Category: Prospecting

How to Boost Your Sales on LinkedIn in 2023

Posted on by irc

 

With over 900 million members worldwide, LinkedIn has become the go-to platform for professionals looking to network and connect with others in their industry. But did you know that it’s also a powerful tool for businesses looking to boost their sales?

That’s right! LinkedIn can help you reach potential customers, build relationships, and ultimately increase revenue.

Let’s go over six cutting-edge strategies to help you unlock the full potential of LinkedIn and take your sales to the next level in 2023.

1. Make your profile shine

In the world of business, first impressions matter, and your LinkedIn profile is no exception. Since your LinkedIn profile is frequently the initial interaction between you and prospective customers, optimizing it to leave a lasting impression is crucial.

To optimize your profile, start by ensuring that it’s complete. That means filling out every section, including your education, work experience, and skills. Make sure to include your current job title and a clear and concise headline that accurately reflects your area of expertise. This will help potential customers quickly understand what you do and whether you’re the right fit for their needs.

Next, it’s essential to use a professional photo. Choose a high-quality headshot that portrays you in a positive and professional light. Avoid using photos that are blurry, low-quality, or inappropriate. Remember, your photo is one of the first things people will see when they view your profile, so make it count.

Another key component of optimizing your LinkedIn profile is to write a compelling summary that highlights your unique selling proposition. This is where you can showcase your skills and experience, as well as your passion for your industry. Use your summary to demonstrate your expertise and explain how you can help potential customers achieve their goals.

Lastly, use relevant keywords in your profile to make it easier for people to find you. Think about the terms your potential customers might search for when looking for businesses like yours, and include those keywords in your profile. This will help your profile appear in search results and increase your visibility on the platform.

2. Smartly cast your net(work)

Connecting with your target audience is crucial to building meaningful relationships on LinkedIn — and you can’t make sales without establishing relationships first.

The first step is to use LinkedIn’s search feature to find potential customers who fit your ideal customer profile. This can include people in your industry, companies you want to do business with, or individuals with whom you share common interests.

When sending a connection request, it’s important to include a personalized message that explains why you want to connect. Avoid using generic messages, as they are less likely to be accepted. Instead, take the time to research the person you want to connect with and personalize your message accordingly to show that you are genuinely interested in connecting with them and increase the likelihood of them accepting your request.

Once you’ve connected with your target audience, it’s essential to engage with connections regularly. Comment on their posts and share valuable content that they will find interesting and relevant to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry and build trust with your connections.

However, it’s important to remember that quantity doesn’t always equate to quality when it comes to LinkedIn connections. It’s important to manage LinkedIn connections carefully and keep your network relevant. You should regularly review your connections and remove those who are no longer relevant or active on the platform. That way, you can ensure that your network is focused on your target audience and increase the effectiveness of your sales efforts.

3. Ignite engagement with valuable content

Sharing valuable content on your LinkedIn profile is a great way to establish yourself as an industry expert, build trust with your connections, and ultimately boost your sales. When sharing content, it’s important to make sure that it is valuable and relevant to your target audience.

One effective way to share valuable content is to create and share your own blog posts, articles, and videos. These types of content allow you to showcase your expertise and share insights on relevant topics in your industry.

Another way to share valuable content is to curate content from other sources. Share articles, blog posts, and videos from reputable sources that are relevant to your target audience. When sharing content from other sources, be sure to add your own commentary or perspective to the post, which can help establish your own expertise and point of view.

4. Utilize the power of LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn Groups is a powerful tool for businesses looking to build relationships with potential customers and establish themselves as thought leaders in their industry. Joining relevant groups helps you connect with others who share your interests and engage in meaningful conversations that can help you grow your business.

To utilize LinkedIn Groups effectively, first search for groups that are relevant to your industry or niche. You can do this by using LinkedIn’s search feature and filtering the results by group. Once you’ve found a group that looks interesting, join it and start participating in conversations.

Engage in conversations by commenting on posts, sharing your opinions, and asking questions. Engaging with posts in LinkedIn Groups will help you build relationships with other group members and demonstrate your expertise in your field. Additionally, sharing valuable content, such as articles or infographics, can help establish you as an industry expert and attract potential customers to your profile.

5. Add more value with LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn Ads are a great way to reach your target audience on the platform. With LinkedIn Ads, you can target your ads to specific industries, job titles, and locations, making it easier to reach the right people. This targeted approach can help you save time and money on your advertising efforts and increase the effectiveness of your sales strategy.

When creating LinkedIn Ads, it’s important to use compelling ad copy and visuals that grab your audience’s attention. Your ad copy should be clear and concise, and highlight the benefits of your product or service. Additionally, your visuals should be eye-catching and relevant to your ad’s message. By doing so, you can increase the likelihood of your target audience engaging with your ads and ultimately converting into customers.

Finally, it’s important to set a budget for your LinkedIn Ads and monitor your spending carefully. This will help you ensure that your advertising efforts are cost-effective and align with your overall sales strategy.

6. Don’t forget to measure

Measuring your results is an essential part of any successful LinkedIn sales strategy. Tracking your engagement and reach allows you to determine what works and what doesn’t, and adjust your approach accordingly.

LinkedIn’s analytics tools provide valuable insights into your profile’s performance, allowing you to track your engagement and reach over time. These tools enable you to see how many people are viewing your profile, engaging with your content, and clicking on your links. When you monitor these metrics, you can identify which content performs well and adjust your strategy accordingly.

It’s also essential to track your conversion rates, which can give you insight into how effective your sales strategy is. This means tracking how many of your LinkedIn connections convert into customers and analyzing what factors may be influencing this conversion rate.

In addition to tracking your analytics, it’s also essential to pay attention to feedback from your connections and customers. Customer feedback will help you identify pain points, concerns, and opportunities for improvement in your sales strategy.

