Do you want to turn social media followers and likes into actual revenue? Well, with GreenRope, it’s simple. In just a few easy-to-follow steps, you can start to generate leads and build your top of funnel.

Let’s get right to it.

My ‘Aha’ Moment

Over the past six months, I noticed our LinkedIn campaign ID popping up more frequently in our conversion tracking. This made me think, “What is the most effective way to leverage our engagement and traffic, and turn it into real leads for our sales team?”

Since beginning our LinkedIn lead generation strategy, we have increased our top of funnel efforts and generated a better ROI from our social strategy.

Lead generation from social media is nothing new, but without the proper tools and strategy in place, it can become hard to keep track and properly manage these new contacts. Luckily, with tools like Zapier, it’s easier than ever to give consistent experiences to leads coming from social as those coming from other sources.

To get started, I needed a good strategy to make the most of our social advertising budget.

Setting Your Goals

Not all social advertising efforts are created equal. You need to set a goal and map out a detailed plan to reach that goal. For example, are you collecting leads via gated content or are you asking them to signup for a demo or a trial of your product? Each of these goals requires a different strategy. A person downloading an ebook may not be as qualified as a person looking for a demo and will therefore typically require more lead nurturing. A contact asking for a demo needs an immediate sales follow up, as they are more likely further in the buyer’s journey.

In our case, we wanted to get people to sign up for a live demo of the platform. This means that these leads need to be dropped into a sales follow-up right away.

Define your process

Figuring out your process is critical. You need to define a clear path from the moment the lead comes in from social. To get started, ask yourself the following questions:

What needs to happen when a lead comes in from LinkedIn (or social media)?
- Do they need to receive a follow up email? (I would highly suggest yes on this one)
- Do they need to be contacted by a sales representative?
- Do you need to add them to your top of funnel and make sure they have the correct conversion code? (Again, I’m going to say yes, to this one as well)
- What does the process look like once they have been dropped into your sales funnel? Do they start on a lead nurturing campaign?

Establishing this ahead of time allows you to create your content, the appropriate journeys, and workflows.

Here is the flow that we came up with for our LinkedIn leads:

Step 1: Signs up on LinkedIn Lead Gen Form

Step 2: Add as a contact to GreenRope Leads (via Zapier)

Step 3: Activate Social Media Leads workflow (via Zapier)

> This workflow gives them a conversion code - LinkedInLeadGen

> This workflow also starts them on our new stage 0 lead journey that looks something like this.

Step 4: The journey guides them down a personalized path based on specific data points. For example, we don’t want any current users to be dropped into a leads group. We also want to make sure that the correct workflow is triggered for the right salesperson.

As you can see, the contact goes through several steps and filters to make sure they receive the right messaging and are being properly followed up with.

A few suggestions:

If your goal is to get them on the phone as soon as possible, then create a workflow that assigns a follow up for this contact. Do not let them go days without being contacted! This is a waste of a potentially good lead.
If your goal is encouraging them to download an ebook or access gated content, put them in a lead nurturing campaign to further assess their engagement level. Then, when they reach a certain point in your funnel, or reach a lead scoring threshold, you can trigger a sales follow up.

Depending on the goal of your advertising, you will need to change up your strategy to meet the contact’s expectations.

Setup your Groups, journeys, workflows in GreenRope

Next, you need to create and build out your process. You will use the following tools:

Zapier: Zapier is the third party application that connects GreenRope with the social platform. You’ll set up “Zaps” to automatically trigger an action once someone submits your form via social.
GreenRope: You will use GreenRope to set up your workflows, journeys, emails, etc.
Social network: This is where you will set up your social ads and collect the leads.

Social Setup (LinkedIn):

In the top right-hand corner, select the ‘Work’ drop down, and click on Advertise
Make sure you have an Ad Account set up
Click on Create Campaign
Select Lead Generation
Set up your audience, your creatives, and budget
Set up your lead gen forms in Assets
Assign each ad you created to a lead gen form (remember the name of the lead gen form - you will need this later)
Save & exit (you will launch your campaign in just a bit)

Next, we need to set up our workflows and journeys in GreenRope. You have to do this before you set up the connector since Zapier needs to know what actions to trigger. If they are not already set up, they have nothing to trigger.

Workflows (GreenRope):

To create a GreenRope workflow, go into Automation > Workflow Manager.
In the blue Action Bar, select ‘New Workflow’ and a pop-up box will appear.

Click here for more information on setting up your workflows.

Best practices for setting up social lead generation workflows:

Always include a brief summary of how the workflow is triggered and what it does in the ‘Notes’ section.
In the Trigger Actions tab, you can define what happens when this workflow is triggered. For example, we trigger a conversion so they are added to the top of our funnel. Then, we add them to a marketing qualified leads (MQL) drip campaign and start a Stage 0 Journey which will trigger the appropriate sales follow up.
In the Modify Contact tab, you can add or remove the lead from specific groups, add a tag, a campaign ID, and update/append data. We add a campaign ID in this tab. We do not add them to a group, because this happens via our Zap in Zapier.

