The Complete Guide on How to Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator for Lead Generation

TL;DR

If you use LinkedIn to find and connect with B2B leads, Sales Navigator will help you maximize results. With advanced search and direct outreach features, this paid premium tool promises to boost lead generation efforts dramatically. Sales Navigator can really help drive more results for your business if you leverage it properly.

Ever thought that LinkedIn Sales Navigator is just another business tool with a hefty price? 

After reading this guide, you might start thinking differently. In the article, I’ll uncover everything about LinkedIn Sales Navigator—from key features to the best strategies of how teams can use it for generating leads. 

Stay tuned and learn how to streamline your prospecting and close more deals with this LinkedIn premium tool.

What is LinkedIn Sales Navigator?

Sales Navigator is the LinkedIn Premium feature that helps businesses find, connect with, and nurture high-quality leads on the platform. 

Unlike a free LinkedIn account, this paid tool provides 50+ advanced search filters, personalized lead recommendations, and robust outreach tools for effective prospect engagement.

Enabling more precise targeting, LinkedIn Sales Navigator helps identify the right people and build connections that can contribute to your business goals. This premium tool is perfect for sales teams, marketers, recruiters, and other professionals who use LinkedIn for prospecting and networking.

Key features of LinkedIn Sales Navigator

LinkedIn Sales Navigator helps sales and marketing teams find, connect with, and nurture leads more effectively. Let’s explore what features let this platform streamline your business growth.

Advanced search and filtering

Thanks to its powerful filtering options, you can find the right people with less effort using LinkedIn Sales Navigator. No matter which plan you choose, you’ll have access to advanced filters that help refine a search for both individual specialists and companies.

Unlike the free LinkedIn version, Sales Navigator enables a more refined lead search by applying filtering criteria such as seniority level, job changes, buyer intent, and more. Thus, you can identify leads that perfectly match your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) faster and focus on nurturing them without delay.

To identify businesses that may be interested in your solutions, you can start filtering accounts by company headcount, annual revenue, recent hiring activity, etc.

Saved searches

There is no need to set all the necessary filtering options again every time you look for new prospects. Sales Navigator lets you save your search and conduct it anytime without the need to reapply filtering manually. 

Once you’ve set up an advanced search for leads or accounts, simply turn on the “Save search” feature for easy access.

No need to constantly repeat the search. The tool will send automated alerts when new prospects match your criteria. So, you can be sure that no fresh opportunity will ever be missed.

Another benefit of LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the ability to create personas based on the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), which simplifies the identification of high-potential leads. Just set the parameters, such as seniority level, function, job title filter, and location, and the tool will save your persona for future searches.

No matter the Sales Navigator account type, you can save up to 5 personas for different customer segments. Further, you’ll use them as preset filters for finding the right LinkedIn prospects in seconds.

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Lead and account recommendations

Besides advanced search filters, Sales Navigator provides tailored recommendations based on search behavior and saved lists. In addition to suggested leads within the same company, the platform automatically generates a list of top prospects that are most likely to convert.

Every week, your account will receive 100 personalized suggestions based on buyer intent signals and past interactions.

This feature can truly empower LinkedIn prospecting as it helps discover new opportunities without requiring additional manual search.

InMail messaging

Sales Navigator gives you 50 free inMails per month, letting you reach out to people outside your LinkedIn network. Since this type of messaging doesn’t require a prior connection, it can be a great icebreaker in conversations with decision-makers. More so, InMails increase the likelihood of direct engagement, speeding up the outreach.

Lead management

Finding leads with advanced search filters and sending InMails are not the only benefits of this LinkedIn premium tool. You can use Sales Navigator to segment, organize, and monitor prospects while also tracking all engagements in one place.

With this structured approach, you can gain a clear understanding of your overall lead activity and prioritize your outreach efforts more effectively.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator account types and pricing 

Before diving into the best practices on how to use LinkedIn Sales Navigator, let’s explore its three account types so you can make the best choice for your business needs.

