LinkedIn Sales Navigator - These 3 Hacks You Should Know About

There are already many tools available to you for professional B2B marketing. One of these tools is the Sales Navigator from LinkedIn. Surely you also want to narrow down your target group as precisely as possible and minimize wastage in B2B. In this article, you'll learn how to make the most of LinkedIn's Sales Navigator.

What Is LinkedIn's Sales Navigator?

Whether it's networking with business partners or lead research in B2B, LinkedIn is one of the most powerful digital business networks. LinkedIn's Sales Navigator helps you find the right contacts and saves you time and effort in prospecting. The powerful tool generates and sends automatic notifications to ensure users never miss an opportunity in their lead research. The Sales Navigator takes the platform to a new level of social sales

The personalized customer approach is more effective in prospecting than cold calling. As a B2B sales professional, this allows you to reach out to prospects around the world, even if you don't have contact information. With LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you can easily personalize your offers and generate leads.

Did You Know?

LinkedIn offers a one-month free trial for Sales Navigator so you can find out how to use the tool effectively for lead generation. After that, you'll have three subscription options to choose from. This way, you can choose the plan that best fits your business and you. Each of these subscription plans can be paid annually or monthly and can be cancelled at any time.

LinkedIn Premium vs. LinkedIn Sales Navigator

If you're familiar with LinkedIn's features, you may be wondering how Sales Navigator differs from LinkedIn Premium. Although both options are paid versions of the LinkedIn platform, they each target different features

LinkedIn Premium is primarily used by recruiters, HR departments, and job seekers to share information about job openings. LinkedIn Premium includes a subscription to LinkedIn Learning and other tools that help job seekers find their next job faster.

Sales Navigator is used by sales professionals for lead management and lead research. With Sales Navigator, sales professionals reach out directly to contacts at their target companies and send InMail messages. LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the ideal prospecting support.

How to Benefit from the Sales Navigator

You've probably noticed that LinkedIn narrows down your searches with the regular version. LinkedIn is watching to see if you're using the platform for professional recruiting or prospecting.

According to LinkedIn, this includes:

• Searching LinkedIn profiles (on the website or via the app) with keywords and filters.

• Clicking on LinkedIn profiles from the "People Viewed" section in the right sidebar.

As you approach your monthly search limit for the free people search, a warning will pop up. LinkedIn will not tell you the exact number of searches remaining, nor can you raise your limit upon request. The reason for this is that LinkedIn assumes you are actively using the platform for lead generation. Therefore, the platform wants to get you to subscribe while ensuring that you don't send spam emails to users. The business network is only a free platform to a certain extent.

If you frequently hit the limit of free usage, this may mean that you should book Sales Navigator. Aside from unlimited search, Sales Navigator offers a number of advanced features that can take your prospecting to the next level. These include, for example, the ability to search for target customers using advanced filters. You can also track updates and use filters that aren't available elsewhere on the platform. You'll receive notifications about job changes, information about mentions of certain keywords, and more.

The First Steps with the LinkedIn Sales Navigator

The Sales Navigator offers various options and filters for lead research and lead management. The key is to try out combinations and find the ideal constellation

To start, you need to optimize your LinkedIn profile. After all, your profile represents your personal brand and your company

After that, you should define your sales preferences. These preferences are the criteria you set so that Sales Navigator can qualify the types of potential leads you want to contact based on region, industry, function, etc. You will then be presented with a list of potential leads on LinkedIn

You will then receive suggestions for prospects on the platform based on your criteria. To do this, hover your cursor over "Edit" and select "Edit Sales Settings". Then scroll down to the "Sales Settings" section and fill it out according to your target audience. Here you can narrow the scope by geographic location, industry, company size, and function. Once this is done, you'll be generating leads even more effectively.

The Top 3 Tips for LinkedIn Sales Navigator that You Need to Know

Below are some of the best practices for LinkedIn's Sales Navigator:

Tip 1: Matching Audiences

This is a simple hack for LinkedIn Sales Navigator that lets you use lists to qualify your leads

In LinkedIn Sales Navigator, switch to the search bar. Search your target market and select leads from the results. Then click "View Similar."

This will allow you to qualify more potential leads that are similar to your ideal customers. Since these potential leads are similar to your existing customers, you can target them in the same way. This also allows you to use the same content and not have to create new ones.

Keep the following tips in mind when doing LinkedIn outreach:

1. First, prepare your LinkedIn profile. Optimize and update your LinkedIn profile before outreach. No one likes to accept requests from strangers with nothing in common. Make sure your tagline and summary reflect what you offer.

