LinkedIn’s adding some new elements to its Sales Navigator tool, which will provide more ways for salespeople to make relevant connections to maximize sales, while also helping them uncover new opportunities, based on data insights.

First off, LinkedIn’s adding a new ‘Relationship Explorer’ element, which will help Sales Navigator users find the right connections for their pitches.

As per the video, Relationship Explorer uses LinkedIn’s professional insights to highlight the most relevant connections for your pitch.

As per LinkedIn:

“Relationship Explorer leverages relationship intelligence from our first-party data, based on our professional community of more than 900 million members, to surface eight of the top decision-makers at an account who are most likely to engage with the seller. And importantly, Relationship Explorer provides insights into why buyers may be interested in hearing from the seller, such as a recent job change, being a past colleague, or even being a past customer.”

So not only does the tool highlight the contacts that you likely want to connect with, but it also gives you a way into an initial conversation, with ice-breaker prompts that could help to get the conversation started in the app.

That could be a big help in kicking off that initial outreach, easing the sales process with key contacts, and ensuring that you never miss an opportunity to engage with these important connections.

LinkedIn’s also adding a new ‘Personas’ feature, which will enable sellers to define their target customer by selecting job title, function, seniority and geography.

Sales Navigator users will be able to create up to five personas, which they can then use as templates when searching for relevant contacts across LinkedIn’s database.

Finally, LinkedIn’s also adding a new ‘Product Category Intent’ filter within Sales Navigator search, which aims to indicate the level of likely interest in a company’s product or product category specifically, compared to interest in the company overall. 

LinkedIn continues to upgrade and improve its Sales Navigator tool with more insights, using LinkedIn’s unmatched professional database to build a more effective, focused sales tool, based on increasingly complex data points.

And while some of this may seem relatively straightforward, in connecting with the right people in the app, only LinkedIn is able to provide this level of direct targeting to decision-makers based on these insights.

It’s not necessarily cheap - Sales Navigator subscriptions start at $US99 per month – but it may well be worth it, depending on your business, and who you’re targeting with your products and offerings.

If your focus audience aligns with those on LinkedIn, it could be a worthy investment, especially given these more advanced targeting options.

You can read more about the latest Sales Navigator updates here.