Why You Should Use LinkedIn For Sales Prospecting: With Practical Tips and Techniques

Last year, those who used LinkedIn for sales prospecting found plenty of new opportunities. The platform currently has 830 million professionals and potential customers, which makes it a gold mine for getting information, leads, and starting business relationships. However, there are still many of us who are missing out — we’ve collected the best tips and techniques below so you can utilize LinkedIn to the fullest.

Why You Should Use LinkedIn for Sales Prospecting

Selling online is an intricate art of utilizing social networks to locate, connect with, and nurture any sales prospects. It’s much more innovative compared to cold calling and hard selling, simply because you’re not interrupting someone’s daily routine with an unwanted phone call. Using social media, all you need to do is pop up once in a while — and people are actually delighted to hear from you.

While there are plenty of social media communities available, LinkedIn has continued to be one of the most suitable platforms for business. Because it can provide an effective way to generate leads, there’s no need to call anyone and, as a result, it’s much easier to build and maintain relationships. Moreover, it’s easier to trust someone within the network, especially compared to other social media hubs, so it will help to start utilizing it as part of your marketing strategy.

Here are just a few reasons why social selling is the preferred way for sales prospecting:

LinkedIn is also the preferred social media outlet of most salespeople for sales prospecting, where 89% of the top performers have said that using it is critical to close their deals. Many of these top-level performers will do some kind of preparation before contacting their prospect, which includes:

Keeping their profile updated
Doing research on their prospects’ profile
Monitoring their prospect’s interests

If you’re still hesitant to use LinkedIn as your primary platform for sales prospecting, remember that it is a professional network where people gather to create relationships and make connections. Because inbound sales are a natural part of making professional relationships, people on LinkedIn will surely expect or may even want to be contacted. In fact, as much as 50% of B2B buyers are on LinkedIn mainly to make purchase decisions with reputable businesses, so it only makes sense to learn how you can use it to its full potential.

However, there are still a few things you should and shouldn’t do when looking for prospective customers on LinkedIn. Even if people do anticipate you to make contact, you could still rub them the wrong way if you’re not prepared. Remember, annoyed prospects won’t sign up for your webinar or buy your products, so here are a few tips to get you started.

Practical Tips and Techniques

Because LinkedIn is such a vast platform, it can easily become overwhelming, and you might not know where to begin. If you want to maintain a low approach without sounding too aggressive, here are a few things you can do:

Always Make Connections

People will only buy from those they trust and like, and the easiest way to do this is to have someone vouch for you. Make sure that you’re always expanding your network, and stay updated with your key connections. By doing this, you’re creating opportunities to get referrals while paving new paths to reach prospects.

Provide a Good Buyer Experience

You can provide your customers with a memorable experience so when they’re ready to make a purchase, they’ll remember the great service you provided them. While there are many ways for you to make more sales, force-feeding products and services won’t help you. Instead, let your customers see the value in both your products and your customer service.

Create a Strong Brand

Building a strong brand means that you’re always active in the industry, which will lead to inquiries from your prospects. Stay on top of the game by stirring up constant attention from your audiences. Leaving your brand unattended will quickly make your online presence stale. In this age of technology, you can be sure that there are plenty of other vendors and competitors so you can’t let irrelevance disqualify your brand from getting more prospects.

Making your presence and brand known will lead to more customers and more responses whenever you make communication with them.

Prospect the Smart Way

Having the ability to discern which people are right for you is what separates your company from others. Here’s how you can prospect smarter, not harder:

Stay updated on your existing relationships and leads
Prioritize the companies, prospects, and sales that are right for you
Look for efficient ways to find the right people

Those who are veterans of the game know that they need to empower prospects by making the process time-saving and providing insights to help with decision-making. Doing this will allow you to get the right clients and gain their trust.

First Impressions Matter

Today, businesses are expected to do much more. You need to capture the attention of every buyer and the best way to do that is by giving them something to look forward to. Give your prospect a concise and compelling reason why they should find out more about your product or service. This shows them that you come prepared and have something relevant to offer them.

Because this would be your first point of contact, you have to make it count. Be sure to do some research and know-how to wow them, even if it’s just a meeting via Zoom. Anything that doesn’t interest them will be forgotten.

Start Utilizing LinkedIn Today

For salespeople like ourselves, LinkedIn provides the golden ticket to prospecting better and raising sales to a new level. Unfortunately, many individuals barely even scratch the surface of this social platform’s potential, which results in underperformance. When used correctly, LinkedIn can be such a powerful social platform; let us help you utilize it to its full potential.

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