Seven ways to do market research with LinkedIn
Introduction
LinkedIn is more than a way to keep up with your contacts and colleagues. It’s also a handy market research tool for marketers and business owners looking for information about their industry, competition, prospective customers, and more. Here are seven ways you can use the LinkedIn app to conduct market research on your own:
#1. Find B2B contact information.
LinkedIn is a great way to do market research for B2B sales because it provides you with direct contact information for people in your industry, including:
Prospects (e.g., CMOS)
Competitors (e.g., Marketing Directors)
Customers (e.g., Sales Managers)
Partners (e.g., Channels and Distributors)
#2. Find B2C contact information.
LinkedIn is a great place to find B2C contact information. LinkedIn has a search engine that allows you to search for people based on their job titles and the companies they work for.
To search for people by job title, use the following syntax:
{Keyword} AND (job title:”{Job Title}” OR “position”:”{Job Title}”)
#3. Find a Business’s Competition
LinkedIn has a tool that allows you to see who your competitors are connected with. This is a good way to get an overview of the market and understand your target audience better. You can use this information to decide how you want to position yourself about them, so you need to know who they are, what they do and how well their business is doing.
#4. Learn about up-and-coming markets.
One of the best ways to research a market is by talking to people already working there. LinkedIn can be an invaluable tool for doing this because it allows you to easily find people who have expertise in your field and ask them questions.
You can also use LinkedIn for broad research about emerging markets or trends. For example, you could use search engines like Google Trends or Keyword Planner (from Google) to discover which keywords are gaining in popularity over time — and then use these data points as a jumping-off point for further investigation into those trends on LinkedIn.
#5. Find out what kind of content your audience is engaging with.
LinkedIn is a treasure trove of data that can help you shape your content strategy. The “Engagement” tab, for example, shows you what kinds of content resonate with your audience.
You can also use the “Interests” tab to see what kind of content your audience is interested in. This could be a great source of inspiration for blog posts or social media updates!
#6. Track Company Growth and Downsizing
How much size does a company have?
What is the growth of a company?
How many employees are there in this company?
The Growth and Downsizing report can help you answer these questions with data. It shows you the percentage change in employee count, as well as the current number of total employees. The report also shows if there has been any hiring or firing within the past year, along with whether they’re expanding or contracting. This can give insight into how a company is financially by seeing what kind of growth they have (or lack thereof).
#7. Set up saved searches to deliver new results by email
In the top right corner of your LinkedIn feed, click on “Saved Searches.”
Then, click the plus sign to save a new search.
You can now begin typing what you would like to search for. For example, maybe you want to find people with a certain job title or skill set. Once you’ve finished typing your query, hit enter or click on “Save Search” at the bottom of the screen. If this is your first saved search, it will be titled “New Saved Search.”
By this, wherever there is any related search on the team, Linkedin will notify you through Email, and you can easily look it up.
Bonus: Figure out who’s connected with your prospects.
The first step to market research on LinkedIn is finding the right people. You can use LinkedIn, Advanced, and People Search to find people who work for your target company or have similar skills.
Use LinkedIn search to find connections from your prospect’s company.
Use advanced search to narrow down results by location, job title, industry, and more.
Use People Search if you know the name of someone you’d like to connect with but don’t have their contact information yet (this can help you build a list of potential influencers).
Then you can create an excel sheet where you store these names according to their importance to your business.
Conclusion
Market research is crucial to a business’s success, and LinkedIn can help. You can gain insight into your audience’s behavior and preferences with their posts and comments, as well as their job interests and skills. There are several simple ways to do this on LinkedIn, including how long they’ve been at their current job, whether or not they’re active members in groups related to your product or service offering, or what events they’ve attended recently.
