Sadly, high conversion rates and relevant lead lists aren’t enough to guarantee LinkedIn lead generation success. To generate sales, you need to reach a consistent number of high-quality prospects each week.
It’s been several years since LinkedIn introduced a cap on the number of profiles you could engage without getting your account flagged as spam. The way it sounded a death knell for spray-and-pray tactics was good for sales reps everywhere. Yet as every sales leader knows, a high quantity of leads is just as important for a LinkedIn outreach strategy that produces results.
To help with your 2023 lead generation, Salesflow’s automation tooling comes with several campaign types, each aimed at a different subset of users.
Follow the steps below to safely reach more prospects and generate leads on LinkedIn.
Message leads from LinkedIn Events
Unlike connection requests, LinkedIn Events have no upper limit on the number of people you can invite. However, most people don’t know how to use events to generate leads on LinkedIn.
What are LinkedIn Events?
LinkedIn Events are a way for users to engage and add value to their existing network of connections. They’re a great tool to incorporate into your LinkedIn marketing strategy.
There are 3 event types:
- In-person events
- Online events (using LinkedIn Live)
- Online events (external to the platform)
What’s the best way to use an event?
Generally, you’ll want to create an online event. Your tech stack will determine whether you choose LinkedIn Live or an external platform.
Some event ideas include:
- A webinar or seminar
- C-suite chats
- Ask-me-anythings
What’s the downside to LinkedIn events?
You can only invite first-degree connections to your events. That means while you can use events to reach out to hundreds of extra leads per month, these leads do need to already be in your network, and that limits your LinkedIn outreach strategy.
Also, if you’re not using automation tooling, you’ll have to add each person manually. Which could take hours.
Fortunately, Salesflow campaigns offer a way to use LinkedIn Events for effective social selling that generates sales.
Message LinkedIn Event attendees using Salesflow
Salesflow Event campaigns can be used to generate leads on LinkedIn from events hosted by other users.
Once you accept an event invitation, you can access a list of all the other users attending. LinkedIn lets you privately message these event attendees, even if you’re not connected. Plus, these messages don’t count towards the weekly connection requests limit.
Using Salesflow, you can automatically message these event attendees at scale and generate sales.
How to use a Salesflow “Groups and Events” campaign to message Event attendees
1. Find an Event that’s relevant to your target audience using the search bar. (Events are publicly searchable by default). If you were targeting Sales and Marketing Leaders, you might search for webinars or seminars on “growth marketing”.
2. Select “Attend” to access the attendee list.
3. Open your Salesflow account and add a new campaign.
4. Select the campaign type “Groups and Events”.
5. Select either a “Basic” or “Sales Navigator” search. LinkedIn Sales Navigator filters are more powerful, but both work for this tip.
6. Select your chosen Event.
7. Create a messaging request campaign for Event attendees and reach hundreds of extra leads a week, without jeopardizing your account.
8. The best part? Incorporating Events into your strategy strengthens your social selling.
Tip: Stick to a maximum of 50 group or event messages per day to keep your account in good standing.
Message leads from LinkedIn Groups
This campaign type is similar to the above but uses LinkedIn Groups rather than Events.
LinkedIn Groups are places where like-minded users gather to share tips, tricks, and resources. Once you’re accepted into a Group, you can see a list of all other members and can send any of them message requests – another way to generate leads on LinkedIn.
How to use a Salesflow “Groups and Events” campaign to message shared Group members.
1. First, search for and join Groups relevant to your target audience. Use the search bar to enter a phrase and filter by “Groups”. Join any relevant Groups in the results list.
2. Once you’re a member of a Group, you can send message requests to other members without it counting towards the weekly connection request limit.
3. Set up Salesflow campaigns for these Groups and access hundreds of extra leads that will generate sales (with built-in conversation starters for good measure).
4. Use a LinkedIn Sales Navigator account to separately search for each Group’s members. You can also filter results by factors including Company, Job Title, or Industry.
5. Create automatic message campaigns for each Group using Salesflow and access easy personalization at scale to improve your LinkedIn outreach strategy.
Note: Basic Search doesn’t support filtering by individual groups. If you have a Basic account, you won’t be able to create separate campaigns for each Group like you could for each Event. You can still filter your results using Keywords, Job Title, Industry, Location, or Company.
Re-engage your existing network
After the first outreach cadence, do you consistently follow up with your connections? Or do they never hear from you again?
Yes, your LinkedIn outreach strategy should focus on new leads. But if you’re not nurturing the old ones, you’re throwing potential money down the drain and missing out on the benefits of consistent social selling and LinkedIn marketing.
Engage old leads with a Salesflow ‘Existing Contacts’ campaign
The Salesflow “Existing Contacts” campaign type helps you reconnect with or continue to nurture first-degree contacts to generate sales.
- When adding a new campaign, simply select ‘Existing Contacts’ as the campaign type.
- You can do a LinkedIn Sales Navigator or Basic Search for leads in a certain industry or position, or who have recently changed roles.
- Select a messaging template for your campaign, load up your lead list, and boost your LinkedIn lead generation with engaged and nurtured prospects.
Not sure how to nurture or add value to existing contacts that have gone cold? Here are 3 suggestions for campaign materials:
- Share valuable content. Did your company produce an ebook or blog recently with industry insights? You could use sharing this knowledge as a way to reconnect.
- Highlight new product features or case studies. Do you have new ROI stats about the time savings of your offering or a new feature that could benefit your connections? Let them know directly to increase engagement rates and show them you care about their business needs.
- Introduce webinars, events, and general community value-adds. Make your connections feel the value of being in your network (and keep your offering top of mind to boot). Check out our guide to social selling for more tips.
Use Open InMails
LinkedIn Sales Navigator accounts receive a monthly InMail allowance to send to prospects (generally, this number is between 5 and 50). These InMails don’t count towards your connection request limit, so you can use them alongside connection requests to up the number of prospects you’re reaching each week.
Send free InMails to Open Profiles using Salesflow
Alongside the monthly InMail allowance, you can get more leads by sending free InMails to Open Profiles. This subset of users cost nothing to engage, and you’re probably overlooking them completely in your LinkedIn outreach strategy.
What is an Open Profile?
Open Profiles allow second and third-degree LinkedIn connections to message them via InMail for free. It’s easy to recognize prospects with this type of account from the green banner to the right of their name.
You can reach up to 800 additional prospects a month using a Salesflow Open InMails campaign to generate leads.
Remember that open profiles receive a higher percentage of InMails than average. To effectively engage these leads, you’ll need to consider how you’ll add value in your outreach message. Some ideas include an invite to a webinar, a free resource download, or consultative advice.
Note: To protect your account, Salesflow only allows Open InMail campaigns to run when there aren’t any connection request sequences already running. So this is one to save for when you’ve maxed out your weekly limit but still need to generate leads on LinkedIn.
Generate more leads with Salesflow
Salesflow campaigns can help you engage more leads with less effort, all while keeping your account safe, for the best 2023 lead generation results. If you’re looking to improve outreach results today, try Salesflow free for 7-days: