With 830 million members, 53 million companies and more than 100 million active job listings, LinkedIn is the largest store of public business data in history. The problem is, how do you extract that LinkedIn data to make use of it? Whether you’re a salesperson looking to prospect, a market intelligence professional finding intel or an academic performing research – LinkedIn scraping can help you get the data you need, in the format you need it.
What is scraping?
Data scraping is a method of data collection in which a computer program extracts data from websites and web pages. The purpose of this technique is to obtain otherwise inaccessible or unstructured data. This can be useful for businesses looking to use the information they collect in sales and marketing campaigns, competitive and market intelligence, or even just for their own purposes (such as tracking sales).
How can I use scraped data?
Understanding customers
Data scraping can provide insight into an individual’s current role, organisation, education, interests, skills and a whole host of information that might be useful for a business. It can help you to form an ideal customer profile, or identify individual targets for prospecting. It can also help you to better understand groups, industries and verticals. For example, LinkedIn scraping might allow a company selling training courses to discover how many individuals with a specific job title already have a qualification.
Understanding competitors
Extracting competitor data can help you to learn about their business structure, products and services, pricing strategies, marketing campaigns, hiring patterns and more – all of which could be useful in improving your own company’s performance. Scraping a competitor’s job postings, for example, could help you to determine which departments they are investing in and how fast they are growing. This is also useful information for investors.
LinkedIn Scraping
You can scrape data from LinkedIn search results and also directly from profiles – as long as those profiles aren’t private. The easiest way to do this is with a LinkedIn scraper tool, like Lix. LinkedIn scraping with Lix is as easy as performing a search, setting your filters and choosing your export options. You can export People, Profile, Companies and Jobs data in minutes, saving you time and money.
Let’s take a look at some of the data you can export from LinkedIn using Lix:
Search Results: People, Companies and Jobs
The most common form of LinkedIn scraping happens on search result pages. This is the page you land on when you type a keyword into the search bar on LinkedIn.
These are great for scraping, because they’re packed with lots of data per page. This is is important because LinkedIn have some rules about how many pages you can view in a day. In order to comply with their fair usage policies, it’s advised to not view more than 1,000 pages in a day. If you’re exporting profile data, this means you can export a maximum of 1,000 profiles in a day. However, standard LinkedIn search results show 10 results per page – allowing you up to 10,000 rows of data per day. Sales Navigator gives you 25 results per page, giving you a potential 25,000 scraped rows per day.
Currently, Lix can export People, Companies and Jobs results, but we will be adding other options in the future. Scraping these pages is super simple, here’s a 40 second video showing you how it works:
Export LinkedIn connections
Exporting LinkedIn connections is another popular form of LinkedIn scraping. You may want to export your own connections, to keep a record of your network or perhaps add them to a CRM.
There are many instances where you may want to export someone else’s connections, too. This is possible as long as you are connected to the individual whose connections you’d like to scrape. This is due to data privacy laws and there is no way around this – other than connecting with that person.
A complete LinkedIn profile is packed with data. Data this is extremely important in the recruiting process, or for market intelligence research. It can also be a great source of icebreakers and deep dive info on sales prospects.
Exporting LinkedIn profiles is a little more complicated than exporting search results, because you view far more individual pages in a short space of time. There is also a lot more data to collect for each result!
Lix’s Profile Enrichment tool works in conjunction with Sales Navigator, because Sales Navigator users can view more profiles per day without hitting LinkedIn’s limits.
The process itself is simple – export a list of individuals from a Leads search and then enrich that search in the Profile Enrichment area of your Lix dashboard. You get 50 free enrichments a month, so do give it a try and see what data you can get!
LinkedIn scraping allows you to export, works with and glean insights from the huge store of public data on LinkedIn. According to our users, Lix is the fastest and easiest way to do that! If you’d like to try it for yourself we give you 1,000 rows of data, 50 profile enrichments and 50 valid emails every single month.
Business intelligence for sales is a rapidly-growing field. It’s something the big players have been using for some time but with tools becoming more accessible to smaller teams, startups and even solopreneurs and getting in on the action.
What is business intelligence?
Business intelligence (BI) is a broad term that refers to the processes, tools and technologies used by organizations to extract, analyse and present business information. BI tools are used to help make sense of large volumes of data in order to identify trends or patterns. These insights are then communicated through dashboards and reports so that business stakeholders can act on them quickly.
BI technologies include data warehouses, data marts, ETL (extract-transform-load) tools for moving data from various sources into one central location for analysis, OLAP (online analytical processing) cubes for performing sophisticated calculations on large datasets, reporting tools such as Crystal Reports or Microsoft Excel macros — basically anything you need in order to work with large amounts of information efficiently and effectively.
Business intelligence can be used across departments and teams, giving companies a competitive advantage over their competition by helping them make better decisions faster.
Business intelligence is data-driven decision making
Business intelligence for sales, then, is about using that data to make better decisions.
If your business relies on sales to drive revenue, as a sales leader the decisions you make have a far-reaching effect. In a large company, your decisions can decide whether entire departments hit target or not. At a startup, it can be the difference between staying afloat or sinking. Business intelligence provides the data to inform and support those decisions. Helping you to make better decisions, faster.
Data-driven decision making is about making better decisions based on facts, not feelings or gut instinct.
Let’s look at some examples of how this might work:
You want to increase revenue, so you decide to target more affluent customers with a bigger budget than the average consumer. Using your BI dashboard, you can identify the top five percent of consumers who have spent the most per month by dividing their total spending by their total number of purchases—and then segment these high spenders into a separate list. Using this list, you can find common traits among your top spenders to identify the type of customer that is most valuable to your business – allowing you to build a lookalike audience for your team to reach out to. These are now your “high value targets” (HVT).
You’re looking for ways to improve customer retention and reduce churn rate (or attrition). Your BI dashboard tells you that 20% of customers that churn do so in the week before their renewal date; therefore, it might makes sense to come up with a strategy to contact customers in the period and remind them of the value you provide.
Business Intelligence for Sales: Tools
Now we know what business intelligence is and how it works – let’s dive into some of the tools you can use to achieve these results. I’ve included tools to suit different teams sizes, from those with the biggest budgets down to the startups and SMEs.
Salesforce Einstein Analytics is a cloud-based business intelligence tool that allows users to analyse their CRM data in real time.
As you might guess from the name, Salesforce Einstein is an add-on to the ubiquitous Salesforce CRM, which means it can be accessed through the same interface as your existing Salesforce account. Because it connects directly with your Salesforce CRM, there’s no need to prepare your data or transfer anything. Einstein’s AI will automatically look for patterns and apply the correct models to the data you have, providing predictions and suggestions without the need for input. It’s like having a small BI team integrated into your firm.
If you’re already using Salesforce, this is a great option for you. Like Salesforce, though, it won’t be cheap!
Sisense
Sisense is a business intelligence software that allows you to gather and analyse your sales data from various sources.
So for businesses with multiple products and channels, Sisense collects, analyses and visualises you BI data across multiple departments so that everyone has access to meaningful information at their fingertips. Where Salesforce Einstein works with the data you enter into Salesforce, Sisense will gather that data from almost anywhere your users interact with you – website, socials, email, CRM etc.
Tableau
Tableau are the gold standard in data visualisation.
You can use Tableau to create beautiful dashboards and data visualisations, to share with your team, board of director, investors etc. If you’ve watched presentations at board meetings, trade shows or meetups – chances are you’ve seen a Tableau visualisation!
Lix
This is the Lix blog, so it would be remiss of me to leave us out! The Lix tool is used for two primary reasons – lead generation and data gathering. When we’re talking business intelligence for sales, the latter should precede the former! If we think back to the example of growing revenue by finding top spenders, once you have a list of traits for your high value targets, you could use Lix to find those individuals and export their data.
Lix, as its core, is a LinkedIn data extractor. It works by exporting information from the world’s single largest store of business data – LinkedIn! LinkedIn is perfect for mining BI data because firms and individuals alike stay on top of updating their profiles. Often more regularly than they would their own websites.
Lix is great for smaller teams who perhaps don’t have access to some of the other tools listed here. You can even start for free with 1,000 rows of data every month.
Mixpanel
Mixpanel is another great tool for smaller teams. In fact, we use Mixpanel here at Lix.
