526. Alex Boyd, Organic LinkedIn Growth for B2B - a podcast by Will Bachman

Show Notes:

Will Bachman welcomes Alex Boyd, the founder of Revenue Zen, a B2B organic growth marketing firm. Alex talks about organic growth marketing and how it is simply sharing knowledge about a product or service through platforms like websites, forums, and social media without relying on paid advertising. Alex's strategy works because clients are drawn to the content and reach out to him. He is now helping other B2B companies achieve success through organic growth marketing.

Developing Organic Content for B2B Markets

Alex Boyd works with B2B clients who typically have an average order value of at least 20k to 50k or more. He helps them to find their voice, clarify their thought process, produce content, get it out there, and watch that turn into leads and pipeline. His clients are usually software companies, consultancies, and other service providers who sell digitally and have a higher than average ticket size. By writing LinkedIn content that is well targeted and speaks to their audience and producing blog posts that are targeted to niche, lower volume keywords, his clients can see a huge ROI with just a few leads.

Alex talks about how they help software companies create content. He explains how they have a structured interview with the founders of the companies to understand their needs and goals, and draw out their expertise. Then, they create content that focuses on the specialty of the company as well as how technology can be used as part of the process. He emphasizes that the founders may not be social media writers, but they can provide valuable insights on how to implement the solution. Alex offers a sanitized case study of a software client. Most of his clients receive targeted, well-written content that they can post themselves. 

Alex’s business helps clients craft effective social media content that can help them generate leads. He advocates for a structured interview process to draw out the client's expertise, and then they can coach them or produce content that the client can edit. Alex shares a few interview questions that help draw out valuable information on the company that helps build engaging content that yields results. He identifies the type of content that works. 

 

Tips on Creating Engaging Content 

He suggests starting with an origin story, as it helps the client's network to understand why they started the business. He also suggests asking about the client's favorite interview questions to draw out the information. Alex believes that making up content for social media does not work, and that it is important to draw out the expertise and knowledge of the client to create effective content. He emphasizes the need to be short and insightful in content marketing. 

Alex explains how to manage reaction and engagement to social and content posts, and how to transition from commenting on someone's posts to having meaningful conversation. He offers tips on backlinks, messaging and responding, and how to prep the groundwork for posts.  Alex said that the majority of the 135 engagements he has brought in from his LinkedIn posts and comments have been inbound. He suggests that the best way to have a conversation with someone is to have a natural conversation that doesn't have a direct lead into one's service but is still relevant. Will asks for tips on how to move from commenting on someone's posts to having a live conversation. Alex suggests providing a targeted note expressing interest in talking and engaging in meaningful conversations that don't lead to a sales pitch. He adds that the best conversations are those that don't lead to a sales pitch but are still relevant.

When engaging potential customers on social media, it is important to be mindful of how you approach them. Instead of leading directly into a sales conversation, it is best to demonstrate your expertise by asking questions that show your credibility. To do this effectively, ask questions related to the topic that you know about, and make sure they include your expertise. For example, if your expertise is in SEO, you could ask questions about backlink distribution and content production. Pretend you are giving a micro-consulting engagement and think about the value you can provide. This will help you create questions that demonstrate your expertise without feeling like a sales pitch.

 

How to Gain and Engage with Clients on LinkedIn

Alex explains how to choose questions that demonstrate your knowledge, and how to comment on a LinkedIn post. In addition to using a Sales Navigator account in order to highlight posts from those people, he suggests using a bookmarking system or a spreadsheet to track the posts, and how focusing on a smaller group of potential leads is the best way to comment on relevant posts.

Alex also suggests engaging with other people in the same space, such as influencers, consultants and software companies, as this can be more effective than engaging directly with the prospects. To find these people, Alex suggests creating pre-made influencer lists, which can be done by looking at which creators and consultants get the most engagement from decision makers. Finally, Alex recommends having offline conversations with others who also sell to the same market.

Alex talks about the software he created, Aware, to help with posting content on social media which orchestrates all LinkedIn activity on one platform to organize the process and save time. The typical person using Aware are usually growing on LinkedIn but want to spend less time managing LinkedIn data.

Sales Leadership on Social Media

Alex shares tips on how to drive engagement and points to Dan Morris as an example, whose posts do not get a lot of engagement but are targeted to a specific niche and resonates with them. He suggests creating content that is targeted to the right audience and that asks questions or request for reposts to encourage engagement.

He talks about sales leadership and how to best use social media to increase engagement and reach more people. One of the tips is to make sure the first couple of lines of a post are as powerful as possible, and to take the best line from the end of the post and put it at the beginning. He also shares how to respond when a post does gain a lot of attention to take advantage of the momentum. He suggests that virality often does not lead to much net new pipeline and it can even be distracting. If clients do have a post go viral, Alex suggests that they not try to respond to everyone, but instead look for the signal in the noise and prioritize business development. Alex also offers insight on the best and worst days and times to post on LinkedIn.

Alex states that it is more important to post quality content than to post frequently. He suggests that people should choose a quality threshold above which their content must be and be consistent. He also advises against pushing out half-assed content in the name of frequency. He suggests that if people are able to spend 3-4 hours a week planning and creating good content, they will do better. He also offers recommendations on formatting content whether text, video, or images.  He also offers one last piece of advice on sharing content for best results. 

 

Timestamps:

01:30 Unlocking the Potential of Thought Leadership for B2B Clients 

06:36 Uncovering the Power of Interviews for Content Marketing Success

13:03 Connecting with Social Media Engagers 

14:54 Transitioning from social media to Live Conversation 

18:22 Commenting Tips for LinkedIn

25:16 Proactive Ways to Engage with Clients and Followers 

25:48 The Benefits of Using Aware for LinkedIn Success

31:23 Tips for Generating Engagement on LinkedIn

35:32 Maximizing Engagement and Business Development Through Social Media Posting

 

Links:

Website: https://revenuezen.com

Website: https://useaware.co

CONTACT INFO:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexcboyd/

Get in touch with Alex: https://www.gated.com/@alexboyd

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

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