When Upgrading to Sales Navigator: More Than Search & Insights
More Than Search, Insights & Segmentation
It is reasonably well known that Sales Navigator is a fantastic tool for searching and finding the right prospects, and nurturing this audience through various real-time sales intelligence. Well, maybe this is not quite as well known as the search!
However, what’s not so well known is that when upgrading to Sales Navigator from the Free account, additional features get added to both your profile and others’ profiles, which are designed to help you win more business.
Let’s look at these in more detail and why this is important.
LinkedIn Profile Upgrades
Here are the upgrades you get from moving from the free account, starting from the top of your profile and working down.
1. Cover Image (Banner)
Your banner (or Cover Image as LinkedIn calls it) is at the top of your profile, and it is one of the first things someone looks at when they come to your profile.
With a free account, you only have the option to add 1 static image. Whereas with Sales Navigator, you can add up to 5 images to create a slideshow. This dynamic nature of this upgrade provides you with an opportunity to get more information across and make a stronger first impression with visitors to your profile.
💡 A word of warning. The transition speed between images is quite quick so don’t overload your images with text or images that someone can’t read in the timeframe. Yes, you can click on the banner to stop the images scrolling, but not all users know to do this.
2. Premium badge
When you sign up for Sales Navigator, you get given a gold badge on your profile. Having a gold badge is a signal to other users that you pay for LinkedIn, you are committed to the platform and serious about networking. It’s a signal of credibility and adds an element of trust.
💡 Not only does your badge show on your profile, it shows in various places, including search, which could be the difference between someone clicking on your profile or someone else’s when they are looking for help.
3. Custom button
You can add a custom button that appears at the top of your profile. This custom button is used to direct visitors to the desired destination you choose.
The options are:
Visit my store
Visit my website
View my portfolio
View my blog
Book an appointment
View my newsletter
View my services
By adding a custom button, you are taking control of the next step for your visitors, whilst encouraging them to take action.
💡 Not only does your custom button show on your profile, but it also appears in other places, including messages and in content, making it easy for your potential clients to find out more.
4. AI profile writing assistant
Starting with a blank piece of paper is never a great place, especially when writer’s block kicks in. When you upgrade to Sales Navigator, you can receive personalised suggestions for your profile, which is a useful aid to help you complete your profile for visitors.
💡 AI is a useful tool and can save lots of time. Be careful, though, when using it that you add your voice to your profile so it represents you and your personality.
5. Services Section
The services section is the most underutilised section on a LinkedIn profile. It is high up your profile, and when upgrading to Sales Navigator, it becomes a lot more valuable, especially as you can add media to it, gain and showcase reviews from clients, and more.
On a free account, you have the functionality to save media, but it doesn’t actually filter through to your profile (no idea why LinkedIn do this). Adding media so high up the page is extremely useful to catch the attention of the visitor and to sell you and your offer. Think about what images, videos or links to resources you want to add as they will be highly visible.
As we saw in the Custom button section, ‘View my services’ is an option for this button and appears at the top of your profile. Adding this as your custom button provides the opportunity for potential clients to easily access your services section (and your media) from your posts and messages.
On upgrading, you will also receive a feature called ‘Matched service requests’ within your services section. This enables you to receive additional project requests that match the services you offer (the services section takes direct requests). So, when LinkedIn users send a request for a proposal to a specific service provider, and if you match their request location, category, and language, you will receive these additional requests. To receive these, you need to turn on your ‘Get more service requests’ setting to be eligible. You can then respond to requests that you receive from within your service page admin area.
💡 The Services section presents significant opportunities. It’s worth investing your time in this.
6. Who’s Viewed Your Profile
Knowing ‘who has viewed your profile’ is extremely important. With an upgraded Sale Navigator account, you can see ‘who has viewed your profile’ information for the past 365 days.
People who view your profile have gone there for a reason, which is usually because they have some interest. One of our goals on LinkedIn should be to drive people to our profile to ‘check us out’! They may have seen your content, or they may have received a message from you, and they want to learn more about you and what you offer. They’re curious.
Whatever the reason, on Free LinkedIn, the details of people you see are only the last 3 people. On Sales Navigator, you can see the details for everyone (unless they have been in ‘Private mode’) for those 365 days. Finding out who visits your profile is a huge opportunity for conversations, so using a Free account will impact your ability to start warm conversations and win clients.
There is another feature you can access when editing your ‘Edit intro’, this is the ‘Open Profile’ feature. This feature allows anyone on LinkedIn (1 billion+ members) to send you a message, even if you are not connected with them. With a free account, this is not possible.
💡 The open profile functionality is also a channel for you to contact other ‘Open Profile’ users to start conversations without spending your weekly limit of connection requests or monthly InMail credits. Be careful how you use this, as you don’t want to come across as spammy.
Viewing Other People’s Profiles
1. AI Insights
When viewing other people’s profiles, you see insights about them on their profiles.
On LinkedIn, you see ‘Sales insights’ which include ‘Key signals’ like whether they have ‘Viewed your profile’, ‘Following your company’, whether they ‘posted on LinkedIn in the past 30 days’ and any ‘Shared groups’. This is really useful information in a handy snapshot. A word of warning, don’t follow LinkedIn’s advice because InMail is not a good way to reach them, especially if they are existing 1st Connections! As well as the insights, there are also common connection paths to help you start conversations.
If you are in Sales Navigator and on their Sales Navigator profile page, you have similar information in the features:
Lead IQ: It summarises LinkedIn data about the person whose profile you are on. It summarises a lead’s experience, achievements, interests, commonalities, and activities. Once again this is useful to get a quick snapshot for outreach, or even when preparing for a meeting with them.
Get introduced: This functionality helps you to find ways into a conversation with someone, whether this is via shared connections, shared education, shared work experience or groups.
💡 These features are useful as they give an overview of insights and ways to start conversations if you are doing some prospecting. Add these with the other insights you have for your target prospects and you’ll have a really clear picture of the best way to reach out.
This is all very interesting, but why is this important?
One of your main goals is to drive targeted people to your profile to learn more about you and what you offer.
Profile optimisation is a must for anyone seriously considering winning new clients on LinkedIn. Profile optimisation is all about being clear who you help and how you help them, adding social proof that you can deliver this and making it as easy as possible for your visitor to take the next step. It’s about being clear, building trust and helping the potential client to see you as a potential supplier. You need to build confidence that you can help them.
With Sales Navigator, the features above help you to showcase you and your offer just that little bit better, especially as all these additional features are at the top of the page, so very likely they will get viewed.
In addition, the full disclosure of who visits your profile (unless they use anonymous browsing) is a trigger for outreach, and the insights make this outreach more effective. These convenient insights are a huge time saver as you don’t have to search multiple places to pull this information together.
I bang on all the time about how much time Sales Navigator saves us users, but there are even time-saving elements when we aren’t even on Sales Navigator.
In Summary
I’m a huge advocate of Sales Navigator, as most of you may have gathered! Having it in my toolkit places me in a much better position than if I were trying to do what I do with a free account. Using it, along with referrals, is how I get all my clients.
Yes, the main reason for getting Sales Navigator is the search and all the other organisation and efficiency-related features. However, do not underestimate your profile optimisation and how these little tweaks can make a difference.
After all, the better our landing page (LinkedIn profile), the more likely visitors will be to take action.
When Upgrading to Sales Navigator: More Than Search & Insights
When Upgrading to Sales Navigator: More Than Search & Insights
More Than Search, Insights & Segmentation
It is reasonably well known that Sales Navigator is a fantastic tool for searching and finding the right prospects, and nurturing this audience through various real-time sales intelligence. Well, maybe this is not quite as well known as the search!
However, what’s not so well known is that when upgrading to Sales Navigator from the Free account, additional features get added to both your profile and others’ profiles, which are designed to help you win more business.
Let’s look at these in more detail and why this is important.
LinkedIn Profile Upgrades
Here are the upgrades you get from moving from the free account, starting from the top of your profile and working down.
1. Cover Image (Banner)
Your banner (or Cover Image as LinkedIn calls it) is at the top of your profile, and it is one of the first things someone looks at when they come to your profile.
With a free account, you only have the option to add 1 static image. Whereas with Sales Navigator, you can add up to 5 images to create a slideshow. This dynamic nature of this upgrade provides you with an opportunity to get more information across and make a stronger first impression with visitors to your profile.
💡 A word of warning. The transition speed between images is quite quick so don’t overload your images with text or images that someone can’t read in the timeframe. Yes, you can click on the banner to stop the images scrolling, but not all users know to do this.
2. Premium badge
When you sign up for Sales Navigator, you get given a gold badge on your profile. Having a gold badge is a signal to other users that you pay for LinkedIn, you are committed to the platform and serious about networking. It’s a signal of credibility and adds an element of trust.
💡 Not only does your badge show on your profile, it shows in various places, including search, which could be the difference between someone clicking on your profile or someone else’s when they are looking for help.
3. Custom button
You can add a custom button that appears at the top of your profile. This custom button is used to direct visitors to the desired destination you choose.
The options are:
By adding a custom button, you are taking control of the next step for your visitors, whilst encouraging them to take action.
💡 Not only does your custom button show on your profile, but it also appears in other places, including messages and in content, making it easy for your potential clients to find out more.
4. AI profile writing assistant
Starting with a blank piece of paper is never a great place, especially when writer’s block kicks in. When you upgrade to Sales Navigator, you can receive personalised suggestions for your profile, which is a useful aid to help you complete your profile for visitors.
💡 AI is a useful tool and can save lots of time. Be careful, though, when using it that you add your voice to your profile so it represents you and your personality.
5. Services Section
The services section is the most underutilised section on a LinkedIn profile. It is high up your profile, and when upgrading to Sales Navigator, it becomes a lot more valuable, especially as you can add media to it, gain and showcase reviews from clients, and more.
On a free account, you have the functionality to save media, but it doesn’t actually filter through to your profile (no idea why LinkedIn do this). Adding media so high up the page is extremely useful to catch the attention of the visitor and to sell you and your offer. Think about what images, videos or links to resources you want to add as they will be highly visible.
As we saw in the Custom button section, ‘View my services’ is an option for this button and appears at the top of your profile. Adding this as your custom button provides the opportunity for potential clients to easily access your services section (and your media) from your posts and messages.
On upgrading, you will also receive a feature called ‘Matched service requests’ within your services section. This enables you to receive additional project requests that match the services you offer (the services section takes direct requests). So, when LinkedIn users send a request for a proposal to a specific service provider, and if you match their request location, category, and language, you will receive these additional requests. To receive these, you need to turn on your ‘Get more service requests’ setting to be eligible. You can then respond to requests that you receive from within your service page admin area.
💡 The Services section presents significant opportunities. It’s worth investing your time in this.
6. Who’s Viewed Your Profile
Knowing ‘who has viewed your profile’ is extremely important. With an upgraded Sale Navigator account, you can see ‘who has viewed your profile’ information for the past 365 days.
People who view your profile have gone there for a reason, which is usually because they have some interest. One of our goals on LinkedIn should be to drive people to our profile to ‘check us out’! They may have seen your content, or they may have received a message from you, and they want to learn more about you and what you offer. They’re curious.
Whatever the reason, on Free LinkedIn, the details of people you see are only the last 3 people. On Sales Navigator, you can see the details for everyone (unless they have been in ‘Private mode’) for those 365 days. Finding out who visits your profile is a huge opportunity for conversations, so using a Free account will impact your ability to start warm conversations and win clients.
💡 If you want to visit other people’s profiles anonymously (e.g. when visiting competitors), turn on ‘Private mode’ here: https://www.linkedin.com/mypreferences/d/profile-viewing-options
7. Open Profile
There is another feature you can access when editing your ‘Edit intro’, this is the ‘Open Profile’ feature. This feature allows anyone on LinkedIn (1 billion+ members) to send you a message, even if you are not connected with them. With a free account, this is not possible.
💡 The open profile functionality is also a channel for you to contact other ‘Open Profile’ users to start conversations without spending your weekly limit of connection requests or monthly InMail credits. Be careful how you use this, as you don’t want to come across as spammy.
Viewing Other People’s Profiles
1. AI Insights
When viewing other people’s profiles, you see insights about them on their profiles.
On LinkedIn, you see ‘Sales insights’ which include ‘Key signals’ like whether they have ‘Viewed your profile’, ‘Following your company’, whether they ‘posted on LinkedIn in the past 30 days’ and any ‘Shared groups’. This is really useful information in a handy snapshot. A word of warning, don’t follow LinkedIn’s advice because InMail is not a good way to reach them, especially if they are existing 1st Connections! As well as the insights, there are also common connection paths to help you start conversations.
If you are in Sales Navigator and on their Sales Navigator profile page, you have similar information in the features:
Lead IQ: It summarises LinkedIn data about the person whose profile you are on. It summarises a lead’s experience, achievements, interests, commonalities, and activities. Once again this is useful to get a quick snapshot for outreach, or even when preparing for a meeting with them.
Get introduced: This functionality helps you to find ways into a conversation with someone, whether this is via shared connections, shared education, shared work experience or groups.
💡 These features are useful as they give an overview of insights and ways to start conversations if you are doing some prospecting. Add these with the other insights you have for your target prospects and you’ll have a really clear picture of the best way to reach out.
This is all very interesting, but why is this important?
One of your main goals is to drive targeted people to your profile to learn more about you and what you offer.
Profile optimisation is a must for anyone seriously considering winning new clients on LinkedIn. Profile optimisation is all about being clear who you help and how you help them, adding social proof that you can deliver this and making it as easy as possible for your visitor to take the next step. It’s about being clear, building trust and helping the potential client to see you as a potential supplier. You need to build confidence that you can help them.
With Sales Navigator, the features above help you to showcase you and your offer just that little bit better, especially as all these additional features are at the top of the page, so very likely they will get viewed.
In addition, the full disclosure of who visits your profile (unless they use anonymous browsing) is a trigger for outreach, and the insights make this outreach more effective. These convenient insights are a huge time saver as you don’t have to search multiple places to pull this information together.
I bang on all the time about how much time Sales Navigator saves us users, but there are even time-saving elements when we aren’t even on Sales Navigator.
In Summary
I’m a huge advocate of Sales Navigator, as most of you may have gathered! Having it in my toolkit places me in a much better position than if I were trying to do what I do with a free account. Using it, along with referrals, is how I get all my clients.
Yes, the main reason for getting Sales Navigator is the search and all the other organisation and efficiency-related features. However, do not underestimate your profile optimisation and how these little tweaks can make a difference.
After all, the better our landing page (LinkedIn profile), the more likely visitors will be to take action.
Small improvements lead to significant impact.
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