It allows you to build dashboards and visualise data from your website and other sources in real time. I can use Mixpanel to see if my users are having errors with the Lix tool, how many of them are exporting, which cities have the most usage and so on.
It’s a really easy way to start getting actionable insights on the data you’re amassing – often without realising!
With the right tools and processes, sales teams can use business intelligence to improve decision making and increase their bottom line. Sales data can be used to pinpoint problem areas that need attention, identify opportunities for improvement, and make smarter choices about how to allocate time and resources. If you’re not already business business intelligence for sales, I hope this blog has inspired you to start!
The term “sales engagement” is used to describe a sales team’s ability to engage buyers with personalised interactions, across multiple channels, during their buyer’s journey. Engagement has become an increasingly important topic for many businesses, particularly those in high-growth markets where competition is fierce. If your business wants to grow, it needs a strong strategy in place to nurture its customers through the buyer’s journey and lead them to conversion.
Sales engagement is a combination of marketing and sales. It’s a process of nurturing prospective buyers with personalized interactions across multiple channels to lead them to conversion. The goal is to increase sales, revenue, and customer lifetime value.
The first thing you need to know about sales engagement is that it isn’t just one thing—it can be used by many different departments in your company, such as marketing or customer success teams. Engagement can also be done across multiple channels like email, phone calls, live chat or video calls (including virtual meetings), social media posts and landing pages.
What is sales engagement management?
Sales engagement management usually refers to a tool, or online platform used by sales teams to develop a strategy and deliver coordinated, targeted messages at key points in the buyer’s journey.
Increase your pipeline velocity by targeting buyers when they’re most receptive to new information or products.
Improve your conversion rate by making it easy for prospects to get started with a demo or trial of your product.
Sales engagement strategy
The first step in developing a sales engagement strategy is to conduct strategic planning. Strategic planning involves setting goals and objectives, understanding the market and your competitors, and understanding the buyer’s journey.
Strategic planning allows you to plan out what needs to happen before any execution takes place. Without this step, there may be no way to measure your results once they come in!
Personalised engagements
The most successful engagement strategies create personalized engagements across multiple channels. It’s important to leverage technology, data and strategy to personalize the customer journey in a way that will resonate with them. The most successful sales engagement strategies are flexible enough to respond to the needs of your customers at every stage of the buying process, while remaining strategic and aligned across channels.
Sales engagement planning
A sales engagement plan can incorporate content marketing, social selling, email marketing and even traditional face-to-face meetings.
Content marketing is just what it sounds like—using content you create (such as blog posts or videos) to attract prospects who are interested in what you have to say. Social selling refers to networking with potential clients through social media channels like LinkedIn and Facebook. Email marketing involves sending personalized messages through email to build rapport with contacts who’ve opted in by providing their contact information. Face-to-face meetings occur when you reach out directly through phone calls or in person at events such as trade shows or conferences.
Sales engagement for leaders
As a sales leader, you need to help your team understand the importance of engagement. It has become an essential part of business operations for companies that want to grow in today’s competitive markets.
As a leader, you also need to develop a strategy and process for engaging with your customers. This should include:
Having a clear understanding of what your company does, who its audience is, and how it can serve them better than competitors.
Putting together an effective team that includes representatives from all departments throughout the organization (including marketing).
Building relationships with potential clients by offering relevant content on social media platforms like LinkedIn or Twitter.
Engagement is a critical component of any sales strategy. It can help you develop new leads, close deals faster and create long-term relationships with your customers. However, it’s not just about having a great strategy in place; you also need tools to manage your outreach efforts and track the results of each interaction. That’s why we developed our platform with sales engagement at its core—to help you develop personalized interactions with your prospects and customers across multiple channels, while giving you real-time insight into performance metrics like open rates, click-through rates and conversion rates. These insights are invaluable when it comes time for planning future outreach activities based on what worked (and didn’t work) before!
Cold emailing can be tough. With so many other reps and firms in your prospect’s inbox demanding their attention, cutting through the noise isn’t easy. So when I see a cold email that does just that, I take note! A few months ago, I received a cold email that really grabbed my attention – and it has changed the way I do my outreach.
The email was from a market-leading CRM provider (no, not that one – the other one). It went like this:
Hi Alfie, I made you a quick video (60 seconds), click here to watch:
Below the to-the-point opening sentence was a gif. A gif taken from a video of the CRM rep looking at my website.
I was hooked in. I needed to know what was being said in the video! I immediately clicked through and watched it. The video was less than 60 seconds long and in it, the rep talked about how his company could help us achieve our goals. They did so using specific examples, related to the content of my site. I responded almost immediately and booked in for a call.
Personalised videos can be a powerful tool in your outreach arsenal, but it can be hard to know where to start. Never fear! That is exactly why I wrote this blog. Let’s get started.
Why Use Personalised Videos in Cold Emails?
It could be tempting to save time and just send a demo or explainer video to your prospect. After all, it’s going to take a long time to make all those individual videos, right? Well – yes it would be faster, but it won’t work!
A video that isn’t personalised is just another friction point. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. You’ve already interrupted their flow with an email they didn’t ask for, now you want them to go and watch a video about your product. Their first thought is probably going to be “why can’t they just tell me what they’re selling?”.
Personalisation is important for two reasons. Firstly, it builds a connection with the recipient. Being able to see your face and hear your voice will allow them to connect with your words and your energy in a way that text can’t. Secondly, it allows you to tailor your message so that it addresses specific details about their situation or company.
To go back to my example in the intro – it was seeing that rep on my website that captured my interest. It was them relating their pitch to my site and my business specifically that prompted me to respond. If they had just sent me a video of their product, I probably wouldn’t have watched it.
With that out of the way, let’s get down to business.
How to Add Personalised Video to Your Cold Emails
Now we know why personalisation is important, it’s time to get into how we make it happen.
In a nutshell, you are going to:
Record a short introduction video that explains who you are and why you’re a great fit for them. Make sure it’s not too long – 30 to 60 seconds is ideal. Anything more than a minute and you’ll lose their interest.
Craft some email copy that provides everything they need to proceed after they’ve seen the video.
Start sending those emails!
Step 1. Do your research
In order to make personalised videos for cold emails, you’re going to need a list of prospects and some research around them and their business. Lix can help you to find the email address of anyone on LinkedIn, plus enrich your prospect lists with their profile data – if you need a headstart for this step!
Once you have your list read and you understand your prospect’s, it’s time to move to Step 2.
Step 2. Make a short script for each person.
I know what some of you are thinking right now. “Script? I don’t need a script! Communication is what I do!”. I get it. I was the same when I first started sending videos to prospects. I soon realised that having a script, even just some bullet points, helps you to stay on track.
Remember, these video are supposed to be short and to the point. There isn’t room for you to ramble while you remember your points! You need to communicate who you are, what you’re selling and why they specifically are a great fit using examples from their website or social media – all in less than a minute.
If you can do that off the cuff with no notes, hats off to you!
Step 3. Choose your tool
The best personalised videos show the recipient from the outset that it is, in fact, personalised. For this, I advise recording using something like Loom. Loom allows you to record a video on top of a web page – with your face taking up a small circle in the corner. This allows you to showcase their page as the main attraction.
Here’s a example of me using Loom on the Lix homepage:
Step 4. Record
Unless you’re an avid videographer or an actor in your spare time, this part will take some getting used to. Most people don’t like recording themselves, and I get it. It’s just about practice. The more you make, the better you’ll get and the less nervous you’ll be.
When recording your video, make sure that:
You have a good camera and lighting.
You are in a quiet place where no one else will disturb you while filming, so that you can focus on what is being said in the recording.
Step 5. Craft Copy & Send
When your video is ready, it’s time to prep the email. Remember, the personalised video is the star of the show. Your email content exists to drive recipients to the video and support your message.
If you’re comfortable with technology, it’s great idea to turn a section of your video into a gif (you can do that here). If not, provide a screenshot from the video. That way, your recipient knows what to expect when they click the link – they also know it’s not a virus!
For copy, I would advise keeping it short and sweet, just like the example at the top of this blog:
Hi {First Name},
I made you a quick video (60 seconds) click to watch
Then below the video, if you want add some links to testimonials or make a (short) supporting statement then do so. Most importantly however is the call to action.
