One thing marketers seem to never have enough of is time. There is always a need to juggle between testing out new ways to approach communication and channels they use, handling CRM and sending out content to all of the stakeholders.
Marketing professionals are no strangers to LinkedIn and its popularity has been steadily increasing over the years. Due to competition and the increasing need to adapt, this channel has also increased in the effort needed to maintain a competent presence. Whether we’re talking inbound or outbound efforts, as your business grows it will inevitably become more challenging to keep up with all of the aspects evenly. It’s not only a matter of productivity but also thinking about ways you can make your communication more intelligent and relevant. Let’s talk about some of the key areas automation can come in handy for your team.
A detailed approach to outreach
The importance of outbound marketing has grown a lot on LinkedIn, as it’s become increasingly harder to compete for your audience’s attention. Marketers and sales reps have been working on improving their outreach efforts and we all know how challenging can it be to continually find accurate prospects and generate qualified leads. Automating this part of your strategy can prove to be a smart way to save the time you’d spend on manually researching while also crafting accurate filters that will help you reach the right audience.
The volume of connections – it’s tricky getting the right number of connection requests sent – you need to find appropriate prospects, reach out to them, but also be careful to avoid spamming and sending out too many requests daily. With automation tools, you can skip this step and focus your efforts on something more productive. A tool can help you not only with the amount but also with targeting that fits with your needs at the moment.
Lead qualification – after you’ve set up your targeting and started the outreach, automation can help you match the leads to your buyer personas. By implementing a tool, you get a much simpler way of segmenting leads and sorting them into lists that can be used in the next steps of your cycle. This is especially useful when it comes to nurturing them and going through the whole sales cycle.
Creating relationships through messages
When it comes to outbound strategies, LinkedIn automation tools are a vital tool for starting and maintaining quality conversations.
Opening messages are just a base for nurturing quality relationships with your leads. This is where the intelligent work the tools provide shines.
Automating for personalization – as we mentioned earlier, you’re competing for the attention of LinkedIn users with a lot of others so you need to be convincing. The best way to stand out from the crowd is to personalize your approach. It’s not enough to just call the prospect by their first name and call it a day – with automation you can use specifics from their profile and show them that you really care about what they’re about and not just about the conversion you’re after. From their interests to the number of mutual connections, you can use those details to strike a meaningful interaction that will keep you at the top of their mind.
Importance of CRM – after you’ve sorted your leads, started the interaction and moved them through the phases of your campaign, automation tools can help you direct them to your recruiter CRM system for follow-ups. Not only that they will be segmented and easier to approach, but the software can keep them nurtured with content so that you can assess when to actively jump in. You can also use this to see what you need to adjust for the system to work even better. Moreover using such CRM for your internal needs is a great way to keep all employee data all under control and work smarter.
Fine-tuning your content
Even though one-on-one communication is essential, you can’t forget the content you put out to the public. When it comes to the inbound aspect of your communication, automation software can also help you perfect your content to keep the audience coming back.
A tool can be used to automate your post scheduling aligned with your audience activity and lined up with your plans, while also analyzing its performance to let you know what needs to be improved. You can track performance according to additional benchmarks you set (not just those already available), so you can know exactly what works for you in terms of various relevant metrics. This type of in-depth analysis is especially important when you have a larger amount of posts and you need to sift through them efficiently to determine what to focus on.
With various publishing features a tool can bring you, you can experiment with different dynamic formats, combining videos, carousels or even use an infographic maker to complement all the steps of your marketing strategy. Using automation software in this way provides you with an opportunity to bring together inbound efforts for engagement and reaching more prospects, while also having a proper way to bring your best performing content to the outbound side of things.
Summing it up
LinkedIn automation tools aren’t just something to use as a glorified out-of-office response. From publishing at the right time for your audience to implementing recruiter CRM for your internal needs, they are a way to keep it all under control and work smarter.
By choosing software that complements your efforts, your team will have more space to really think through every interaction and piece of content they commit to. Increased productivity, better control over phases of your strategy and an intelligent way to approach personal interactions should be enough of an incentive to get you started. Put down the areas that are the most important for your team and start looking for a perfect tool for you!
About the author:
Becky Halls is a Co-Founder of Hyperise, a Hyper personalization toolkit for B2B marketers. She’s an experienced Growth Marketer, passionate about product design/development and online marketing.
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