In today’s digital age, businesses rely on customer relationship management (CRM) systems like Salesforce to manage sales, marketing, and customer service operations. At the same time, professional social networking platforms like LinkedIn have become invaluable for connecting with prospects, leads, and customers. Integrating LinkedIn with Salesforce offers numerous benefits that can significantly impact sales and marketing success.
Enhanced Lead Generation
One of the biggest advantages of integrating LinkedIn with Salesforce is enhancing lead generation capabilities. Sales reps can use LinkedIn to identify promising leads based on criteria like job title, company, industry, and more. By syncing this LinkedIn data with Salesforce, reps have rich contextual information to qualify and nurture leads more effectively. The integrated platforms also enable automated lead capture from LinkedIn to be fed directly into Salesforce for immediate follow up.
More Personalized Outreach
With LinkedIn integration, sales and marketing teams can personalize their outreach to prospects and leads. Customer information from LinkedIn profiles and news feeds can inform personalized email campaigns, social messages, and other engagement strategies.
Increased Relationship Building
Building strong relationships is vital in sales. Integrated LinkedIn-Salesforce tools allow salespeople to strengthen connections with prospects and customers. Sales reps can leverage insights from LinkedIn to reference shared connections, groups, interests, and more when reaching out. The ability to build authentic relationships at scale is a powerful advantage.
Enhanced Data and Insights
LinkedIn integration enriches the customer data within Salesforce with in-depth professional insights from LinkedIn. This expanded view of leads and contacts enables more informed sales interactions and better segmentation for marketing campaigns.
360-Degree Customer View
A LinkedIn-Salesforce integration creates a more complete 360-degree view of each customer. Sales and marketing teams have access to employment history, education, connections, groups, skills, and other relevant data from LinkedIn profiles. This holistic view allows for better customer experiences.
Deeper Audience Segmentation
Detailed LinkedIn data enables more advanced audience segmentation to target the right customers with the right message. Demographic data like job title, company size, industry, seniority, and location can be synchronized from LinkedIn to Salesforce for granular campaign segmentation.
Streamlined Workflows
Automated syncing between the platforms, single sign-on access, and other integration features simplify workflows for sales and marketing teams. This saves time spent on manual processes and makes sales reps more productive.
Automated Data Syncing
Key LinkedIn and Salesforce data can be set to automatically sync on a scheduled basis. This includes synchronizing LinkedIn contacts with Salesforce leads and contacts, account mapping, and more. Automated syncs eliminate manual data entry and ensure data is up-to-date.
Single Sign-On Access
With single sign-on configured, reps can easily toggle between LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Salesforce without re-entering credentials. Quick access to both platforms makes reps more efficient.
Better Social Selling
Social selling is the process of using social media platforms like LinkedIn to connect with prospects, build relationships, and ultimately drive sales. Integrating Salesforce and LinkedIn improves social selling results in multiple ways.
Leverage LinkedIn’s Network
With over 722 million members, tapping into LinkedIn’s expansive network is incredibly valuable for sales. A LinkedIn-Salesforce integration allows reps to capitalize on the reach of LinkedIn for social selling to new prospects.
Increase Sales Intelligence
The integration makes it easy for sales reps to research prospects on LinkedIn to gain helpful sales intelligence. This includes work history, skills, connections, groups, and interests that can be used to build rapport.
Analytics and Reporting
Integrated Salesforce and LinkedIn data leads to more robust analytics and reporting to assess performance. Sales managers gain key insights to optimize strategy.
Track Lead Source Effectiveness
With LinkedIn integrated, it’s easy to track lead conversion rates from different LinkedIn touchpoints like Sponsored Content and InMail. This allows optimization of lead gen spend.
Monitor Social Selling Metrics
Salesforce can be configured to track LinkedIn-specific KPIs like the number of profile views, InMail messages sent, and Sponsored Content impressions for each rep. Managers can see what top performers are doing.
| Benefit | Description |
|---|---|
| Enhanced Lead Generation | Identify and capture promising leads from LinkedIn, sync with Salesforce for follow up |
| More Personalized Outreach | Leverage LinkedIn data like connections, interests, company info to personalize messaging |
| 360-Degree Customer View | Complete view of each customer with employment history, education, connections, and more |
| Automated Data Syncing | Key LinkedIn and Salesforce data syncs automatically on a scheduled basis |
| Leverage LinkedIn’s Network | Access LinkedIn’s 722+ million members for social selling to new prospects |
| Track Lead Source Effectiveness | Monitor and compare conversion rates from LinkedIn lead sources like InMail |
Getting Started with LinkedIn-Salesforce Integration
The first step is determining the right LinkedIn-Salesforce integration solution for your business needs and budget. Here are some top options to consider:
LinkedIn Sales Navigator + Salesforce Essentials
For small businesses, the combination of LinkedIn Sales Navigator and Salesforce Essentials provides a solid foundation for integrating the two platforms. Key features include lead and contact sync, LinkedIn messages and notifications within Salesforce, and LinkedIn company facts in Salesforce account records. Pricing starts at $72.50 per user per month when billed annually.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator + Sales Cloud
For larger sales teams, LinkedIn Sales Navigator plus Salesforce Sales Cloud or other high-end Salesforce editions provides more advanced integration capabilities. This includes automated data syncing, custom report creation, real-time feed monitoring, and CRM syncing. Pricing varies based on Salesforce edition and number of user licenses.
Third-Party Apps and Tools
Companies needing deep customization can use third-party integration apps like Groove, Nimble AMS, and Lusha. These apps can sync hundreds of LinkedIn data fields into Salesforce and allow for complex workflow automation. Pricing is customized based on each company’s needs.
Once an integration solution is selected, IT administrators will need to establish the technical configuration and integrations based on the platforms and apps used. Ongoing maintenance like managing user licenses and monitoring syncs is also important.
Maximizing a LinkedIn-Salesforce Integration
Follow these best practices to get the most value after integrating LinkedIn with Salesforce:
- Provide extensive training to sales reps on how to leverage the integration
- Take advantage of advanced segmentation in Salesforce using LinkedIn data
- Customize Salesforce fields and objects to capture all relevant LinkedIn data
- Automate lead handoff from LinkedIn to Salesforce for immediate sales follow up
- Personalize outreach templates using merged LinkedIn profile data
- Configure Salesforce reports to include LinkedIn activity metrics for sales managers
- Consider additional tools like browser extensions and email plugins for ease of use
- Dedicate staff for ongoing app management, troubleshooting issues, and adoption tracking
Key Takeaways
Integrating LinkedIn and Salesforce delivers major benefits for sales, marketing, and CRM. Key takeaways include:
- 360-degree view of customers and prospects for personalized sales and marketing
- Automated syncing eliminates manual processes and ensures up-to-date data
- Access to LinkedIn’s massive network expands social selling reach
- Sales intelligence from LinkedIn profiles allows reps to build strong connections
- Powerful analytics and reporting based on integrated Salesforce and LinkedIn data
- Range of solutions available based on company size and need for customization
With LinkedIn as the industry leader in professional networking and Salesforce as the top CRM platform, connecting the two systems offers tremendous advantages. Companies should strongly consider integrating LinkedIn with Salesforce if looking to improve sales productivity, increase lead conversion, expand social selling capabilities, and gain richer customer insights.