Like all things, sales has evolved over recent decades and now looks almost entirely different to how it did not so long ago.
From the use of the phone, to email in sales, many things have changed.
Now, LinkedIn has become a crucial tool in sales prospecting.
It’s important for sales prospecting for both B2B and B2C companies as it hosts a leads base of just under a whopping 1 billion users that you can’t afford to be missing out on.
Let’s be honest, most professionals out there have a LinkedIn profile, whether they’re active or not, you can still find and contact other professionals. Used wisely, LinkedIn is an amazing lead database.
LinkedIn allows salespeople to pinpoint prospects by industry, company size, job role, and other specific criteria, making prospecting more targeted and efficient.
With a more informal tone and the ability to see what your prospects post and share, you are able to build and nurture stronger relationships. Not only can you establish trust by proving who you are and making your lead feel confident that they know who they’re dealing with and how good they are, but you can also provide tons of value.
It also gives you valuable insights into potential clients' backgrounds, interests, and mutual connections, facilitating highly personalized outreach.
LinkedIn is more than just a networking site - its ability to facilitate targeted prospecting, offer valuable insights, and foster genuine business relationships makes it an indispensable platform for sales prospecting and lead generation.
Among LinkedIn’s many benefits, these are the most valuable ones:
LinkedIn offers the possibility to reach a wide range of leads in many different industries.
Through your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd connections, you can reach other people who may not be in your industry or niche but who may find interest or use from your profile, therefore expanding your network beyond your own niche.
Make sure you post valuable content regularly so that you’re even more visible and other people can reach you too.
The platform's advanced filtering options ensure that the leads generated are of higher quality and relevance, increasing the chances of successful conversions.
You can use LinkedIn’s filters (or LinkedIn Sales Navigator’s advanced filters) to find your ideal leads.
Compared to traditional prospecting methods, LinkedIn can be more cost-effective, especially taking into account the free version has great features for networking and outreach.
Even without a premium account or a Sales Navigator subscription, you can find highly qualified leads for your outreach.
By adding thought leaders in your industry to your network, you’ll have access to their posts with insights, trends, and educational content. Therefore you can stay informed and relevant.
Consistent presence and engagement on LinkedIn help in building a personal brand, which is crucial in establishing credibility and attracting potential clients. Building your personal brand can help you build trust and credibility within your target audiences as much as your brand’s.
Check out this video to learn how to start your posts!
You can add LinkedIn contacts to your CRM in one click thanks to Surfe’s Chrome extension - one of the top Chrome extensions for LinkedIn! Surfe allows the seamless transfer of data from LinkedIn to your CRM.
Here’s how:
Step 1: Install the Surfe Chrome extension
Step 2: Log in to your CRM
Step 3: On LinkedIn, you want to add to your CRM.
Now, you’ll see two options that appear on your LinkedIn contact’s profile. You can either ‘Add as Contact’ or ‘Add as Deal’.
Step 4: Click ‘Add as Contact’ to automatically add new contact and all of their data to your CRM - no more copying-pasting or manually typing out info. It’s all there in one click!
You can also click ‘Add as Deal’ to connect this contact with a pipeline that already exists in your CRM or create a new deal associated with it.
Now, you can easily see when scrolling LinkedIn, which of your contacts are already in your CRM!
Finding specific leads and adding them one by one to your CRM is a great way to find potential buyers, but if you’re looking for a quicker way, you can add LinkedIn contacts to your CRM in bulk.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a great platform to search for leads based on a variety of filters. It allows you to find contacts within your Ideal Customer Profile by searching for specific job roles, seniority levels, sectors, and in specific geographical locations too.
Let’s say you’re targeting founders of tech companies in Paris, France.
Step 1: Go to Sales Navigator’s search
Step 2: Set the relevant filters to create the list of leads you want in your CRM and reach out to.
Step 3: Go to “Leads” and select the ones you would like to export. Or, if you wish, you can click on Select All in the menu above the list.
Step 4: Press Surfe’s Export to CRM button
When the process is completed, you will notice that all of the contacts are now highlighted in blue, which means they have been successfully added to your CRM!
You may also use the lemlist Chrome Extension and add your leads directly to your lemlist campaigns.
Once you have a list of potential buyers that can benefit from your offer, it’s time to reach out to them.
One of the easiest ways to outreach to you freshly exported LinkedIn leads is to use lemlist outreach app.
Here’s how:
Step 1: Log into your lemlist account or start a 14-day free trial
Step 2: Choose to create a new campaign. You can do it manually or utilize the power of AI with lemlist's AI to automatically create fully personalized multichannel sequence.
Need help writing campaigns that resonate with your target audience and push actions?
Check out our cold outreach templates database and duplicate campaigns in seconds!
Step 3: It’s time to add your leads list! Thanks to its integration with the most popular CRMs, you can add leads collected by Surfe in just a few clicks.
Step 4: Review your campaigns’ settings for launch, and start booking 30+ meetings a week!
LinkedIn is a vital tool for sales prospecting and offers access to plenty of potential leads.
It’s a rich platform for targeted outreach, building relationships, and gaining deep insights into potential clients
The integration of tools like Surfe automates exporting LinkedIn contacts directly into your CRM. Furthermore, leveraging lemlist for outreach helps you connect with these exported leads.
The combination of LinkedIn with tools like Surfe and lemlist changes the way sales professionals approach lead generation and outreach. Whether you’re a B2B or B2C company, using LinkedIn and these complementary tools is essential to stay ahead of the sales prospecting game!