Give your reader a clear, guided next step. Whether that’s a link to your Calendly, or asking them for a reply – make sure it’s in there!
Personalised videos can make a big difference to your cold emails
Personalised videos are a great way to connect with your audience. They can also increase your conversion rate, help you stand out from the crowd and build trust with your audience. And if that’s not enough, personalised videos can also help you build relationships with people!
Remember that when we talk about building relationships, it’s not just about one-way communication—it’s about two-way communication. You don’t want to be seen as just another company or brand; you want to be seen as an individual who is willing to go out of their way for their customers.
We hope that this post has helped you understand the importance and value of personalised videos. Video outreach is no longer a passing fad, but rather an integral part of your brand’s overall marketing and sales strategy. By using video to connect with your audience on a personal level, you can build trust in your message and reach out to new customers.
Posting content on LinkedIn can be powerful tool that can help you grow your business, reach customer and close deals – but if you’re not posting at the right time, it might not be working as well as it could be.
If you’re not posting content on LinkedIn yet and this is part of your initial research, here’s a video I made that might help you with getting started:
The act of posting is fairly straightforward. There are two ways to share content on LinkedIn: you can either link to external content, like your own blog or YouTube video; or you can post natively to LinkedIn by writing a blog directly in LinkedIn Pulse, or uploading video directly to your feed. As with most social platforms, it seems that native content is preferred in the algorithm. Don’t worry too much about this, though. If your blog is on your website, it’s best to share it direct from there. Remember to never copy and paste your content into LinkedIn – this will hurt your SEO!
Ok, enough fluff, let’s get into it…
Best days and times to post on LinkedIn
A good starting point here is to get into the mind of your ideal customer, the end reader or viewer for your content. Think about when they are using LinkedIn and have the time to engage with what you post.
According to a study performed by Sprout Social, the best days to post are Tuesdays to Thursday, with the highest engagement coming between 10am and noon:
This makes sense in context. On a Monday, people are usually getting back into the week, catching up with the weekend’s correspondence and kicking off their projects for the following days. On a Friday, people are wrapping up their work (or they have one eye on the weekend!).
Where this becomes a little more complicated, is when you factor in time zones. The beauty of social media is that you can reach customers all around the world. It may even be the case that a large portion of your users are based in another country. For example, most Lix users live in the USA, whereas we’re in the UK. If I post content at 10am UK time, it might be 4am – 6am for my US audience. It’s better for to me to post at the tail-end of the high engagement, at say 2-3pm, so that I can maximise my engagement in the both the UK and the US at the same time.
If you’re not always available to post content at these times, check out this short piece I wrote on LinkedIn automation tools and content scheduling – this can help you to prep your work and have it post at at time that suits you.
In short – the key to finding the best time to post on LinkedIn, is to think like your customers! Put yourself in their shoes and adjust for time zones. I hope that I’ve been able to give you some insight into when it’s best to post on LinkedIn. I know that everyone has their own schedule, but if you can stick to these guidelines, your posts will likely reach a wider audience and generate more engagement than they would otherwise.
B2B sales can be daunting, especially if you’re just starting out. When a problem seems large and daunting, my trick is always to break it down. Which is exactly what this blog will do for you. Sales is part art, part science. If you can nail the processes, focus on your customers and get into the right mindset, sales success awaits.
So, whether you are a budding salesperson embarking on a new path, or a seasoned pro looking for some inspiration, stick with me and together we will take on the task ahead! With that said, let’s get stuck in.
Understand your customer
Whether you are a business owner, b2b sales rep or b2b marketer, if your job is to sell then you understand the importance of determining exactly who you want to sell to.
I’ve put this step first, because getting into the mindset and understanding the needs of your prospects will form the bedrock of your sales. After all, good sales is about building relationships and helping someone to solve a problem. To solve a problem, you must first understand it!
If you’re working for a company with an established audience, then deep dive into the customers you already have. Talk to them, meet with them. Look at what they buy and when.
When you’re starting from scratch with a new product, it’s all about market research. Go to where your potential customers are and learn all you can about them. How do they currently solve this problem? How much do they spend? Who are the market leaders?
You should also determine what factors might prevent these people from buying your product or service. Are there too many requirements for them to remember or use your item? Does it offer enough benefit over other options?
These questions are important because they can help you to really get into the mindset of your prospect. When you know this information and really understand your clients, you can reach out to them with a truly solid pitch to try your product or service.
Whether you are selling a software subscription, or providing business services, your prospect needs your help to solve a problem. Keep this in mind throughout the sales journey. Your goal should not be to close a deal and gain some commission, but to help them solve this problem.
If you can demonstrate to your prospect that you can alleviate them of this problem and make their lives easier, or more fruitful, half the battle is won. This can take a few different forms, depending on the market and position that you’re in.
A B2B sales rep in an SME or above will often have a team working around them, including (usually) a marketing person or persons. When this is the case, often the top of your sales funnel will feature content (blogs, white papers, webinars…) to educate and inform. By the time a lead reaches the sales team, the prospect should be aware of exactly how you can solve their problem and it’s your job to convince them that your firm is the one to do it.
Smaller teams, startups and solopreneurs have to wear all these hats at once. If you own the entire sales journey from first contact to close, then its your job to educate and inform. If this applies to you – never fear! Your superpower is your ability to connect with your clients, one to one. There is no passing between teams, they will have you and only you to focus on.
If you’ve taken the time to understand your customers, demonstrating how you can solve their problems will be much easier. If you’re struggling with this step, go back to step one and start again!
Be human and tell stories
Human beings are wired to respond to storytelling. For many thousands of years we have passed on our histories, cultures, thoughts and feelings via the medium of storytelling. It’s a very powerful tool.
The power of storytelling in sales is demonstrated in case studies and testimonials. A well-crafted case study or testimonial will have your prospect putting themselves in the place of the featured client. Imagining themselves having the positive experience, imagining themselves having their problem solved by you and your business.
The problem with case studies and testimonials is that people might skip over them, not having time to read a thousand words or watch a video. This is where you come in. Tell your prospect that story, make it comes to life. Use your energy and enthusiasm to help a story connect. Build that mental bridge for your customer by highlighting the similarities between the case study subject and themselves.
It’s all too easy to get stuck in the habit of selling with jargon and using price charts. This is especially true in B2B sales. For some reason, so many us forget that even business to business, is actually human to human. If you get on a call, or send an email to Apple, or Google, or whoever if may be – you’re not talking to that company. You’re talking to the human at the other end of the line!
Of course there’s a right time for both, sometimes a smattering of jargon shows your client that you know the industry terms, and crunching numbers works for some buyers. Use your intuition to know what works and when. If you’re new to selling, this is a skill you will develop over time.
Your brand and your stories are what make you unique. What experience do you want people to have when they think of you?
Experiment
If you start a new job, or begin selling a new product, and you get everything right first time – congratulations, you’re the first person in history to do so.
A good salesperson, marketer or entrepreneur is always experimenting, honing and perfecting their craft. That may not be a conscious effort for many. Lots of us do this every day without realising it. My advice to you however is to make this. a conscious effort. Try new things, work out new approaches and record your results.
Think of it like working out. Only measuring the outcomes, like how fast you ran a 5k or how much weight you lifted, will only take you so far. It’s understanding the factors that lead to these outcomes – how much sleep did I get? What did I eat? – that will take you to the next level. It’s the same with sales. If the only thing you’re measuring is meeting’s booked, or deal’s closed, you will hinder your progression. Understand the factors that went into both successful and unsuccessful pitches. What worked? What didn’t? Take notes, lots of notes, and review them. Over time you will have a playbook to follow that works for you specifically.
Be memorable
The real magic of sales lies in forging connections. See yourself as someone who engages and builds relationships. The salesperson who engages, educates and guides will always be more successful. Every interaction is a two way street, a conversation. It’s about engaging with, rather than talking at, your clients.
I have been on the receiving end of hundreds of pitches. I remember perhaps a dozen of those. The ones I remember, are the ones that engaged with me. In fact, some of those salespeople I have connected with on LinkedIn and still talk to from time to time!
