How to create a 2023 GTM strategy to generate sales
It’s time to plan for success with a 2023 GTM strategy.
Even if your company smashed all its 2022 targets, (and the stats suggest if it did, it’s in the minority), lead generation is fickle: what works is ever-changing.
From finding market fit to social selling, here’s how to use LinkedIn to hit your 2023 lead generation goals.
A quick recap on ICPs, GTM strategy, and why you need both to generate leads on LinkedIn
Have you heard of deep sales? The latest way to generate leads on LinkedIn focuses on intent-driven prospecting. It requires in-depth knowledge of your prospect’s pain and processes.
LinkedIn lead generation is still struggling post-Covid (something you probably don’t need us to tell you). With 68% of sales leaders reporting missing their monthly target in mid-2022, building out a LinkedIn outreach strategy with a keen understanding of your prospect’s needs is more important than ever.
How do you achieve this? A solid 2023 GTM strategy and deep insight into your ICP can improve your LinkedIn marketing, lead generation and social selling by showing you who to target, at what type of company, and what exactly they care about.
4 ways to improve your 2023 lead generation strategy
Use search filters to generate sales
- Find targets that fit your current ICP that can be assigned in a lead list to reps.
- As a research tool to improve your ICP and hone your addressable market.
Improve your LinkedIn lead generation using Sales Navigator filters
Generate leads on LinkedIn and smash your 2023 GTM strategy using the tips below.
Sort by revenue, headcount, and hiring growth.
For example, if you target start-ups, look for rapid hiring. It indicates they’ve recently gone through a funding round.
Use Spotlight to sort by those who’ve posted in the last 30 days.
You’ll get:
- The most active users,
- Insights into what they care about,
- And information on what’s happening in their department.
Which you can use to:
- Easily personalise your outreach
- Strengthen your understanding of your ideal persona
- Improve your LinkedIn marketing
- Develop a sophisticated LinkedIn outreach strategy.
- And generate sales.
Use Boolean logic in your searches.
- Boolean searches offer a high degree of precision when hunting for prospects.
- Add precise terms to Company Name and Title searches to find new prospects.
- For example, you could search for companies with .io and .ai if targeting tech startups. (Credit goes to Lead Gen expert Chris Cozzolino for this neat tip!)
- Use search exclusion to remove irrelevant results.
- Feed any insights back into your lead generation strategy.
- It’s an art, not a science – be sure to save your search each time so you can build on your insights.
Filter by Seniority level
- Seniority level is a great feature but can be imprecise.
- If you’ve filtered by industry or company type, see what job titles appear and feed them back into your ideal customer profile.
- Improve your lead generation by adding them to your future searches, as well.
3 ways search filters can improve your Linkedin outreach strategy
Gain immediate insight into the number of prospects with your ICP’s characteristics.
Check:
- Your Total Addressable Market isn’t too small;
- You have the right job titles for your ideal prospects (see the Boolean tip above).
Quickly determine if your lead list has good intent signals.
If your ICP requires a large budget, are you seeing company or revenue growth?
Compare conversion rates for prospects with different characteristics over time.
For example:
- Do more deals close from decision makers that are 3 or 6 months into the role?
- Do VPs respond more frequently than CEOs and still have a higher lead conversion rate?
The granular insights you can find on LinkedIn exist nowhere else. Sync them across your company by exporting them to your CRM and you can incorporate them into your wider 2023 GTM strategy.
Intent signals
Intent signals are vital for understanding your persona’s psychology and behaviour. They can help you predict when someone is ready to buy your offering, leading to improved LinkedIn lead generation. They’re also incredibly useful for marketing (although big in marketing, intent data often doesn’t make its way to sales teams – something you can solve by integrating your data).
LinkedIn’s intent signals can elevate your 2023 GTM strategy. Lists and alerts will practically throw prospect insights at your reps, without them doing a thing. The result? You can reach out at exactly the right time and start to understand the different stages of the buying journey.
Best of all? It’s data that’s publically available, that your prospect probably wants you to comment on!
How to track intent signals to generate leads on LinkedIn
- Save leads and accounts using Sales Navigator. You can save leads from a Sales Navigator search, a company’s Account page, or a Lead page.
- Make sure alerts are on for saved prospects and companies.
If you don’t have Sales Navigator, you can follow companies and individuals directly. The insights won’t be as good, but it’s the next best thing if your LinkedIn outreach strategy has a shoestring budget.
The best intent signals for 2023 Lead Generation
Job changes
Consider creating a lead list of existing CRM contacts to track when champions change organisations. They can facilitate warm introductions and generate sales.
