LinkedIn Marketing

What is LinkedIn Automation?

LinkedIn automation software tools are designed to automatically view profiles, send out connection requests, send follow-up messages, and any other activity you would otherwise have to perform manually on the LinkedIn platform.

How Does LinkedIn Automation Work?

The first step is to connect your existing LinkedIn account to the automation software. This might require your user name and password to connect. Then LinkedIn will send you a 6-digit code for you to use to approve this new connection.
The next step is to create a connection request message. This is the message you send to people you would like to connect with on LinkedIn. A typical message might look like this:

FirstName,

I noticed we shared several common connections on LinkedIn and would like to add you to my network.
Sincerely,
Shawn Elledge
CEO – Sales Lead Automation

Note: your connection request can not exceed 300 characters, so we recommend you keep your message under 285 characters to make room for the person’s first name. You also can’t include any links in your connection request.
These software solutions can personalize messages with various attributes. The most common are first name, job title, and company name. However, in some cases, you can also personalize by education, industry, or even a customized image using a tool like Hyperise.
Once a connection request is accepted, you can automatically send that new contact a series of follow-up messages, similar to sending a series of emails to a person if you have their email address.

You can also include links and contact information in your messages to existing or new connections with no character limit.

Note: LinkedIn automation tools have become so popular that LinkedIn has reduced the number of connection requests you can make to approximately 100 weekly.

Review and Update Your LinkedIn Profile

We recommend reviewing and updating your LinkedIn profile page before starting any sales or marketing initiative. Here are some best practices to follow when editing or updating your profile.

Who Can You Message Using LinkedIn Automation?

New & Existing Connections

You can message anyone you are connected to on LinkedIn as often as you like. However, you must be connected to that person to send any additional messages. So if you send a connection request to someone who doesn’t accept your connection request, you can’t message them on LinkedIn.

Even if you are connected to a person on LinkedIn, you should try and limit the number of messages you send to your connections to under 100 a day.
Note: sales automation tools using cold email perform best when trying to send a series of emails you aren’t connected to on LinkedIn.

Prospects on LinkedIn

LinkedIn allows you to send approximately 100 connection requests weekly (400 monthly) to people you find on LinkedIn. You should save these connection requests for top prospects matching your ideal customer profile. Why? Because you can personalize these connection requests vs. prospects, who belong to the same LinkedIn group or who you happen to have in your contact lists. (More on this connection strategy below)

Common Group Member

Our Linkedin Automation software lets you send up to 200 one-off messages to common LinkedIn Group members a day. So you will want to join as many relevant Linkedin groups as possible. We recommend you only send up to 150 messages to avoid potential risks with the Linkedin surveillance team. This is an excellent feature for expanding your reach or prospects’ efforts beyond sending connection requests which are limited to 100 a week.

Your Contacts in Your Email Client

You can send emails directly from LinkedIn to people you’ve synced contacts within your Google or Office 365, AOL, and Yahoo email accounts. This will allow you to invite more people to connect with beyond the standard limits LinkedIn allows. However, you cannot personalize the invitation and only have these message options below when trying to connect:

  • I’d like to add you to my professional network
  • LinkedIn can help you build a network, like I’m doing
  • Try LinkedIn if you’re looking to find the right job
  • Let’s use LinkedIn to keep in touch more often
  • LinkedIn keeps me informed, it might give you an edge at work

Learn more about syncing contacts here.

Note: Our Linkedin services will help you find your prospect’s email address, enabling you to connect with more prospects and giving you a higher ROI on your LinkedIn automation efforts vs. our competitors.

CVS Uploads

One of the advantages of our software and services is the ability to query our database of over 100 million B2B contact records which includes complete company firmographic data along with the prospect’s demographic data, i.e., work email, LinkedIn profile URL, job title, and often their cell phone, work phone and much more.
The advantage of having this data is that once we connect with a prospect on LinkedIn, we can drop those prospects into a sales automation campaign using their work email on file. Why is that better? LinkedIn isn’t the best place to communicate with prospects, and once you connect with a candidate and you do happen to get their email address, nine times out of ten, you will receive a personal email vs. their work email. The goal should be to connect with a prospect on LinkedIn and then try and build a direct relationship via their work email.
Note:We don’t have to scrape LinkedIn for data because we already have our own prospect data.

What Kind of Data Do You Get From Using LinkedIn Automation?

Once a connection request is accepted and based on the user’s privacy settings, you can often capture a person’s email address (primarily personal emails), work or personal phone number, and information about their job role and company. Again the data you get is based on that user’s privacy settings. That’s why most companies prefer working with Sales Lead Automation because we can provide complete company and contact information vs. whatever you can pull from LinkedIn, which is usually incomplete.

How Does LinkedIn Automation Improve Your Sales and Marketing Efforts?

To get the most out of LinkedIn, you should be on the platform daily, personalizing messages, interacting with your prospects and groups, and posting original content. All of this takes a lot of time.
Since a salesperson only spends about 28% of their work day selling, automation helps supplement your sales efforts. It will never replace your sales efforts entirely, but it certainly helps. Especially if you sell a considered purchase with an extended sales cycle. The return investment for Linkedin marketing services is a no-brainer.

Contact Shawn Elledge at Selledge@salesleadautomation.com for more information about our LinkedIn marketing services.