How to prospect on Linkedin and get more meetings?

The advantages of prospecting on Linkedin 

What is LinkedIn and what is it for in 2024?

LinkedIn is the first and only professional social network, designed to connect businesses and their members. 

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In 2024, the network will exceed the billion user mark worldwide. In France, there are more than 29 million members, a figure which has increased by 20% since 2022. (Sources)

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Do these numbers make you dizzy? This is understandable! 

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We can't imagine to what extent the professional social network, which many still consider only as a library of CVs, has become such a powerful tool for your sales teams! Sharing content, commercial prospecting, sending messages directly to the right person...the tool will never cease to surprise us! 

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It is both a gold mine of information for all sales teams looking for information on their prospects, but also a place of exchange where your salespeople can send messages and build relationships. 

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Not using LinkedIn for sales prospecting in 2024 means missing a large number of opportunities and reducing your chances of getting more meetings. 

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In this article, we will see the most effective method for obtaining more meetings through your commercial prospecting on LinkedIn. You will see, there is nothing simpler! 

The benefits of prospecting on LinkedIn

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If there are so many members on LinkedIn, it is because there are a very large number of opportunities, such as: 

• Increase your visibility
• Position yourself as an expert
• Develop your network 
• Attract leads.  

Each benefit LinkedIn offers has its own strategy. 

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For commercial prospecting, LinkedIn can transform your prospecting methods, and allow you to look further and further to get more meetings. 

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When you know the platform well, you know that LinkedIn is much more than a social network: it is a powerful prospecting tool.

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Here are some features to take advantage of: 

• Targeting precision : LinkedIn allows you to target the people you want to talk to (business decision-makers, marketing directors, etc). Thanks to advanced filters, you can target a specific status, geographic location or company. 
• Ease of networking and access to decision-makers : on LinkedIn, you can contact a business manager or a decision maker in 3 clicks. Easier than in real life! 
• The referencing of the platform : Linkedin prefers your profile to your company page. The network pushes your profile, which gives you additional visibility when your prospects are looking for information about you or your company (and if you publish additional content: jackpot!). 
• Strengthening your credibility : with an optimized profile and the sharing of information, your prospects will see you as a reference in your field!

We now know why 89% of B2B companies use LinkedIn. But what is their prospecting method? 

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This is what we will see now 👇

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The key steps to prospecting effectively on Linkedin

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Step 1: optimize your profile 

In the previous point, we talked about your prospects who will observe your profile. In order to make a good impression on them, you need an optimized profile. 

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This is step number 1 of our strategy.  

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Who better than our CEO to demonstrate the importance of an optimized profile. Isn’t that a great profile?! 

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On Thibault's page, you will find: 

1. A banner presenting the company (logo, slogan, some visuals) 
2. A clear, high-quality profile photo 
3. A profile title simply presenting Thibault's role at Humanlinker  
4. The company page logo
5. A link to the website (or demo page) 

If you go down on Thibault's profile, you will see other optimizations to be made, such as the part Info, the selection of posts to highlight, the experiences and training, THE recommendations. 

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All these actions are relevant for your prospect to have a good first impression, thanks to a complete and professional profile. 

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Optimizing your profile is an integral part of your prospecting strategy: it gives the prospect the necessary information, without leaving LinkedIn. 

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You should imagine your profile as a site or sales page, for example: 

• You can add a link to a trading slot on your profile.
• You can also write a paragraph in the “Info” section which will be used to detail your services.

> Discover all our tips for optimizing your LinkedIn page here !

Step 2: identify your prospects on Linkedin

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Your salespeople know your target by heart and are responsible for finding them on LinkedIn. 

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Thanks to filters, you can very easily retrieve lists of your most qualified prospects. You can find them by filtering: 

• The connection level (1st = in your network/ 2nd = in your network's network/ 3rd = no specific link or common connection) 
• The location of the person or business 
• The company the prospect works for
• The sector or category of service.  

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The goal is not to connect with the most people, but to have the right connections in your network. This may require more work beforehand, but allows to obtain more appointments in the long term.

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To prospect effectively on LinkedIn, always look for profiles that match your ideal prospect. 

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Step 3: Start the conversation with your prospects

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Now is the time to seduce your prospect! 

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For this, nothing is better than a personalized approach. Personalized commercial prospecting allows: 

• To increase your response rate
• Differentiate yourself from competitors
• Gain the prospect’s trust 

Today, 87% of messages are not personalized.

And 90% of non-personalized messages are not responded to. 

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Moral: it’s better to stand out from the crowd! 

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Personalized messages can be included directly in the invitation, either in the first message, once your prospect has accepted your invitation.

