6 Best LinkedIn Prospecting Strategies
Introduction
LinkedIn is an ocean of opportunities for B2B Sales. It has more than 800 million making it an effective platform for capturing leads. There are two types of professionals on LinkedIn. The first type of professionals seeks problem-solving solutions, while the second type addresses the users’ or businesses’ pain points.
Surprisingly, 50% of B2B businesses make buying decisions on LinkedIn. This article will examine some of the proven strategies to capture potential prospects on LinkedIn.
What is Linkedin Prospecting?
LinkedIn prospecting means finding potential prospects or clients on LinkedIn. LinkedIn prospects are the people who will be interested in your B2B product or service—connecting with those prospects on LinkedIn and building an authentic professional relationship results in LinkedIn sales.
People use LinkedIn to build professional networks by sending connection requests to people, joining relevant industry groups, etc. The whole professional network includes leaders, CEOs, managers, etc. Thus, reaching out with your product to the decision-makers can drive your conversions.
Today, more than 90% of sales leaders and reps use LinkedIn to reach potential clients. But why? Let’s find out the advantages of using LinkedIn for prospecting.
Why LinkedIn?
Number of users
LinkedIn has more than 800 million users making it the best platform for achieving LinkedIn sales. It presents a vast pool of opportunities to identify and reach prospects to sell B2B products. The data suggest that apart from individuals, 30 million companies are accessing LinkedIn.
Reaching the top leaders and managers
To reach LinkedIn prospects for your B2B software, you need to build a professional network with top leaders and managers who are making major business decisions. LinkedIn gives you access to reach them through connection requests or cold DMs.
Access to relevant groups
LinkedIn comprises relevant industry groups where you can access LinkedIn prospects and understand their mentioned vital data points and pain points to discover their interests and preferences. Aligning the product with the prospects’ solutions leads to qualified sales leads.
Steps involved in finding LinkedIn prospects
Here are some steps involved in LinkedIn prospecting for sales:
Creating a buyer persona
A buyer’s persona is paramount to selecting the type of audience to be targeted. It allows you to determine whether the prospects will benefit from your product or service, making the prospecting process easy.
Having millions of potential customers on LinkedIn, targeting every user through a similar strategy can be less-rewarding. Reaching prospects and converting them needs segmentation. You can segment the audience based on data like demography, interests, preferences, etc.
The first step to segmenting the audience is to determine your target audience. The LinkedIn platform lets you create buyer personas to identify the prospects who will benefit from your product or service and their pain points.
Research on factors like industry, niche, customer profile, etc., will help you ascertain if a particular user fits your ideal prospect criteria. These factors help define the target audience for identifying B2B prospects. Choosing the target audience enables you to formulate targeting campaigns and strategies adhering to the buyer’s persona.
Formulating a LinkedIn outreach campaign
Reaching LinkedIn prospects through cold messages is an effective way of prospecting. It would help to structure a cold outreach campaign to reach your target audience. Create a personalized message that specifies goals, addresses pain points, mentions problem-solving benefits, etc.
A personalized cold outreach campaign aims at maximizing the conversion rate.
Six Proven ways to reach potential LinkedIn prospects?
Many sales development representatives and leaders seek a blueprint for using LinkedIn for sales and reaching LinkedIn prospects through different strategies. Here are some time-tested, proven ways to use LinkedIn for prospecting.
Set Filters
The LinkedIn search bar helps you find prospects around the globe. To find businesses aligning with your buyer persona, set filters like specific company size, industry, niche, etc. The filters segment the audience into ideal customer profiles for your product.
Filters quickly allow you to find qualified leads having more chances to convert into customers. You can also use a sales navigator tool to sort the qualified prospects. It enables you to reach multiple prospects through multiple messages. The sales navigator tool increases the profile access of top leaders and managers by 5x.
For example, using a past company filter allows you to target a company’s sales rep qualifying your LinkedIn prospect criteria.
