Using LinkedIn as a sales tool has become more and more ubiquitous in the world of sales. Since LinkedIn is regarded as one of the most important social media platforms for professionals, more and more sales leaders are finding ways to automate the sales networking process on LinkedIn.
There’s no question that LinkedIn is the place to be. There are 65 million decision-makers that use LinkedIn today— which means it’s one of the best tools out there for sales teams to achieve their goals.
At Evyrgreen Networking for Teams, we always say that the key to being successful on LinkedIn is by being consistent. If you want your sales team to see results, you’ll have to use LinkedIn daily and make time to engage with other users on the platform regularly.
For many sales teams, TIME is their biggest asset. There simply isn’t enough. For that reason, many sales teams are relying on automation for success in their sales networking process.
What is LinkedIn Automation?
For sales teams especially, being active on LinkedIn requires a lot of energy and time— and this is a precious resource in the world of sales. This is why LinkedIn automation is so helpful.
Automation means tools are used to automate tasks that are normally performed manually. Common manual tasks that users perform on LinkedIn are sending connection requests, messaging prospects, following up with them, doing contact searches, and much more.
What do LinkedIn Automation tools do?
LinkedIn automation tools are software or devices that perform these actions on your behalf. So instead of your sales representative posting on a daily basis, you can use a tool that will do it for your team automatically.
Knowing what LinkedIn automation tools are and how they can be used, let’s get into the top 3 reasons automation is important for sales networking below.
1. It increases productivity
Time is money. This is especially true in sales. The more networking your sales team can perform, the more opportunities it has to close a deal. If your sales team has pressure to drive revenue and make more profits, then automation can help your sales team operate more efficiently and reach out to more people in less time. Every business faces global pressure to increase its profitability. One approach is to reduce costs. But, reducing the capabilities of the computer center negatively impacts the entire company.
2. It can expand your sales team’s reach
There’s only so much one human can do! Since automation tools can do things for your team faster and quicker, they greatly improve your team’s output and reach. Many automation tools can help your team identify where your target audience is most active and connect with them in these fields. Since it takes so much time to copy and paste contact names manually into the LinkedIn search bar, automation tools can help you reach even more people than an individual sales member and strategically identify where engagement is most likely to lead to success.
3. It can provide useful KPIs to track sales performance
In addition to saving time, money, and increasing your sales team’s reach, automation tools can also easily report on your campaign’s results. Automation tools allow you to easily glean information like how many people were reached out to, how many replied, how many connections were accepted, and beyond. These metrics are key performance indicators that can help sales leaders inform decisions on how to tweak their messaging moving forward and make the sales funnel more successful.
So there you have it. Automation is a no-brainer for so many sales teams that leverage LinkedIn, because it helps them run targeted campaigns and collect information to make better campaigns in the future, in addition to saving sales teams time and money! So does that mean every sales team should jump right into using automation?
NO!
Automation tools can help you automate your sales process on LinkedIn, but it still needs to be done right.
One con to automation is that it can be very robotic, and people are getting savvier and savvier to automated messaging these days. So your sales process still has to be human. And because LinkedIn prohibits spamming, you have to be sure your messages are sent the same way humans would send messages— otherwise, it may result in your LinkedIn account getting suspended.
If you want to use LinkedIn for sales networking and do it the right way, you’ll probably need to be trained by experts who know the ins and outs of LinkedIn’s rules.
Furthermore, you shouldn’t automate EVERYTHING in your sales strategy. You should always combine your sales approach on LinkedIn with organic outreach.
Evyrgreen Networking for Teams offers networking courses specifically for sales leaders who want to help their sales team leverage LinkedIn to produce leads and referrals for your business and drive revenue.
If you want to learn more about our course and coaching program, set up a strategy session here: www.evyrgreen.com/talktous. We would love to help you get more out of LinkedIn!
If you want more tips on how to leverage LinkedIn for your business, check out our 30 LinkedIn tips booklet you can get here! For more helpful articles, check out the rest of our blog.