LinkedIn Premium vs. Sales Navigator: Which Tool is Best for Your Business?

When it comes to leveraging LinkedIn for business growth, the platform offers two key paid tools: LinkedIn Premium and Sales Navigator, which are the most helpful ones. 

Despite the fact that each of them was developed to contribute to such aspects of user interaction as networking, lead generation, and sales, both differ in terms of target audience and goals.

It is essential for sales professionals, recruiters, and business owners who want to optimize participation in LinkedIn to understand the difference between the two options described above. 

This guide covers:

This article will help you differentiate between LinkedIn Premium and Sales Navigator while highlighting the differences in features, prices, and what tools are right for your business objectives.

What is LinkedIn Premium?

what is linkedin premium?

LinkedIn Premium is a paid service that extends features for creating business connections, enhancing profile visibility, and acquiring special information. It is available in various options, which are common for any online platform, such as Premium Career and Premium Business, among others.

To the basic user of LinkedIn who is looking for a job, a job provider, or any business entity, this demonstrates how LinkedIn Premium can be of extra advantage in contrast to the free version as it offers several other features.

How Does LinkedIn Premium Work?

LinkedIn Premium enhances your profile and networking experience in several key ways:

  • InMail Messages: LinkedIn InMail is considered to be the most demanded service that LinkedIn offers to its consumers under this subscription. It also allows users to send private messages to other users with whom they may not have any links. This can be very useful when writing to those you would wish to do business with, say employers or other experts in the field.
  • Profile Views: One of the things to note here is that all the features that notify the users about viewers are only accessible to the premium users. This means that the latter can see the people who have shown some level of interest in them as per the profile created over the last 90 days in line with their professional choices and preferences.
  • Advanced Search Filters: 'Premium' allowed additional possibilities for the search for candidates and working professionals to connect. It has an advanced search option where a user can search people by keywords like industry, company size, and seniority level, among others.
  • Learning Resources: LinkedIn Learning is included in the subscription package and provides access to thousands of online courses in different fields, such as management, analytics, project management, etc.
  • Applicant Insights: For employers and job seekers, job seekers in particular, the Premium gets them a hint of how they fare in the market in regards to other players in the game, hence a hint of skills that need polishing.

If you are aiming to increase your networking experience, knowing how to find someone’s email on LinkedIn can help you create direct contacts and grow your circle.

Who Should Use LinkedIn Premium?

LinkedIn Premium is designed to serve different audiences, depending on the subscription tier:

  • Job Seekers: Premium Career is meant for the target population, which consists of men and women who are in search of a job. It has lead generation tools like InMail and application analytics for strengthening employer branding.
  • Recruiters: While Sales Navigator has a clearer understanding of the particular requirements for lead generation. The Premium Business offers more contacts that can be used to reach out to market leaders the recruiters.
  • Business Professionals: Some of the other benefits include more profile views, enhanced search capabilities, and increased InMail sending limit. This is quite useful for people such as business people, influencers, advisors, or anyone who would want to be famous and popular on the platform.

Learners and Skill Builders: Anyone who wants to master their profession could make the most of the LinkedIn Learning access that is in the package under the Premium plan. Be it leadership, technology, or business skills, the website provides an array of courses that meet every learning style and preference.

Advantages of LinkedIn Premium

advantages of linkedin premium

Several features are provided to users, and most of them focus on networking, employment, and business. All these benefits can be very fruitful for a job seeker, business person or a professional who wants to create a network profile on LinkedIn.

Advanced Search Filters

The most user-friendly features of LinkedIn Premium that differentiate it from the basic account are the search options and filters. In turn, these filters assist users in redefining the search in a way that gives them a list of results that is shorter and highly relevant to their search. 

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Truthfully, to simplify your search for the job of your choice, you can filter your search according to industry, job type, location, company size, level of employment, and even experience level.

This functionality can be specifically effective for employees, whereas, unlike with the help of searching for hours, one can get the right contacts or job offers at once. It also means that the research for the potential candidates is much quicker and more efficient for the recruiters. 

Candidates can also use the filters to browse through the employer’s database in order to find those they are interested in based on the type of job they would like to do.

Unlimited People Searches

It is also important to note that LinkedIn, unlike the LinkedIn free version, has users with a certain number of connections, where 30 connections can be searched in a month within the LinkedIn Premium. This feature is most valuable for sales professionals, recruiters, and any professional who intends to reach out to different prospects without any boundaries.

It simply means opportunities to meet the right people, whether on the purchase side, employee side, suppliers' side, or potential advertising partners. It also eliminates the possibility of reaching the limits and ceases the searches, constantly searching and inviting new persons.

Business Insights and Company Insights

LinkedIn Premium also has a way of helping the user to gain business and company information. All these aspects enable the user to get some important information on a certain company, including its growth, size, and the approach taken in employees’ recruitment and competition. To business professionals, this information is very useful when in a meeting, pitching, or when looking for some sort of partnership.

This kind of information is quite useful at this level to avoid any unforeseen outcomes, even in the business that you desire to take. The other advantage that job seekers are able to tap from having some ideas about the employers they are set to approach for job offers is that it helps them to have a feel of the company they are about to join.

Limitless Search

Besides, LinkedIn Premium is different from organic LinkedIn, where the user is limited to the number of requests he or she can make in a day. This state of affairs means that any profile, and therefore any user, is visible to another user even if that particular user does not belong to the connections list of the first user.

In the free version, only the list of friends that one can see and the friends that one can engage with are limited and can only comprise first and second-degree friends. So when using Premium, that shade of restraint is removed, and one can search for leads, prospects, or employers. This is quite useful to business development officers as well as to recruiters who wish to go further.

Insights of Company

LinkedIn Premium contains more details about the organization that are not disclosed to others for active users who want to have more advantages in a specific niche. Other important operational data includes financial performance information, a list of specific decision-makers in the organization and the details of the employees of that organization. The use of email finder tools like BookYourData can help reduce the burden of searching for email addresses using the name or the company's name.

This also helps the industry players to access a company well with sufficient information about the firm's hierarchy and operations. These are basic concepts in the process of finding business and employment, and thus, by implementing them, one is likely to achieve the intended results.

LinkedIn Learning

The other benefit of the LinkedIn Premium is that the user gets to access LinkedIn Learning, which is an online learning platform. This feature alone comprises at least thousands of courses across different disciplines, including leadership, marketing, technology and self-help, among others.

LinkedIn Learning offers courses to people who wish to be experts in a particular field or learn new skills. The profiles also have an option of getting certifications that are displayed on the profiles so as to enhance the credibility of the skills possessed by the individual in ship vacancies.

LinkedIn Learning may be effective for an entrepreneur or a manager to organize the employees and their skill development training.

What is LinkedIn Sales Navigator?

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a paid subscription that is beneficial to individual sales representatives and sales teams who wish to leverage the LinkedIn platform in their sales strategies.

The search capabilities, analytical features, and functions for posting on Twitter make it easier for the users of Sales Navigator to identify potential customers, follow their movements, and communicate with them appropriately.

LinkedIn subscriptions are expensive, and they provide numerous opportunities for contact generation, but this will help you get specific contacts suitable for B2B companies.

How Does LinkedIn Sales Navigator Work?

Some of the features available in Sales Navigator include lead search, demonstration, and note-taking on the prospects, making it clear why teams require an upgrade:

  • Advanced Lead and Account Search: The Sales Navigator provides an option to search for leads or accounts in various categories such as function, seniority level, company size, or intent criteria, which include users who have been active on LinkedIn in the last 90 days.
  • Lead Recommendations: If you close it or refresh the page, Sales Navigator highlights the prospects relevant to the users' interests depending on your history and saved searches. This saves some time and effort because the qualified prospects are brought directly to your doorstep.
  • Real-Time Alerts: These alerts allow users to get informed about updates, such as when the people they are connected with change jobs, post something on their LinkedIn feed or even get featured in the news. The real-time information makes the sales professionals more timely and engaged at the right time.
  • InMail Messaging: Like LinkedIn Premium, Sales Navigator has InMail, a feature that enables the user to connect with prospects with whom the user does not share any connection.

