Mar 21, 2018

6 Advanced LinkedIn Sales Navigator Tactics

by Digital Marketing Institute

The current digital landscape has provided professionals with access to a wide variety of sales prospecting resources. One of the key tools used by sales teams and individuals to nurture customer relationships and build meaningful connections with prospects is LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

If you’re ready to take a deep-dive into sales prospecting methods using this innovative tool, read on for six advanced LinkedIn Sales Navigator tactics.

What Is LinkedIn Sales Navigator?

In short, LinkedIn Sales Navigator helps sales organizations and professionals to develop better relationships with their customers. As a leading tool for enhancing sales performance and boosting sales prospecting methods, LinkedIn Sales Navigator allows users to search for high-potential prospects and filter the results.

With a member network of over 500 million users, LinkedIn Sales Navigator allows sales professionals to use social selling to nurture connections with customers and prospects alike.

Additionally, the tool also allows you to uncover valuable insights that will help you forge a better understanding of prospects and leads as they move through your online sales funnel. Because of its ability to provide actionable information, sales professionals can use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to provide optimized content at the ideal time in the funnel process.


This tool has great implications for B2C customers as well, as it separates personal and professional brands. According to information from LinkedIn, social selling leaders using LinkedIn Sales Navigator are experiencing results such as:

  • Being 51% more likely to achieve quota
  • Creating 45% more opportunities
  • Being 80% more productive

These numbers demonstrate just how effective LinkedIn Sales Navigator can be for sales professionals. Inside Sales Box summed up some of the key functions of LinkedIn Sales Navigator and how it’s helping sales professionals build high-quality relationships with leads and prospects. Some of their findings on what the tool can do for your business include:

  • Helping you focus on the right prospects at the right time in your online sales funnel
  • Accessing real-time information updates on customers and prospects
  • The ability to track and measure social selling endeavors by using the Social Selling Index
  • Search for and find new high-potential prospects
  • Access insights on your mobile device

To access all of the comprehensive capabilities of LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you’ll have to sign up for a paid account. However, new users can sign up for a 30-day free trial, and from there you can make the decision as to whether or not the tool is helpful in your sales prospecting efforts.

It’s important to remember that although LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a future-forward sales tool that can help enhance your social selling strategy, it will not be effective as the sole tool used to develop a well-rounded social selling strategy. Best-in-class sales prospecting methods use multiple touchpoints and tools to generate leads and convert prospects into completed sales.

If you’re ready to take a deep-dive into sales prospecting methods using this innovative tool, read on for six advanced LinkedIn Sales Navigator tactics:

1. Connect with Former Customers and Discover New Leads

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the perfect platform for sales professionals looking to establish a wide range of high-value connections. With one of the search filters offered by the sales tool – “Past not Current” - you can filter out past versus current results to establish connections with former employees at accounts which have already been converted into paying customers.

When you use this filter, you can reach out to employees that may have moved on from one organization to the next with a greater chance of attaining new sales, as these individuals are already familiar with the effectiveness of your solution.

2. Use the Search Features to Your Advantage

The search features developed for LinkedIn Sales Navigator are ideal for levelling-up your prospecting tactics. The other available filters allow you to pinpoint individuals that align with your ideal client profile (ICP). Once you’ve found the perfect combination of filters that allows you to optimize your search results and sales prospecting methods, saving and sharing this combination is easy.

By simply copyingthe URL of the results page created from your ideal filter combination, yourself and other team members can recreate streamlined results again and again. This technique also allows you to share your search results with sales colleagues quickly and easily.

In addition, you can capture targeted connections using the filters to your advantage. Consider the wide-reaching implications of being able to filter the previous experiences, alma mater’s, and hometowns of each high-potential prospect currently in your sales funnel.

3. Turn on Notifications for Optimal Sales Prospecting Timing

LinkedIn Sales Navigator can be configured to provide you with instant notifications. For example, you can be notified when another team member connects with a high-potential prospect, meaning that you can sweep in, engage in a meaningful way, and guide them through your optimized online sales funnel.


To set up this feature of LinkedIn Sales Navigator notifications, you can use a filter called “TeamLink” as you search your top prospects and accounts. After saving this search, you’ll be notified when the time comes that someone in your organization establishes a connection with a key player from that company.

4. Keep Your LinkedIn Sales Navigator Organized for Optimal Results

LinkedIn Sales Navigator recently added a feature that allows sales professionals to stay organized while utilizing the tool. No longer will you have to filter through inactive prospects to find key targets. Notes and tags give users the ability to organized any generated leads to streamlined processes, saving you time to optimize other parts of sales prospecting methods.

5. Increase Connection with Personalized Content and Engagement

A major issue that sales professionals encounter is not sending personalized or genuine content to these prospects. According to Accenture, 81% of consumers want brands to understand the right time to approach them and understand their needs. When you establish a more personalized relationship with these prospects by understanding their past, you’re more likely to spark an authentic connection.

Additionally, Monetate found that 68% of marketers find it challenging to create a “real-time” view of their customers. To provide a solution to this industry issue, LinkedIn Sales Navigator provides a filter that allows you to reach out to high-potential prospects who have posted content within the past 30 days.


This filter – called “Posted on LinkedIn in past 30 days” – provides a platform on which marketers and sales professionals to generate a current customer profile and engage with their posted content on a more personal basis.

6. Define a Process for Using LinkedIn Sales Navigator Effectively

There’s no point in optimizing your sales prospecting methods if you’re not utilizing LinkedIn Sales Navigator to its fullest potential. In the same way that sales professionals have specific steps in their social selling strategies, using LinkedIn Sales Navigator effectively requires an optimized process to funnel top prospects through the online sales funnel. By doing so, you’ll be able to use the tool to increase your conversion rates and close more sales.

For example, generating multiple leads within one targeted organization is a key part of a high-conversion social selling strategy. Creating various cadences and acting on these multiple touchpoints using LinkedIn Sales Navigator allows you to reach various decision-makers in a single organization, increasing your brand awareness and developing meaningful relationships.

Social selling on LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a critical facet of a well-rounded social selling strategy. As we move into a technology-rich workforce, sales professionals will be met with more opportunities to generate high-quality leads and maintain connections with prospects as they are funnelled through the sales process. In addition, this technology-based shift means that the competition will also have a larger online presence on platforms like LinkedIn. With increased access to competitive insights and content, you can discover what they’re lacking and where your solutions outperform theirs.

By using available filters to find decision-makers in target organizations, you can engage and connect with each prospect on a personal basis with personalized content sharing to maintain an active online relationship.

Conclusion

Best-in-class sales professionals are already using the high-quality features of LinkedIn Sales Navigator to level-up their sales prospecting methods and create optimal results. Using LinkedIn Sales Navigator effectively doesn’t require a huge time commitment, or using it as your sole sales prospecting tool.

For the best results, utilize the above sales prospecting tips in LinkedIn Sales Navigator to achieve your quota and access real-time information on your high-potential prospects for enhanced research and engagement processes.

Remember to engage with prospects regularly, maintain an active presence on LinkedIn yourself, and develop meaningful professional relationships on varying social media platforms. Use these best-in-class sales prospecting tactics to discover how LinkedIn Sales Navigator can make you and your team a sales force to be reckoned with and bring your sales prospecting methods to the next level.

Take a deep-dive into sales and social media prospecting methods and become a Certified Digital and Social Selling Specialist. Download a brochure today!

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