G2 Rating | Price | Best for | Standout feature | Con | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
4.9 star star star star star | $30/mo $75/mo $2,999/mo | Large, distributed sales teams | AI evaluation precision, gamified KPIs | Lack of tracking system | |
4.6 star star star star star-half | Not publicly available | Sales operations and finance teams | Powerful configurability | Limited training resources and complex to navigate | |
4.4 star star star star star-half | Not publicly available | Mid-market and enterprise businesses | Comprehensive incentive management | Potentially high cost and steep learning curve | |
4.7 star star star star star-half | $15/user/mo $40/user/mo Enterprise: custom price | Complex sales structures and businesses of all sizes | Complex sales structures and businesses of all sizes | Steep learning curve | |
4.6 star star star star star-half | Not publicly available | Collaborative teams | Connected planning | Complexity and steep learning curve | |
4.6 star star star star star-half | Not publicly available | Companies with complex sales structures | Complex incentive compensation management (ICM) with high efficiency and accuracy | Complexity for smaller teams and potentially high costs | |
4.7 star star star star star-half | Not publicly available | Companies who want to automate commission calculations and payouts | Simplicity and ease of use | Lack of features like redirection | |
4.7 star star star star star-half | $30/user/mo $35/user/mo Custom: upon request | Businesses that need a comprehensive and user-friendly sales compensation management software | Ease of use and adoption | Lack of ability to configure the product based on user needs | |
4.8 star star star star star-half | Not publicly available | Companies with modern sales culture and businesses who want real-time insights | A built-in dispute management and real-time visibility | Users say it works slowly, customer support is slow | |
4.9 star star star star star | $30/user/mo $50/user/mo | Smaller sales teams | Powerful automation | Lesser user base and average user interface | |
4.7 star star star star star-half | Not publicly available | Companies with scalable needs | Automated Commission Calculations | Lack of filtering by date, no mobile app |
PRM Tool | Rating | Feature | Pro | Con | Mobile App | Integrations | Free Plan | Pricing |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
4.65 star star star star star-half | Org-wide alignment | User-friendly layout and database | Suboptimal as a personal CRM | square-check | Lack of tracking system | square-check | Team: $20/month Business: $45/month | |
4.7 star star star star star-half | Social Media Integration | Easy contact data collection | No marketing/sales features | square-check | Lack of tracking system | square-xmark 7-day trial | $12/month | |
4.75 star star star star star-half | Block Functions | High customization capability | Not a dedicated CRM | square-check | Limited | square-check | Plus: €7.50/month Business: €14/month | |
N/A | Open-source | Open-source flexibility | Requires extensive manual input | square-xmark | Limited | square-check Self-hosted | $9/month or $90/year | |
3.1 star star star | Simple iOS app | Ideal for non-tech-savvy users | iPhone only | square-check iOS only | Limited | square-xmark 1-month trial | $1.49/month or $14.99/month | |
3.6 star star star star-half | Smart Contact Management | Feature-rich and flexible | Reported bugs | square-check | Rich | square-xmark 7-day trial | Premium: $13.99/month Teams: $17.99/month | |
4.4 star star star star star-half | Customizable Interface | Customizable for teamwork | Pricey for personal use | square-check | Rich | square-xmark | Standard: $24/member Premium: $39/member | |
4.7 star star star star star-half | Integrated Calling | Integrated Calling | Too sales-oriented & pricey | square-check | Rich | square-xmark 14-day trial | Startup: $59/user/month Professional: $329/user/month | |
4.8 star star star star star | Business Card Scanning | Business Card Scanning | Mobile only | square-check | Limited | square-check | $9.99/month | |
4.45 star star star star star-half | 160+ app integrations | Comprehensive integrations | No free app version | square-check | Rich | square-xmark 14-day trial | $29.90/month or $24.90/month (billed annually) |
Capterra Rating | Free Trial | Free Plan | Starting Price (excluding the free plan) | Maximum Price (for the most expensive plan) | Best for | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
4.5 star star star star star-half | square-check 14-day | square-check | €15/month/seat billed annually | €792/month/3 seats billed annually + €45/month for each extra seat | Versatility and free plan | |
4.2 star star star star | square-check 30-day | square-xmark But it offers reduced price to authorised nonprofit organisations | €25/user/month | €500/user/month billed annually (includes Einstein AI) | Best overall operational CRM | |
4.3 star star star star star-half | square-xmark | square-check Limited to 3 users | Comprehensive incentive management | €52/user/month billed annually | Small-medium businesses and automation | |
4.5 star star star star star-half | square-check 14-day | square-xmark | €14/seat/month billed annually | €99/seat/month billed annually | Sales teams and ease of use | |
4.1 star star star star | square-xmark | square-check Limited 10 users | $9.99/user/month billed annually | $64.99/user/month billed annually | Free plan for very small teams up to 10 |
CRM goal | Increase the sales conversion rate for qualified leads from marketing automation campaigns by 10% in the next 6 months. | ||||
SMART Breakdown | 1. Specific: It targets a specific area (conversion rate) for a defined segment (qualified leads from marketing automation). | 2. Measurable: The desired increase (10%) is a clear metric, and the timeframe (6 months) allows for progress tracking. | 3. Achievable: A 10% increase is possible based on historical data and potential improvements. | 4. Relevant: Boosting sales from marketing efforts aligns with overall business objectives. | 5. Time-bound: The 6-month timeframe creates urgency and a clear target date. |
Actions | Step 1: Refine lead qualification criteria to ensure high-quality leads are nurtured through marketing automation. | Step 2: Personalize marketing automation campaigns based on lead demographics, interests, and behavior. | Step 3: Develop targeted landing pages with clear calls to action for qualified leads. | Step 4: Implement lead scoring to prioritize high-potential leads for sales follow-up. | Step 5: Track and analyze campaign performance to identify areas for optimization. |
Outcomes | Increased sales and revenue | Improved marketing automation ROI | Marketing and sales alignment | Data-driven marketing optimization |