Savvy lead generation firms know: Linkedin is a goldmine of opportunity... and Advanced Search Linkedin is the tool you need to unearth that potential. Millions of professionals and millions of businesses provide their contact information on Linkedin and make it available to the user community. It’s like voluntarily putting yourself on prospecting lists, and clever companies can take advantage of that in a big way to help spur outbound marketing and - ultimately - growth. But with the millions of profiles available, it is possible to cast a prospecting net that’s too wide. How do you make sure you’re finding the right - and only the right - people when you use Linkedin to prospect?
Today we’re going to talk about using “Advanced Search Linkedin.” This clever tool will help ensure you’re able to find the audiences you want to find, and avoid reaching out to those you don’t. You’ll learn how to search Linkedin groups and how to do an Advanced Search on Linkedin leveraging the right filters to create carefully targeted prospecting lists for lead gen. Let’s get started.
Read More: How to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile Like a Pro
What is Linkedin Search?
You may have heard it called “Premium Search” before, but lead gen firms will likely refer to it as LinkedIn Advanced Search. This smart tool, which is built into the Linkedin Sales Navigator or Linkedin Recruiter subscription, gives users a set of search filters they can use to generate lists of Linkedin users based on a number of key criteria. (And what’s perhaps more important, they can avoid reaching out to anyone who does not fit that criterion. More on that later).
Linkedin Advanced Search versus Basic Search
So why would you need to subscribe to Linkedin Sales Navigator when the basic Linkedin membership gets you a search function that’s free? There are a few key differences between Linkedin Advanced Search and Linkedin Basic Search that make choosing the former worth your while (if you’re serious about prospecting, that is).
The first is the total number of candidates/prospects available to you. LinkedIn Basic Search only gives users the ability to search through 1st-degree connections and 2nd-degree connections (2nd-degree connections, you may have guessed, are 1st-degree connections of your 1st-degree connections). Basically, you can only search through the people who know the people you know. But with Advanced Search, users are opened up to a pool of their 1st, 2nd and 3rd-degree connections, so the options are much greater and the potential net you can cast is far wider.
Linkedin Advanced Search lets you save searches. Simply put, you do not have the ability to save past searches using Linkedin Basic Search. But Linkedin Saved Searches are a necessary entity for the savvy marketer. Targeting the right audiences requires a good deal of finessing and re-tooling. The folks you thought you needed to reach may have very specific titles, unique associated keywords, or other identifying monikers that you’ll only discover as you move along. So being able to conduct a search, save it, and come back to it later and re-tool with fresh information is absolutely pivotal.
Linkedin Advanced Search gives you more filters to work with. We’ll go over the specifics of the Linkedin Advanced Search filters in detail later on, but the bottom line is this: you have more to work with when you’re using Advanced Search (versus Basic Search). This opens up a wide range of options that allow you to create very specific and precise targeting lists. It matters a great deal when your business, your services, or the particular audiences you serve are incredibly niche. You’ll want the ability to make your prospecting lists as niche as you are.
Basic Linkedin memberships have a commercial use limit. When you use the free Linkedin membership, you’re only allocated a few profile views per day. On the other hand, the Linkedin Sales Navigator memberships and Linkedin Recruiter memberships offer a (nearly) unlimited number of profile views. This will matter a great deal if you’re working on a tight timeline. Being able to prospect and review audiences without that per-day cap on profile views lets you do as much - or as little - prospecting as you need to without creating delays.
The Linkedin Basic Search Filters
For general purposes, the Linkedin Basic Search filters are fairly appropriate. They include:
industry
geographic location
current company/companies
past companies
profile language
school/educational institution
connections (including 1st and 2nd degree)
connections of colleagues
services offered
Filters are combinable, so, to satisfy the most basic needs, they’ll work. However, they simply don’t begin to scratch the surface of all that is possible when it comes to prospecting and audience targeting with LinkedIn. Linkedin is a veritable data goldmine full of user information, job information, and business information. All that data means there’s a wealth of opportunity to create some truly nuanced targeting that the Basic Search simply doesn’t allow. But with the filters offered through LinkedIn’s Advanced Search, savvy lead gen firms know that they’ll have a quick and easy time of identifying the right leads, refining their search results, and creating robust lists of prospects.
