Use LinkedIn to Increase Your Sales

Zané Dippenaar
Oct 7, 2016
3 min read

Where to start with LinkedIn and tips on how to increase sales through the use of LinkedIn.

"1 out of every 3 professionals on the planet is on LinkedIn"

- Jason Miller, Content Marketing Manager at LinkedIn

Make sure you are one of them!

Where to start?

1. Create your own personal profile

Set up your personal profile free of charge. Make sure that your profile is complete, add a photo your work history, etc. Once your profile is completed you can start connecting with friends and family, and also meet new people.

2. Create a page for your business

A good company page will have:

A good quality photo
Your logo
Links to your company website and social media pages
High quality recommendations
Information about number of staff and location
Products and services can be added as "company specialties"

Keep in mind that you only have 2 000 words to briefly describe your business. Add the page to your personal account and ask your co-workers to add it to their personal accounts.

3. Share information on your business page

Start sharing information your current, or potential customers will find interesting and useful.

LinkedIn is a great place to share:

Videos
Your blog
Content related to your industry
Offers or special promotions

Tips for using LinkedIn to increase sales:

1. Connect!

You should not only have family and friends for contacts. Your first level contacts (family and friends) should open up connections to second and third level connections. New offline connections should be followed up with a connection request as soon as possible. Encourage referrals from current customers.

2. “Alerts”

Alerts are you’re saved searches and which are automatically run by LinkedIn. Therefore LinkedIn serves as a lead generator through automatically alerting you when potential customers have become member of LinkedIn or your target group.

3. Map your prospects

LinkedIn can be used too map out the decision makers within your target group. You’ll often need to influence a number of individuals.

4. Never make a cold call again

LinkedIn is a useful way too learn enough about someone and create a profile before you to make your call or a sales pitch.

5. "InMail"

LinkedIn have an internal email system called InMail which allows you to send an email to any LinkedIn user without an introduction. InMails are available on paid accounts only.

6. Better and smarter way to search

By using the “search companies” functionality, you receive extra search parameters as opposed to the “Advanced Search” for individuals. The result list shows you how you are connected to a certain company.

You can also save your search criteria and receive a weekly report listing any new individuals who matches the description of the customers you’re looking for.

7. Keep up to date with what’s happening with your prospect companies

Change creates opportunity. LinkedIn makes discovering these changes stress-free. You can follow any company that has a LinkedIn page and therefore see any changes directly in your updates.

8. Use groups

Groups can be used to learn more about the industries you focus on, and also as a great source of new sales prospects. With groups, you will find many people in one place. Look at the groups that your customers, prospects and other sales people belong to. You can also raise your reputation and visibility by helping people in Discussions. Group membership gives you both the reason and capability to make more connections. You will be able to contact other Group members directly.

9. “look and look back” trick

You can see who’s looked at your profile (“Who’s viewed your profile?”). With paid accounts you can view the whole list, whereas with a free account the amount you see will be limited.

You can benefit from it in two ways:

Someone looking at you profile is a good reason to reach out to them
A certain proportion of people will look at your profile if you looked at theirs

References:

http://www.linked2success.co.uk/
https://www.salesforce.com/uk/blog/2015/12/ten-tips-for-using-linkedin-for-sales-prospecting.html
http://www.o2-v2.com/en/blog/social-media-strategy-using-linkedin-to-increase-sales
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-increase-sales-using-linkedin-richard-pond
http://www.jillkonrath.com/sales-blog/bid/107858/How-to-Really-Use-LinkedIn-to-Increase-Your-Sales