If you’re like most business owners, you’re probably not a fan of the idea of manually reaching out to potential leads or sales prospects.
As a business owner, you’ve got way more important things to do, right?
However, if you want just one strategy to skyrocket your business growth this year, focus on LinkedIn.
With platforms like Facebook and Instagram capturing huge chunks of the market, LinkedIn often gets underutilized.
But it can be a powerful channel when you understand how to use its features.
B2B = LinkedIn
If you work in the B2B space, then LinkedIn should be your first priority.
A major success factor for any professional is their network.
Building connections with professionals in your field gives you more opportunities to advance your career.
To automate, streamline and track daily routine sales activities.
An excellent sales automation system is much more than just facilitating sales reps.
It makes sure that leads and sales get processed.
Automate, automate, and semi-automate
In today’s day and age, it’s crucial to run your campaign effectively.
This includes not only contacting clients, but helping them make better decisions regarding a purchase.
What do I mean by this? Businesses should not be acting as salespeople.
Instead, they should be using their resources as omnichannel marketing experts.
They can help businesses navigate individuals and households to help make better purchasing decisions.
They can provide statistical insights through their customer reviews.
They can provide price comparisons for customers and make recommendations based on their collaborative data.
They can offer one-on-one, in-depth training sessions to increase brand awareness, increase propensity to purchase and, ultimately, drive sales.
This is where LinkedIn comes into play.
With regard to daily setup, I recommend using LinkedIn’s built-in sales support.
A quick search on social media will tell you what I mean.
When you visit a business page, there’s a tab titled ‘Support.’ And it has several tabs.
These tabs cover several topics:
Each support tab is fully-featured and human-resources-friendly.
You can even monitor engagement.
Furthermore, LinkedIn has an extensive library of features that streamline the sales process.
For starters, it supports:
Lastly, it has professional alumnus and digital influencer directories that make it easier for sales representatives.
If you establish a strong sales support strategy, you’re bound to see higher success rates.
During the initial contact, it takes 79% of reps to convert a prospect to a client.
However, once you set up a sales support system, reliability is 95%.
In fact, I’m convinced that the reason for the high conversion rate is the diligence and quality of support support provided on LinkedIn.
With these features, a significant portion of the effort is already in the process.
And it can be a huge lever to lead to conversions.
Use all of LinkedIn’s tools
The product catalog on LinkedIn is expansive!
There’s a keyword tool, people search, things to know, and industry associations.
Relatively speaking, social media pages aren’t packed with too many features.
LinkedIn brings it all together.
When I’m on LinkedIn, I see at least five cooler things to know than on social media platforms.
However, if you’re like most small business owners, getting traffic to your social media pages and organic reach on LinkedIn isn’t that easy.
It can be time-consuming as well.
Luckily, LinkedIn users sign up for free.
Therefore, it’s easier for you to find traffic without spending a fortune on other platforms.
Before you reply to a follow-up DM, consider these three methods below:
First, consider waiting to reply to incoming messages via LinkedIn until you have a few leads or sales opportunities on your radar.
Without tracking metrics, it’s so easy to be unfocused and forget to focus on your sale message.
Example time.
Here’s an example from—let’s call him Dave.
Imagine I’m a brand new sales rep—Dave—and I got a slew of sales calls for my company this week.
It’s my first week on the job, and it’s clearly challenging to get a sense of how I’m performing.
When I respond to these calls, my first thought is always, “does this person have a lead or a sales opportunity?” As a result, I don’t realize that my message has been opened and I continue to ignore it.
But this next example illustrates much more clearly the importance of tracking metrics.
Unfortunately, it’s so simple to be overlooked by this simple, invisible metric: prospect engagement.
Prospect engagement is essentially the number of contacts a prospect has in a given period.
To track this metric, simply record incoming and outgoing messages, both incoming and outgoing calls.
I typically note incoming SMS messages and incoming calls (approximately 14 incoming and 10 outgoing calls per day).
This comes highly recommended by international law firm Covington & Burling.
Using my open and call tracking metrics, I can calculate my prospect engagement rate.
The higher is your CAC — the harder it is for prospects to get to know you and like you.
This is a major missed point that could turn your relationship into a real customer one.
Please reach out to prospects to establish a relationship.
But remember periodically, don’t forget to stay in touch and add new open opportunities to your to-do list to stay on top of your sales cycle.
What should I say?
LinkedIn messaging strategies.
Lastly, consider calling and answering sales or sales related messages.
Consider these messaging strategies:
It can feel like you’re continuously playing chicken with sales reps and prospects, but these strategies can help clear the way for the legitimate conversation and keep you on top of your sales cycle.
Hey man, remember me? This is the perfect opportunity to connect and ask me about my timeline and availability.
Hey, how are you holding up? How are you holding up now, and have you been able to get new leads lately? Can I setup a time to get a coffee together for 60 mins or so?
Most of all, I can take a look + follow up with you once I’m back in the office.
All successful sales processes utilize a core group of key contacts who are in regular contact with the sales team.
As a wholesaler, you’re probably going to have a lot of 1-to-1 conversations with your buyer’s list.
For the freelancer, the selling process is often different.
You’re selling ideas, and to effectively complete your job – you need someone to guide you to finalize the ideas and brainstorm the outlines.
Sales professional, don’t segregate CRM (Customer Relationship Management) from sales automation.
CRM’s are not a CRM.
They aren’t a database nor are they a reporting tool.
A CRM should be a tool for automating more than just getting leads.
An ideal CRM should look like an analytics and process management suite.
Productivity software that streamlines customer relationship management is a rising trend, if you have to ask.
LinkedIn is the perfect tool for this.
Our team has successfully automated several sales processes with ease using LinkedIn.
Here are some tasks that could make use of LinkedIn marketing automation.
Sales call creators: Send a request to a contact in the Sales Department or Lead Capture department to create a Sales Call!
You’ll need the following: Sales Call templates, 1 minute explanation of why the call is important, a button for skip recording and a backup email.
Record the call with a.wav file and save it to your Sales Department account.
Schedule additional calls monthly to maintain your Analytics goal and free up your CRM.
LinkedIn keyword research
LinkedIn is getting a lot of attention for its use of organic search and keyword research.
If you’re interested in niche markets that don’t have a large USP, consider this one keyword research tip you can implement right away.
In Settings > Geography, select your country.
You’ll see the option to launch a Search Engine Optimization Campaign for one of your key targeted keywords.
Click on the plus sign and select “Determine cold keyword ideas.” What you’ll get is a list of four exciting keywords that interest you that can potentially target.
Use a keyword research tool such as AnswerThePublic.com or the Google Keyword Tool to index related keywords in your niche.
Once you have a list of ideas that are relevant and search friendly, you can plan keyword insertion campaigns.
LinkedIn sales call flow chart
Create a flow chart that shows all the steps you take to reach out to a buyer.
In this chart you’ll show the breakdown of the actions taken before reaching out to the respective contact.
This helps you keep track of automation consistency.
Charts should be a checklist joint effort; it should be an ongoing collaboration between all members of related team.