LinkedIn

How to Use Linkedin Sales Navigator (2024 Tutorial)

lemlist team
LAST UPDATED
June 21, 2024
READING TIME
7 min.

82% of B2B marketers report that their greatest success comes from Linkedin. With over 1BN users worldwide, Linkedin is undoubtedly the best place for lead generation. However, to get great results, you have to spend your time on the right accounts. This is where Sales Navigator comes in. 

Being one of the top prospecting tools, you can get data and insights that will help you target the right prospects. But how exactly do you get your money’s worth after investing in this tool?

How to Generate Leads with LinkedIn Sales Navigator

To generate leads with your sales navigator account, here’s what this article will cover;

  • Use advanced search filters to find new leads
  • Create a list with the contacts you’ve identified
  • Use the relationship explorer feature to find the right decision-makers and connect with them
  • You can also connect with invitation notes and send InMails
  • Use features on the sales navigator advanced plans like Teamlink extend and smart links
  • Maximize your account by also using it for recruitment
  • Automate lead generation with saved searches 
  • Combine sales navigator with LinkedIn ads
  • Integrate sales navigator with Taplio
  • Automate outreach messages with lemlist and LinkedIn sales navigator

How to Build Prospects Contact List with Sales Navigator

Prospecting always starts with getting a list of high-quality leads you want to target. On Sales Navigator, you can automatically search for your ideal customers and group them in your contact list. Here’s how to do that efficiently;

Use the advanced search filters to find new leads

On a regular LinkedIn account, you get 18 filters to help you narrow down who your prospect is. While that might seem like a lot, there are no lead search filters to help you get the list you need.

But on your Sales Navigator account, you have 36 lead filters with an additional 16 filters for account searches giving you more room to narrow down on the accounts that matter.

To find this option, simply;

  • Go to your homepage on Sales Navigator
  • On the top screen, choose between lead or account filters
  • Depending on what you choose you’ll get a list of filters you can use
  • Apply the ones you want to help you modify the contacts in the results

The major difference between lead and account filters is that leads focus on specific people while accounts focus on specific companies. So your customer profile will determine what filter category you’ll use. There are also no limits to the number of searches you can make so use this to your advantage. 

Pro Tip
Use the Boolean search operators available to make your list even more specific. Sales Navigator has five of them; AND, OR, NOT, Quotes and Parentheses. You can use these Boolean operators under the Job title filters or the keyword field.

So for example, in the image above, this search filter is looking for prospects whose job titles are sales managers and sales directors. 

Create different lead lists of your target accounts

Once you have a drop-down of all your target accounts or ideal contacts, segmenting them into a list helps you organize, find and target them even faster. To create a lead list on Sales Navigator simply follow these steps;

  • Select the leads or contacts you want to add to your list by tapping on the checkbox beside the contact
  • Tap on “Save to List”
  • Tap on the “+” in the drop-down to create a new list and name the list
  • Your contacts will automatically be moved here. 

When you need to find your lead lists, you’ll see them on the homepage under “Lead lists”

Pro Tip
You can add the same contact to more than one list. However, we recommend not sending messages at the same time if there’s a contact in both sequences to avoid spamming them. To add your contact to more than one list on Sales Navigator, just;

  • Create another search or under the same search, select the same contacts
  • Tap on “Add to another list”
  • Click on the “+” icon in the drop-down to create a new list
  • Name the list and they’ll automatically be in this list as well.

Find the right decision-makers with relationship explorer

There’s a feature on Sales Navigator called Relationship Explorer. With this feature, you can create a persona of your ideal customer profile using job title, location, and more. 

Based on your ICP, for each new company or account assigned to your team, you immediately get recommendations on the top people you should contact.

  • To access this feature, visit the search bar on the homepage and type in an account
  • From the dropdown, tap on the target company
  • Scroll down and you’ll see a list of spotlights or contacts that you can reach out to
  • Once you tap on a specific contact, you’ll get things like shared experiences and other details to help you send a personalized icebreaker
  • You can also save these contacts to a list by tapping on the “Save” button next to each one.

Pro Tip

A great way to build your persona is to make a search first and then edit the details of the persona to match your preferred profile

How to Nurture Leads with LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Once you have your contacts neatly segmented with details you can use for outreach, it's time to reach out to them. At this stage, personalization is an important key to getting results, especially in B2B sales. 

