LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the premium version of LinkedIn, used by sales managers all over the world to generate and nurture leads.

It’s currently priced at $64.99/month, comparable to other popular marketing automation tools. Since other tools also offer advanced features and integration with other apps, this leaves an important question: Is LinkedIn Sales Navigator worth it? To answer this question, let’s explore some of the key features you should consider if you’re thinking about using LinkedIn Sales Navigator for better prospecting or upgrading your LinkedIn lead generation strategy.

1. Getting started

To access LinkedIn Sales Navigator, click on the “Work” dropdown menu in the top right corner of your homepage, then select “Sales Solutions” from the options. This will lead you straight to the Sales Navigator offer that should look like this:

From there, you should take your time and sign up carefully. It’s not as easy as clicking “Next” until everything is done – you’ll have the option to import the leads and accounts you want to target, select your job functions, territories, and even sync up with Salesforce.

LinkedIn will then use this information and suggest accounts (companies) which you can select and save.

You can then import your connections and Sales Navigator is set up. Keep in mind that the more effort you put in during these steps, the more it will pay off in the long run. Since Sales Navigator has powerful predictive search, it will use this data to provide you with the best experience possible.

2. Use advanced search

One feature LinkedIn Sales Navigator is particularly known for is its advanced search. This is where you’ll be spending most of your time – searching, optimizing keywords, and using filters to narrow down your search and find quality leads.

There are lots of advanced search filters you can apply to either companies or people, but here are some of our favorite ones:

• Fortune: target companies that are listed on Fortune 50/100/500
• Recent job changes: narrow down your search to people who have recently started a new position
• Hiring on LinkedIn: search for companies who are currently hiring through LinkedIn – this could be great if you’re looking for a new project
• Keywords: search for keywords found in your prospects’ profiles

3. Find people in LinkedIn Groups

To get leads from a group using  free LinkedIn, you would have to search that group using keywords, join the group, and then either contact each individual member or use a tool to scrape the contacts from the group.

With the Sales Navigator, you can bypass this whole process and connect with the group’s members right away. Simply use the advanced filter “Groups”, enter the groups whose members you’d like to connect with, and then Sales Navigator will include these people in your results.

4. Find similar

Here’s an extremely useful feature that can help you get quality leads with minimal effort. To make full use of this feature, you need to have a general idea of your buyer persona. Once you know what kind of leads you’re looking for, this will become a powerful feature!

All you need to do is select any individual prospect from your search results, click on the three little dots on the right, and select “view similar.” This will bring up more than 100 leads that are similar to the one you selected.

When used properly, this option can get you some high quality leads in a few clicks.

5. Use Boolean search

If you want to make your search as narrow as possible, you can use the traditional Boolean search where you can combine keywords with operators like AND, OR, and NOT.

So, for example, you can use a quoted search if you want to search for a specific term. That way, if you search for “senior social media manager” (with quotations), you will get people with that exact phrase in their title, rather than people whose profiles have been optimized for some of those keywords.

Another great example is the AND search, where you can search for people who match several criteria. So, you can search for “finance AND sales AND senior” to find someone in a specific niche.

6. Track your progress

Finally, the LinkedIn Sales Navigator allows you to access your Social Selling Index, or SSI, which is essentially an indicator of how well you’re using your Sales Navigator.

You can see your SSI score details by clicking on the % right next to the actual SSI score number. Once you do that, you’ll see a detailed explanation on what you’re doing well so far and which areas you can improve. You’ll also see how you compare to other people in the industry, your network, or even your team.

This will give you important insight as you keep using Sales Navigator, so you can constantly improve your strategy and make the most out of the tool.

Final word

There’s no doubt that Sales Navigator is a powerful tool that can help you improve your prospecting strategy and expand your brand.

However, don’t expect that the tool will do all the work – you’re still behind the wheel, which means you have to invest the time to make smart decisions and monitor your results. And, if something isn’t working, adapt quickly and change your LinkedIn marketing strategy!

If you want to use LinkedIn Sales Navigator for better prospecting, be ready to invest time, money, and effort into managing the tool to achieve your goals.

Author bio: Stefan Smulders is a SaaS Entrepreneur | Founder of Worlds safest software for LinkedIn Automation / Expandi.io | for more than 5 years Founder of LeadExpress.nl.