Wrapping up

LinkedIn can be a powerful tool for businesses looking to boost their sales in 2023. By optimizing your profile, connecting with your target audience, sharing valuable content, utilizing LinkedIn Groups, using LinkedIn Ads, and measuring your results, you can build relationships with potential customers and increase revenue.

With these six tips, you can make the most of LinkedIn in 2023.

Sales Follow-Up Statistics and Process – The Power of Follow-Ups

Posted on by irc

Unfortunately, due to fear of rejection, a difficult (or no) sales process, or a lack of sales automation, most salespeople never follow-up with prospects. When emails or phone calls are ignored, 44% of salespeople give up after just 1 attempt, and only 8% of salespeople follow-up more than 5 times.

There are a number of sales follow-up statistics that back up the fact that following up with your prospects should be integrated into your sales process, regardless of your sales methodology. Most notable is the fact that, at any given time, only 3% of your market is actively buying. Another 56% are not ready, while 40% are poised to begin.

To learn more about why following up is so important and how to implement it into your sales process, check out the infographic below.

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35 Sales follow-up statistics

If you’re interested in looking at more data about how following up can improve your sales performance, here are some additional statistics.

Sales follow-up productivity statistics

Productivity is essential in developing a powerful sales follow-up process. Here are some statistics to help you find ways to improve your sales team’s productivity.

  1. On average, 42.5% of sales reps take 10 months or longer to become productive enough to contribute to a company’s bottom line. This is after an average of 10 weeks of training and development (source).
  2. Salespeople only spend 34% of their time actually selling (source). The rest of their time is spent as follows:
    • Writing emails – 21%
    • Data entry – 17%
    • Prospecting, researching leads, and finding contact information – 17%
    • Attending internal meetings – 12%
    • Scheduling meetings – 12%
    • Training – 11%
    • Reading industry news and researching sales tips – 11%
  3. Sales development reps average 94.4 activities per day (source). These activities lead to an average of 14.1 conversations, 16.7 opportunities, and 3.7 deals closed, and are broken down as follows:
    • 32.6 emails.
    • 35.9 phone calls.
    • 15.3 voicemails.
    • 7 social media touches.
  4. The best sales onboarding programs help new sales hires become productive 3.4 months sooner, on average, than firms with low-performing programs – a time-to-productivity that’s 37% faster (source).
  5. Firms that use technology effectively were, on average, 57% more effective at sales training and development than ineffective technology users (source).

 

Sales channel follow-up statistics

The sales channel you’re using can influence the success of your follow-ups. Here’s a look into some sales channel follow-up statistics.

Email

  1. Email marketing has a 2x higher ROI than cold calling or trade shows (source).
  2. 33% of recipients open an email because of its subject line (source).
  3. Email usage statistics indicate that 91.5% of outreach emails are ignored. (source).
  4. 64% of workers make spelling or grammar errors in their emails, so it’s important to do a grammar check on them before sending (source).
  5. Including the recipient’s first name in the subject line can boost open rates by 29.3% (source).

Phone calls

  1. 55% of high growth companies stated that cold calling is very much alive (source).
  2. One study showed that telephone outreach out-converted emails by a significant margin – 8.21% vs 0.03% (source).
  3. The average sales development rep makes 52 calls daily (source).
  4. The average response rate for a voicemail is 4.8% (source).
  5. 80% of calls go to voicemail. 90% of first time voicemails are never returned (source).

Texting

  1. Prospects who are sent text messages have a 40% higher conversion rate than those who don’t receive texts (source).
  2. Texts are better used as a follow-up than an initial point of contact. Texting before having had a phone conversation decreases the likelihood of the prospect ever becoming a lead (source).
  3. Texting someone after having made contact leads to a 112.6% higher lead to engagement conversion (source).

Social media

  1. Sales reps who are active on social media get 45% more sales opportunities than those who aren’t (source).
  2. Sales reps that use social media as a sales channel are 51% more likely to hit their sales quota than those who don’t (source).
  3. 98% of sales reps with more than 5,000 LinkedIn connections meet or surpass their quota (source).
  4. 78% of salespeople who use social media perform better than their peers (source).

Multi-channel selling

  1. Sales development reps that leverage 3 or more touchpoints have 28% higher MQL-to-SQL rates than those who just make a phone call or send an email (source).
  2. Sending emails to leads in between phone contact attempts increases your chance of contacting them by 16% (source).

 

Sales follow-up cadence statistics

A well put together cadence makes following-up very easy for sales reps. Here are some data points about sales cadences to help you build one for your business.

  1. On average, high growth organizations report 16 touch points per prospect within a 2-4 week timespan (source).
  2. The most optimal number of follow-up emails to send is 2-3 (source).
  3. 95% of all converted leads are reached by the sixth call attempt (source).
  4. 44% of salespeople give up after one follow-up attempt (source).
  5. 92% of salespeople give up after no sales on the 4th call. 60% of customers say no four times before saying yes (source).
  6. 50% of buyers choose the vendor that responds first (source).

 

Sales follow-up response time statistics

Sometimes, it takes prospects a while to respond to your follow-up efforts. Here’s some data on that.

  1. In a test of 433 companies, only 7% responded in the first five minutes after a form submission. Over 50% didn’t respond within five business days (source).
  2. Those who attempted to reach leads within one hour are 7x times more likely to have meaningful conversations with decision makers than those who waited even 60 minutes (source).
  3. On average, it takes 8 follow-up calls to reach a prospect (source).
  4. 50% of email responses occur within 60 minutes (source).
  5. If the recipient is going to reply to an email, there’s a 90% chance that it will happen within 2 days of the email being sent (source).

Looking to create your own follow-ups? Check out our Sales Team Starter here!