Asking questions and really listening to the answers is your superpower when it comes to building rapport. When people feel heard and understood, then open up. When they open up, you can find common ground. Also – and this is important – remember what they say to you! If you don’t have a great memory, reach for that notepad. Ask them about the holiday they told you they were going on. Check in on them if they say they’re off sick. Once again – remember that you’re both human!
Choose words carefully
Words are powerful. Using the wrong one at the wrong time, can provoke a negative emotional response – often subconsciously for the receiving party.
This excellent Forbes article details some words that you should try to avoid and is well worth a read. I was guilty of using these words far too often. Words like “just” – a word that diminishes whatever comes next, or “I’ll try”, demonstrating a lack of confidence in your ability.
It can be tough to do this during a conversation when you’re in full flow, but over time it will become second nature. Start by being more careful with the words you use in emails – this will train your brain to make better choices!
Focus on your customer
If I were to sum up all of the advice given in this blog, this is it. Focus on your customers.
Understand who they are and what they need. Solve their problems. Engage with them. Be memorable. Understand what works for them and what doesn’t. Choose words that inspire them.
If. you can shift your mindset away from chasing a sales and towards helping your customers to succeed, then you in turn will succeed.
Now – get out there, and put this into practice! Good luck and happy selling.
LinkedIn is one of the most effective channels for B2B marketing and lead generation. With 800m+ users and 33m+ companies listed, it’s the digital networking event of your dreams! With so many users and companies though, it can be a lot to manage. That’s where LinkedIn automation can help you to save time, increase productivity and eke the most out of this powerful B2B sales tool. In this article, I’ll explain what LinkedIn automation is, how to automate different tasks on the platform, and how to maximize your activity on LinkedIn.
Looking for something in particular? Use these links to skip to the right section:
Automating LinkedIn can come in many different forms. You can automate posting content, sending connection requests and messages – even data collection & lead generation. Let’s look at some of the most popular LinkedIn automation applications and our favourite tools for each.
Automated Content Sharing
If you’re using LinkedIn for B2B marketing, or even building your personal brand, you’re likely sharing content regularly. If you’re not – it’s time to start! LinkedIn is a great place to share content and have it reach your target audience.
Looking to get started with LinkedIn content – or just up your content game? Here’s a video I made showing you how:
If you are sharing content regularly, then you’ll know that the time at which you post has a big impact on your reach and engagement. The more engagement your post receives early on, the better it fares with the LinkedIn algorithm… this then means it gets seen by more people, receives more engagement and so on. This is how virality works!
On the flip side, if you post at a low-activity time when not many people are online and ready to engage, your post will likely not have great reach. Without going too deep into posting times (that’s a blog in itself!) here’s my tip: think about when you’re free to use LinkedIn, when your ideal customer is around and adjust for time difference. For example, if you’re UK based like me, but you have users in the USA, it’s a good idea to post later in the day. The US is around 4-6 hours behind the UK, so posting at lunch will help you to reach the lunchtime UK crowd and the pre-work US browsers. Posting in the evening will reach the UK commuters on their way home while catching the US during their lunch break.
It’s not always possible to make yourself available at all hours of the day to post your content. That’s where LinkedIn automation comes in. Automated content posters will allow you to prep your post, crafty your company, insert your hashtags and schedule your post for the time that suits you.
In my opinion, the best on the market is Buffer. They’ve been leaders in the field for many years now and their service keeps on improving. Plus, you can use Buffer to schedule content for other channels too.
Lead Generation
Full disclosure, this is the Lix blog so I will be talking about Lix here, but don’t fear. Where a competitor does something better, I will recommend them instead! This blog is all about helping you to choose the best option for you. With that in mind, let’s break them down and dive in…
Automated Lead Generation: Emails
LinkedIn is jam-packed with lead gen potential. Millions upon millions of professionals, all neatly-listed with their job title, organisation, education… It’s like Yo-Sushi for salespeople!
Reaching out to prospects on LinkedIn is one thing (and we will get to that soon!) but what if you want to find and export their email addresses? That’s where something like Lix comes in. In short, the Lix tool will find, test, verify and export 98% accurate email addresses for LinkedIn prospects in minutes. Here’s a short (40 second) video showing you just how quick and easy it is:
Automated LinkedIn lead generation in just a few clicks
If you want to know a bit more about how it works, I’ve written a blog on LinkedIn emails that explains everything! If you’re ready to try it out then sign up at lix-it.com and get 50 free emails every single month.
Automated Lead Generation: Contact Numbers
Cold caller, as opposed to a cold emailer? Then Lix isn’t the tool for you (I told you I’d be honest!). When it comes to finding phone numbers, you can’t do better than ZoomInfo. Their database of contact numbers is unrivalled and they’ve been industry-leaders in this field for a very long time.
ZoomInfo also offer email addresses – so why go with Lix instead, I hear you ask? Really it comes down to price and speed. ZoomInfo is the market leader and they charge a hefty (but justified) price to match. It also takes a long time to get set up and running. If you’re a large organisation and can afford the time and money, go for it. They offer a ton of other cool features too!
Automated Lead Generation: Connections & Messages
I will start this section with a warning. Although this can be a great way to expand your network and generate leads, automating your connections and messages is the riskiest of all the methods on this list. It is really easy for LinkedIn to detect what you’re doing and they will stop you wherever possible. That doesn’t mean you can’t do it, but exercise some caution. With that said, let’s move on.
Even if you’ve never automated your connections and messages before, you’ve certainly experienced the receiving end. Those connections you get that come with a message, followed by a second and third message that feel a little robotic? Those have likely been automated. The reason they’re so easy to spot, is that they’re often not very well executed. My tip, if you’re going to try this particular flavour of LinkedIn automation, is to go lightly. Perhaps send connection requests with a broad opening message, then follow up with those who accept personally. Automated responses, especially when they’re not associated with triggers (if person says X, reply Y) just come off as robotic and insincere.
If you must try such a tool, then the best out there is probably Octopus – but be warned, I used it and my account was temporarily limited by LinkedIn for doing so.
Data Gathering
LinkedIn is a treasure trove of data. Whether you’re in marketing or business intelligence, competitor research or academia, there are millions of data points to seek and extract.
The two best tools on the market for this are Lix and Phantom Buster. The difference between the two? Speed and ease of use. Phantom Buster have been around a little longer than us and do offer a few data points that we don’t, but getting setting up is a little complicated and it will take some time to get started.
Data gathering with Lix works in much the same way that lead gen does (see above). Just perform your search, add your filters and export!
LinkedIn automation can help you stay connected with your network, grow your audience, and save time. This guide has outlined the basics of automating LinkedIn so that you can get started doing it yourself. If you have any questions about automating your LinkedIn account, leave them in the comments below!
A B2B sales funnel is a visual representation of the customer buying journey. It helps companies to understand their customers and how they progress through the sales process. A typical funnel starts at the top with the broadest audience, moves on to those who are interested in your business’s products or services, then narrows down further to qualified leads and finally, prospective customers.
Understand your funnel
Know your funnel:
The first step to creating a B2B sales funnel is to understand what a funnel is in the first place. A B2B sales funnel is essentially a process that takes your prospects from being unaware of you or your product/service, through various stages until they become customers.
The shape of your B2B sales funnel will vary depending on how you want it to look and what steps your customers take. For some, it will be marketing-driven and heavy on content. For others, it’ll begin and end with the sales team doing outreach and closing deals. Here’s a typical sales funnel:
A typical sales funnel (from Monday.com)
Understand why your team needs one: Funnels are useful because they allow marketers and salespeople to track their leads as they move through different stages of engagement with their brand or product/service. They also help organisations understand where there are opportunities for improvement. If you can figure out where your funnel has a leak, you focus on improving those specific areas.
Measure what matters most: Having a funnel in place allows you to segment your data, with each stage of the funnel having its own metrics to track. In breaking your data down this way, you can identify which metrics matter most. Are the people who read your blogs most likely to convert? Best get more blogs out, or improve the reach of your current work. Do cold emails work better than calls? It’s time to ramp up your cold outreach!
Develop buyer personas
A buyer persona (also known as an Ideal Customer Profile) is a fictional character that represents your ideal customer. It helps you to understand your customer better, and it helps you create better content—from landing pages to sales pitches. If you’ve never created one before, it can be daunting at first, but the payoff is worth it.