Who Should Use Sales Navigator?

Sales Navigator is specifically designed for sales teams who want to upgrade their sales tools, leverage TeamLink, and manage conversations efficiently to make better introductions during the selling process:

  • Sales Teams: Good for B2B businesses that aim at lower-middle market audiences and are willing to invest efforts in building a sales contact. This makes it possible to set meetings, track leads, and display the united team’s performance in general accounts.
  • Business Development Professionals: Users of strategic partnerships and business development management will also be able to increase their lead generation and analysis.
  • Recruiters in Sales-Driven Sectors: Sales professionals, sales recruitment agencies, and all those recruiting in sales functions can now use Sales Navigator to reach out to high-quality prospects.

Nevertheless, it is ideal for individual sales representatives and teams who want to have a proper way of approaching sales and lead searches on LinkedIn.

Advantages of Sales Navigator

advantages of sales navigator

LinkedIn Sales Navigator offers numerous features that are believed to be very helpful for an individual seller and/or a sales team. The tool is designed to give better information, better classification, and connection with other sales channels. Therefore, it is suitable for selling to the new generation.

Targeting Potential Customers and Leads

Sales Navigator also has another benefit of helping the users identify their potential customers and leads more effectively. Depending on the criteria, which may include job title, industry, location or company size, the audience is in a good place to perform a number of very targeted searches.

You might also be interested in the best practices for cold emails that can help you engage prospects and turn them into leads. This will assist the sales teams in focusing on the prospects who are most likely to purchase their products, which will help to save time. 

It also suggests the leads based on the browser history and if the user has saved any list of preferred leads to sharpen the targeting. This feature becomes very useful for B2B sales teams that consider it crucial to segment sales communication.

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Industry Trends and Unlimited Searches

Where Sales Navigator differs from LinkedIn’s free version is that, for example, with Sales Navigator, users have unlimited search abilities. This feature is essential to keep track of clients' and prospects' searches or for the possibility of searching a particular industry consistently without restrictions. 

Sales Navigator also offers an industry trend, the same as BookYourData, that easily informs the users of any developments within the respective field. Such information helps sales professionals to speak to possible clients in the right manner based on the needs of the current industry.

Sales Team Tool for Professional Networking

As a tool for sales representatives, Sales Navigator is developed not only for personal work but also as a group working tool. The application allows shared saving and access of leads and accounts, as well as records and tracks the activities of the customers and possible key account activities in real time. 

This functionality enhances communication among the employees and makes sure that all the members of the sales team are on the same page. It also helps the users to identify common connections with prospective leads, and they can use them to build rapport and trust since most business deals are made based on the feeling of trust.

Search Saving

There is also one more feature that is useful in Sales Navigator –the possibility of saving a search. This makes it possible for users to construct sophisticated searches and get back to them at will. It supports the tasks of salespersons in generating a steady stream of leads without needing to build the searches over and over again. 

Sales teams also have the ability to bookmark accounts and leads that they are currently working with, which helps track and reference later. It proves very helpful if used to handle several sales or deals that may need follow-ups after some time.

Filtering Options

It should be stated that Sales Navigator provides more filtering opportunities than LinkedIn Premium. Potential buyers can sort prospects by rank or position, job change, company growth, and similar options. 

These filters assist the sellers in finding the appropriate contacts in an organization and thus have more potential of making the sale. It also gives engagement history to help one identify the leads that are active on LinkedIn, making it easier for one to target the more active prospects. You can also filter this information using tools like BookYourData.

