LinkedIn introduces new features to Sales Navigator

LinkedIn has globally introduced new features this quarter to help marketers and the sales community build upon their virtual selling strategy. 

To best help support three primary drivers of virtual selling - real-time insights, collaboration, and relationship building, LinkedIn has rolled out new features to Sales Navigator. Here are some of the new features and how they support virtual selling in this new world: 

Real-Time Insights

Understanding what information is resonating with the buyers can be especially challenging when marketers are unable to meet in-person and read body language.

As today’s workforce is juggling both work and personal responsibilities during the day, finding time to speak on the phone may be limited. LinkedIn’s new Smart Links enhancements help marketers stay connected with the buyers with real-time insights into what content matters most to them based on what they choose to read and/or share with colleagues.  

The new additions help marketers package and share content without leaving the Sales Navigator workflow, while also tracking engagement to gain insights into what prospects and customers are most interested in. With LinkedIn’s new Smart Link enhancements, marketers can:

• Create a Smart Link from within InMail 

• Access the created Smart Links from messaging on your mobile device

• Receive alerts when someone is engaging with the content they shared

• Log activity directly back to their Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales or Salesforce CRMs to track how buyers engaged with content

Also Read: LinkedIn launches Career Explorer to aid job seekers

As a  Sales Navigator admin, one can now track Smart Link usage to better understand how often reps are sending content and which reps are getting the most views.

Collaboration

It seems like collaboration has never been more important or challenging. Working together, in lock-step, to efficiently and effectively navigate a sales cycle, even when marketers and the sales community can’t physically work together as a team or connect with buyers in-person. This quarter, LinkedIn is expanding two features to support brands with collaboration across their sales team:

Contact Creation for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales: Similar to the integration with Salesforce announced last quarter, this new integration with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales gives marketers the ability to create a contact record in their CRM directly from a Sales Navigator Lead Page or Lead List so that CRM information is up to date, accurate and shared across the sales organization

Notes in Sales Navigator: LinkedIn has consolidated Notes and Comments into Notes shared in Sales Navigator Lists, Lead Pages, and Account Pages to help marketers find information across the Sales Navigator platform. In this new world of sales, collaboration is even more critical, and this new singular notes view helps decide whether one wants to make their notes “private” or “public”.

Relationship Building

Building and nurturing relationships with prospects and customers virtually may be a new and challenging endeavor for sales teams. LinkedIn’s new Alerts panel is designed to help one interact with buyers from within the Sales Navigator homepage.

The new panel allows one to “like,” “comment,” and “share” any time a saved lead posts or shares on LinkedIn without leaving Sales Navigator.  Small gestures, like this, can go a long way in building and nurturing relationships.