You don’t have to wait until after the initial meeting or conversation with a prospect in order to get started on this process; developing buyer personas can help guide your conversations from the very beginning of any interaction with customers or clients.
With your persona in place, it’s time to start marketing (and selling!) to that persona…
Develop a content strategy
Content strategy is the process of planning, creating and distributing content. If content is part of your funnel, this is needs to become an essential component of your marketing plan.
The goal of a content strategy is to create a cohesive marketing message that resonates with your audience, increases brand awareness and drives conversions from prospects into paying customers.
Content strategy includes:
Creating editorial calendars for video production, blog posts, articles, social media posts and more
Defining which topics are most relevant to your business sector or industry – then creating content that addresses those topics in an engaging way that helps you connect with potential customers
Lead magnets can generate new leads
A lead magnet is an incentive offered to potential buyers in exchange for their contact information and/or email address. This can take the form of an ebook, webinar, or other valuable piece of content that you create specifically for your target market (and which they’re not likely to find elsewhere).
Lead magnets are nothing new, they have been around since the dawn of online marketing. By now, users now the deal – they’re aware of the fact that by signing up for your webinar, or downloading your eBook, they’re likely to be contacted. With so many companies contacting them daily, their guard is naturally up. You need to really offer demonstrable value in order to overcome this hurdle. A half-assed lead magnet will yield no results!
Include incentives: If you want your lead magnet to be effective, it needs to be attractive enough to encourage people who would otherwise ignore or delete it without a second thought. This means providing value through information that helps them solve problems they have and/or helps them save time or money in some way. While this can mean more than just creating something new from scratch—you could also repackage existing resources into something more appealing—it’s important not only that you make sure there are benefits but also that these benefits aren’t lost on readers because they’re buried under layers upon layers of fluff text or poorly-written copy (which will turn people off faster than any other mistake).
Find ways to distribute your content
Now that you’ve got your lead magnet or other content pieces ready, the next step is distribution. This is often easier said than done. If you already have popular marketing channels, like a great mailing list, high traffic blog or socials with great engagement – these are your first stop! If not, it’s time to get creative. Think about your ICP hang out, what spaces do they occupy and how can you best reach them? Advertising your lead magnet can sometimes be a good option, but be aware that you’re playing a long game with ROI.
Here are some common methods for content distribution:
Email marketing Whether your own mailing list, or one that you can get your content onto (either by paying for a slot, or perhaps exchanging a share for share with somebody) emails are a great way to distribute content. An engaged list, being sent relevant content, will reap rewards.
Cold email Content can be a great way to open a cold email conversation with a prospect. Asking someone to read a blog, or watch a video, is often an easier ask than requesting a call back! Just be sure to follow the correct protocol for cold emailing and keep the content super relevant to the receiver.
Social media marketing ( including Facebook ads, Instagram ads etc) If you’ve already got social channels with plenty of engagement – great! Those users are your first port of call for distribution. Those engaged brand-advocates will often share your content for you, plus their likes and comments boost your content via the social channel’s algorithm. It’s a win-win. If you don’t have social channels with enough traffic, you can opt for ads. My advice if you’re new to ads, is start small with experiments and then hone in on what works.
Search engine optimization (SEO) & link building: This is a mammoth topic for me to sum up in a paragraph! If you’re reading this, you likely either know some SEO or have someone on your team that does. If not, great reading! SEO is the slowest option of those listed, but it is both free and powerful. Once you begin to rank for a term, you’ll reap rewards. The sooner you start, the better!
Send those leads down the funnel
This point is where the collaboration between sales and marketing becomes super important. There is no use in marketing filling the hopper with potential leads that never make it to the sales team – there’s also no use in sales team talking to unqualified leads from marketing.
It’s important that leads are nurtured through the process, hitting the correct steps and being gently pushed in the direction of a close. Here are three ways of doing that.
It’s important for sales and marketing to sit down together and decide at what point in the journey, leads are considered qualified. Everything up until that point, is marketing’s domain. It’s their responsibility to provide and deliver upon a strategy to nurture users down the funnel, to the point of qualification. Then, they’re passed to the sales team to begin the closing process. The steps required for each team to do their job will not be alien to either! Driving traffic and generating interest should be bread and butter to a b2b marketer, and closing is the driving force of sales. The funnel simply serves as a framework to join these forces together.
It’s never too soon to start working on your sales funnel.
It’s never too soon to start working on your B2B sales funnel. You can begin now by identifying the steps of your sales process, from prospecting through closing. From there, you’ll need to determine how much time each step takes, who will do them and how much they cost or earn for you.
You can then create a rough outline of what each step looks like and determine how much time each one takes (i.e., what happens in step two). After that, you’ll need to determine whether that’s enough information for someone at the next level down—or if there are more details needed at this stage before proceeding with the next actionable item listed in their pipeline management software (PMS).
With the right sales funnel, you can ensure that your company is well placed to find and close customers who may be looking for your solutions to their problems. Provide a seamless journey for your leads to follow, execute the steps well and you will increase the number of deals you close.
The idea of creating an ‘ideal customer profile’ may sound a little off-putting at first. After all, why would you want to limit your business? Surely the more customers you have, the better! But this isn’t about excluding people from your business. It’s about understanding who is most likely to buy from you and how you can best serve them.
Get to know your customer.
The first (and most important) step in creating your ideal customer profile is getting to know your customers. Once you know who your ideal customer is, it becomes much easier to figure out what they need and want. And when you can see the challenges they face and their budgets, it becomes easier to create marketing campaigns that target them directly.
Here’s what we’ll cover:
Why knowing your customers is so important
How you can find out about them
The importance of knowing the needs, wants and challenges of your target audience
Determine benefits and value.
Your product or service has a purpose. It provides something that your customer needs and/or wants, and it does this in a way that is different from other products or services. So, what are the benefits, and how do they make things easier for your customer? What is the value of your product or service?
It’s important to think about what you can offer that no one else does. If you don’t have anything unique like this, then why should anyone buy from you? What is standing between them and buying from someone else who already has it? That’s where your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) comes in!
What are the common challenges?
The first step in creating your Ideal Customer Profile is to look at existing customers and see what problems they have. This can be done by surveying existing customers, or talking with them in person or by phone.
When you hear about these challenges, make sure you understand them fully. You might think that one customer’s problem is another customer’s opportunity—but it isn’t! For example, if a customer tells you she wants to be able to book appointments online and then pick them up in store later that day, that could mean she wants to avoid spending time on her schedule than if she had an appointment scheduled for the next week (and maybe even more). But if another customer mentions being frustrated when he has an appointment planned for tomorrow but gets stuck in traffic on the way there and misses his appointment entirely? That’s something different entirely; it means he needs better transportation options so he can be safe getting to those appointments!
Where can you find them?
Now that you know what your ideal customer is, it’s time to find them. This can be done in many ways, but let’s take a look at some of the most popular:
Social Media
In addition to being one of the best ways for brands and companies to interact with customers (because it lets them better understand their needs), social media is also where many potential clients spend most of their time online—and therefore where they might be looking for solutions like yours! When it comes to B2B, LinkedIn will always be king. With 80m+ users and 50m+ companies (and growing!), it’s the largest database of potential customers ever to exist! Plus, the powerful LinkedIn search allows you to really pinpoint those in your ICP. You can also use a tool like Lix to export LinkedIn data and find email addresses for your customers, once you’ve found them. Great for research and outreach!
Events
Events are a great way to find and meet your target audience. Now that Covid restrictions are easing, live events are slowing opening up again – alternatively online events can be just as fruitful. Again, LinkedIn is a great resource – head to the search bar, search your chosen topic and hit the ‘events’ filter!
What is your budget range?
When you start to create your ideal customer profile, think about how much money you want to make. The more expensive your product or service is, the fewer customers you’ll be able to affordably serve.
Before you can even think about how much money customers should pay for your product or service, though, make sure that they’re willing—and able—to pay it. If they don’t have any money at all (or if they have so little that they can’t justify spending even $10 on something), then charging them $100 would be pretty ridiculous. You’ll either turn them away entirely or end up with very few sales anyway—neither scenario is good for business!
Who is involved in the decision making process?
Who is involved in the decision making process?
The decision maker
Anyone else involved in the process (e.g., decision makers’ boss, someone who works with them)
What is their role?
