7 Steps to Use LinkedIn for an Account-Based Strategy

Is your team using an account-based marketing (ABM) and sales strategy? If you're not using LinkedIn as part of your enterprise account strategy, you're missing out. It's the perfect way to get the entire buying committee on board with your solution.

LinkedIn is an ideal starting point to get your foot in the door at a target account. More importantly, it can help you penetrate an enterprise account at multiple levels and uncover needs throughout the organization.

 As you gain access to key stakeholders throughout the organization, you get a chance to uncover needs that many at the senior level don’t fully understand. This allows you to bring more significant insight that you can use to influence the entire buying committee. 

LinkedIn is the perfect platform on which to execute an account-based strategy.

Here's why:

1. With more than 850 million members and over 90 million executives and decision-makers, LinkedIn is the largest professional network in the world.
2. It’s very likely that your key stakeholders have a LinkedIn account and visit at least weekly.
3. LinkedIn allows you to target specific accounts, engage key stakeholders, and build relationships.
4. The platform provides powerful tools for creating and sharing content that build your brand and educate stakeholders. 

Here's a step-by-step guide to using LinkedIn for an account-based strategy:

1. Identify your target accounts.

I don’t necessarily recommend using LinkedIn for this step. You probably already have an account list. If not, tools like ZoomInfo and Seamless.ai can help you identify your ideal accounts.

2. Research the decision makers and stakeholder in those accounts.

This is where LinkedIn or Sales Navigator enter the picture. First search for the account, then view the employees of that account. If you have Sales Navigator, you can create an account map and identify all the tier 1, 2, and 3 stakeholders you want to pursue.

3. Engage with your stakeholders in posts and comments.

Take a look at your stakeholders’ LinkedIn activity. Are they posting? Try to engage with their posts by liking and commenting. If they’re just reacting or commenting on other peoples’ posts, consider engaging with a post that they’ve responded to. They’re likely to receive a notification, especially if you respond to their comment. This step helps build affinity before you reach out.

4. Connect with those stakeholders on LinkedIn.

Now spend some time researching each individual. Find a nugget of information you can use to send a personalized connection request and start a conversation. For more information on this, check out my YouTube video on how I send connection requests that result in conversations and meetings.

5. Engage your stakeholders in dialogue via LinkedIn DMs.

Once they accept your connection request and hopefully reply, keep the conversation going for a bit on LinkedIn. Then, when you see a natural segue, invite them to jump on a call to discuss the topic in more depth. (I have several videos that go into detail about how to do this.)

6. Schedule meetings to get acquainted with each stakeholder.

The more conversations you have, the more relationships you’ll build in the account. This will allow you to uncover business pains from different departments. It gives you the chance to help each different cohort within the buying committee develop a vision for how they can benefit from your offering. 

That kind of support will bubble up in the organization, creating a wave of influence that’s really hard for a competitor to overcome.

7. Gather insight from each stakeholder, and then share these with the more senior decision-makers.

If you do your homework thoroughly, you will have insight into the enterprise that the decision makers do not. You’ll be able to bring new light to problems and help them understand how your solution will impact the whole enterprise.  

And that’s how you close an enterprise account.

About the Author: Candyce Edelen is founder of PropelGrowth, where she teaches B2B entrepreneurs and sales professionals to build authentic, human-to-human relationships on LinkedIn. Her strategies have helped clients shift from spammy automation to genuine outreach, resulting in higher-quality leads and increased sales. Candyce is passionate about helping professionals build trust and create a reliable, predictable sales pipeline. She's also a firm believer that you can't automate a relationship.