Do you have a lot of LinkedIn connections?
Good.
We have a treat in store for you today.
You might not know this, but after removing the feature for so long, LinkedIn decided to bring it back as users were clamoring for it.
This guide will show you how to export LinkedIn contacts, leverage your connection list, and enhance your lead omnichannel lead generation.
Why Did They Remove the Option?
The thing is, LinkedIn always used to have this feature, but they removed it because a lot of their users were frequently abusing it. There were even companies selling off the data that they were getting from their exports.
But, they had to listen to their users.
So, they brought it back, and it’s probably one of the most underrated features on the platform.
What Can I Do With Exported LinkedIn Data?
A lot.
Exported LinkedIn data allows you to have a backup of your connections if you ever lose your LinkedIn account or have it compromised in any way. This means you always have a contact list that’s not linked to LinkedIn in the case of a problem.
The information that you get is actually robust enough to use in CRMs!
Beyond the usual backup and audit use, exporting your LinkedIn data allows you to leverage it for advanced lead generation.
You can use this data to enrich your customer profiles, perform analytics and enhance your omnichannel marketing campaigns.
Say you’re running a LinkedIn campaign that compromises lead nurturing via posts and a direct campaign using LinkedIn messaging, you can now expand to include a Facebook retargeting campaign because you have their emails.
Is It Just About the Emails?
Digital marketers know that emails are powerful.
However, exporting your LinkedIn contacts goes beyond leveraging email addresses.
Not all of your contacts will allow you to grab their email addresses, but it will still give you a wealth of information about your prospects.
You get their positions, companies, and when you connected.
That’s enough to run an enrichment campaign on a third-party platform since you already have enough to work on, and you don’t have to keep visiting individual LinkedIn profiles to pull information.
Now, if you do get their emails, then great. You can run more advanced campaigns without having to leave the comfort
How to Export Contacts on LinkedIn?
First of all, you want to click on your profile in the upper-right-hand corner of your feed.
Click on the “Data privacy” section, then on “How LinkedIn uses your data.”
This should bring up your options for data privacy, including one called “Get a copy of your data.”
There are two options you can use here:
- Download larger data archive, including connections, contacts, account history, and information we infer about you based on your profile and activity. Learn more
- Want something in particular? Select the data files you’re most interested in.
You can pick the second option and choose your “Connections”, but grabbing a copy of everything is not such a bad idea either, you can use it to analyze and audit how you’ve been using the platform as a whole.
Give the platform some time to process your request, the more data you have, the longer it will take. We tried this experiment with a newer account and it took up to 15 minutes to get the archive ready for download.
Keep checking back to see if it’s done, and you should get an option to “Download archive” after LinkedIn has processed it for you.
If you downloaded your complete LinkedIn archive of data, you should get a compressed download with these particular files.
These files outline everything from details of your connections to the skills you’ve uploaded on the site.
It’s a pretty comprehensive export.
Throwing All Of Your Data Into Your CRM
Your next step should be to integrate all the data you’ve collected using the export LinkedIn contacts functionality to your CRM.
This allows you to start tracking your leads as you interact and connect with them on LinkedIn – if you’re not doing so already.
Using a CRM is crucial if you want to create omnichannel campaigns because it allows everyone on your sales and marketing team to be on the same page as to where the deal is at. It also provides you with one central place to update leads and check for information regarding them.
Enriching Your Leads
Once you export LinkedIn contacts into your CRM, it’s time to start enriching your leads.
Now a lot of lead generation/nurturing campaigns fail not because of their lead lists but rather because marketers don’t have enough information to work with. Enriched leads provide you with information that you can leverage to personalize your digital campaigns, which is critical if you want to connect with your prospects.
You can use email enrichment services to add emails, use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to add more details, and various other tools to add more value to your lists.
Here’s how you to use LinkedIn Sales Navigator like a growth hacker!
Make sure you find out details that are not just limited to demographics, such as:
- Where did they go to school?
- What other companies are they linked to?
- Years of experience
- Clients and industries they work with
Then, take it a step further with your analysis to determine their pain points and the unique challenges.
This allows you to find levers that you can work with to ensure they remain in your funnel.
Creating a Larger Lead Pool
If you already have existing lists outside of LinkedIn, you can use this feature to add more contacts to them. This has the effect of increasing the number of total leads you have, which can translate to a larger market share.
However, we strongly advise that you enrich the leads you get from LinkedIn before you add them to any lists to make it easier for you to integrate everything into your existing campaigns.
Auditing and Understanding Your Contacts
When you export LinkedIn contacts, it allows you to look at your current LinkedIn audience and see if you’re hitting your targets.
This is where you can ask yourself questions such as:
- Do I have the right people following me?
- What percentage of my connections can I “actually” reach out to?
- How many have I already marketed to?
- Am I posting consistently?
Then, you move on to ask questions about your leads themselves, such as:
- What’s the common denominator with the people following me?
- Are they all from the same industry?
- Is this an industry I can work with?
This is also mission-critical information that can take your lead generation to the next level and refine the way you target.
Creating Retargeting Campaigns
Some of the contacts that you pull from LinkedIn will have their email addresses available for you, and you can leverage these for retargeting campaigns.
You can create a custom list on Facebook and send targeted ads that aim to increase the surface area of any digital omnichannel campaign.
After that, you can take it a step further by creating a lookalike audience on the platform to market to more leads using Facebook’s algorithm to do list building for you.
Takeaways When You Export Linked Contacts
Exporting Linked contacts is powerful because of the number of things you can do with the feature.
You get access to a list of all your connections, making it easier for you to add them to your master list, but it also provides you with an avenue to take stock of the relationships you have.
At BAMF, we advise that you regularly keep a record of your contacts just in case something goes south with your LinkedIn profile, but more importantly, to use it to enhance your marketing campaigns.