What is their budget and timeline?
What are the pain points they are experiencing that you can help solve?
What does success look like for this customer or client and their business?
Personality types.
Personality types are a great way to help you identify your ideal customers. The most common personality types are introverts and extroverts, but there are others as well.
Introverts
Extroverts
Sensors (observers)
Intuitives (idea people)
Thinkers (cognitive)
Feelers (emotional)
The majority of people fall into one or more of these categories. If you don’t know which one(s), ask yourself: “Do I tend to be more of an observer or an idea person? Am I more concerned with logic than feelings? Or do I value both equally?” This will help you develop a better understanding of who your ideal customer is by determining what type of personality they have and how they think about things in general.
Check out the competition.
To start, you need to know who your competition is. If there are other companies in your industry, what are they doing? What are their strengths and weaknesses? How do they market themselves? What do they say about their customers, products and employees?
The answers to these questions will give you a clearer picture of how to set up the ICP for your business.
Target the right person, with the right message, at the right time.
While you may be interested in selling to everyone, the reality is that not every single person will have a need for your product or service. Therefore, it’s important to spend time identifying who your ideal customer is and why they are a good fit for what you offer.
When you take the time to identify your ideal customer, it allows you to target the right people with the right message at the right time. When you’re able to do this effectively, it can help improve sales by 10x!
We hope this information will help you build your own ideal customer profile, so you can spend more time marketing to those who are ripe for buying. Are there any other tips that have helped you create buyer personas? Let us know in the comments!
Cold email can be daunting. Finding leads, crafting copy, warming up your server, navigating GDPR… It’s easy to see why many people avoid it all together. The thing is, cold email has been proven time and time again to be on the best ways to find new customers, meet influencers, get PR, gain backlinks and generally grow your network. This guide is here to give you all the tools and confidence required to cold email like a pro. We will cover:
👆 Use these links to navigate the guide & bookmark this page for later!
Cold Email Fundamentals
Whether you’re sending ultra-personalised emails to potential investors one-by-one, or mass mailing every CEO in London, there are some cold email fundamentals that should form the foundation of your outreach. Get these right, and the rest will fall into place. If you only digest and implement one portion of this guide – this is should be it it!
Keep it brief
Personalise
Give Credentials
Demonstrate Value
Call to Action
Keep it brief
The average office worker receives 121 emails per day. For those in decision-making roles that number is likely much higher. Think about the emails you receive daily. When you open one up and see a wall of text, is your first thought “yay, lots to read”? Probably not! Don’t waffle, keep it short, sweet and to the point. Brevity is key.
Personalise
The degree to which you can personalise will depend on the volume of outreach. If you’re working with a short list of prospects, take the time to research your prospect and personalise every single email. Reference an article they wrote, a podcast they were on, a previous investment they made… Show that you know this person and that your outreach is relevant to them. If you’re doing outreach at scale there are still ways to personalise. Separate your prospects into relevant groups and write specifically for them. This could be job title, location, industry etc. Talk about the challenges / news / industry changes relevant to them and their group. Simply using a merge tag to include their name will not cut it!
Give Credentials
Why should this person trust you, or listen to your pitch? Strong credentials are a great way to cut through the noise of a busy inbox. Referencing clients you’ve helped that your prospect will know and respect is a great option. Otherwise perhaps use a qualification, or thought leadership pieces that you feature on… Know your audience and think about what will demonstrate your trustworthiness to them.
Demonstrate Value
How will your proposal benefit this person? Will it save them time or money? Perhaps help them to grow their business? This step is where a lot of cold emails fail. Don’t talk about features, talk about benefits. A classic example of benefit-based copywriting is this iPod ad from Apple:
Apple could have easily rambled on about megabytes of storage space, but customers don’t care about the inner workings. Think about the individual’s desired outcome for your product or service and sell that outcome.
Call to action
Another common mistake is not providing a clear call to action. Do you want the recipient to reply to the email? Watch a video? Book a call? Tell them! My advice here is to provide a low-friction action at this step to get the first ‘yes’. Trying to close a deal in the first email rarely works (if ever). Often, asking for a call can be high-friction too. Asking them to respond to a simple question, or watch a video, for example, will be easier. Again, put yourself in the shoes of the person receiving this email. Do you jump on Zoom with cold emailers you’ve never spoken to before? Probably not.
Before you start crafting copy and workshopping subject lines, you need to establish the audience, purpose and method for your campaign. It’s important to decide what exactly you want to achieve, what metrics you will track, what success looks like and how you want to approach the outreach itself.
Research audience size
If you’re reading this, it’s likely you have an audience in mind for your campaign. The first step for campaign prep is to ascertain exactly how many prospects are out there. As we know, cold emailing a list of 10 will be very different to outreach for a list of 10,000.
Set goals
It’s easy to skip this step and assume that the goal of each email is to close a deal – whether that’s making a sale, booking a call, gaining a backlink etc. While that may be your overall purpose, it can help to take step back and set goals for the steps along the way. It’s unlikely that you sales journey looks like this:
Email sent → Deal closed
Setting response rate targets, for example, helps you to hone in on what copy, which subject lines, times of day etc. work best. Your first email is initiating a conversation, not closing a deal – so target and optimise for that!
Map the journey
Too often I see people jump headfirst into a cold email campaign with no plan for what comes next – what happens if they don’t reply? Better yet – what happens if they do? Mapping the journey (sometimes referred to as a ‘flow’) is a really important step in your preparation. Plan your initial response, your follow ups, your closers. Never hit a point in your campaign in which you don’t know what to do next!
Building an email list
A cold email campaign won’t go very far without an email list! Before we get into this, it’s important to state that Lix is a b2b email finding tool and I will be talking about that in this section.
There are other tools out there that do this, but Lix offers more free emails (50 a month!) with an accuracy to match or surpass the others. If you have a favourite tool you like to use, please feel free to do so (give ours a try though, it is free and easy to use 😁).
There are two primary ways to find email addresses for your cold prospects – using an email finding tool (like Lix) or doing it manually. Which option you choose will be down to time and budget.
Manual email finding (free)
If you’re operating on a tight budget, or have a ton of time, you can sometimes find an email address manually with some sleuthing. Some people will have an email address listed on their LinkedIn, some will be displayed on a company website. This all depends on the type of person you’re reaching out to. Those in high-demand (decision makers, generally) will be less likely to have a email address listed publicly, though.
If your list is small enough to do prospect emails manually, I’d advise signing up for a free Lix account and using your 50 free emails. It’ll save you a day’s work (at least) – valuable time you could spend writing copy and doing research!
Automated Email Finding
Finding, testing and verifying email addresses for outreach used to be a slow and expensive practice. Now you can find thousands of verified emails every single day using a tool like Lix (other tools are available, but why would you ever need them when Lix is right here? 😁).
The majority of such tools work off of LinkedIn, for a very good reason. With 800m+ users and 33m+ businesses, LinkedIn is the largest store of publicly available b2b data in history – and it grows every day. Anyone who is anyone is on LinkedIn and they very helpfully provide their name, company name and the link to their website – the building blocks of email discovery.
If you’re interested in all the techie details on how we do this, read here. Want to just see how it works in practice? Watch this 40 second video:
Another great thing about LinkedIn for email list-building is the powerful search. You have a ton of great filtering tools at your disposal with which to hone in on your ideal audience. If you’re using Lix for your list-building, you can export searches into projects – helping you break your lists up, or collaborate on your list with colleagues anywhere in the world. Here’s a video on how that works, too.
List Separation
Now you hopefully have your list full of email addresses to reach out to, it’s important to break this list up into personalisation groups if you haven’t already done so. Personally, I like to separate a batch of my most-prized prospects for some ultra-personalisation, then group the others as per the cold email fundamentals (above).
Depending on your list size, it’s likely you won’t be sending all these emails at the same time, too. When cold emailing it’s important to ‘warm up’ your server by gradually increasing sending volumes (more on this later – I have a chart for you to follow!). Consider this when separating your lists – who should receive the first batch? Do you want to test your subject lines / copy against your least-likely prospects first? These are all things to consider before sending!
