Episode 447: The Ultimate Guide to LinkedIn Sales Campaigns

Bob Woods 00:00
Sales pros who use LinkedIn have realized something important—and they’ve been realizing it for years: random acts of social just don’t work anymore.

Welcome to the Making Sales Social podcast, featuring top voices in sales, marketing, and business. Join Brynne Tillman and me, Bob Woods, as we each bring you the best tips and strategies our guests are teaching their clients—so you can leverage them for your own virtual and social selling. Enjoy the show!

Hey there, and thanks for joining us for Making Sales Social Live, coming to you from the Social Sales Link virtual studios. I’m Bob Woods. Brynne Tillman and Stan Robinson Jr. are here as well. What’s happening, guys?

Brynne Tillman 00:47
Oh, lots of LinkedIn things happening.

Bob Woods 00:51
There always are, aren’t there? Absolutely.

Sales pros who use LinkedIn have realized something important, and they’ve been realizing this for years—random acts of social just don’t work anymore. As we at Social Sales Link work with more and more organizations on Sales Navigator training specifically, we’re recognizing how essential campaigns are to guiding the success of salespeople.

Now, Brynne is working a lot with those companies right now, but before I jump to her—Stan, you’re deeply embedded in the Sales Navigator community. Why are campaigns so important right now versus just training a sales team and letting them go off and do whatever on their own?

Stan Robinson Jr. 01:38
Yes, well, I’ll talk about what I hear in the Sales Navigator community. There are lots of questions about the features of Sales Navigator—like, “How do I use Smart Links?” or “How do I get Smart Links?” (if they don’t realize they’re on Core and don’t have access). “How do I set up these filters?” and so forth.

But they need help connecting the dots between the Sales Navigator features and actually getting to sales conversations that produce results. There’s that gap between the features and real outcomes. Even with AI—Account IQ, Lead IQ—providing great business intelligence, there’s still the question: “Okay, how do we use this to start sales conversations and develop more insightful ones?”

Bob Woods 02:35
Yeah, that’s always key. In fact, I’m deep into a five-part series on Substack, which will eventually appear on LinkedIn, about using Sales Navigator—and that series talks about exactly that.

We also have, before we get to Brynne, a free eBook specifically for this conversation. It’s called The Ultimate Guide to LinkedIn Sales Campaigns. We have 21 of our best campaigns in there—lots of valuable information.

Now, we’re not going to talk about the individual campaigns here because that would just be boring and repetitive. But there’s a lot of great information in there, and it’s available for free at socialsaleslink.com/salescampaigns. We’ll have that link in the show notes and wherever else we can fit it in for this special edition of Making Sales Social Live.

Just to give you a quick idea of what’s in there: Prospect by Referrals, Prospect by LinkedIn Events, by New Jobs, Social Proximity, Case Studies, and 16 more—absolute gold.

So now, Brynne, you’re working with quite a few companies right now. Why are these campaigns so important versus, like I said to Stan earlier, just introducing a team to Sales Navigator and saying, “Go”?

Brynne Tillman 04:05
Well, to piggyback off Stan—training is a lot of feature and function, right? How do we do something? But where salespeople tend to get stuck is the “Now what?”

So, I’m on my news feed and see someone share content. I like and comment on it—now what? Or maybe there’s a job change, and I say, “Congratulations”—now what?

Campaigns are the “now what.” Campaigns identify the triggers that help us move from people not even knowing who we are to being on their radar—engaging with their content, congratulating them, and continuing to nurture the relationship with the goal of setting an appointment.

We can teach all the Sales Navigator features, but are we hitting our goal? And our goal, in almost every case, is to start trust-based conversations—without pitching, without being salesy. That’s where the campaigns come in.

I’m working with a couple of companies right now that are fully engaged in campaigns. One of them is Prospect by Polls. What’s happening—which I think is really interesting—is that the bankers are putting out polls, then reaching out to people they’ve been connected with for years, engaging first-degree connections identified in Sales Navigator.

They’re sending a short message like, “Hey Stan, it’s been a while since we last connected. I recently put out a poll about what small businesses in Miami-Dade County are looking to achieve in 2026. I’d appreciate your one-click vote—thanks in advance.”

Once they do this—reaching out to, say, 150 people—they might get 27 votes. That gives a little insight and a reason to engage. Where they were ignored before, they’re now getting responses—because we’re putting out something that matters.

On a coaching call today, one banker shared how she had met a prospect in person and then got ghosted afterward. She tried connecting on LinkedIn—the woman accepted but didn’t respond. Then she voted on the poll! Now, they’re having a conversation. She said, “Thank you so much for voting—I really appreciate it. I’ll be in your neighborhood next week; I’d love to stop by and share some insights from the poll.” And the woman said, “Okay.”

So, the point is, this campaign has six or seven steps—from first engagement to scheduling a conversation. It may seem like a lot, but when it’s plotted out step by step—“If this, then that”—it becomes clear.

If you have a tool like SalesLoft, you can build those tasks right into your cadence. We’re even working with our friend Brad Pierce on building these sequences that guide sellers: next step, next step, next step.

If they haven’t connected on LinkedIn, maybe make a phone call. If they didn’t accept your request, send an email—or, if you’re a banker, stop by with cookies! Whatever the next step is, when you have a campaign and a playbook, your sales reps, bankers, SDRs, and BDRs all know what to do next.

So, let’s say I see a job change alert on Sales Navigator and it’s an ideal target. I congratulate them, then send a message with value—a Smart Link we’ve created with marketing for that exact scenario. Something like “Five Tips from Other CFOs in Their First 90 Days,” or whatever resource fits.

Having that in place makes engagement simple and logical. They don’t have to overthink—it just guides them to the next step at every stage.

Bob Woods 09:54
That’s something! I’m looking through the book right now—it’s a lot. Oh my god.

Brynne Tillman 10:06
We have all the step-by-steps in there, right?

Bob Woods 10:11
There are some step-by-step guides, and then there are other sections with more insights behind them. But it’s a very good resource. I’m just wondering—and I’ll answer this myself as well—but Brynne and Stan, what’s probably your favorite campaign? If you were to pick one, which would it be?

Brynne Tillman 10:33
For me, or for clients?

Bob Woods 10:38
Let’s say both—for you, and then for clients.

Brynne Tillman 10:41
Okay, first for me, and then for clients. So, I love polls for myself because they’re fun. But if I were to say where my head is right now, it’s Prospect by Influencer.

I’m finding content—like we did in our coaching today—a little bit on Richard van der Blom. Who are all his followers? Then I might say, “Hey, as a follower of Richard, you’re probably going to get some real value from this preview of the algorithm. If you’re interested, let me know and I’ll send you his post.”

Now, will I actually do that with Richard? Probably not—but that’s the concept. What influencers like Mark Hunter, Jeb Blount, Meredith Elliott Powell, Colleen Stanley, or Liz Hyman have great content and followers we can engage with? My conversation has nothing to do with me. I’m prospecting with their content because I know their followers are my target audience too.

So right now, for me, that’s my favorite. I like to switch it up—polls were my thing for six months, but now I’m really enjoying prospecting by influencer. It’s also a great way to get the people I care about in front of others.

For example, Meredith has a new book, Perspectives (I’m holding it up—but if you’re listening to the podcast, you can’t see it). It’s really good. I’m leveraging my connections who follow her by letting them know about the new book. I share a piece of content she put out about it. They follow her, so it’s relevant. I’m benefiting Meredith while re-engaging people around something we both appreciate—her book Perspectives and her previous one Thrive, which is also fantastic.

For clients, we always ask, “What matters most?” For bankers, for example, job changes are huge—especially for C-suite roles like CFOs. Another favorite for bankers is Prospect by Events.

Banks tend to sponsor 10 to 20 events a month. The bankers get free tickets they can invite people to—and up to now, they’ve only invited clients. But why not invite prospects?