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Here are 5 examples (our ideal prospect will be called Théo):

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1. Initiation du contact : “Hello Théo, I would like to follow up on your comment on the post which mentioned prospecting on LinkedIn. I totally agree with you, I think it’s a necessity. Can you detail your point of view? » 

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2. Follow up after a webinar : “Hello Théo, thank you for participating in our Humanlinker webinar! Do you still have questions? How can we help you more? » 

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3. Following a ccomment : “Hello Théo, your profile appeared in my news feed following your comment on post X which I found very relevant! (Then explain your point of view) » 

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4. After a profile visit : “Hello Théo, LinkedIn notified me that you had visited my profile. Something special attracted you to my profile ? Let’s get in touch to discuss it! » 

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5. Collect information : “Hello Théo, I notice that you are a major player in (industry) and I am seeking to better understand the challenges of the sector in order to propose a solution. In your opinion, what would be the 3 most pressing issues? »

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PS 1: the first sentence (the hook) is the most important! This is the one to absolutely take care of. 

PS 2 : Ask a question in your message to start an interesting conversation with your prospect and qualify them at the same time.

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Personalizing your message shows that you have researched the company or individual. 

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You can do these searches directly on LinkedIn, by observing the content that the person has either published or interacted with. 

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The prospect's profile is a gold mine of information allowing you to personalize a message. 

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You now have all the keys to succeed in your commercial prospecting on LinkedIn!

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Did you know? The last 3 examples can be automated using Humanlinker. In a few clicks, you will: 

• Integrate your list of qualified prospects 
• Write fully personalized messages
• Automate conversation engagement

Take the test for free by clicking here !

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Best practices for prospecting on Linkedin

To succeed in prospecting on LinkedIn, there is nothing better than a list of best practices. With this one, your prospects will flow freely! 

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Use LinkedIn Premium and Sales Navigator

Sales Navigator is a sales rep's plaything, for good reason. With the features of the Premium plan, you refine your searches to target your prospects even more precisely. You will access detailed information on each of your prospects. 

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Even better to personalize your messages! 

With these plans, you will get advanced search tools, such as personalized alerts, InMail functionality and even prospect lists. 

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The more you master the platform, the more you will understand how to get more sales meetings. 

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Personalize your content

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There are countless studies stating that personalization is key. 

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For example, according to Demand Gen Report, 75% of prospects engage more when they receive content and data specific to their sector (which is also a very effective content strategy for prospecting!).

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It’s the same for prospecting messages. Generality and more precisely impersonal messages no longer work. It is not enough to write the person's first name in the message to create a personalized message!

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It works once, but the prospect is not fooled! 

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The personalization of prospecting messages lies in the ability to establish a real connection with the prospect. You could, for example: 

• Add a question regarding the prospect's industry 
• Ask him for his advice following a recent accomplishment
• Ask him a question following a post he wrote that was close to his heart

I know, it's complicated to do all this work. How can we know all our prospects inside and out?

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We have the solution for you: Humanlinker analyzes the profile of your prospects and offers you personalized messages automatically.

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These 100% personalized messages using artificial intelligence for each prospect allow you to increase your response rate... and therefore your number of appointments.

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Imagine sending 300 automated messages, personalized enough to make your prospect feel like you know them personally.

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Maintain a constant connection with your prospects 

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If I asked you to buy my product and never spoke to you again, would you want to buy it? I admit, I have a slight doubt!

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On LinkedIn, it's the same. Commercial prospecting is an ongoing relationship with the prospect. 

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This continuity can take several forms: 

• One (or more) follow-ups per message 
• A comment on a LinkedIn post
• Any mention 

The reason for keeping a link? Increase the trust your prospect has in you and your company. 

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And as American author Zig Ziglar would say, “If people like you, they will listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.”

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(“If people like you, they will listen to you, but if they trust you, they will work with you”). 

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Bonus: creating inbound content to maintain a relationship with your prospect

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What image do you have of people who post on LinkedIn? I am sure that for 99% of them, you see them as experts! 

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Now imagine your prospect seeing you like this. Pretty incredible, right?! 

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Creating content via your profile and that of your salespeople is a very effective tip for maintaining a relationship with your prospect. Sharing high value-added content with your audience ensures that qualified prospects will already be convinced. 

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This strategy also makes it possible to initiate and enrich the conversation with prospects already contacted. 

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Content creation is a good strategy because: 

• The reader reads several of your contents
• He decides to be interested in you by going to see your profile 
• You can contact him following this profile visit 
• He will feel like he already knows you 

Today, 80% of B2B buyers want to work with salespeople who have taken on the role of experts and creators, whom they can trust!  (Source: Salesforce)  

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The importance of automating prospecting on Linkedin

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Before Internet, we could contact 20 prospects per day maximum, with several salespeople. A rather laborious task, when you imagine the hours of phone calls. 

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The Internet has completely multiplied this figure. Today, a salesperson alone can contact hundreds of prospects per day.  

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Provided you use automation for your commercial prospecting. 

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Because, imagine sending 2500 personalized messages by hand…

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La solution : automation of personalized messages. 

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What is automation and why it is important

Automation for sales prospecting on LinkedIn means using a tool to perform repetitive tasks like: 

• sending messages
• Researching prospects
• Contact tracing

The idea is that there is no longer a need for manual intervention at each step. 

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The salesperson could simply “prepare the ground” on the tool, and the operational part would be done by itself. 

