LinkedIn is one of the best platforms to use if you want to sell your product or service through social media directly. This is especially true if you run a B2B business, engage in outbound sales, and seek out experts in a certain sector.
Outbound LinkedIn prospecting, however, frequently has a poor rap. That’s because a lot of individuals continue to misuse it. You’ve probably received a dozen poor connection requests where the message feels generic and forced, you have no interest in what the individual has to say, and you have no links to their industry.
In this article, we’ll concentrate on how to avoid these blunders and maximize your LinkedIn outbound sales by utilizing cutting-edge strategies like lead generation, customization, and image-building.
First, let’s define outbound sales to determine whether this is a strategy you ought to pursue.
What exactly are outbound sales?
The more conventional method of selling is outbound sales. Outbound salespeople include those who go door to door, use telemarketing, and track down leads.
Therefore, outbound sales refer to any situation where a salesperson is actively engaging with clients. This method of approaching sales used to be not only the greatest but the only one. Outbound sales have been scrutinized, and their effectiveness is frequently questioned due to digital marketing and customer data development.
There is a case to be made that outbound sales are a waste of time because consumers are much more intelligent and accustomed to getting promotional offers regularly.
But as you’re about to find, things aren’t as simple as that.
Which is better for sales—inbound or outbound?
While “outbound” refers to pursuing customers, “inbound” refers to inviting them to contact you.
Outbound sales have been declining in popularity for the main reason that inbound sales are more sophisticated, practical, and effective.
Value is the cornerstone of inbound sales; you draw clients by addressing their problems, offering high-quality content, and creating long-term business partnerships. It centers on developing buyer personas and sending personalized communications. Since outbound sales are more immediate and produce quicker results, inbound sales are viewed as a longer-term approach.
Outbound sales are still a fantastic approach to generate leads in a shorter length of time even though inbound sales might look finer and a little more in line with the age we’re living in.
The secret, though, is to leverage some of those inbound sales strategies when making outbound sales. Some of these strategies include personalized messages and high-quality leads. Only if you continue to utilize a volume-based strategy where you attempt to contact as many leads as possible, regardless of whether they are interested in your offer, are outbound sales considered outmoded.
Modern outbound salespeople are more intelligent and effective; they qualify leads, concentrate on their messaging, and employ more sophisticated outreach techniques.
Utilizing LinkedIn for outbound prospecting
LinkedIn, the biggest professional network online, is excellent for establishing contacts and gathering high-quality B2B leads.
B2B marketers from all over the world utilize it to raise brand awareness and generate organic traffic. 96% of B2B marketers say they use LinkedIn for social media marketing, especially organic.
More significantly, nearly 30% of B2B decision-makers use it for research.
Here are some strategies for maximizing your LinkedIn outbound sales by leveraging this.
1. Optimize your profile
You should carefully review your profile before beginning your outbound prospecting on LinkedIn. Sending connection requests and outreach messages cannot be started until you have created a profile that is compelling enough for individuals to want to connect with it.
Here are a few brief instructions.
- Cover and profile photos. Make sure you appear approachable, competent, and trustworthy in your profile image because it will be the first thing potential customers see. Professional clothing and a smile go a long way. You can always play it safe when choosing your cover photo by using one of your office, your hometown’s scenery, or your business mission statement.
- Headline and description. A lot of people make the error of using ornate headlines and descriptions. Be as honest as you can while concentrating on keywords for your headline. Clearly and succinctly describe what you do. It’s a good idea to include a brief success story in the description about how you arrived at your current position, your areas of expertise, and the projects you found the most rewarding.
- Recommendations. Nothing builds your credibility like happy customers. Request a LinkedIn endorsement from your client once a project is finished. You are even permitted to draft it yourself and request their permission. These endorsements will be prominently displayed on your profile and act as excellent social proof.
Here is a good example that makes use of all of these suggestions.
2. Strengthen your brand
Once you’ve taken care of the fundamentals, you may start promoting your profile and enhancing your reputation inside the sector. Consider this: your chances are significantly better if you reach out to someone in your industry who is familiar with you via debates, articles, and groups.
So concentrate on establishing a credible voice for your intended audience. Joining LinkedIn groups and sharing pertinent material are two strategies we like to emphasize.
There are no set guidelines for publishing pertinent content. You must research to determine the reading and viewing preferences of your audience. People will probably be interested in case studies, success stories, research findings, and new insights presented engagingly depending on your field.
When it comes to content, we can provide you with two important insights: videos and photographs perform better than other forms of media. According to some data, LinkedIn users are up to 20 times more likely to share a video than any other sort of material when it comes to a post.
