This contributing article does not reflect the views and opinions of BAMF Media, its subsidiaries, employees or its management. Its feature on the BAMF platform is to educate, inform, and help our users and clients.
BAMF Media Management
Dux-Soup is one of the best known and most established LinkedIn automation tools on the market.
With around 70,000 users, it’s clear that there is a huge demand for technology that can make the process of revenue generation easier.
In the last decade, the concept of growth hacking has offered an intriguing opportunity for businesses to accelerate growth.
Growth hacking is all about implementing strategies that will create massive growth over short timescales on a small budget. And this is exactly what Dux-Soup as a business has itself achieved, accumulating its user base in just 7 years.
Technology is the most important enabler when it comes to growth hacking, and with the rise of social networking adoption, LinkedIn automation adoption is closely following the trend. It’s embraced by entrepreneurs, sales, marketing, digital agencies, recruiters – basically savvy organizations that target the B2B sector and want to rapidly scale.
The benefits of automation
Technology and automation tools offer impressive benefits, making it easy to see why adoption rates are so high. Benefits such as:
- Improved output of measurable results. Companies boast a 3,000% increase in results using LinkedIn automation tools
- Time savings of up to 80% for the lead generation process
- Cost reductions, removing the need for additional staff by automating manual processes
- Increased sales revenue, with the ability to drive direct sales using automated workflow pathways.
Sales and Marketing is fueled by the ambition to prove better conversion rates, deliver innovative ways of engaging with audiences and achieve accelerated growth, right? And for this, automation is giving us the answer.
Automation – dividing the market?
But are we endangering the benefits of automation by overusing this technology?
There are very divided opinions when it comes to automation versus personalization, a topic which creates some rather heated debates on social media.
On one hand, tools that offer increasing benefits to businesses should be maximized, automating as much of the process as possible to deliver better results.
On the other hand, when we automate processes do we lose the ability to respond in a human way, alienating our audience, or worse, drive them off platforms entirely – and threatening the benefits of social engagement for everyone?
Responsible usage
The sensible argument is often that a healthy balance is best; automation is never going to be a ‘one size fits all’ approach.
What we mean by this is that every business should assess its own automation workflow, deciding where human engagement should start to take place, and automation stop.
The process of optimizing your workflow requires measuring, adapting, testing and tweaking until you eventually come to a point where your strategy offers conversion rates that work for your business.
Hopefully, all without resulting in unwanted outreach which can create negative feelings towards your brand.
Users must ultimately take responsibility for their actions when it comes to automation.
The tools may be the enablers, but it is the user that has the power to drive the actions.
That’s why we’re always clear to remind automation users at every opportunity to not ‘go mad’ when you start using growth hacking tools like Dux-Soup.
As Tyron Giuliani, LinkedIn expert and Founder of Selling Made Social commented in a recent webinar on ‘Doubling your Sales Funnel with LinkedIn automation’ – you have to put thought and process around the use of automation tools. They are super effective when used right but don’t expect next-day success.
When we see users getting upset with automation tools because they have had their accounts restricted, we advise them to review how they use the tools and the behavior that has made LinkedIn flag them.
LinkedIn monitors user behavior, and if it suspects that automation is taking place then it has the power to suspend your accounts, and even permanently ban you.
This is why it’s so important to use automation tools responsibly and stick to recommended guidelines from the experts.
Out of the hundreds of clients Tyron’s coached on Dux-Soup over the years only two have had a temporary suspension. And that was because they sent hundreds of automation connection requests (against his and Dux-Soup guidelines) in the first few days of using it.
Dux-Soup regularly updates their settings to pre-configure the tool within safe LinkedIn limits, but users that choose to override these settings run an increased risk of their account being compromised.
When creating your automation workflow, consider how important LinkedIn is to your business and whether you want to push the boundaries here, understanding the risks involved.
Optimizing your automation strategy
It’s not just the risk factors that you should consider with automation tools, it’s the reward factors that should also be thought through.
By harness automation for the processes that don’t require human intelligence, we create more time to focus on the manual aspect of engagement.
This allows us to offer more relevance and better personalization when we come to the human response and ultimately achieve better conversion rates.
As an added benefit for everyone, we significantly reduce the frequency of irrelevant, poorly timed messages and help keep our valuable communities alive for everyone.
Using expert learnings as a starting point for your workflows can help you cut out a large part of the learning process and drive results quicker.
Don’t forget that although we’re all trying to drive as many leads into our business as we can, we’re dealing with people – and are strong believers that the old adage ‘people buy from people’ still rings true today.
Buyers are simply helped along the way by content, reviews and recommendations that are much more readily available.
A final thought
If we can continue to deliver value in our content then we will see social communities thrive. If we abuse our automation tools, then we risk losing not only our access but our entire communities.
LinkedIn is trying to do its part to keep their communities safe and active. We should respect the platform for the opportunities it offers us, which is why automation alone isn’t the silver bullet. Use it responsibly, with respect and we can all gain the benefits.