse so you don’t have to take the time to post it live.
How to Create an Outreach Strategy That Nurtures Leads
Sparking conversations in the comments section can be great for engaging with leads. But for many B2B brands, one-on-one outreach is much more effective for nurturing leads.
While you can certainly respond to leads via your company inbox, the best LinkedIn outreach typically comes from your executive team in the form of DMs or InMail.
Direct outreach is the last step in Scrollmark’s lead nurturing workflow. Ateendra explains, “Our CEO drives personal outreach through their profile using HeyReach, achieving around a 26% conversion rate.”
Scrollmark’s outreach typically follows three paths:
-
- Direct connection requests (no note) followed by strategic follow-ups
- Invitations to co-create content with us for our newsletter and deep dives
- Personalized outreach to brands featured in our CEO’s content
Ateendra explains, “From first touch to meaningful conversation, Scrollmark’s typical nurture cycle is about three weeks.”
For beehiiv, responding to each prospect’s engagement signals is key. “Our LinkedIn messaging combines a bit of automation with real, personalized follow-ups. We use automation to keep in touch with leads consistently. This way, no one slips through the cracks,” Edward shares.
“But the real impact comes when our team steps in to send direct messages based on each lead’s engagement history. If someone’s read an article or interacted with our posts, we’ll follow up with a message that references that specific content,” Edward elaborates. “These one-on-one touches feel more authentic, and it shows we’re paying attention to their journey with us.”
4 Tips for Nurturing B2B Leads With Paid Campaigns
As helpful as organic content can be, paid campaigns are often essential for effective lead nurturing. LinkedIn ad campaigns can help you deliver targeted messages to specific audience segments. Here’s how to make the most of LinkedIn ads.
1. Tell authentic stories
No matter which ad format you use, prioritize storytelling.”At beehiiv, we focus on telling authentic stories through video—showcasing creators’ experiences, sharing growth tips, and illustrating what our platform can help them achieve,” Edward shares.
“Segmenting these ads based on past engagement makes them even more effective, allowing us to connect with audiences in a way that feels personal and aligns with where they are in their journey with us.”
2. Create personal connections
Promoting branded content from your LinkedIn page isn’t your only option. It’s also worth testing LinkedIn’s thought leader ads, which let you promote influencer or executive team content via your company page.
“Thought leader ads are great for building credibility and starting those first trust-based interactions,” Edward explains. “By focusing on topics around newsletter growth and monetization, these ads help beehiiv connect authentically with creators who want to scale their reach.”
“At Getuplead, we’ve seen an increase in engagement and conversion rates for lead nurturing campaigns with thought leader ads,” shares Kamel Ben Yacoub, Co-founder at Getuplead.
“We’ve been testing them for our B2B clients for several months now, and the results are great. The cost per reach is better than traditional sponsored posts, and the engagement is higher. Pro tip: be sure to have already enough engagement (likes, comments, shares) on the posts you want to promote,” Kamel recommends.
3. Target prospects strategically
For Scrollmark, paid campaigns create the first touchpoint for most leads. “We run awareness campaigns for three weeks before initiating direct outreach, which creates familiarity with our brand,” Ateendra explains. At the awareness level, his team has found that carousel ads outperform image ads by 42%.
“Our targeting strategy is highly focused. We use account-based targeting by uploading lists of prospects whom we’ll later target for DM outreach and cold emails.”
“We target specific personas in our targeted accounts—CEOs, founders, CMOs, VP of marketing, heads of marketing, social media managers, and e-commerce leaders,” Ateendra shares. “This ‘air raid’ approach has proven effective in warming up prospects before our DM outreach and cold emails.”
LinkedIn’s built-in targeting options are relatively robust, so you can also experiment with targeting by role, job title, company, or seniority level.
Kamel recommends testing different targeting criteria to reach the same audience. “Sometimes, you can get totally different results depending on the criteria you’re using. For example, maybe the job titles are missing some members of your target audience that you can capture with skills or functions criteria.”
4. Build retargeting audiences
Retargeting is crucial for guiding prospects to a conversion. With LinkedIn’s ad platform, you can retarget based on interactions with your ads, views of your website, or engagement with your lead generation forms.
“Using videos for lead nurturing works great,” Kamel explains. “The video views objective can drive a lot of engagement and a high reach at a very cost-effective spend. Videos are also the fastest and cheapest way to build a retargeting audience.”
For optimal results, make sure the paid content you use in retargeting campaigns aligns with the right stage of the buyer’s journey.
For example, suppose you create a retargeting audience based on people who viewed at least 50% of a customer story video. Because this content is geared toward leads nearing the end of the buyer’s journey, the next ad in the sequence should invite them to take the next step—such as booking a call or signing up for a trial.
How to Measure the Success of Your LinkedIn Campaigns
Are your LinkedIn nurture campaigns working? Are you reaching the goals you set?
To get answers, track the LinkedIn metrics that matter to your team. Some of the most important metrics to monitor include:
- Engagement rate to track how prospects are interacting with your content
- Clicks and click-through rates to track whether leads are exploring your offers
- Conversion rates to track how often leads are booking demos or purchasing a plan
You can track some of these metrics via LinkedIn’s native analytics dashboard. But if you need to share data with team members or incorporate website data, this built-in tool has serious limitations.
With Agorapulse’s LinkedIn analytics, you can monitor company page metrics, share social media reports with stakeholders, and schedule reports to land in your inbox automatically.
You can use your analysis of the results to optimize your lead nurturing process and keep everyone in the loop without missing a beat or wasting time.
Plus, Agorapulse’s social ROI solution makes it easier to factor in website data. With our social ROI report, you can track website visitors, transactions, and revenue from LinkedIn.
Then, you can determine which content drove the most traffic or conversions—and understand which steps in your lead nurture workflow make the biggest business impact.
Wrapping Up Our Tips for B2B Lead Nurture Campaigns
For B2B companies, LinkedIn is an essential platform for finding and nurturing leads. With a strategic combination of organic content, paid campaigns, and outreach tactics, your team can build and optimize successful nurture campaigns.
With our organic publishing, engagement, and reporting tools, Agorapulse can simplify LinkedIn management and help your team nurture more leads in less time. Get a free trial of Agorapulse and start testing our social media solution today.