As for joining groups, this is simple to do. Just start typing your industry into the search field, selecting “groups” as the criteria, and selecting the most intriguing groups that appear in the results. See what comes up, for instance, when you search for “social selling”:
That is about 400 organizations, each with professionals from a specific industry. Join some of these groups and participate in the discussions; this is a terrific way to stand out and possibly make some natural connections.
Who knows, after some time, you might develop sufficient connections to find your group. A tiny group of people who respect you highly will then exist.
3. Start generating leads
Any knowledgeable salesman is aware that obtaining leads is one of the most crucial steps in the sales process. Therefore, while using LinkedIn for outbound prospecting, obtaining high-quality leads should be your primary focus.
Let’s go over some clever approaches to gathering quality leads.
SEEK OUT THE CONNECTIONS OF CLIENTS
Finding leads can be done by using the advanced search on LinkedIn. On LinkedIn, you may search for connections of a certain individual in addition to using essential search parameters like job title, current employer, prior employer, etc.
Let’s imagine you work with a customer in the digital marketing sector who has a sizable fan base. “Connections of” is one of the filters available when you click “All filters” beneath the search bar. Enter the name of your client after clicking that. You’ll receive their connections, all of which are reliable leads given that they belong to the same business and are probably interested in your offerings.
SCRAPE GROUPS
Groups are a terrific way to generate leads as well as improve your reputation. You can make use of an automation program that will quickly scrape all members’ contacts. Simply harvest the contacts from Facebook groups and connect on LinkedIn to apply this strategy.
Phantombuster is an excellent tool for this because it can scrape contacts from both LinkedIn and Facebook in addition to performing several other important tasks.
UTILIZE LEAD MAGNETS
Making valuable content available and requesting email addresses in return is another technique to gather leads. The term “lead magnet” refers to this kind of content.
Typically, lead magnets are eBooks, manuals, industry studies, or anything else you think would pique the interest of your target market enough to provide their email address. Make sure your users fully get what you are delivering, whatever it may be. Go right to the point without using clever headlines or wordplay.
4. Qualify those leads
You can continue qualifying leads as your lead list expands and gradually determine which ones are more useful. Many salesmen overlook this stage, although it can significantly impact the outcomes of your outreach.
Lead qualification is made simple by using client personas. Consider your ideal client. What is their age? What sector do they work in? What is their position name? Knowing the answers to these questions will help you identify your primary target market. A lead should be worth more the more closely it fits this persona.
Prioritizing decision-makers in organizations is always a smart idea because they have the power to make highly profitable purchases at the corporate level.
5. Commence with personalized outreach
The cornerstones of LinkedIn outbound sales, messages, and connection requests, may be created once everything else is taken care of.
Here, personalization should be your main strategy. Your connection requests won’t be dismissed like other spammy messages frequently are if you personalize each message to your prospect.
And while you can get around this by crafting each connection request from scratch and submitting them all manually, using an automation tool makes things a lot simpler.
Outbound LinkedIn sales: Conclusion
This article would not have been nearly as lengthy if it had been written in the 20th century regarding outbound sales. Until you saw results, all you had to do was compile as many leads as you could and keep cold-calling them.
Outbound sales have historically been devalued for this reason, and over the past several years, we’ve got to become more intelligent.
Therefore, be certain to conduct an adequate investigation, gather top-notch leads, and prepare everything. For the ultimate wow factor and greatest results, finish everything off with unique notes.
Last Words
As we wrap off our in-depth discussion on LinkedIn outbound sales prospecting, it’s critical to recognize the value of adjusting to the current sales and marketing environment. Mass cold dialing campaigns and impersonal outreach initiatives are a thing of the past. Personalization and relationship-building are essential to success in the modern digital environment.
You may create a successful outbound sales plan by enhancing your LinkedIn profile, creating a personal brand, generating high-quality leads, and qualifying them. However, the level of personalization you incorporate into your outreach activities is what will make a difference.
Always keep in mind that developing long-lasting relationships with experts in your target field is the main objective of outbound sales on LinkedIn. This entails investing the time to thoroughly investigate your leads, comprehend their problems, and provide your good or service in a way that makes their life better. You may develop a potent strategy for LinkedIn prospecting that produces results and expands your professional network by fusing the best elements of inbound and outbound sales approaches.
Always keep in mind that the personal touch and attention to detail will set you apart as you set out on your road to becoming an expert at LinkedIn outbound prospecting.