Company Mentions in the news
Great for understanding company initiatives, finding new stakeholders, and understanding the competitive landscape – all gold for making your LinkedIn lead generation stand out.
Prospect posts
Comment on posts to warm up a lead. Posts can also provide department insights without you having to ask!
Profile views
Like dating, if a prospect is stalking YOU, you have a great warm lead. Go get them.
Funding rounds and Company updates
Other sales reps might notice these, too. If messaging off the back of a company update, consider how your offering can add value or solve a pain to stand out.
How Intent Signals can improve your LinkedIn outreach strategy
- See what content leads create or share;
- Gain a deeper insight into your ICP’s psychology;
- Discover new pain points and industry insights;
- Keep up to date with new topics, trends, and features;
- Incorporate this information into your LinkedIn marketing and outreach strategy.
Think strategically about your offering and ICP to make your 2023 Lead Generation strategy sophisticated and robust.
Account mapping
It’s great to have reps follow several prospecting strategies as part of your 2023 GTM strategy. In a market where prospects are hyper-sensitive to spam, consider going deep on your highest-value target accounts by adopting Account Based Marketing (ABM).
This strategy requires LinkedIn marketing, personalised research and a deep awareness of ICP but can yield fantastic results. LinkedIn data shows Sales Navigator sellers connected to at least four people within an account are 16.4% more likely to close the deal.
ABM tools can save you time, increase outreach sophistication and generate sales.
The two ABM features vital for 2023 lead generation success
Sales Navigator’s Account Mapping tool
- Automatically populates an account map page with every employee that could be a decision-maker when you follow a company.
- Tiers I, II and III cover C-suite, managers and individual contributors.
- Vital for a sophisticated LinkedIn outreach strategy.
Sales Navigator’s Buyer Intent insights
- A hot-off-the-press new initiative designed to show sellers exactly when to engage a lead to best generate sales.
- You can find it in Beta on Account pages, along with a Beta Buyer Activity Timeline.
- Available activity data is limited right now. However, LinkedIn has plans to continue adding sophisticated intent signals over the coming quarters.
- Definitely a feature to earmark and keep an eye on as you look to generate leads on LinkedIn.
Why Account Based Marketing is essential to your 2023 GTM strategy
- Avoid relying on one LinkedIn outreach strategy;
- Talk to more prospects with a wide variety of company roles;
- Understand an organisation map and hierarchy;
- Learn who holds the real power in the companies you’re targeting;
- Get closer to the overall decision-maker;
- Build a network of champions.
It’s a great way to generate sales and will help you go to market confidently.
Why Account Based Marketing is essential to your 2023 GTM strategy
- Avoid relying on one LinkedIn outreach strategy;
- Talk to more prospects with a wide variety of company roles;
- Understand an organisation map and hierarchy;
- Learn who holds the real power in the companies you’re targeting;
- Get closer to the overall decision-maker;
- Build a network of champions.
It’s a great way to generate sales and will help you go to market confidently.
Social Selling
Want a stat that might induce palpitations? Only 5% of the buyer’s journey is spent with a rep (source). Given the lack of control reps now have over the buying cycle, you must adopt social selling (ideally, yesterday). LinkedIn marketing is just as important as actual outreach. Social selling keeps you top of mind with prospects and presents you as an industry authority.
If you’ve found and honed the right ICP, following these steps will drastically improve your LinkedIn lead generation results.
How to Sell Socially
- Consider your LinkedIn marketing efforts: share relevant content about your solution on your profile, in regular posts, and early in the engagement process with each lead.
- Interact with your leads – follow up on activity alerts from accounts and prospects you follow to generate sales.
- Use your 2nd and 3rd-degree connections to generate leads.
- Ask for introductions from former champions as part of your 2023 lead generation strategy.
- Make sure every interaction adds value.
See Salesflow’s 10 tips for LinkedIn Social Selling to take your social selling to the next level.
How social selling improves your LinkedIn outreach strategy
- Constant updates on ICP activity, behaviour, and pain points.
- More contact with leads earlier in the buying cycle.
- A greater focus on LinkedIn marketing gets your brand out there.
- Viewing sales relationally rather than as a transaction forces you to become an industry expert.
Generate leads on LinkedIn with ease
LinkedIn is a one-of-a-kind social selling platform. Using it well will transform your outreach strategy. Keep iterating with the tips above for a strong start to your 2023 lead generation. And to take your lead generation to the next level, try Salesflow’s LinkedIn automation solution: