How To Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator To Generate Leads

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the best platform for finding leads for B2B outbound sales.

It has the most accurate data, since LinkedIn is the only business related platform where people update their profiles in real time.

Other tools, such as Apollo and ZoomInfo, are worse versions of Sales Navigator.

In this article, I will show you how to use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to find leads for your business:

Step 1: Sign up
Step 2: Search for leads
Step 3: Export leads with their email addresses
Step 4: Email your leads with Emailchaser

Step 1: Sign up

The first step is to sign up for a LinkedIn Sales Navigator account.

It costs $97 USD per month, which is not too expensive considering you get access to tens of millions of leads, and over 25 search filters.

You cannot use Sales Navigator on a basic (free) LinkedIn account. You need to upgrade to a paid plan.

Technically, there are multiple different types of LinkedIn Sales Navigator accounts. I recommend that you sign up for the “Sales Navigator Core” plan ($97 USD per month).

Step 2: Search for leads

The next step is to search for relevant leads.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator has over 25 search filters.

Below are some filters that I like to use:

“Company headcount”:
I usually search for leads that are in companies with at least 11 employees, but no more than 200. If a company is too small, then they probably don’t have sufficient revenue to pay for my product or service. If the company is too big, then the sales cycle time will be too long.

“Company type”:
I usually select the “Privately Held” option under the “Company type” search filter. Privately held companies move fast, meaning that the sales cycle will be shorter, compared to a non profit or government agency.

“Current job title”:
For most lead searches, you should look for the following decision makers: Founder, Co-Founder, Owner, Co-Owner, and Chief Executive Officer.

“Geography”:
I usually look for leads in countries that speak English and have a high average income. I recommend that you enter the following countries into this search filter: United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. There are many other countries that you can look for leads in, but for most people, the countries I mentioned are sufficient.

“Industry”:
Sales Navigator has dozens of different options for this search filter, so it’s best that you select what is most relevant to your ideal customer profile.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator also has some interesting search filter options under the “Buyer intent” and “Recent updates” sections which you should look into.

Step 3: Export leads with their email addresses

Once you have found a list of relevant leads in LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you need to contact them.

The issue with Sales Navigator is that they only allow you to send 50 InMail messages per month.

Additionally, LinkedIn Sales Navigator doesn’t give you the email address of each lead.

Fortunately, there is a way to contact an unlimited number of leads from Sales Navigator, and bypass LinkedIn’s limitations.

You can install Emailchaser’s LinkedIn Email Finder extension, which allows you to export your leads from Sales Navigator with their email addresses as a .csv file.

You may be wondering how this is possible, since I just mentioned that LinkedIn doesn’t give you the email address of each lead.

The reason this works is because Emailchaser developed a proprietary email finding software which is used in their extension. The extension takes publicly available information, such as names and websites, and then uses that information to find the verified email address of each lead, even when their email address isn’t publicly available.

Once you have exported your leads from LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you can then upload them into your sales CRM or cold email sending tool (like Emailchaser).

Step 4: Email your leads with Emailchaser

The next step is to send personalized cold emails to your leads.

You can do this by uploading your leads to Emailchaser.

Emailchaser is a sales CRM that allows you to send personalized cold emails that land in the primary inbox (not spam).

The best way to do this is by clicking the “Create campaign” button inside your Emailchaser account, and uploading your leads as a .csv file.

After you launch your campaign, any leads that respond will automatically appear in the Sales CRM page in your Emailchaser account.

You will also be notified each time a lead responds.

As mentioned previously, the reason why I recommend that you follow this strategy is because LinkedIn Sales Navigator only gives you 50 InMail credits per month, meaning that the only way to contact an unlimited number of leads is through email.

Frequently asked questions

Final thoughts

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is the best platform for finding leads for B2B outbound sales.

I recommend that you follow my 4-step process when using Sales Navigator:

Step 1: Sign up
Step 2: Search for leads
Step 3: Export leads with their email addresses
Step 4: Email your leads with Emailchaser

On a related note, you should check out my article Can You Message Someone On LinkedIn Without Premium?

Additionally, you may enjoy my other article How To Reach Out To People On LinkedIn (& What To Say).