The secret to unlocking sales leads in LinkedIn
The IT services and software industry is a lucrative and hugely competitive sector to be a part of. With digital transformation projects on the rise, and organizations desperately trying to keep up with changing market conditions and customer demands – there are a lot of IT projects up for grabs.
For software and service providers looking to get a piece of the action, it’s crucial that sales teams not only generate and grow their pipeline but also nurture relationships to ensure they stay top of mind, and in a good position for the release of the next RFP or customer request.
Where there are businesses, there are often shareholders! Where there’s a Sales and Marketing strategy, there’s always a financial target. With rising pressure on higher and higher financial success, there is an ever-growing need to find innovative ways to increase the pipeline so sales teams can get on with closing more complex deals and increasing revenue.
So, how is it that some organizations always seem to be first to know about a deal and what exactly is the secret to building relationships that develop into sales opportunities?
Cue the superpower of LinkedIn automation! With 76% of companies using automation in 2021 (Hubspot), and this number only increasing with time, isn’t it time your business got in on the action? To get your automation journey started, we are offering new users a FREE, 14-day trial. We ask for no commitment - we simply want you explore the benefits of Dux-Soup, on us!
We know there are lots of questions about how LinkedIn automation works, and how it can help a sales team to nurture and manage their pipelines. In this blog, we address the top 5 challenges faced by sales teams, and the solution offered by LinkedIn automation.
The internal sales and marketing challenge
It’s no easy task to find businesses who want, what you have to sell. Some organizations will proactively find your business; however, this is only true for the minority.
Most businesses will rely on the marketing team, to promote the business and the products or services which are being sold. The role of marketing is to create the need. If the marketing team is small, then any increase in target is always going to be a challenge. How can the existing methods of obtaining leads meet the challenge? It simply can’t. Something needs to change.
So, what are the top 5 challenges being faced by sales teams and how can they be overcome?
1. The Resources Hurdle
Many businesses won’t have dedicated marketing departments or in-house /inside sales teams. Sales and Marketing activities often fall to one or two key individuals or a small team of employees who provide support across multiple areas of the business.
Whatever the mix, these teams are responsible for carrying out the marketing activities to generate the sales pipeline and fill the sales funnel. The pressure is huge.
Winning Strategy - Save Time, Increase Productivity
Dux-Soup allows teams to create, schedule and send campaigns even when team members are away from the office. This gives sales teams more control over the process and allows them to maximize their time on the activities which most need it - closing deals and making revenue.
The Founder of Littoral reported that LinkedIn automation saved his employees 2 hours per day. That’s 40 hours per month! That’s an extra working week per month, for each employee. With Dux-Soup, teams can effortlessly scale their lead gen activity to triple the number of LinkedIn leads and double their ROI. Regardless of the size of the team – this is a HUGE saving!
2. The Budget Hurdle
The bigger the target, the more work needs to be put in; to achieve the result.
In an ideal world, this would mean an increase in headcount and marketing budgets.
In reality, however, it’s more likely that the existing team will be relied upon to manage the additional workload, by making efficiencies in their existing ways of working. Although a common occurrence, this puts undeniable pressure on teams and can often lead to mistakes.
Winning Strategy - Tiered Pricing Options and Loyal Customer Discounts
Our Dux-Soup Team plan, provides businesses with two, flexible, multi-seat pricing options – Pro and Turbo.
Dux-Soup Pro provides teams with a search and filter function, personalized and automated outreach and compatibility across all LinkedIn plans. In addition, Dux-Soup Turbo offers the facility to manage multi-concurrent drip campaigns, lead management capability and direct integration with your CRM.
With multiple licenses, not only can sales teams benefit from a tiered reduction in license fees, but they also benefit from membership of the Dux-Soup Customer Success Programme ‘High Flyer’ (with 15+ seats for Pro users, or 5+ seats for Turbo users). This gives teams access to priority email support and calls, FREE High Flyer accelerator calls, account management, and access to High Flyer user group sessions with other Team License holders to share expertise.
3. The LinkedIn Hurdle
When sales teams struggle with LinkedIn and are already maxed out doing the ‘day job’, it can feel daunting to start learning something new. Most organizations offer no formal LinkedIn training either.