Linkedin Email finder tools such as ProspectDaddy would help find verified email ids of the prospects. Besides the email address, you will also get the company name, designation, Linkedin profile link etc, this data could be downloaded as CSV or exported to SmartReach and then to your CRM. Through Linkedin or Sales Navigator, you can filter out the prospects based on your target audience
Optimize LinkedIn profile
As a sales development representative; you can create a LinkedIn profile by optimizing with the company logo in the cover picture. Moreover, adding keywords related to your product in your bio increases the search visibility when a potential prospect searches for the product or service.
To use LinkedIn for sales, building credibility and trust among prospects is paramount. An optimized LinkedIn profile featuring your business goals, ideal customer profile, and solutions addressing pain points captures maximum leads and turns them into long-term customers.
Join Industry groups
For instance; if you offer finance software to simplify the accounting process for B2B businesses, it is vital to join finance industry groups. The groups have a vast network of potential customers where you can find prospects looking for finance software. The relevant industry groups have your ideal buyer personas.
Also, draft several posts and case studies addressing potential customer’s pain points. It bridges the gap between you and the prospects. The niche-specific content keeps you ahead of the competitors, builds credibility, and increases inbound leads. The inbound lead is a prospect who contacts your business on their own and shows interest in what you have to offer. Those LinkedIn prospects maximize the chances of conversion.
Analyze the competitors network
You can reach quality prospects by evaluating the competitor’s network connections. Analyzing the network can connect you with qualified prospects aware of the industry. Finding leads who need to be aware of the product or service is time-consuming.
To better the conversion ratio, you need to connect with the B2B network and suggest a better solution addressing their pain points.
Scroll people also viewed section
When you find a prospect adhering to your buyer’s persona, for example, a B2B sales rep, you come across a section known as “people also viewed. ” The section includes similar prospects that you can target by connecting with them.
If the prospect qualifies as a qualified lead, it’s lucrative to look at other profiles and reach them. The “people also viewed” section opens up several avenues to find top prospects.
Analyze the prospects LinkedIn posts
Reaching out to prospects and connecting with them can lead to more qualified prospects. It is beneficial to engage with prospects’ content, such as posts, articles, etc., as well as analyze their comments and likes. You can find similar opportunities matching your ideal customer profile.
Dropping comments on your prospect’s posts helps build repo with them. These prospects can eventually be ideal customers. It allows you to send a connection request or a personalized conversation invite.
Bottom line
The article highlights the significance of LinkedIn as a prospecting platform. LinkedIn has features that simplify the prospecting process for sales reps and leaders. The large user base allows you to find the maximum qualified prospects for your product or service and nurture them to maximize the conversion ratio.
We have also discussed the time-tested strategies to utilize LinkedIn for sales. From creating an ideal customer profile to finding more prospects in a lead’s profile, it has become a platform for sales professionals to focus on driving more conversions.
Emphasize using these strategies to connect with the prospects fitting your ideal customer criteria and pitch your product or service to make them long-term customers.
SmartReach is a sales engagement software that enables SDRs to nurture Linkedin prospects via its multichannel outreach features, where SDRs can set up campaigns to “View Profiles”, “Send Connection Requests” or “Send Messages”. SDRs can perform outreach via email, Linkedin, WhatsApp, SMS and calls. This would help to increase the audience reach and also increase the engagement among the prospects. An overall increase in closure of deals.
Frequently asked questions
Q. What is the importance of the “people also viewed “section?
When you analyze a prospect’s LinkedIn profile, it also contains a section known as “people also viewed.” The section takes you to similar profiles to your prospect. Those profiles can be an ideal fit for your product or service, allowing you to find several other prospects.
Q. How to find prospects through groups?
Joining industry-relevant groups exposes you to prospects finding solutions to their problems and businesses addressing their pain points. You can network with companies seeking solutions and make qualified leads by pitching your product or service.
Q. What are the different types of filters used in LinkedIn searches?
LinkedIn offers a set of filters to sort the prospects fitting your ideal LinkedIn prospect persona, like industry, company size, niche, demography, etc.