Leverage the use of LinkedIn for sales prospecting!

LinkedIn is a gold mine of prospect information for sales and outreach. But the platform is so vast, it can be hard to know where to begin. It can also be daunting if you prefer a low-key approach and don’t want to be seen as aggressive or “salesy.”

If you find yourself hesitating, it’s essential to remember that LinkedIn is a professional network where individuals seek connections and build relationships. Engaging in inbound sales is a natural part of fostering professional relationships, and users on the platform anticipate and even welcome such approaches. In fact, statistics reveal that “50% of B2B buyers rely on LinkedIn when making purchase decisions.”

Even so, there are dos and don’ts when it comes to prospecting on LinkedIn. Even though people are anticipating LinkedIn prospecting, you can still annoy them if you don’t do it right – and annoyed prospects are not viable prospects.

Cold Prospecting vs. Value Bombing

Cold prospecting and “value bombing” are two alternate ways of approaching people you don’t personally know on LinkedIn.

Cold prospecting is the modern equivalent of cold calling. It means contacting a person you don’t know to (tastefully) tell them more about your services. It has a bit of a bad reputation, but if you choose the right targets and the right approach, you can still see good results.

Others say the way to go is value bombing – contacting someone you don’t know purely to offer them something of value without expecting anything in return. It establishes trust and familiarity, which can provide a good basis for a professional relationship down the road.

There is no clear consensus on which approach is better, so the best idea is to aim for somewhere in the middle and take advantage of any open doors along the way.

Why LinkedIn Prospecting Matters

With over 810 million users worldwide, LinkedIn is a gold mine of B2C and B2B buyers.

And since it’s a professional network, people mostly use LinkedIn to build their network and nurture professional relationships.

This makes it an appropriate setting for a sales professional to send out a connection request or an InMail message to a potential client you’re not familiar with to discuss your solutions.

However, just because you can connect with people you don’t know doesn’t mean that you should reach out to hundreds of people at once.

Now, back to why LinkedIn is so helpful.

LinkedIn is perfect for sales prospecting since it helps you:

• Gather potential prospect info like employment history, interests and contact details
• Communicate with a large audience
• Analyze a competitor’s customer base and prospecting strategy
• Discover new developments in the prospecting field

Cold Prospecting vs. Value Bombing

Cold prospecting and “value bombing” are two alternate ways of approaching people you don’t personally know on LinkedIn.

Cold prospecting is the modern equivalent of cold calling. It means contacting a person you don’t know to (tastefully) tell them more about your services. It has a bit of a bad reputation, but if you choose the right targets and the right approach, you can still see good results.

Others say the way to go is value bombing – contacting someone you don’t know purely to offer them something of value without expecting anything in return. It establishes trust and familiarity, which can provide a good basis for a professional relationship down the road.

There is no clear consensus on which approach is better, so the best idea is to aim for somewhere in the middle and take advantage of any open doors along the way.

LinkedIn Cold Message Best Practices

1. Polish Your Profile

Before you even think about approaching someone, edit your own profile to make sure that once you do start attracting attention, it will have the desired outcome. Writing in the first person adds authenticity and believability to your profile. Word your bio and other profile messages to clearly explain exactly how your services are likely to help a potential client.

You can do this by thinking about “connecting the dots” when you write – show visitors how the services you offer can lead to the improvements they want in their business. Avoid talking about your skills in a generic way, or they won’t understand how negotiation training, for example, might help them land bigger deals.

Take these 7 steps to make sure you have an active, optimized LinkedIn profile:

1. Have a professional headshot taken.

Skip the funny pictures – according to LinkedIn data, profiles with photos get 21x more views and 36x more messages.

2. Write a killer headline.

Learn how to optimize your LinkedIn headline: tailor it to your audience, include your value proposition, use your prospect’s language and avoid hyperbole.

3. Write a short and sweet – yet impactful – bio.

Endorsements are clearly valuable, but don’t spam all of your connections with requests. Instead, wait until you’ve built relationships?and established your value before you ask. If your requests aren’t panning out, many LinkedIn users find that you need to give endorsements to get them.

