Monday, July 4, 2016

How Linkedin Automation Boosts Sales

By Gerald B. Akins


When we refer to LinkedIn automation, we are talking about a software plugin that you add to your web browser. This plug records the search string you set up in Sales Navigator or Advanced Search, then tells your browser to auto-visit all of the profiles.

LinkedIn automation is a tactic that uses a Chrome browser extension to instruct your profile to automatically visit a large number of target profiles. What happens is that a small percentage of those people will see you visited and want to connect with you. Of course, some of those folks will want to sell you something, but the majority will be actual relevant target customers. Each invitation you get becomes a warm lead.

Ideally, the people who view your profile and ask you to connect would be a match to your ideal target customers. The beauty of this strategy is you do the initial search, so you are defining the population of people (hmmm...your ideal customer profile, perhaps?) who might visit you back and invite you to connect.

You can't just buy the browser plugin and start auto-visiting a ton of profiles and expect it to turn into new business.

LinkedIn automation doesn't work on its own. You can't just get a Chrome extension and start auto-visiting loads of profiles and expect to start automatically filling your pipeline with new leads.

Publishing good content on LinkedIn is very important. When somebody visits a bare profile with no Posts, there is nothing other than your Summary to tell them the value you provide. Having a few Posts with high quality images, catchy titles and helpful content on a topic of interest is ideal. This establishes your credibility and authority in your market, and makes you a valued resource, not just "some sales person". Without content, visitors won't see value in connecting with you and using automation won't get the results you're looking for.

A few other tactics are required to get your profile found and make it engaging to potential customers and clients. Without these in place, the critical step of a potential connection turning into a 1st-degree connection won't happen.

Engaging with Posts and Updates on LinkedIn is also important. The more your name and profile byline shows up in different channels, the more comfortable potential customers will feel when it comes time to reaching out. Commenting and sharing other people's content exchanges social points and leads to reciprocal sharing, meaning your content and value proposition will get spread around the massive LinkedIn community without you putting in any additional effort. This is effectively free advertising.

Keywords and skill endorsements are important on LinkedIn. Without these LinkedIn's search engine won't return your profile when a potential buyer is looking for your product or service.

What keywords do your prospects use to search for what you offer? Make sure those keywords appear multiple times in your profile.

Most Sales Execs don't have their profiles or content written correctly to be much use in attracting potential buyers. Ask yourself if your profile answers the questions market participants would normally ask about your product or service. You want to answer those questions and how you provide unique value in your market. Your perspective should be yourself using "I" rather than "my company" or "we". Selling successfully on LinkedIn comes down to you the individual, not your company.

Consistency is crucial when using automation tools. This is a numbers game, so having a daily plan for content, engagements, messaging and auto-visiting profiles is important. It doesn't have to take a lot of your day. Just schedule time each day or 3 times per week, whatever works for you.

It's very valuable to have a daily checklist to support you and keep yourself on track. A consistent process can be rewarding, knowing you're doing something that will maximize your investment in LinkedIn.

It's recommended with LinkedIn Automation that you run it in the background while you do your normal daily work. You can't use your account while it's running, so timing it in the early morning or late afternoon, or even weekends, is good. This creates a new inbound lead generation channel while you work on your normal outbound prospecting, meetings, RFIs, contracts, calls, and so forth.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment