Should You Pay for a Premium LinkedIn Account in 2023?

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While firms are deciding what and where to invest, you may be considering how much you should invest in your presence here. ??

This article will explore the differences between a free LinkedIn basic account and a premium one and explore how a LinkedIn premium account can help in your professional journey.

NB. I am not affiliated with LinkedIn

Read on....

LinkedIn Premium plans: What do they offer?

There are different types of LinkedIn Premium plans – Premium Career, Premium Business, Sales Navigator Core & Advanced and Linkedin Recruiter Lite. As Premium Career is for individual job seekers, the other three are of interest to B2B companies and corporates.

LinkedIn Premium Business gives you access to:

• 15 InMail credits
• Unlimited LinkedIn Learning
• Business Insights
• Private browsing
• Applicant insights
• Profile views

LinkedIn Sales Navigator has three pricing tiers (Core, Advanced, and Advanced Plus). The Core plan offers:

• LinkedIn Learning
• Unlimited search
• Profile views in the last 90 days
• 50 InMails per month
• Lead recommendations

The Advanced Plus plan offers integration with sales tools, Outlook, and SNAP in addition to buyer interest alerts, CRM integration, reporting, and enterprise tools.

In addition to all these features, the Recruiter Lite plan also offers:

• Automatic candidate tracking
• 30 InMail credits
• Smart Suggestions
• Recruiting specific design

Why opt for LinkedIn Premium?

As a LinkedIn user, you are already aware of the limitations of the basic account. For instance, you cannot see who viewed your profile, send unlimited InMail messages or access business tools required for focused outreach.

LinkedIn Premium offers these benefits for B2B companies, including:

1. Increased visibility: Premium allows users to see who has viewed their profile for the past 90days and access more detailed analytics on their activity.

Advanced search filters: With the advanced search filters the LinkedIn Premium account offers, searching for leads becomes easier. You can apply filters such as these to find specific individuals, companies, or groups:

• Seniority or job titles (such as managers, directors, CEOs)
• Interests or LinkedIn goals (looking for employment, reconnecting, becoming an industry expert, etc.)
• Company size
• Fortune 500 or 1000 companies

2. Access to a larger network: With a LinkedIn Business Premium account, business owners can connect with more potential business partners, leads, and professionals.

3. Premium members can send InMails, which are private messages to other LinkedIn members, even if they are not connected. In addition, Premium members can see who viewed their profile and reach out to them to build their personal connections.

4. Improved recruiting efforts: LinkedIn Talent Insights leverages over 12 billion data points to provide actionable insights to help B2B companies attract, hire, and retain the best talent.

The report includes data on the most in-demand skills, the hottest industries and job functions, where talent is moving, and how compensation varies by geography. It also includes insights on recruiting trends and candidate experience.

Image via LinkedIn

5. Valuable enterprise tools: Right from employee data integration and single sign-on (SSO), to ROI reporting tools and advanced CRM integrations, the LinkedIn Premium account offers valuable enterprise tools.

Sales Navigator makes it easy to add and manage leads by automatically adding new leads and contacts to your CRM.

6. LinkedIn Learning: Premium members get unlimited access to LinkedIn Learning, which offers 5000+ courses designed by experts on various business and professional topics. For busy professionals, self-paced learning is a great way to improve skills and knowledge.

Image via LinkedIn

7. Enhanced team collaboration: With LinkedIn Premium, businesses can enjoy a number of features and benefits that can make it easier to connect and collaborate with colleagues.

Apart from centralised account management to track your team's activity and manage licenses, the Sales Navigator plan allows you to share lead and account lists in real-time. You can use the Teamlink feature to leverage your team's network and expand your contact list.

Should you upgrade from basic?

I my humble opinion Premium, the halfway house that most people opt for is not worth it but, if you can, go a step further and go straight to Sales Navigator.

Sales Navigator is an advanced engagement platform by LinkedIn that provides an array of features which focus on helping you find the right prospects to build trusted relationships. ALL OUR CLIENTS have a Sales Nav account as it is invaluable for targeted focused outreach.

With LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you can reach the right kind of prospects by using the search and filter features. Sales Navigator also provides actionable information and insights that can pave the way for a deeper understanding of leads and prospects. This way, you can engage with your prospects at a far more personal level by offering personalised content.

There are individual, team and enterprise subscriptions available, depending on your needs and the size of your team. 

It allows you to start with your individual sales preferences to narrow down your parameters, then deep dive into advanced filters for a hyper-focused approach.

Sales Preferences:

You can narrow down your ideal client profile based on geography, industry, company size, and function. These preferences will show up whenever you visit a

prospect’s profile and LinkedIn will show lead recommendations based on the criteria you set.

Advanced Search

However, this is only the beginning! You can perform an advanced search on either leads or accounts, with the leads option having more fields to focus your search. There are over 20 filters that you can apply to your search, with the keywords, title, and company fields allowing you to perform a Boolean search. You can choose filters such as being in the same LinkedIn Groups, having over 10 years of experience if they’ve posted content with certain keywords or use a certain technology, the list goes on…!

Handy tip: 

There is a “Save Search” button on the right side of the results page. This will help you revisit your search again and again and have the option of tweaking some search criteria and saving it as a separate search.

Most importantly, it tells you when new people who fit your 'ideal client' profile join.

PUTTING SALES NAVIGATOR INTO ACTION FOR EFFECTIVE PROSPECTING

Set up effective messaging sequences over time – build valuable relationships.

A common mistake professionals make when sending LinkedIn prospecting messages is giving up after not receiving a response after their first or second message. The aim is to build a relationship so that the prospect reaches out to you to know more. The goal of LinkedIn InMail prospecting is to provoke a potential buyer to ask, “Can you tell me more about that?”

The goal of LinkedIn prospecting is to earn the right to converse, and initiate discussion. We recommend to clients using a “6 touch points” rule. Until you receive a response from a prospect, you should aim to make 6 touch points with your prospect over a period of months.

Here’s an example of what a 6 touchpoint sequence might look like:

Customer Support

As with every other product out there, the level of customer experience enjoyed by premium users on LinkedIn is not the same afforded to free members.

If you have a paid account, you’re more likely to have your account restored or wait a lesser duration of time for the issue to be resolved in the event you do something that violates LinkedIn’s terms of service. For example, reviewing too many profiles or sending too many connection requests, both of which could lead to account flagging or termination. There is also a dedicated LinkedIn Sales Nav Support Portal

Conclusion

As you can see, paid accounts offer B2B companies valuable toolsets for increasing visibility, expanding your network, improving recruiting efforts and engaging with their target audience, ultimately helping drive business success.

Given the advanced analytics and insights it offers, it is definitely worth considering if you are looking for an edge in the competitive business world.

Photo credit in article image: Louise Morris

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? At Trevisan (LinkedIn Training & Marketing), we specialise in helping businesses improve their presence on LinkedIn. As an established LinkedIn agency, we have a deep understanding of how the platform works and how to effectively use it to help you achieve your business goals.

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