LinkedIn is constantly adding new solutions for smarter ways to engage with customers via the LinkedIn Sales Navigator plan. Smart Links is their newest addition in social selling, and we did some digging to share all of the key benefits.
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In a nutshell, LinkedIn Smart Links is a way to conduct lead generation by sharing and tracking links with prospects. You may be thinking, “I can already share and track links using Bitly or HubSpot”. A valid thought, although LinkedIn provides a few interesting elements and we’ll break those down shortly.
Here are a few quick-hitting points about social selling via LinkedIn Smart Links:
- A Sales Navigator team account is needed
- Ability to bundle your sales content – pitch decks, product overviews and more – into one trackable link
- Once you share a link, you can track who visited the link and how long they stayed on specific pages
4 Ways to Use LinkedIn Smart Links
1. Prospecting in LinkedIn – when sending a LinkedIn InMail message, add the link to your message. The link will show as a thumbnail image which allows you to reduce your text and visually stimulate your audience to take action.
2. Cold emailing – When adding the link to a cold email using your email server (i.e. Gmail, Outlook, etc.), while the preview image will not show up, you will be able to collect the LinkedIn profiles for the contacts that clicked on the links. Then by viewing the analytics in LinkedIn and knowing the pages they engaged with the most, you can send a relevant follow-up email.
Here is an example of a targeted follow-up email.
3. & 4. Social media posts and landing pages – Include the LinkedIn Smart Link in a social media post and on a landing page. Instead of asking for an email in exchange for a free download, just include the link. When the prospect clicks, you automatically collect their LinkedIn profile. This creates less friction. From there, you can use tools to help you figure out the email address.
3 Key Benefits of Smart Links
Now on to the benefits of using this tool for lead generation. We can find 3 key benefits that we think are useful to all companies:
1. Get real-time insights on how recipients are engaging with your content. You receive immediate email notifications when engagement occurs, or you can review reporting in LinkedIn. This information can be used to determine interest and personalize follow-ups.
2. Create less friction with Smart Link CTAs versus email offers.
3. Manage team-wide buyer engagement by reviewing reporting that shows team members against a number of link views.
This new addition seems to be a pretty solid content tool. The only negative we identified is that the tool only syncs with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales and Salesforce CRM for Sales which is somewhat limiting. Otherwise, Smart Links are easy to use when InMailing, cold emailing or when building social posts or landing pages.
It allows you to bundle your content, track engagement and determine interest for personalized follow-ups that hopefully lead to better engagement and more qualified and warm leads.
Interested in implementing this tactic into your sales and marketing strategy? Learn more about how Gate 39 Media can help support your company through marketing. Contact us or book time to chat now.
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