How to mail merge
Now you have a list of prospects to reach out to, it’s time to send those emails. If you’re working off a large list, you’ll need to find a way to mail merge. You can either use a mail merge tool (paid) or one of the methods that allows you to mail merge right from you preferred inbox (free). As always, the paid options do come with some benefits – including some tools for regulating sending, tracking etc. that are very useful when running cold email campaigns. They’re also easy to use and set up, whereas the free options do need a little work to get started. That said, sometimes we need a free option to get things off the ground and test the efficacy of an idea, so let’s start there.
Free mail merge for Gmail (with Google Sheets)
TLDR: Create a template in Gmail & pull recipient data from Google Sheets
This method allows you to create an email template in Gmail, which is then populated by data from a Google Sheets document. You can either read on for my guide, or go straight to the source and hear it from Google.
How it works:
You’ll need Gmail (Google Workspace is preferred due to sending limits) and Google Sheets for the data spreadsheet.
The easiest method is to use a copy of the sample spreadsheet from Google as it has the columns and script set up and ready to go.
Step 1: Enter your data
Once you’ve copied Google’s sample spreadsheet, you can set about editing the data within the columns. Add in the recipient email addresses, names etc. Please note that if you change the name of any of the columns, you will need to head to Extensions > Apps Script and edit the code (this is not advised unless you know what you’re doing!).
Step 2: Create your template
Create a draft email in Gmail as normal. Use the column names in curly brackets (this is called a merge tag) for customisation. For example:
Hi {{First name}}
Will pull through the corresponding first name for each person.
Step 3: Start sending
In the menu bar for your spreadsheet you see ‘Mail Merge’ click this and then ‘Send Emails’. If you don’t see the Mail Merge option, refresh your page.
You will be prompted to authorise the pre-loaded script – do so. Then, repeat the process (Mail Merge > Send Emails).
Enter the subject line for your emails and click OK.
Free mail merge for Outlook (with Excel & Word)
The process for Outlook & Excel is similar to Gmail & Google Sheets – the data is stored and pulled from Excel, to populate an email. The main difference is that this time, the email copy itself is in Word, rather than the email client itself. Here’s how it works:
Step 1: Prepare your data
Open a new Excel workbook and enter the identifying data (email, name etc.) as column titles. Ensure these are properly formatted for the correct data type. If you’re not an Excel whizz, here’s a guide from Microsoft.
Step 2:
Open Word and click Tools > Mail Merge Manager, Word’s Mail Merge Manager will give you a step by step guide for setting up your document.
When it’s time to enter your content, use the column names in curly brackets (this is called a merge tag) for customisation. For example:
Hi {{First name}}
Will pull through the corresponding first name for each person.
The example {{First name}} will only work if that is what you’ve named your column. These tags must correspond with the column names in your Excel workbook.
Step 3:
The Mail Merge Manager will ask you to ‘Select Recipients’. Choosing ;Use Existing List’ will allow you to select the Excel document you made earlier.
Next, click on ‘Preview Results’ – check that the emails and data columns match up and all looks correct. If so – hit ‘Finish and Merge’ and check your sent mail folder in Outlook!
Mailmeteor is designed to work with your Gmail account, and it currently the best-rated mail merge tool on the Google Marketplace. Where Mailmeteor is an improvement on the free Gmail method above, is in the added extras that improve things like deliverability and tracking.
For example, Mailmeteor makes it easy to add attachments, allows you to schedule your campaigns, import HTML email templates and collaborate with teammates. With plans from $9.99 per month, it’s worth giving this service a try if you’re going to be sending regular campaigns from your Gmail account!
Like Mailmeteor, GMass works with your Gmail account & Google Sheets to send mass email campaigns.
GMass has the added bonus of having an in-built email verifier tool too (this isn’t needed if you use Lix for your prospecting though, as we do this for you!).
Outreach and tools like it are a little pricier than the previous options, because it is so much more than a mail merge tool. Outreach is a sales engagement tool – a class of software that assists with organisation, automation, integration, sending cadences and much more.
If you’re serious about cold campaigns, consider a tool like Outreach!
Tools NOT to use
I had to add this section in because it’s a mistake I see people making all the time. Please do not use email marketing platforms, or customer engagement platforms, like Mailchimp and Hubspot for your cold outreach. Firstly, it goes against their terms of service. Secondly, you will be flagged for spam and kicked off the platform very quickly.
These tools are not made for cold outreach and should not be used under any circumstances.
Cold Email Templates
Now we know the foundations of cold emailing, how to prospect and the basics of mail merging – let’s dive into some cold email templates. As we’ve covered, there is no one-size-fits-all cold email. The template you use will change depending size of the list, the amount of research you can do for each person and so on. Here are my 5 favourite templates, with examples, that you can use for different situations.
The Authority-Builder
This is a great template to use when mailing totally cold, large lists. When it isn’t possible to research each individual on your list and you don’t have an intro to reference, you need to lean on your authority.
Remember – keep it relevant! By referencing a credential that is relevant to your recipient, you still achieve some level of personalisation. This is all about showing them that you understand their role and have the credentials to provide a solution to their problems.
Example:
David is a sales representative for an SME selling medical instruments to private surgeries. There are 1,000 potential prospects for his product in the UK and personalising each email is not possible. However, David can group his prospects by job title (some large practices have dedicated buyers, in smaller surgeries it may be the lead GP), or by region, practice size etc. David’s credential, is that he works with a market-leader in this sector. The email he sends might look like this:
Subject:We’re helping Spire keep up with rising demand
Hi [First Name],
I head up sales for Example Healthcare, specialising in diagnostic equipment. As Chief Physician, I understand you’re the person to speak with regarding purchasing decisions.
Our clients at Spire are reporting an 81% increase in new patients since the pandemic and many surgeries are struggling to keep up with demand. That’s why we’re preparing complete diagnostic kits, especially for local private surgeries.
If you let me know your preferred address, I can put a brochure in the mail for you today.
Best wishes,
David
Brief – 5 sentences
Personalised – Shows an understanding of the recipient’s role and industry challenges
Credentials – Reference to a large client
CTA – Low-friction, initiates a conversation and invites a follow-up
You can play around with this template and add in whatever credentials / authority-builder works for you and your list. Perhaps it’s a metric you achieved for a client, or a positive case study. Think about the USP you have that will cut through the noise and show a prospect that you’re the one to trust.
The Time-Saver
This again is a great template when you’re going in cold. If you don’t have a ton of credentials to shout about – perhaps you’re a new product or service – the time-saver template allows your product to do the heavy lifting. This template is all about focusing on the positive outcome for the end user.
Example:
Beth has recently started a new marketing agency. She has a ton of experience, but as the business is new there’s little in the way of case studies or credentials to shout about. What Beth does know, however, is that SMEs are spending up to 16 hours a week creating content and posting it on social media. Beth’s proposal is to take that work off of their hands, saving them a ton of valuable time. She has broken her list up into industries and niches, in order to add some personalisation to her emails.
Subject: In just 10 minutes I’ll explain how I can save you 16 hours a week
Hi [First Name],
My name is Beth, and I’ll keep this quick.
I’m a Social Media Marketing expert and founder of Example Agency, and I know businesses in [insert niche] are spending up to 16 hours a week writing content and posting on social media.
Could I have ten minutes of your time next week for a personalized demo that’ll demonstrate to you how I can own your content and social media, freeing you up to work on your business?
Either let me know a time that works for you or book a convenient 10 minute slot in my calendar: [calendar app link].
I look forward to hearing from you,
Beth
Brief – 5 sentences
Personalised – Referring to the recipient’s industry niche
Credentials – Demonstrated expert knowledge of the time challenges these companies face
CTA – Low-friction, 10 minute call
The Researcher
In the last two examples, we’ve looked at options for large lists, where deep research isn’t possible. This template, then, is for the opposite situation. Those prospects for whom you can research and draw from their work, or activities. If you have a large list to contact, it can sometimes be a good idea to separate perhaps 10-20 top prospects to do this kind of research on while using a different template for the others.
Example:
Anna is a startup founder looking for investors. Her goal for this campaign is to book calls with potential investors so she can pitch her idea. Anna has researched investors in her space and crafted outreach for each one individually. Email #1 is going to Elizabeth, who has invested in similar companies previously:
Hi Elizabeth,
I just heard your interview with Jason Calacanis on This Week In Startups, it was really inspiring to hear you talk about your goals for the sustainable tech companies you invest in.