2. Initially send up to ten connection requests per day and monitor your account regularly. If all goes well after about two weeks, you can slowly increase the requests.

3. Create valuable free content. When users first click on your profile and see that you are constantly sharing valuable guides in your market segment, they are more likely to want to connect with you.

Tip 2: Search Like a Detective with AND, OR and NOT

Advanced search is one of the most popular features of LinkedIn Sales Navigator. You can apply more than 20 advanced filters to your search. In the fields "Keyword", "Title" and "Company" you can also perform the so-called "Boolean search". This uses three simple operators: AND, OR and NOT.

In this way, you create a logical search space through the operators in order to get the right results in a structured and targeted way.

• Search in quotes: For the exact expression as a result, you put the search query in quotation marks. For example, type "sales manager" to find people with that exact title.

• NOT searches: Use "NOT" before a search term to exclude it from your results. For example: Sales NOT Manager

• OR Searches: This operator will give you results that contain one or more items in a list. For example: Sales OR Marketing OR Advertising

• AND Search: Enter this option to display results that include all items in a list. For example: accountant AND finance AND accounting

• Save Searches: You will be doing different Sales Navigator searches over time. Entering the same search terms for your different campaigns is tedious. Fortunately, you can save your searches and pick up where you left off later.

This way, you can perform exact or broad searches as you see fit.

If you want to contact your search results on LinkedIn, you can then use a simple template like the following:

Hello {name},

You're showing up in my feed and I have to say - I like your work! In fact, your work at {company name} reminds me of my work for {your previous clients}. I wrote a short article about what makes my company different. I think you might enjoy it. Want to learn more?

Tip 3: InMail from LinkedIn

InMail is the email or direct message version of LinkedIn. It's an effective way to generate leads, given that average users receive fewer InMails per day than emails

To maximize the effectiveness of InMail, it's best to thoroughly review potential clients' personal information and mention unique features. For example, you can use Sales Navigator to filter leads who have recently changed jobs. This is the perfect conversation starter

You can easily start the conversation with the following template:

Hello {name},

congratulations on your new job! I'd like to continue the discussion about "XYZ" that I had with {predecessor} with you now. Let me know what time works best for you.

Or like this:

Hello {first name},

congratulations on your new position! I write a lot of content on {subject related to the position} that might be relevant to you, because ..

You can also just search for relevant LinkedIn groups and connect with members. This is a good starting point for a conversation. With the usual LinkedIn program, you can search for groups using keywords. In Sales Navigator, you have additional filters to find specific people among group members. From there, you can send a personal contact invitation like:

Hello {Name},

I saw that you are also a member of group XYZ. It would be great to connect with like-minded people and see if there is room for collaboration. What do you think?

You can also completely automate this step so you don't have to send connection requests one by one.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator Automation and Retargeting

LinkedIn automation refers to using tools to automatically send connection requests, follow up messages, and any other activity you would otherwise have to do manually on the platform

Automation tools make it easier for you to put your lead generation and outreach campaigns on autopilot. This saves you time by not having to manually qualify your leads and send connection requests one by one.

Plus, you bring personalization to mass outreach. This way, your user interactions and outreach messages feel more natural, no matter how many people you contact. You also automatically generate reports for your outreach campaigns. This means you can see at a glance how many of your leads have responded, responded, and converted. A/B testing becomes easier as you can experiment with different outreach requests and follow-up templates to see which ones get the most responses

By combining your LinkedIn automation tool with other marketing tools, you bring an omnichannel approach to your LinkedIn marketing. Some of the most popular tools include WeConnect, MeetAlfred, Lusha, and Dux-Soup

Thanks to the automation of LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you can automatically qualify and interact with leads on the world's largest business network. This allows you to target new and existing customers in lead management and determine how best to contact them. All you need to do is enable LinkedIn in the Sales Automation application configuration and provide the LinkedIn client and organization ID.

Conclusion: LinkedIn Sales Navigator as a Professional Sales Tool in B2B

LinkedIn has evolved into a platform that connects more than just professionals. Today, savvy business owners use LinkedIn Sales Navigator as a powerful lead generation tool.

LinkedIn was founded less than two decades ago, but it has changed the way sales is done. Social media has created new channels for salespeople in B2B to research prospects, connect with leads, and build relationships. This new sales strategy is called social selling, and the numbers show that it's working.

According to LinkedIn, salespeople who use social media for acquisitions are more likely to reach their quota, and sales rates are up as well. It's not for nothing that social selling has a significant impact on recruiting and sales. The LinkedIn Sales Navigator combines the benefits of social selling and makes it easier for you to acquire new customers.