Automation is also helpful in letting you reach all of your saved contacts within a short period. Here’s how to nurture your leads with LinkedIn Sales Navigator;

Connect and send InMails

You can reach out to your contacts via connection messages or InMails.

Connection requests help you to bring 2nd or 3rd-degree connections into your inner network. So when they agree to connect, you can see each other’s posts, send messages and more. You can choose to either send a connection request with a note or without one, but we recommend adding one.

  • To send a connection request, next to the contact, tap on “connect”
  • Next, tap on “Add a note”
  • Enter a brief connection note and then send
  • Your contact will receive a connection with your message

LinkedIn InMails on the other hand, is a premium feature that allows you to send messages to leads you do not want to connect with. This feature is especially handy because you cannot send more than 100 connections per week.

So if you need to reach more people within a short period, you should use this. 

To send an InMail, simply follow these steps;

  • Visit the contact profile
  • Tap on the message button
  • Enter your InMail subject and body
  • Review and send

Pro Tip

Since connection requests and InMails have character limits, you have to personalize your messages and doing it manually will take forever. We recommend connecting your sales navigator to an outreach tool that will allow you to send personalized messages at scale.

Export Leads and Get Emails

51% of companies today use multiple channels to interact with their customers because it's more effective.

This means while sending Linkedin messages can be a great first approach, nurturing them should involve a multichannel outreach. 

While using LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you can export your contacts to your CRM or your outreach tool, get email addresses from this export and send even more tailored messages that’ll get you that booking call. Unfortunately, while it’s great, currently, you cannot export contacts on the sales navigator.

To export leads from Sales Navigator, you can use lemlist Chrome Extension. With lemlist, you can use smart enrichment to get their email addresses and even send them multichannel outreach (emails, linkedin messages, cold calls and more) directly from the software.

Here’s how to export your LinkedIn contacts with lemlist;

  • Install the lemlist LinkedIn Chrome Extension
  • Search for your leads on LinkedIn or select a list from your Sales Navigator
  • Export leads one by one, in bulk, or in batches follow the following steps;
  1. Scrap leads’ profiles and find their verified emails

i. From individual leads’ profile

ii. In bulk, from LinkedIn or Sales Navigator search

  1. Add and edit leads’ data from one spot
  1. Push scraped leads to your existing outreach campaign, or create a new campaign for the new leads!

You can also check out which leads are already in your outreach campaigns so you avoid over-prospecting duplicates.

Pro Tip

With lemlist, you can also get email templates and personalize them with custom text, images and even dynamic landing pages.

There’s also an AI email generator that generates custom emails to help you get conversions faster like the one below.

How to Use Sales Navigator Advanced

On the Sales Navigator Advanced Plus plan, there are more features designed to help you improve your sales process. For one, you get access to an additional 50 InMail credits every month. Some you should consider include;

Team Link Extend

With this feature, you can increase the size of your current network with your team. So put simply, your colleagues can see if a lead is connected to you already and can ask you to make an introduction for them. But that’s the only thing they can see on your account. 

The way it works is that you invite other members of your sales team to see your lead connections. Usually, they’ll receive a link via email to join you. To send a TeamLink Extend invitation simply; 

  • On the homepage, tap on Admin located at the top
  • Tap on ‘Account Center’ and then ‘People’
  • Under People, tap on the ‘Users’ tab
  • You’ll see all available, pending and activated license invitations you’ve shared
TeamLink Extend licenses
  • Next, tap on the number next to ‘Available’
  • On the email pop-up window, enter your colleague’s email address
  • For multiple users, separate by comma and then Add
  • Then select ‘TeamLink Extend License’ and then confirm
  • They will be sent an email notification to join.

Smart Links

A smart link is a way for you to group and share content in Sales Navigator. With this feature, you can merge content like your pitch deck, product demos, YouTube videos and more in one link that you can share with your prospects. Once they view your smart link, you can track their viewing behavior and see what exactly they want in your product/service.