Capturing names from lists for outreach can take a lot of time and is a very manual process. Lack of message scheduling also means your team need to be sat at their desks in order to make use the tool.
When there isn’t a large team to share the load between BAU and upskilling, the benefits to be had by investing the time can simply feel overwhelming and are therefore not explored.
Winning Strategy - Keep it Simple
Along with regular webinars, an extensive library of video tutorials, weekly blog releases and access to a live knowledge base via the Dux-Soup Support pages, the Dux-Soup support team are available around the clock, via email, or through the Facebook user-group pages.
In addition, ‘Booster calls’ are available with our resident LinkedIn and Dux-Soup experts to provide guidance on all things Lead gen, whether it be for team training, or a 1-2-1 session to quickly upskill in preparation for a specific campaign.
Why not give our FREE, 14 day trial a whirl and see just how easy it is to get your LinkedIn automation journey off to a flying start.
4. The Sales Reporting Hurdle
Most software and services providers are judged on quarterly revenue targets. Regular forecasts and pipeline reports are essential for sales leaders to track progress against targets. In most cases, the data is likely to be captured within multiple systems including the CRM and multiple spreadsheets managed by the sales team. Keeping track of the data, analyzing it and regularly updating reports often requires meticulous management which can be hugely time-consuming and adds to the mounting pressure of meeting targets.
Winning Strategy - Simple, Integrated Pipeline Reporting
As a Dux-Soup Turbo user, sales teams will benefit from access to the Funnel Flow facility in the Dux Dash. This provides users with the perfect means of tracking and analyzing automated lead gen activity, including the number of:- Prospects, Successful Connections, Meetings Accepted, Sales Converted etc.
In addition, the ever-growing list of Dux-Soup integration partners means outreach processes become increasingly effortless as it allows teams to send LinkedIn drip campaigns to contacts within the business’s CRM.
5. The Manual Processes Hurdle
The manual process of generating and nurturing prospects through the sales pipeline is hugely labor-intensive. When targets increase, there’s a tendency to focus on the quick wins, which are more likely to be smaller, lower-paying projects.
If a team’s energy is on the quick win, who is focused on navigating the larger, more complex deals – the ones most likely to return a much higher ROI?
Winning Strategy– Aligned Sales and Marketing Processes
There’s never been a simpler LinkedIn automation tool, to help businesses manage their sales and marketing process.
Faced with an impossible target of 100 cold calls per day, one Business Development Representative decided to shake up the company process and seek new ways of working, taking the business from 0 to 349 sales appointments in just 3 months, all thanks to the power of LinkedIn automation with Dux-Soup Turbo. That’s a whopping 300% increase in sales appointments!!
The Dux-Soup drip campaign feature allows teams to connect with and nurture relationships with prospects. With the Turbo plan, a campaign can be halted when a response is received to allow a user to manually intervene or simply re-enrol the prospect.
For reporting purposes, the Funnel Flow facility enables teams to manage campaign performance by identifying the content and message sequences which are proving to be the most successful in driving results. This means that teams can easily track and tweak campaign content, to see how changes affect the success of each campaign.
If the sales and marketing teams are using the same tool and process to manage prospects and nurture relationships, then sales leaders can seamlessly track progress through the funnel, until the time is right for the sales teams to step in, convert, and win the deal.
What’s the secret?
Covid-19 has generated a huge increase in the adoption of digital technologies and transformation projects are now a number one priority for many organizations. If your existing lead gen processes aren’t getting you where you need to be and you’re not making the shortlist for the RFPs your business was made for - something needs to change.
According to Harvard Business Review, automation can cut down the time to launch a marketing campaign from four weeks to just five days. LinkedIn automation allows those responsible for LinkedIn lead generation to search, find and target the right audience with the right message at the right time.
So, what is the secret to unlocking sales leads in LinkedIn? Quite simply - LinkedIn automation. With Dux-Soup, salesteams can accelerate business growth by automatically engaging with prospects on LinkedIn to generate leads. Automated campaign sequences allow businesses to nurture the relationship and convert connections to fill the sales funnel, closing deals long before their competitors even hear about them.
Dux-Soup allows your teams to save you time, save you money and win you more business – guaranteed.
For more information take a a look at our team plans, or better still - why not try the plan for FREE, for 14 days - with absolutely no commitment.