Once you have set up your workflow, save your work before moving on to the next step!

Journeys (GreenRope):

To send new leads on a custom journey, trigger it by using a simple workflow.

To create a new journey click on Automation > Journey.
In the blue Action Bar, click ‘New Journey’.
- Pro tip: If you want to brainstorm your journey first, use a free tool we built called JourneyFlow.com!
Use the Action, Decision, and Delay buttons to create your tailored customer journey for these new leads coming in from social media.
Remember, if you are triggering a journey from a workflow, please update your workflow to start your new journey.

Zapier Setup:

Create your free Zapier account if you do not already have one. Zapier is not only great for creating these Zaps, but for connecting all of your apps!
On your Dashboard, select the two apps you want to connect (LinkedIn & GreenRope)
Search for LinkedIn Lead Gen forms (Note: This is a premium app, so you will need an upgraded Zapier account).
Next, look for GreenRope and select it from the dropdown.
In the ‘When this happens’ box, select New Form Response.
In the ‘Then do this!’ box, select Add Contact.
Finally, hit Use Zap. It should take you to the Zap setup page.

Once you are on the screen to edit your Zap, follow these directions:

Click on LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms. You will need to connect your LinkedIn account, select the correct account, and hit Test. This confirms the connection. Once successful, hit the Continue button.
Now it’s time to choose your options. Select the Ad Account associated with your LinkedIn Ads, then select the form you want associated with this Zap. (See, I told you to remember the name of your form!)
Finally, test this step in your Zap!

You have now completed the first step in setting up your Zap! Congrats! Next, we will define what happens once that contact moves from LinkedIn to GreenRope!

Click on the Add Contact section, confirm you are connected to GreenRope, and that the action is Add Contact. Click Continue.
Choose the GreenRope Account you want the Zap associated with. Test to make sure you are properly connected. Once successful, click Continue.
In the Edit Template area, you are going to select the group you want the contact added to (if you want them to be added to a group).
Next, put in sample data (fields that you ask for you on your LinkedIn Lead Gen form), such as First Name, Last Name, and Email. Keep in mind that if you prefill any other fields, that field will appear with that specific data in GreenRope.
Once you are finished inputting your fields and/or data, hit Continue.
Test this step!

After the Add Contact test is successful, you will move onto part three of your Zap setup.

Pro tip: Do not create two different Zaps for this process. For example, do not create one ‘Add Contact’ Zap and one ‘Trigger Workflow’ Zap. These must be triggered within the same Zap to ensure consistency in your process.

You are now one step closer to finalizing your Zap! The final step is triggering your workflow in GreenRope.

Click the ‘Add a Step’ button below the Add Contact step.
You can add a Helper Step or add an Action. Select Add Action.
Select the GreenRope app and Continue.
On the next page, click on Activate Workflow and Continue.
On the next page, you will confirm the GreenRope account again. Test and Continue.
Here, put in the test email you used in the previous Add Contact step, and select the workflow you created in GreenRope for your new social media leads.
Test!

Well done! You have now successfully set up your Zap! It’s time to make it live! To do so, just toggle the button so that it shows the green side.

Once your Zap is on, you are ready to go.

The last and final step is to launch your LinkedIn campaign and start bringing in the leads.

Analyzing the Process

Just because you’ve launched your campaign, doesn’t mean it all ends there. You need to make sure that the processes you’ve set up are executing seamlessly. Are your leads being added to the right group? Are they starting on the right journey and receiving the right content?

As your leads from Linkedin come in, pull up their contact record to verify that everything is happening in order and not conflicting with any other workflows or other processes.

If everything looks like it’s working correctly, it’s time to monitor the leads coming in and see how they’re converting. Depending on the quality and conversion rates, you may want to reassess your strategy and change up your content, follow-ups, etc.

Best Practices

To finish off, we want to share the best practices we have learned throughout this process.

Monitor your Zap and look out for emails from Zapier. Our LinkedIn account has been disconnected before, causing the Zap to turn off. Usually, you just have to reauthenticate your LinkedIn account.
Make sure you do not have duplicate actions happening once a new contact is added to your CRM. For example, if your customer journey adds someone to a specific group based on predefined criteria, then you do not need to add a contact to that group in the Zap. The journey will take care of this for you. The same goes for workflows.
Talk with your sales team before setting this up. They need to understand how the process works, and in fact, should be involved in helping establish the strategy. Don’t just set it up and expect your sales team to know what to do with these leads.
Gauge the quality of the leads you are bringing in. Are they engaging with your brand? Are they converting? If not, you may want to take a look at your targeting. Perhaps, there is some fine-tuning you can do.
Test out different versions of your LinkedIn ads to find the best performing ones! LinkedIn lets you create as many posts as you need in each campaign, so take advantage and find the ones that work!

Conclusion

Are you ready to start generating leads from social media? Yes, you are! Use this helpful guide and start setting up your connectors so you can drive traffic, generate new leads, and increase your ROI.

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How to Generate LinkedIn Leads with GreenRope