To create a smart link, simply follow these steps

  • Tap on ‘Smart Links’ at the top of the Sales Navigator homepage (this will only be available on the advanced and advanced plus plans)
  • Tap on ‘New Smart Link’ and name the link
  • Upload your files to the link or if you prefer, a website
  • Tick the checkbox that says ‘Enable recipient to download viewable files’
  • Review and tap on ‘Create’
  • Copy and share with your prospects

How to Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator for Recruiting

Most recruitment teams use either LinkedIn Recruiter or Sales Navigator for getting new leads and applicants so it’s definitely useful for recruitment. So if your sales team already has access to Sales Navigator, you can save costs by using it for recruiting. 

With the advanced search filters, you can find specific applicants that match what you’re looking for. So, simply filter based on the job profile or candidate you’re looking for. In the example below, you can tell this filter is looking for senior software engineers. 

Plus, once you save this search, LinkedIn will automatically update the list to include new candidates that fit your criteria. 

Next, send a personalized connection request or a message if you’re already a connection, sharing details about the job opening and if they are interested in the role. It’s also helpful if you use a tool like lemlist to help you draft the perfect message. 

Pro Tip

Alternatively, if you want to reach out to multiple candidates, you can use the lemlist Chrome extension to find their emails and send them messages directly from the outreach tool. It’s easier to track who’s interested and who isn’t. 

  • From the pop-up, simply tap on ‘push to lemlist’ and select how many candidates you want to move. 
  • You can also toggle the ‘Find Email’ button on the right to get their email addresses.

4 Ways to Get More Out of LinkedIn Sales Navigator

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a sales tool you should maximize in your B2B company. Some more ways to take advantage of this tool for growth include;

1. Automate lead generation with 'saved searches' target alerts

Chances are you’re going to make the same search more than once, and when you use a combination of several filters, it can be hard getting it right again. With saved searches, you can get updated results every day with the same search. To do this;

  • After curating your search list, select the contacts on the search results page
  • Just under the search bar, click on ‘Save Search’
  • You’ll get a notification asking you to name the search, do this and click ‘Save’
  • Set alerts (Daily, weekly, monthly, never) depending on your preference and save
  • After this, you’ll always find your saved searches next to the search bar

2. Combine Sales Navigator with LinkedIn ads

You can export your leads or prospects from Sales Navigator to LinkedIn Ads for an even more tailored ad strategy. To do this simply follow these steps;

  • Extract the contact list from the LinkedIn sales navigator using a Chrome Extension or a third-party tool
  • On your LinkedIn account, tap on ‘Work’ and then under marketing ‘Advertise’
  • Select your ad account, you’ll be prompted to create one if you don’t have any
  • Under ‘Create’ tap on ‘Create New Account’
  • Scroll down to audiences and click on ‘List Upload’
  • Depending on your list, choose a company or contacts and upload

If you get an error it simply means your file wasn’t modified for LinkedIn’s preferred format. Simply modify the headers on LinkedIn and upload again.

3. Combine  Sales Navigator with Taplio

Cold outreach works better when you have a reputable personal brand. Don’t be a bot. A great way to do this is to interact with the content on your feed and with your connections. 

With Taplio, you can automate leaving comments, DMs and even creating Linkedin posts. Get a list of the best-performing posts in your network, your best-performing posts and more to inform your content creation on the platform. 

In addition to this, you can also import a list of contacts that engage with your content for a wider reach. For even more tailored reach, connect it with your sales navigator account.

  • Start by creating a Taplio account
  • Once you have an account, go to the settings page and tap on ‘Connect’
  • Follow the prompts and that's all.
Notion Image

Alternatively, you can install the Taplio free Chrome extension.

4. Automate outreach messages with lemlist and Sales Navigator

Once you find contacts you want to connect with or reach out to using the sales navigator filters, automate how you reach out to them.

Choose to either focus your outreach strategy on Linkedin through highly personalized messages or export your contacts for a more multi-channel approach like this example below.

 

Remember, businesses that use two or more channels in a campaign have experienced 166% more engagement rates. Start by duplicating any of the preset campaign templates from other B2B marketers crushing their sales goals.

Conclusion

Linkedin Sales Navigator is a great tool for B2B sales teams and recruiters. Just make sure you’re fully maximizing its potential by using this guide.

