LinkedIn’s Sales Navigator is a great tool to help you in your lead generation efforts. Using advanced search features, you can target the demographic, specific to your needs and services.
This can open the door to more prospects and potential leads to fill your pipeline. It sounds great on the tin, doesn’t it, but is it all it’s cracked up to be?
We use Sales Navigator a great deal in our line of work but that doesn’t mean there are no faults. Of course, like with everything, there are many advantages and disadvantages to it.
So, grab a drink, get comfortable, and let us discuss all sides of Sales Navigator together.
Before you begin to use Sales Navigator, it is important to understand your target audience. Sales Nav has advanced search features that allow you to select a wide range of filters to define your target market, even down to their role, location, and company.
By clicking ‘lead filters’ next to the search bar, you can easily select and adjust the filters to suit your needs but remember to save that search! Otherwise, you won’t be able to go back to it later. However, there is a limit to how many searches you can save, but it will alert you when you reach it so you can delete any previously finished searches.
To select the right demographic you need to understand before you start, who the best target market is for you. Without understanding who you’re targeting you won’t be able to use Sales Navigator effectively and seek the benefits of defining your market.
However, this comes with its negatives. With Sales Navigator widely used across the world it is more than likely that your competitors will also use it, meaning they will have access to the same data!
Unfortunately, this can mean that the prospect is already being targeted by one if not all of your competitors. Let’s be honest if you are receiving endless marketing messages from similar companies, you’re less likely to open the message itself.
This emphasises the importance of sending the right message to your prospect. As we have discussed in previous blogs, making sure your messaging is relatable and relevant to the prospect will help you enhance your response rates.
Sales Nav offers real-time updates on new leads, lead recommendations, and account activity. This is a great feature that allows you to have quick updates on InMail responses and new results that are added to your search. Having this feature makes it easier to respond to messages promptly.
InMail is another feature within Sales Nav that allows you to message prospects before you have connected with them. This can be good for introducing yourself before they connect with you.
Although this can work, it is often perceived as spam, making the response rate very low. It will mean that people will not connect with you following this message, as it can seem impersonal. We have all received messages that we automatically click off or even delete without reading them fully!
Waiting for the prospect to accept your connection is generally the better option. By them accepting your connection request they are opening their lines of communication to you. This will make them more likely to engage in a conversation with you.
Only having one channel to create touchpoints with these prospects can ensure low response rates too. It can leave you with a big gap in your market. Giving the power solely in the hands of the prospect! Using other marketing channels, such as email and telemarketing can expand your reach further.
It is easy to forget about a message when you’re busy, but if you have other touch points via email or phone, alongside the LinkedIn messages you are more likely to get a response. This also allows you to assess whether the prospect is a good fit for your services.
After exploring the different sides of Sales Navigator, it’s clear that it is a great platform when used in the right way. Using it to gather data and find prospects on LinkedIn specific to your needs is great, but when contacting those prospects in the long run you need more. Now you may disagree.
But why limit yourself to one chance? Expand your reach and cover all bases!
