5 ways to utilize your 100 weekly LinkedIn connection requests

With over 58 million companies on LinkedIn and 4 out of 5 LinkedIn members driving business decisions, LinkedIn should be an essential part of your marketing strategy and lead generation. It’s vital to utilize your 100 LinkedIn connection requests every week—but how do you take full advantage of this number to best impact your bottom line?

Keep reading for 5 ways to make the most of your LinkedIn connection requests.

1. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is optimized + valuable.
   If your LinkedIn profile doesn’t share a clear message of what you and your company offer, you may be missing out on valuable LinkedIn connections who choose to decline your request. From updating your LinkedIn summary to sharing posts that your potential prospects will find valuable, you can take actionable steps to make sure you’re not leaving connections on the table. Find 20 updates to make for your LinkedIn profile here. Plus, when your profile is optimized and you share valuable content with your current followers, your profile will be shown to even more potential connections who might choose to connect with you first.
2. Hone in on decision-makers. When you only have 100 LinkedIn connection requests, it’s important to send them to people who are more likely to connect and be interested in your product or service. While you can manually research decision makers through LinkedIn groups and search, there are also paid options that will create lists with accurate data. LinkedIn Sales Navigator, a LinkedIn-powered tool and sales intelligence platform with powerful search capabilities and personalized algorithms, offers searches to help you find the best potential connections. Through the Sales Spotlight special feature on LinkedIn, you can generate a lead list with spotlights including:
   • Posted on LinkedIn in past 30 days—Ensure that you save your connection requests for people who have been active on LinkedIn and will therefore be more likely to respond.
   • Changed jobs in the past 90 days—Congratulate your prospect on their recent job change, then open the conversation to how they can explore solving problems they’ve discovered in their new role.
   • Share experiences with you—These experiences include groups, employers and schools that you may have in common, so you can use these commonalities to build a rapport.
3. Personalize each LinkedIn connection request. If you aren’t already personalizing your 300-character request, you may be driving prospective clients away. According to Vito Vishnepolsky, contributor to Forbes and founder and director of Martal Group, using an account-based marketing approach has led his team to achieving higher response rates and a decreased risk of restrictions on LinkedIn for spam-related suspicions. Your prospects receive dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of messages, so stand out from the rest by personalizing your request to them.When you send your LinkedIn connection request, be sure to include:
   • Why you want to connect
   • How connecting will help you and your prospect
   • Next steps

   While account-based marketing requires more time and effort, it also leads to a higher acceptance rate.

4. Consider following instead of connecting. Ready for one of the best ways to connect with potential prospects without directly connecting on LinkedIn (and therefore losing one of those precious connection requests)? Consider following your prospects instead of connecting. When your prospects receive the follow notification, they may initiate a connection request on their own. If not, there are still ways you can create a relationship.Through following, you’ll be able to see their posts and articles. Once their content shows up in your feed, you can find natural openings to share how your product fits into their messaging. Following and engaging with prospects might take more time and effort than simply connecting, but it also has higher potential to build relationships and shorten the sales cycle.
5. Use your prospects’ emails. If you’re looking for a way to get around the LinkedIn connection request limit, one option that will actually allow you to connect with more than 100 people is by using email addresses. With LinkedIn’s personal contact importer, you can upload email addresses to find matched LinkedIn profiles.There are multiple options to find your prospects’ email addresses:
   • Prospecting Toolkit: Plans starting at $99/month for unlimited scraping
   • Hunter.io: 25 free searches/month + plans starting at $49/month
   • LinkedIn Sales Navigator: Plans starting at $79.99/month

Why your LinkedIn strategy matters

LinkedIn’s limits on connection requests might be frustrating, but it also serves as a chance to re-evaluate your lead generation strategy. Consumers prefer authenticity, and that comes across through the messaging your clients see on your company’s page as well as in each interaction with you.

Ready to learn how BRK Marketing can assist in crafting authentic brand messaging and a marketing strategy for your brand? Contact us today!