Don’t forget to integrate your Linkedin with other tools for success in taking your sales outreach to the next level. 

lemlist team
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G2 Rating
Price
Best for
Standout feature
Con
4.9
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star
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$30/mo
$75/mo
$2,999/mo
Large, distributed sales teams
AI evaluation precision, gamified KPIs
Lack of tracking system
4.6
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Not publicly available
Sales operations and finance teams
Powerful configurability
Limited training resources and complex to navigate
4.4
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star
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Not publicly available
Mid-market and enterprise businesses
Comprehensive incentive management
Potentially high cost and steep learning curve
4.7
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star
star
star
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$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
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star
star
star
star-half
Not publicly available
Companies with scalable needs
Automated Commission Calculations
Lack of filtering by date, no mobile app
ERP vs. CRM
ERP
CRM
Summary
Backbone of a business's internal operations.
Backbone of customer-centric interactions and operations.
Goal
To centralize and streamline core business processes in a company.
To increase customer experience, satisfaction and loyalty, and boost sales.
Focus
Internal operations and processes across departments (finance, accounting, inventory, supply chain, HR, and sales).
All interactions with leads and customers.
Manages
Internal business data like financial data, inventory levels, production details, supply chain, HR info.
All customer data like contact info, purchase history, communication history, customer preferences and more.
Users
Finance, accounting, operations, supply chain, and HR departments.
Customer-facing teams like sales, marketing, and customer service.
Benefits
Streamlines operations, improves data accuracy, enhances decision-making, boosts collaboration, increases productivity.
Improves customer relationships, increases sales, strengthens customer service, personalizes marketing campaigns, provides insights.
Price
$150 per user per year on average.
$10 to $30 per user per month on average.
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
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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
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Limited
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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
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$9.99/month
4.45
star
star
star
star
star-half
160+ app integrations
Comprehensive integrations
No free app version
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Rich
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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
Table
CDP Software
CRM Software
Approach
Data-centric
Customer-centric
Focus
Interactions across various channels and touchpoints, both online and offline.
Sales, marketing, and customer service interactions.
Functionality
Automatically collects, organizes, tags, and makes data available in real-time.
Helps businesses track customer interactions, sales pipelines, prospects, and service requests.
Goals
Personalized customer experiences across all channels.
Better customer relationships, streamlined processes, and improved profitability.
Benefits
Data integration, management, and accessibility, allowing for detailed analysis and segmentation.
Better communication within teams and with customers by organizing information about customer interactions and history.
Data Handling
Handles both identified and anonymous data, stitches together various data points.
Deals primarily with identified customer data.
Use Cases
Personalized marketing campaigns, targeted advertising, content customization across multiple channels.
Managing campaigns and leads, enhancing customer service, providing better customer support, increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Examples
Insider, Bloomreach, Salesforce Marketing Cloud CDP
HubSpot, Salesforce Sales Cloud Lightning Professional, and Zoho CRM
CRM
Free plan
Best feature
Best for
Con
1. HubSpot CRM
square-check
Sales automation
Sales teams
Up to 1,000 contacts
2. Insightly
square-check
Custom fields
Basic needs
Not enough info about the free plan
3. Agile CRM
square-check
Deal and sales pipeline tracking
Small teams
Up to 10 users
4. Zoho CRM
square-check
Lead and contact management
Businesses of all sizes
Limited to 3 users
5. ClickUp
square-check
Unlimited tasks and unlimited members
Personal use
Up to 100MB storage
6. EngageBay
square-check
Live chat
Small and midsize enterprises
Up to 1,000 branded emails per month
7. Bitrix24
square-check
Unlimited users and 5 scrum teams
Big teams
Up to 5GB of cloud storage
8. FreshSales
square-check
Easy to use and simple setup
Beginners
Up to 3 users
9. Mailchimp
square-check
Very beginner friendly
Marketing teams
Send up to 500 branded emails per month
Type of Affiliate Marketing
Unattached
Related
Involved
Format
Paid advertising
Social media or YouTube channels
Dedicated website or blog
Focus
Quick income
Your niche
Your audience
Engagement with your audience
square-xmark
square-check
square-check
square-check
square-check
Very close connection with your audience
Pro
Little effort
Higher credibility thanks to your niche
Long-lasting and scalable
Con
Paid ads cost a lot
Potential for bias since you don’t use the thing you promote
Require time, effort, and dedication

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