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With this type of tool, commercial prospecting on LinkedIn becomes more effective and more profitable: 

• the machine performs the time-consuming tasks
• man focuses on more strategic missions 

And yes, you can trust a tool 100%! No more errors, hello consistency (and above all hello new appointments!).

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5 Benefits of Automation for LinkedIn Prospecting

1. Saving time

Using an automation tool for prospecting is a bit like if you delegate your work to a person...who does it 100x faster than you. 

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Meanwhile, you take care of more important tasks. 

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In terms of organization and efficiency, we're pretty good. 

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2. Increased efficiency

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Thanks to artificial intelligence, you will obtain a real gain in efficiency: you will send messages on a large scale, while maintaining the quality, relevance and of course, personalization of the messages. 

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Automation allows you to be efficient when it comes to contacting and engaging in conversation with the prospect, to let your sales teams focus on more qualified leads and manage the “closing” part. 

The result? your number of sales meetings increases! 

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3. The possible sending volume

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Why send 5 messages when you can send 500? 

Without increasing its human and financial resources?

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Automating your prospecting on LinkedIn allows you to reach a very large number of new prospects, reach new markets very easily or even test different prospect segments. 

4. Better tracking management 

Sales prospecting automation tools all have an optimized tracking system. 

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Schedule reminders, contact qualified prospects, send content regularly...all actions are now child's play. 

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5. Cost reduction 

Reducing the intervention of a salesperson at each stage of the sales process means drastically reducing costs linked to lead acquisition.

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Now, the question you are asking yourself is: how am I going to set up the automation of my prospecting?

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Nothing could be simpler using Humanlinker : you can directly integrate your list of prospects on the platform, retrieve the data, prepare your personalized messages and manage the sending. 

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All this, in just a few clicks.

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Mistakes to avoid when prospecting on Linkedin

Even though LinkedIn is a powerful prospecting tool, it would be a shame to have a low response or conversion rate due to a few details. Here are the mistakes to avoid when prospecting effectively on LinkedIn: 

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Mistake #1: not being precise in your prospect search

LinkedIn has almost 30 million users in France. Although it’s tempting to target a broad audience, not everyone falls within your target audience. You much prefer the qualified prospect! 

To find the right people, you must therefore carry out a precise search. For example: if your target is salespeople, writing “Sales” in the search bar will not move you forward. 

For what ? 

Because LinkedIn will offer you all the prospects who have the word “Sales” on their profile. We can do better! 

The solution would be to write “Sales Officer”, “Sales Manager”, while adding other filters (geography, relationship level, etc.).

Then, even if LinkedIn tells you that after your filtered search there are 10,000 results, it will “only” show you 2500. 

So try to be as specific as possible when building your prospect base on LinkedIn. 

As you can see, when it comes to LinkedIn prospecting, the more specific you are in your search, the more good results you will obtain. 

Mistake #2: Ignoring Message Personalization

In 2024, not personalizing your messages has simply become a waste of time. You are not the only ones prospecting on LinkedIn (😢), your competitors are doing it too. Your prospects receive dozens of messages per day. If these don't catch the eye in the first sentence, the message will be ignored. 

Once again, personalizing messages without wasting time is possible, thanks to automation. 

Mistake #3: being too pushy

This is the biggest criticism made of salespeople. The line between persistence and aggression is often thin. If you send too many follow-up messages, or are too direct in your approach, prospects may flee, and this could damage your reputation. 

The trick : act on LinkedIn in the same way that you would have acted physically in front of your prospect. Are you going to start the conversation and sell your product from the first message? Are you going to relaunch it 5 times in one day to get a response? 

After all, the stronger a connection you have with your prospect, the better your closing rate will be, right?

Mistake #4: Underestimating the importance of your profile 

An effective, personalized prospecting message, sent to the right person, can be ruined in seconds if your profile is not optimized. This can discourage prospects from working with you, even if your message is well worded. 

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The minimum to have on your profile: 

• A quality profile photo 
• An optimized banner that explains your project in a few words 
• A biography describing your position/mission/product 
• An “information” part optimized for sales with a CTA

Mistake No. 5: not analyzing your actions 

Here are 5 questions to ask yourself in order to best analyze your content and adapt it to each of your prospects:

• Are your messages personalized enough? 
• Which messages work best (structure/ Subject/ etc) 
• Are your prospects receiving the right information at the right time? 
• What is my overall response rate? 
• What is my conversion rate? 

A good strategy requires adjustments, and for that, there is nothing better than asking the right questions! 

Conclusion :

You now hold the keys to successful commercial prospecting on LinkedIn. 

To get more appointments, LinkedIn prospecting and automation is the winning combination. Thanks to this method, you will attract hundreds or even thousands of qualified people, therefore potentially a large number of customers.

With the right strategies and tools, you can create a powerful, fully personalized path for prospecting on LinkedIn. 

The efforts made upstream will quickly be profitable through the automation of personalized sendings and messages.

LinkedIn is full of many opportunities: it’s up to you! 

For this, do not hesitate to test for free Humanlinker, in order to offer a unique experience to your prospects!