How to use Linkedin Sales Navigator?

Sales Navigator is a great opportunity to find leads, as it gives you access to the largest B2B database in the world: Linkedin. 

In addition, this database is continuously updated by Linkedin users. The data is therefore of very good quality!

In this article, we'll go over all the features of Sales Navigator to help you get the most out of it.

7 tips for using LinkedIn Sales Navigator well

1. Use keywords with caution

To be honest, this feature is really not trustworthy ...

It will search for keywords throughout your prospect's profile.

So if your prospect was just starting out in marketing and is now in HR: it can appear if you enter "marketing" as a keyword.

This can lead to some really unpredictable results.

➡️ Evaboot may solve this problem: The algorithm filters the results and checks if the keyword is present in your prospect's current job description. 

Therefore, this filter can be really effective with the help of Evaboot if you are targeting people in a niche. For example: "offile marketing" or "geomarketing"

Very few people mention “offline marketing” in their job title. Most of the time, they will have a job title like "VP Marketing" and will mention "offline marketing" or "geomarketing" in their job description.

2. Look for leads in accounts to reduce errors

One way to reduce the errors produced by the Sales Navigator search algorithm in your searches is to search for leads in the account you previously selected and place in an “Account List”.

It takes a bit of effort to set up, but once it's done, the results can really improve.

To do this :

On Sales Navigator, open a search filtered by accounts and add the filters you want

Launch the search, then click on "Select all" then "Save in the list" → "Create a new list"

Give the list a name

• Repeat for each page
• Open a new search filtered by prospects. Add the list saved previously in Custom lists and add filters relating to the desired persona

The results that will appear in the search results will only concern the targeted companies

3. Focus on a few effective filters

None of the Sales Navigator filters work perfectly.

Instead of applying simple rules, Linkedin has chosen to use a machine learning algorithm which gives rather unpredictable results.

Among the filters you can rely on to find your leads:

• Title: 15% poor results on average
• Rental: 5% poor results
• Industry: 25% poor results
• Company Headcount: 15% poor results

You can see that these filters produce a lot of errors, but they are still the most effective at finding your prospects.

If you are using Evaboot, you can easily get rid of those irrelevant results and get in touch with the people you really want to talk to.

Our advice:

➡️ List absolutely all the job titles that would be interested in your product or service

➡️ Create different lists with Geography, Industry or Workforce filters like: 

• "SME Sales Director"
• "Head of Sales startup"
• "CMO Germany"

You will be able to map your entire market and adapt your sales pitch to your different personas.

4. Use saved searches to identify new opportunities

Once you have performed a search in Sales Navigator, you have the option to save it by clicking on these buttons.

Once saved, it will be available in your “Saved Searches” tab. 

You will be notified whenever a new prospect matches your search criteria.

They will appear in the “New Results” column.

If you click on it, you will be able to see these prospects

This is the easiest way to target people who have recently taken on a new role.

5. Avoid contacting people you have already targeted

Once you start contacting dozens / hundreds of prospects per week, things can get a bit tricky. 

To make sure you don't hit the same prospect twice, you can use these filters

• Relationship : choose 2nd and 3rd degree connections to avoid hitting people already in your network

Custom Lists: ExClick specific lists or "All prospect / account lists" to avoid having a contact that you have already entered in a list.

Past Lead and Account Activity: to avoid scratching the same prospect twice. You can also select “Remove Viewed Lead from Search”.

It will filter out all the profiles that you have already visited with your account. 

6. Avoid using sophisticated filters

Some features look sexy but fall short of their promises.

• Function: the duties are determined automatically by LinkedIn by looking at your job title. These data are unreliable. Our advice: focus on the job title to target functions.

Seniority Level To operate these filters, LinkedIn uses user-generated work relationships such as "this person is my boss", "this person works on my team" etc... This information is incomplete or incorrectly provided by users. Again: focus on the job title to target the seniority level

7. Use Boolean searches to perform advanced queries

If you are targeting a niche, you may need to use a combination of multiple keywords. To do this, you can use Boolean searches.

Boolean is a simple programming language with which you can establish relationships between your keywords:

• NOT: Type the word NOT (capital letters) immediately before a search term to exclude it from your search results. This usually limits your search results. For example, "programmer NOT manager".

• GOLD : Type the word OR (uppercase letters) to see results that include one or more items in a list. This usually broadens your search results. For example, “sales OR marketing OR advertising”.

• AND searches: AND searches: Enter the word AND (in all capitals) to display results that include all items in a list. This usually limits your search results. For example, “accountant AND finance AND CPA”.

• Quoted searches: For an exact sentence, enclose the sentence in quotation marks. For example, type "product manager". You can also use quotes if you want to find someone with a multiple word title.

Of course, you can combine all these types of searches in the same sentence like: "CTO" OR "Chief Technical Officer" AND "Python" NOT "JavaScript"