1. Sales Navigator Core

This package includes core features of LinkedIn Sales Navigator, which allow finding new prospects, contacting them via InMails, gaining insights into accounts, and more.

The Core account type is the most cost-effective option Sales Navigator provides. This plan is perfect for solopreneurs, startups, freelancers, small agencies, etc. 

Top features:

• Advanced filtering options with the ability to save searches
• Alerts on the saved leads and companies
• 50 free InMail messages per month
• Up to 10,000 leads saved monthly
• Personalized lead and account recommendations
• Ability to create custom lists for lead tracking

2. Sales Navigator Advanced

This account type includes everything provided in the Core plan plus extra features for team collaboration, advanced reporting, and account management. 

The Advanced package is an excellent solution for small to mid-sized sales teams, large agencies, and companies looking to scale their LinkedIn sales outreach. 

Top features:

• Lead IQ for aggregating key insights about leads
• Account IQ for creating account summaries with AI
• TeamLinks that allow accessing the 2nd and 3rd connections of your teammates
• SmartLinks for easy content sharing and engagement tracking
• Buyer intent signals
• Detailed usage reporting
• Dedicated LinkedIn account team
• Enterprise license management

3. Sales Navigator Advanced Plus

This is the most comprehensive package tailored for large enterprises that search for advanced features and customization options. This plan offers top-tier data integration and team workflow optimization at scale. 

With Sales Navigator Advanced Plus, you get everything from the Advanced plan, including deep CRM synchronization that lets you identify new prospects on LinkedIn based on your selling history.

Due to the robust automation and active CRM integration options, this solution is much more expensive than others. The Sales Navigator Advanced Plus plan is suitable for businesses with complex sales processes, multiple teams, and a high demand for seamless CRM automation.

Top features:

• Active CRM sync for automatic lead saves and updates
• Real-time lead activity updates
• ROI reporting
• CRM lead and contact creation right from Sales Navigator

How to set up your LinkedIn Sales Navigator account

Once you’ve decided on the LinkedIn Sales Navigator pricing plan that best suits your needs, it’s time for the account setup. Here, I suggest following these easy steps:

Step 1: Sign up for Sales Navigator

While on the Sales Navigator homepage, click the Sign-up button in the top right corner or choose “Start a free trial”. You’ll need to enter the credentials (email address and password) you’ll use for your LinkedIn account.

Step 2: Select the pricing plan

Once logged in, click “Try for free” to get the Core plan, or scroll down and select “Compare Sales Navigator plans”.

Choose the desired account type, select the preferred billing method, and fill in payment details to proceed.

Step 3: Set up your account

Configure your account settings by filling in the Sellers profile. This will let the platform better sync the lead searches with your needs.

Step 4: Customize your dashboard

Now you can start using Sales Navigator for LinkedIn prospecting. Create custom account lists, save lead searches, and customize your dashboard so you can receive the most relevant recommendations and insights.

How to use LinkedIn Sales Navigator for lead generation: top strategies and tips

Packed with great search filtering options and outreach features, Sales Navigator works excellently for lead generation. All you need is the right strategies, which you’ll find below.

Best practices of how to use LinkedIn Sales Navigator for lead generation: 

• Leverage advanced search filters
• Use a Boolean search
• Create lead lists
• Send InMails
• Export Sales Navigator leads to CSV
• Use alerts for effective follow-up

Leverage advanced search filters

To get the most out of Sales Navigator search filters, you should define your ICP first. Take the time to outline key attributes of your best prospects—job title, industry, location, etc. The more clearly you define your ICP, the more accurate searches will be.

Once you’ve clarified who your target is, start a search. For even better search results in Sales Navigator, I recommend you follow these “do’s” and “don’ts” when filtering leads: 

❌ Don’t: Apply all desired filters at once. Thus, you may overly narrow your search and exclude valuable leads.