My startup, EcoTech, helps Data Centres offset their carbon emissions. I currently have NTT and Verizon signed and 5 more major data centre operators interested.
Our pitch deck is attached, if you have 5 minutes I would really appreciate it if you could reply with a few lines of feedback.
Best wishes,
Anna
Brief – 4 sentences
Personalised – Immediately demonstrates knowledge of the recipient
Credentials – A short summary of current success
CTA – Low-friction ask – just a few lines of feedback.
Of course, yours will vary depending on the research that you do!
Pain-Agitate-Solution (PAS)
This is a classic copywriting technique that you can apply to your cold email outreach. I’m sure you can probably guess how it works from the name! The aim is to highlight a pain point your prospect is feeling, agitate that pain point by describing how this is negatively affecting their business and then – you swoop in and provide the solution. Let’s use Lix, for this example.
Example:
Alfie is the co-founder of a SaaS startup that uses AI to find email addresses from LinkedIn searches. He wants to sell subscriptions to users in the cyber security space, as he knows they do a lot of cold outreach to prospect lists. He knows that reps in large firms are spending up to 33% of their time prospecting, when they could be selling.
Subject: Your reps spend 33% of their time prospecting, when they could be selling
Hi [First Name],
As a sales leader for [Company Name] I know that lead generation must be a huge time drain for you and your team. According to Forbes [link] the average rep spends 33% of their time building prospecting lists – time they could be spending on building relationships and closing deals.
I’m the founder a company called Lix and our mission is to give your team that time back. Our AI email-finder can turn LinkedIn searches into clean, verified email addresses; ready for your reps to reach out and do what they do best – selling!
You can try it today with 50 free emails and 1,000 rows of data [link] – or book in a call with me and I’d be happy to demo it for you [calendar link].
Best,
Alfie
Brief – 5 sentences
Personalised – Mentions the company and the specific challenges faced by the receiver
Credentials – Uses trusted source (Forbes) to back-up statement
CTA – Two options, a free trial (low-friction) or a demo
The Personalised Video
This is a relatively new, but very powerful tool for cold emailing. It’s such a hot topic, I have a whole blog on personalised video for cold email. In it, I tell the story of a cold email I received from a CRM giant in which there was a video of the rep looking at my website and explaining, using examples from my site, how their tool could help me. It fits all the criteria for a good cold email – it was certainly brief, ultra-personalised! For a full guide to how to create videos for cold emails, please do read the blog.
I’m using myself again for the example, because I have an example video for you!
Example:
Alfie, the cofounder of the SaaS tool we looked at earlier, has separated 10 top targets from his prospect list that he really wants to book a call with. In order to cut through the noise, he’s going to make a personalised video for each of them.
Subject: [Your Company Name] & [Their Company Name]
Hi [First Name],
I made you a quick video (60 seconds), click here to watch:
Plus here’s a case study that shows how we helped [Company] achieve [outcome]: [link]
You can try it today with 50 free emails and 1,000 rows of data [link] – or book in a call with me and I’d be happy to demo it for you [calendar link].
Best,
Alfie
Brief – 3 sentences and a short video
Personalised – As personalised as it gets!
Credentials – Uses their own site to establish credibility
CTA – Two options, a free trial (low-friction) or a demo
Here’s a great infographic on the anatomy of a great sales email from IRC Sales Solutions that you can save and refer back to when writing cold emails:
Deliverability
This is a hot topic in the world of cold email and for good reason. Many people rush into cold emailing gung-ho and send way too many emails, or do outreach from a brand new email address, or spam people with poorly-targeted emails… and get marked as spam. If that happens enough times, you domain can be ‘blacklisted’ and your overall deliverability will tank. This will put an end to not only cold email campaigns, but it could even affect day to day business emailing with current clients and suppliers, etc.
It’s not just about reaching inboxes, either. It’s about reaching the right area of the inbox. The Gmail users among you can attest to the fact that an email in your ‘Promotions’ tab probably doesn’t get read.
How does it work?
In simple terms, when an email is sent it has to go through various checks and tests before it reaches someone’s inbox. Your email server (and often your service provider) perform these checks in order to protect you from malware, spam and all other manner of nasty things.
These checks include things like:
Email Content
The content of your email can sometimes flag spam filters. This happens for various reasons, including using too many links, abusive language, spam trigger words and more. Hubspot have a great blog listing 394 spam trigger words. Avoid these!
Domain history
Sometimes referred to as ‘reputation’. If you are flagged or reported for spam, or you try to send too many emails too soon, are blacklisted or send too many bouncing emails – this will affect your reputation.
How do I maximise deliverability?
This topic is a whole ‘nother blog in itself, but there are some very simple steps you can take that in most instances will be enough to protect you.
Warm up your outreach
The max number of emails you can send in a day will vary by email client – for example a standard Gmail account can send a max of 500 emails in a rolling 24 hour period. A Google workspace account allows you to send 2,000 per 24 hours, but please bear in mind this includes all emails for your organisation!
Even if you are using a Google workspace account with a 2k daily limit, it’s not a good idea to try sending 2,000 emails in the first day. Especially if your domain is brand new! Instead, start small and build up gradually.
For a brand new account, start very small. Perhaps 10-15 non-cold emails per day for a few weeks, then slowly add in those cold emails. It’s frustrating, but less so than getting blacklisted. There are also some crucial technical steps you need take in getting your DNS set up – I’ll talk about those in the next section.
For an aged account, I would advise starting with 100-200 per day and adding the same amount daily until you hit around 1,000 a day, max. Some guides tell you to go up to the full 2,000, some say less. Personally, I’ve had the best results sticking at 500-800 per day.
DNS set up
DNS stands for domain name system – I won’t get into too much boring detail (but you can read this great Quora thread if you want to know more), essentially having your DNS configured correctly lets the receiver’s email server know that you email and domain are linked and trustworthy.
There are three DNS record types – SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) and DMARC (Domain Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance). Until recently, DMARC was optional and only really used for large businesses. However, Microsoft recently announced that any email without DMARC will go to spam.
Setting these up will differ depending on your email client. Here are some guides for Google Workspace & Outlook:
Seems obvious, right? This is the simplest step and often the hurdle people fall at first! If you follow the cold email fundamentals and list building protocols set out in this article, you will be fine. The most important points to remember are to keep your emails brief, don’t include attachments or images in your initial messages and only send emails to targeted individuals.
GDPR & CCPA
GDPR (General Data Protection Legislation) dictates the way companies are allowed to store, use and process personal data. It was introduced back in 2018 in order to protect consumers from unscrupulous spammers and give them back control of their data. Similarly, CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) offers similar protections to the residents of California. The rules and their application to cold emailing are largely similar. The good news is that neither prevent you from sending cold emails – so long as you stick to the rules.
Sending cold B2B emails is legal under both GDPR & CCPA, you just need to meet certain requirements. The foundational principle is thus – the service or product you’re offering must be beneficial to the individual or company that you’re contacting.
These laws don’t exist to stop people from connecting with each other and offering useful services – it’s there to stop spam. As long as you’re choosing your prospects correctly and offering something that can make their lives / jobs / businesses better, you have a case for cold email.
With that base covered, the next step is to consider the use, storage and communication of said-use. Make sure that somewhere in your email you are letting the recipient know how their data is used and that they can remove their data from your list at any time. Also, don’t store their data for longer than is necessary. If a prospect hasn’t replied within 30 days, remove their data from your system. This rule applies more to GDPR (CCPA doesn’t have any strict rules about storage time) but it’s still good practice!
The biggest difference between GDPR & CCPA is that GDPR applies to all businesses, of all sizes, whereas CCPA only applies to large companies that fit the following criteria:
They must be a ‘for-profit’ organisation, NFPs are exempt
50% of more of their annual revenue must arise from the sale or use of personal data
That annual revenue must be more than $25m
They process data of 50,000+ individuals, household, or devices
Now, that’s not to say that if you don’t meet these criteria you should ignore the rules set out here. You should always put yourselves in the shoes of the recipient. You don’t like being spammed – so don’t spam!
If you follow the above steps, there’s nothing stopping you from sending legitimate-interest cold emails under GDPR & CCPA.
