If you have built sales lists in the B2B space previously, you know LinkedIn is the go to data source. So let's get straight to the techniques and tools for locating potential customers on LinkedIn and exporting them to a list in the fastest way possible.
Customer profile: Who is buying your solution? You have a product or service that solves a problem. Get clear on exactly the type of people who solve this problem with your product/service. If all your customers have ‘IT manager’ in the job title then ‘IT manager’ needs to be part of your customer profile. In this manner continue to build out your customer profile with as much detail as possible.
LinkedIn search: How to phrase-filter Your customer profile is the input needed to run a targeted search on LinkedIn. Combine this with the rarely used phrase-filter technique and you will generate precision results. Start by filling in the standard details from your customer profile including: language, location, industry, job title, etc. Image of LinkedIn filter below:This will give ‘pretty good’ results but to make them precise and set yourself up for a good intro message you will want to apply a phrase-filter.
This is a unique phrase that describes your customers in a way not easily standardized. You can also think of it as a natural/spoken english descriptor versus something that is easily categorized such as industry.
For example if I am targeting LinkedIn power users I might use the phrase ‘Top 1% LinkedIn’. A person using this phrase within their profile is more likely to be a LinkedIn power user. As a second example, imagine I want to hire a javascript developer. I input javascript as a requirement and get the basic results. However, if I add a phrase-filter like ‘I love javascript’ I get a list of people who are probably more passionate.
The phrase-filter goes into the search bar located at the top of LinkedIn. Here is an image:
Connect: Preparation for export We now have our targeted LinkedIn results. However, these results do not give us all the information we might need. Without a connection, LinkedIn will not show important details such as an email address. Here is where automation really reduces the pain inherent to this process. LinkedON, a LinkedIn automation product, will send a connection to just these exact search results. What’s even better is your connect can include a highly personalized note because you made use of the phrase-filter. So you might say something like:
Hi, [First name],
I noticed your top 1% LinkedIn ranking. I am always looking to connect with LinkedIn experts.
Thanks!
Here is what LinkedON looks like. While on the search page just click the enroll button. It will send a connect with a personalized message to all the search results.
Export: The final step Great job if you made it this far, these items are checked off: Define your customer profile✔️ Locate potential customers on LinkedIn✔️ Connect with potential customers✔️
Final step is to export these contacts into a list which can then be used for sales/marketing/recruiting etc. To make this process as painless as possible we will use LinkedHub. LinkedHub will allow you to customize the information you capture including email. Here is what it looks like: Once you specify the information to be captured visit each profile and click the sync button. You can speed this process up by accessing the list of contacts thru LinkedON which makes it a bit more organized. Clicking sync will send all the information into HubSpot creating both a contact and company. If you don’t have HubSpot don’t worry, it’s free and just acts as a much easier-to-use excel sheet. But for those who want to stick with excel or google sheets it’s no problem. With a few clicks you can download all the information from HubSpot into excel or any other format desired.
Image of LinkedHub sync button:I hope you use these tools and techniques to become a list building champion. Best of luck!