4. Publish original content to your profile.

To take full advantage of the recency heuristic and halo effect described by Fisher, update your profile regularly with interesting, original content. If you aren’t sure what to write, think about the questions your prospects ask you most frequently. Write up your answers in a helpful, non-commercial way to establish your authority within your field.

5. Share content from your Groups and your connections.

If you’re short on time (or aren’t a confident writer), you can achieve many of the same effects by sharing content from the Groups you participate in or the people you’re connected with. Sharing the content of prospects you’re trying to connect with has the added bonus of turning a cold contact into a warmer lead.

6. Turn off LinkedIn’s setting that allows you to view others’ profiles anonymously.

That way, your name will appear on prospect’s profiles before you do your cold outreach to them.

7.Request endorsements, but carefully.

Endorsements are clearly valuable, but don’t spam all of your connections with requests. Instead, wait until you’ve built relationships?and established your value before you ask. If your requests aren’t panning out, many LinkedIn users find that you need to give endorsements to get them.

2. Beef Up Your Pulse Portfolio

Consider writing for LinkedIn Pulse, the in-network blogging platform. In addition to adding depth and interest to your profile (articles you’ve written show up there), it can also help establish your professional reputation and expertise. It also brings new eyes to your profile without the need for active prospecting.

3. Think About Going Premium

It’s not an insignificant investment, but upgrading to LinkedIn’s premium tier can be helpful. There are four options to choose from – Career, Business, Sales, and Hiring – and each offers slightly different benefits. People who are serious about prospecting will be most interested in the options that offer improved search features, more InMail messages, and better lead management tools, like Business and Sales.

4. Learn to Use Search More Effectively

Even without the search superpowers of a Premium account, the LinkedIn search function is pretty advanced. You’d do well to take a few minutes to figure out how to get the most from it. It supports Boolean strings and filters, and using both properly will increase the quality of the results you get.

In your research, you may also come across tools to automate LinkedIn search. Some will spark your interest, but remember that they’re against LinkedIn’s terms of service, so use them at your own risk.

5. Connect and Engage with Prospects on LinkedIn

The objective here is to find a new prospect who’s in the awareness stage of their buyer’s journey.

What’s that?

In this early stage, the potential prospect is aware that they have a challenge that needs to be addressed to achieve their goals.

You can try out these tactics to connect and engage with qualified prospects:

• Congratulate a LinkedIn connection on starting a new role.
• Respond to the posts shared by current connections and qualified prospects you follow to convey your acknowledgment.
• Send out a connection request to a potential client and use LinkedIn Messaging to thank them if they accepted.
• Provide genuine compliments on the achievements of a target prospect.

6. Provide Value to Your Prospects

The best way to build rapport and trust with your LinkedIn prospect list is to provide value.

For this, you can create and publish helpful content related to your industry or niche like:

• Trends
• Developments
• Ideas
• Stats
• Challenges
• And more

Once you’ve created value-added content, feel free to share it with your prospect list directly or in a relevant LinkedIn group.

If you have a hard time coming up with original content ideas, that’s okay.

You can share posts created by other business professionals or thought leaders and then credit them by tagging their names. Doing so offers the additional benefit of potentially building relationships with influential industry leaders.

Additionally, you can offer some free insights that your current connections and followers might benefit from — like pointers to improve their social media traffic, tips and tactics for better negotiation, and so on.

The goal here is simple: you want to stay on top of their minds.

This way, when an ideal prospect faces a difficulty specific to your industry or niche, they’re likely to approach you for guidance, and you can use this opportunity to help them explore your offerings.

7. Personalize Your Outreach Messages

Many sales reps use LinkedIn Messaging to send generic messages to their prospect list. For example, “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.”

Such generic messages aren’t built for engagement and can affect your company’s reputation.

When reaching out to someone on LinkedIn, always personalize your messages.

I’d recommend that you go the extra mile in learning as much as you can about a new prospect. You can go through their LinkedIn profile, check their company’s press releases or blogs, and other public sources to find info.

Next, leverage this info to craft personalized LinkedIn messaging that:

• Shows that you thoroughly understand their context
• Establishes you as an expert in your field or industry
• Indicates that you’re uniquely qualified to help the target prospect

Your prospects would appreciate that you took the time to learn more about them and created a message tailored to their specific interests — ultimately increasing your chances for conversion.