So, we might say: let’s invite one client, then look through all their connections who would also enjoy the event. We’ll reach out like, “Hey Bob, Stan Robinson is joining me at this event next week, and he thought you’d get value from attending as well. I have a couple of seats available and would love to have you as my guest. It’s first come, first served—let me know either way.”

That’s been a huge success. So, the bottom line is, when we work with a client, we customize the campaigns specifically for them. But that’s my best answer to your question.

Bob Woods 14:29
Yeah, that’s great—especially since we didn’t plan this question! I just wanted to throw it out and see what you and Stan had to say. So, Stan, you’re up next.

Stan Robinson Jr. 14:39
Right now, I’m doing what we call Prospect by Interview. I reach out to sales leaders and ask if they’d like to be a guest on our podcast to talk about sales leadership, technology adoption, and AI—which are top of mind for everyone right now.

It gives me a chance to learn from them, creates content for us, and allows them to demonstrate their thought leadership and share something valuable with their own audience. These campaigns are a win for everyone on multiple levels—that’s what I love about them.

Brynne Tillman 15:28
That’s awesome! So, if you’re a sales leader with a team of, I don’t know, 20 or more—give Stan a call.

Stan Robinson Jr. 15:36
Absolutely, I’d love to speak with you.

Bob Woods 15:39
Yeah, and we’re all doing those as well right now. We all do our own interviews, and they’re always fun. Any of us would be more than happy to speak with you about that.

So, since I’m the one who brought this up, I’ll share mine. My favorite right now—although I love polls and prospecting by interview too—is Prospect by Content Series.

It provides consistent value, and you can go deeper into each topic. It’s not 1,000 words covering five things—it’s 1,000 words focused on one thing in depth. Did that make sense?

Brynne Tillman 16:50
Yeah, I love this! We haven’t talked about it before. So you’re creating content and reaching out to sales leaders with it? What does that conversation sound like?

Bob Woods 17:11
Basically, it’s like when we invite people to download something: “Hey, I see you’re in sales management. If you’re using Sales Navigator, I have an eBook—or a series—about Sales Navigator adoption. If you’re interested, let me know and I’ll send you the link.”

From there, I send them Part 1. Tomorrow, Part 4 publishes, and when Part 4 and Part 5 are live, there will be links at the bottom connecting all parts—so they can easily navigate among them.

Brynne Tillman 18:06
You should link them all in a Smart Link.

Bob Woods 18:10
Yeah, I could do that too. Then you can see who’s viewing them. That would work. I like that idea—a lot.

You see, everyone just got a little inside look at our Monday morning calls. They happen way too early for someone like me, but they’re always full of great inspiration. We just bounce ideas back and forth—and it’s magic.

Brynne Tillman 18:50
Yeah, we have so much fun and do a great job building off each other. Everyone just got a behind-the-scenes look at how the magic happens.

Bob Woods 19:02
Exactly—because that’ll probably become a new training session now.

Brynne Tillman 19:05
Yep, it will!

Bob Woods 19:12
Once again, we’re all just brainstorming: “We could do this, we could do that…” And then our AI assistant helps us go back and say, “What did I say again?” and gives us the exact quote. It’s perfect.

So, getting back to our original topic—

Brynne Tillman 19:33
Oh right, we’re doing a podcast!

Bob Woods 19:38
Yes, so we have our eBook, The Ultimate Guide to LinkedIn Sales Campaigns, with 21 separate campaigns you can use. It’s at socialsaleslink.com/salescampaigns—no dashes, no weird symbols, all one word.

Unless anyone has something else to add…

(silence)

Wow, dead silence!

Brynne Tillman 19:57
You said it all.

Bob Woods 19:59
Yeah, I like when that happens. Cool.

So, whether you’re watching us live or listening to the podcast, thanks for joining us for this episode of Making Sales Social Live. We do this every week—even when Restream goes down on us because of AWS, like it did this week! We still managed to get something out, and we’re happy about that.

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So when you’re out and about—be sure to make your sales social! Thanks so much for joining us. Have a great week. Bye-bye!

Outro:

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