The Linkedin Advanced Search Filters
Linkedin Advanced Search filters include the following (in addition to the filters available with the basic membership):
title
company headcount (staff size)
seniority level at company
function at company
keywords
Note: Linkedin Recruiter has its own filters, and is a great tool if you are, in fact, aiming to recruit new consultants and/or employees through Linkedin. Being able to conduct an advanced job search Linkedin would, in that instance, be necessary. But for the purposes of lead generation, Linkedin Sales Navigator is really what you want to be using. We’ll talk about the main filters on Linkedin Recruiter (briefly) below.
Let’s Dive Deeper on Linkedin Advanced Search Filters.
So why do you need all these fancy filters? You’re just looking for local auto mechanics, right? Or financial planners within the state of California? Let’s take a look at why (and when) each of Linkedin’s Advanced Search filters may come in handy.
Title
Being able to prospect for individuals with particular titles is absolutely critical for lead generation, particularly if your service or business is niche. For example, if your company sells an HR management software solution, it’ll be imperative that the people you’re speaking with have a vested interest in the operations of HR (as opposed to, say a VP of Sales or a Direct of Marketing, who won’t).
Company Headcount
Most often, vendor partners want to assess the “size” of their prospective partners based on annual revenue. Unfortunately (or maybe, fortunately), this is not information that anyone shares on Linkedin. Instead, a solid stand-in piece of intel is the company headcount. Typically, knowing how many are employed at a company (plus the industry they’re in and the service they provide) should give you at least a general picture of what their annual revenue could be. Filter parameters for company headcount in Linkedin Advanced Search are as follows:
Self-employed
1-10
11-50
51-200
201-500
501-1000
1001-5000
5001-10,000
10,000+
Seniority Level
While knowing a person’s title is pretty critical, it doesn’t necessarily paint the entire picture of their role within a company. At the end of the day, will they be a decision-maker who has the capacity to onboard new vendor partners? Their title alone may not let you know that, so Linkedin Advanced Search lets you pair that information with a seniority level. Levels break out in the following way:
Owner
Partner
CXO (Chief...)
VP
Director
Manager
Senior
Entry
Training
Unpaid
Function
Similar to seniority level, pairing a person’s “function” in a company with their title is a great way to paint an even clearer picture of their role. It’ll help you shed greater light on whether or not they’ll be a decision-maker when it comes to vendor partners, especially if titles or seniority levels are left a little vague. For example, a person might bill themselves as “Vice President” of a company. Really though, their purview extends only to sales (and not to IT, where you need to be in touch with someone). So appending a function that dictates their focus is on “sales” really helps to clear that up.
Search filters for Linkedin Recruiter
If your needs are recruitment (and not lead gen), then it’ll make a lot more sense to conduct searches through Linkedin Recruiter (not Sales Navigator). In addition to the basic Linkedin search filters, Linkedin Recruiter allows you to search by:
skills
employment type
education
expected salary
As a recruiter, some of these search filters are absolute must-haves. Salary expectations and education level are hard to get around with certain positions. But it’s also nice to be able to search a person’s skill sets. If you’re hiring for an entry-level position, but that person MUST have an understanding of Visual Basic, searching their skills will be able to tell you that. (Fun fact: did you know that analytical skills, like problem-solving and critical thinking, are the most searched skills on Linkedin?).
Linkedin keyword search
If your needs when prospecting are particularly niche, sometimes using function, title, headcount, and seniority level (paired with the basic search function options of geo-location and other filters) are just not enough. Sometimes you need to be able to go a little deeper than that. That’s where using keyword filters in Linkedin Advanced Search comes in incredibly handy. You can create criteria for prospects using unique keyword identifiers.
