Quick Answers
LinkedIn is a social networking site for professionals to connect, share content, and find job opportunities. Sales Navigator is a premium subscription service from LinkedIn that provides sales professionals with advanced tools to find and connect with prospects.
The key differences are:
- LinkedIn is free, while Sales Navigator requires a paid subscription.
- Sales Navigator offers more advanced search filters and prospecting tools compared to basic LinkedIn.
- Sales Navigator integrates with CRMs like Salesforce to sync contact data.
- Sales Navigator provides sales insights like lead recommendations and conversation starters.
- LinkedIn is for broad professional networking. Sales Navigator focuses specifically on sales prospecting.
Overall, Sales Navigator enhances the prospecting and selling capabilities of a standard LinkedIn profile. It is a paid sales tool for LinkedIn users looking to maximize their sales productivity.
Overview of LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional networking platform with over 850 million members worldwide. Anyone can sign up for a free account to create a profile summarizing their professional background and experience.
Core features of LinkedIn include:
- Profile – Outline work experiences, education, skills, accomplishments
- Feed – Share written posts and articles to build professional image
- Connections – Grow professional network by linking with colleagues
- Groups – Join industry groups to share ideas and build community
- Jobs – Search for and apply to jobs, post jobs for hiring
- Pages – Create pages for companies to share products and updates
- Messaging – Communicate directly with connections via InMail or chat
The platform operates on a “freemium” model where the core features are free, but premium subscriptions like Sales Navigator unlock additional capabilities.
The core purpose of LinkedIn is to help professionals network, build their personal brand, and advance their careers through new job opportunities. It is primarily used for broad professional development rather than specialized sales prospecting.
Overview of Sales Navigator
Sales Navigator is LinkedIn’s premium subscription sales tool. It enhances the standard LinkedIn experience with advanced functionalities focused specifically on sales prospecting and outreach.
Sales Navigator key features include:
- Lead Recommendations – Get recommendations for potential sales prospects that match ideal customer profile
- Advanced Search Filters – More search parameters to find prospects based on company, industry, job role, location, skills, and more
- Contact Management – Save leads into customizable lists and sync with CRM
- TeamLink – Collaborate with colleagues by sharing notes, accounts, and contacts
- Sales Insights – Get conversation starters and notifications of trigger events to engage prospects
- InMail Credits – Send direct messages to prospects outside your network
While a basic LinkedIn account is limited to searching connections and viewing mutual connections, Sales Navigator opens up the ability to identify and connect with any profile that matches your target customer. Advanced filters, custom lists, and sales insights provide data-driven prospecting.
Sales Navigator plans are paid on a monthly subscription basis. They offer individual licenses or team packages for small business, mid-market, and enterprise teams.
Key Differences
Purpose
The core purpose differs between the two services:
- LinkedIn is for broad professional networking and career development.
- Sales Navigator is specifically for sales prospecting and pipeline development.
For most professionals, a free LinkedIn account will provide enough value to manage their professional connections and brand. Sales Navigator is most useful for sales professionals who need to source new leads and accounts.
Features
LinkedIn provides general social networking functions like profiles, feeds, and groups. Sales Navigator adds specialized sales tools:
| Sales Navigator | |
|---|---|
| Profiles | Lead Recommendations |
| Feed | Advanced Search Filters |
| Groups | Contact Management |
| Basic Search | TeamLink Collaboration |
| Jobs | Sales Insights |
| Pages | InMail Credits |
This showcases how Sales Navigator augments LinkedIn data with specialized tools for sales prospecting workflows.
Access
- LinkedIn is free to use with optional premium subscriptions.
- Sales Navigator requires a paid monthly subscription for access.
For recruiters, marketers, and other professionals, LinkedIn provides enough value at the free tier to warrant creating a profile. But for sales teams, the premium Sales Navigator capabilities justify the cost of entry to maximize sales productivity.
Audience
- LinkedIn serves professionals across all industries and roles.
- Sales Navigator is specifically suited for sales professionals.
Due to the sales-specific tools, Sales Navigator has most value for sales teams wanting to enhance prospecting. Other professionals may not get enough value from the sales capabilities to warrant the paid subscription.
Integration
- LinkedIn offers some integrations with third-party apps but has limited native CRM integrations.
- Sales Navigator integrates directly with CRMs like Salesforce to sync data.
This CRM integration allows sales reps to automatically import LinkedIn leads into their main sales database to avoid manually transferring records between systems.
Use Cases
For most professionals, having a free LinkedIn profile is sufficient and provides enough value on its own regarding networking and career development.
Sales Navigator is suited for specific use cases:
Lead Generation
Sales Navigator makes sourcing new leads and accounts more efficient. Advanced filters and lead recommendations help identify prospects that closely fit the ideal customer profile.
Contact Management
Organizing prospects into lists and integrating with CRMs keeps sales data synchronized across systems to streamline outreach.
Account-Based Sales
Researching and connecting with key decision-makers across target accounts becomes easier with Company Pages and TeamLink collaboration.
Sales Intelligence
Sales insights on trigger events, conversation starters, and news alerts provide actionable intelligence to engage prospects at the right time.
Recruiting Prospects
Finding potential candidates through advanced searches and InMail messaging helps recruiters source great fits.
Conclusion
LinkedIn provides a solid social platform for broad professional networking and career growth. Sales Navigator enhances LinkedIn data with premium sales tools for prospecting and pipeline development.
The advanced features and CRM integrations make Sales Navigator most helpful for sales teams looking to maximize productivity. Other professionals can benefit from a free LinkedIn profile for networking and branding.
Determining which solution to use depends on the specific needs. For sales professionals who regularly prospect new leads, Sales Navigator merits the paid subscription to access specialized capabilities not available on the free tier of LinkedIn.