A Quick Guide to Linkedin Sales Navigator
Most social media networks rely on a mixture of free and paid users, along with advertising and other revenue streams, to make ends meet. However, not all social networks are created equal. Despite earning $3.8 billion in advertising revenue for 2021, LinkedIn still makes a lot of money on premium memberships. Specifically, LinkedIn premium accounts rake in a lot of additional money. These accounts offer greater access to members and also provide extra services. One of these is called LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
In this article, we will talk about what LinkedIn Sales Navigator is and briefly discuss its features. From here, you will see why this lead generation marketing tool is so valuable.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is one of LinkedIn’s premium products. There are four different premium products, depending on what you need. These are Sales Navigator, Recruiter Lite, Premium Career, and Premium Business. Briefly, if you work in corporate recruiting, you’ll probably want Recruiter Lite. Similarly, jobseekers want Premium Career, and business leaders who aren’t in sales or recruiting can get Premium Business.
From this brief description, you can see that LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a tool for sales and marketing personnel. It is the cornerstone of lead generation marketing on LinkedIn and is especially important for B2B brands. That’s because using LinkedIn Sales Navigator lets you identify and reach out to sales prospects more easily. Furthermore, your efforts on LinkedIn will likely be more effective if you subscribe to Sales Navigator than if you don’t.
There are several core features of Sales Navigator that everyone will receive. There are also a few added features reserved for higher levels of the subscription. These variations let professionals buy what they need and not have to pay for a lot of extra features. Similarly, there are some quantity changes between the service tiers. Let’s look at the core features first.
No matter which version of Sales Navigator you choose, there are several features that everyone gets. Each of these helps the LinkedIn member to find and communicate with the right people. Usually, these are department heads, procurement professionals, and sometimes executives within a target industry. From there, you can proceed with lead generation marketing.
- LinkedIn InMail — these are messages sent to the members’ box that you must pay for. Typically, you can only send messages on LinkedIn to your first and second-degree contacts. You can also send free messages to premium members who have opted in.
- Improved search features — without a premium account, LinkedIn places significant restrictions on how many people searches you run per day. In addition, your filter options are very limited once you get the results. Needless to say, you’ll save a lot of time with the Sales Navigator filter capabilities. Plus, you can run as many searches as you need to.
- Who has viewed your profile — people usually view a LinkedIn profile for a reason. Maybe they’re looking for an old classmate or are curious about someone whom they saw mentioned in an article. But often, that profile view is an opportunity for lead generation marketing because they are interested in your company’s products or services.
- Alerts and lists — sometimes, you might look for changes within company personnel or for somebody to change a job because you know that the entity will be in a position to buy after that change. Or, for that matter, because you need to keep track of decision-makers within an industry. An alert can help you do this. Similarly, Lists can help you stay organized by sorting different segments of your contacts.
With higher sales Navigator tiers, you can get additional features. These include content marketing tools, such as the ability to engage with your company’s followers and track engagement with Branded content. Similarly, you can get warm introductions to sales prospects. A warm introduction is more effective than a cold one and involves your team member mentioning that they know you.
At the highest service tier, you also get CRM integration, which can significantly reduce your workload and make lead-generation marketing much easier. This final tier is geared toward larger brands or teams.
Especially when you consider that a Sales Navigator subscription can get quite expensive, it’s easy to question whether or not it’s worth paying. After all, many of the features are extensions of what you can already get for free. However, as social media marketer Neal Schaffer points out, Sales Navigator is incredibly valuable. The access to more and better leads from LinkedIn is worth far more than the price, and that’s before you even talk about the highly effective InMails. There are a few other tools that give you so much value for your money, especially in the B2B space.
Final thoughts
LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a very valuable tool if you want to boost the number of leads you have available. In addition, some of the higher levels of service can help you make the most of your content marketing efforts within the platform. If you are a B2B brand in particular, you can’t do without this tool.