✅ Do: Start with a broader search; then gradually add filtering options. For example, you can begin with Job title and Geography, further applying seniority level or industry filters to focus on decision-makers.

❌ Don’t: Rely on only one search approach. You can significantly limit your opportunities when using the same set of filters each time.  

✅ Do: Experiment with different filtering combinations for finding more potential leads. For example, you can broaden job titles or add more functions. 

❌ Don’t: Ignore less obvious filtering options. For example, by overlooking the Recent Updates tab, you can miss out on strong buying intent signals.

✅ Do: Use Sales Navigator engagement filters. Options like “Posted on LinkedIn” or “Changed jobs” can help reveal active users who may be open to new solutions, while the filter “Shared experiences” lets you find more relevant prospects.

Use a Boolean search

Want to enhance your Sales Navigator search even more? Then, a Boolean search is just what you need. It lets you refine your results by combining keywords with operators like AND, OR, and NOT.

Boolean search can be especially useful when filtering potential leads by job titles, as there are numerous variations in how companies name the same position.

For example, instead of running multiple searches for “Marketing Director” and “Head of Marketing,” you can type “Marketing Director” OR “Head of Marketing” to find both job titles in one search. The quotes mean you are looking for the exact match.

You can use parentheses to narrow your search results by several criteria. For example, you can define the job title and field in one search, excluding irrelevant results: 

(“Marketing Director” OR “Head of Marketing”) AND (Sales OR Marketing) NOT (Assistant OR Founder OR “Co-Founder”)

Create lead lists

Lead lists can help you manage your outreach process more effectively. For example, you can build separate lists for warm leads who have already engaged with your content, adding lists for new leads you haven’t contacted yet. This way, you can personalize your messaging and other interactions based on their engagement level.

Pro tip:

Exclude your clients and competitors

Ensure your searches bring only new opportunities. Organize competitors and recent clients in a separate account list.

Then, when running a search, select your account list with competitors and clients, and click “Exclude”.

People from those companies will be automatically filtered out from your Sales Navigator search results while you avoid irrelevant outreach.

Send InMails

Use this feature as a great opportunity for starting conversations with potential customers outside your network.

Just be accurate with your InMail copies. Don’t use generic messages; instead, reference something specific about your lead, as it will make your InMail feel more relevant and personalized.

You can warm up your outreach by engaging with prospects before making direct contact. Try liking their posts or leaving thoughtful comments so they get familiar with your persona. You can streamline your efforts by using tools for automated engagement.

Export Sales Navigator leads to CSV

You’ll need it if you prefer managing leads through a CRM. Though Sales Navigator doesn’t provide such an option, you can use a handy Snov.io LinkedIn Email Finder extension for extracting leads from the platform. 

Just install the extension for free and launch it on your lead list or search results page. Your data will be uploaded to Snov.io, where you can export it in the desired format or use it for further outreach campaigns.

The tool collects essential data like names, job titles, company information, LinkedIn profiles, and emails, so you can sync contact details across platforms. 

Besides, Snov.io verifies all email addresses on the go, so you don’t need an extra verification tool at this stage.

Use alerts for effective follow-up

In Sales Navigator, you can set up alerts that notify you when a prospect starts a new position, engages with your profile, or shares an update. This information can be handy for building an effective follow-up strategy. 

Once you add a lead to your list, you’ll receive notifications about their key updates, such as new posts, job changes, or shared content. Use these real-time insights for a timely and personalized follow-up outreach.

For example:

Alert: your lead has just shared an industry-related post.

Follow-up message: 

Great insights on [topic], [Name]! I am very impressed by how you talk about [specific problem], and I’d love to hear more about your perspective. Let’s connect!

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Final word

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a working solution for solo professionals, sales teams, and businesses looking to streamline their prospecting and outreach efforts. 

When used strategically, Sales Navigator helps identify high-potential leads that can drive value to your business. Just take it a step further by syncing this premium LinkedIn plan with robust automation tools like Snov.io. May this combo become a powerful engine for your lead-generation machine!