Let’s say, for example, that your niche is in working with nonprofits, but with a particular focus on nonprofits that work towards social justice. You could add the keyword “social justice” to your search in order to pair that list of prospects down and create a targeted audience list that’s exclusively focused on this subject area.
Concerned that this approach might be too exclusionary? Don’t worry: we’ll talk about how to use Boolean logic in your searches in the section below, to maximize search options and make sure you’re reaching everyone you want to be.
Using Boolean Logic
The filters mentioned above used in combination can yield some incredibly particular and specific prospecting lists. Unfortunately, they’re a little “all or nothing.” For example, if you want to target small healthcare providers in Michigan, but you can only service a select type of healthcare provider, your options are limited. You can go incredibly niche and use keywords to select “dental” offices (eliminating anyone who does not consider themselves to be “dental”). Or you can go broad and render a prospecting list that will include a wide range of prospects… some of which may not be viable for your business. You’ll get “dental” offices AND everyone else who identifies themselves as small healthcare providers.
That’s where Boolean logic comes in. Boolean logic allows you to create a search query that includes some keywords, but excludes others. The following codes can be used to let you create the perfect search query:
NOT - You can add “NOT” when entering a search term to exclude the term immediately following it (thus removing it from your search results). For example, “NOT audiology” would render for you all small healthcare providers in Michigan, except audiologists.
OR - Adding “OR” will give you prospects that apply to one or the other keywords that you enter… but not both. For example, you’d be able to specify that you’re working with “Dental OR Optometry,” but the results wouldn’t have to apply to both the “dental” and “optometry” keywords (it would just be one or the other).
AND - “AND” ensures that a prospect meets the two keyword requirements entered. So, for example, you could enter the keywords “Dental AND Orthodontic” and prospects rendered would need both to qualify.
Parenthesis () - Using parentheses in your search criteria can get a bit technical, and it helps if you’ve already got some experience writing Boolean operators. But if your keyword search needs to be elaborate, you’ll have to employ parentheses at some point. You could, for example, write the following:
(Dental OR Optometry) AND NOT Orthodontics.
This would render healthcare providers who specialize in either dental or vision care, but do not supply orthodontia.
Quotation Marks “” - use quotation marks in your search query only if you need to use a very specific, two-word keyword. For example, if you’re looking for a marketing agency that focuses on brand voice, you’d want to specify that you’re looking for the keywords “brand voice” instead of the individual keywords “brand” and “voice” (which might very well render something like a singing coach).
Using Exclusions in Your Searches
Linkedin’s search filters are based on how prospects identify themselves, and, unfortunately, prospects aren’t always the best at that. There are occasions where you might want to “exclude” certain keywords to help prevent accessing people that aren’t right for your target audience. For example, excluding “Assistant” from a title search would eliminate anyone whose title is Assistant Director of Marketing or Assistant Operations Officer, even if (in their seniority level), these individuals had identified themselves as “directors” or “officers.”
Some Final Thoughts
Linkedin’s search algorithms are as ideal as they can be in what is, ultimately, a pretty imperfect system. At the end of the day, prospects are responsible for identifying themselves correctly so that their Linkedin search appearances make sense… the data in Linkedin is only as accurate as its users make it. You might become a master at creating the perfect search queries and using all the right keywords to hone in on your ideal target audience, and STILL get a prospect list that’s less than perfect. That’s okay.
Prospecting on Linkedin can - and should - be an iterative process. That’s why the ability to save searches with Linkedin Sales Navigator is so valuable. Set up a search: if your prospecting list isn’t ideal, you can go back to the drawing board, tweak filters, work with Boolean logic, and optimize until you’ve honed that query and are getting closer to the results you want.
And if all of that sounds daunting and like too much work (it IS a lot of work), you can always call in experts. Lead gen firms like Salesflow Inc. are practiced in the art of leveraging Linkedin’s search capabilities to find target audiences for growing businesses… so you don’t have to. Give them a call if you feel that outsourcing prospecting to experts may be the right move for you.