CRM Connection

Sales Navigator works well in harmony with most of the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions such as BookYourData, Salesforce. and HubSpot. It becomes easy to sync Leads from LinkedIn to the CRM of the sales teams to follow through and process the leads effectively. 

Leads can be directly pulled into the CRM system from Sales Navigator, track activity, and will be able to see LinkedIn profile activity within a CRM platform. It centralizes the lead management and organizes all the prospecting to ensure that it is easily accessible.

LinkedIn Premium vs. LinkedIn Sales Navigator

The biggest difference between LinkedIn Premium and Sales Navigator is that the former is a business social media site, while the latter is a tool for finding sales leads on the platform. Although there are some features available in the paid version which is not available in the free version of LinkedIn, both of them are designed for different professions.

  • Target Audience: LinkedIn Premium is useful to those who believe that they are professionals, those searching for employment, or those who would like to gain more knowledge. However, Salesforce Sales Navigator is beneficial to salespeople who have more enhanced features to search, connect, and follow leads.
  • Lead Generation: Although lead generation capacities already exist in Sales Navigator beyond the basic CRM platform, they include features such as search options as well as lead recommendations. LinkedIn Premium thus has just a few basic networking features compared to LinkedIn Sales Navigator, but the latter does not have the same level.
  • Insights and CRM Integration: For this reason, Sales Navigator is more appropriate for a B2B selling organization since it is richer in terms of business insights, such as trends and new developments. It also has a passive integration with CRM platforms, a feature that is not prevalent in LinkedIn Premium.

LinkedIn Premium is more useful for the purpose of establishing business contacts and searching for a job than Sales Navigator. It is more effective for business persons in need of leads and accounts management.

Cost Comparison Between LinkedIn Premium and Sales Navigator

It is quite clear that LinkedIn Premium and Sales Navigator have different features and focus on the target users, which makes it only fair for them to have different price tags.

  • LinkedIn Premium: Premium subscriptions can be divided into two broad categories, namely the Premium Career and the Premium Business. Premium Career is offered at $29.99 per month only. The service is designed for employment seekers and people who have a definite vision of their further career improvement. Premium Business is charged at about $59.99 US dollars per month and offers a much wider selection of networking tools and business analytics for the professional and businessman.
  • Sales Navigator: Sales Navigator also has some special features tailored for salespeople and these are seen in the pricing. A single subscrip­tion of the Sales Navigator Professional plan costs about $99. There is the business and enterprise package that goes for $99.99 while the team package known as Sales Navigator Team goes for $149.99 per month. These plans have more lead capture options, more information, and built in CRM that B2B salespeople require.

While the Premium plan gives you enhanced career and networking features at a cheaper cost, Sales Navigator is pricier and is targeted at sales. To make the entire process much easier, use a LinkedIn email scraper if you are in the sales industry and are interested in automating the lead generation process.

LinkedIn Premium Career vs. LinkedIn Premium Business

LinkedIn has two types of subscription models that are, Career and Business subscriptions, which serve different types of customers with different needs.

  • LinkedIn Premium Career: As has been noted earlier, this plan is mainly targeted at people who are in the process of the job hunt. It is $29.99 per month, and for instance, it offers InMail credits, LinkedIn Learning, and the ability to see how well you rank against other candidates.
  • LinkedIn Premium Business: This project will be $59.99 on a monthly basis. This plan is perfect for working-class people, businessmen, and women who may wish to establish new business contacts and access more detailed business information.

Linked and In Profile: LinkedIn Premium Career is suitable for job seekers, whereas LinkedIn Premium Business will be useful for those who require business intelligence and more connections.

How to Choose LinkedIn Subscription Options for Your Sales

how to choose linkedin subscription options for your sales

The right LinkedIn subscription to opt for depends on the level of utilization of Sales Navigator and expected outcomes, as well as the size of your team. LinkedIn Premium and Sales Navigator work very differently, but understanding how they work for your business objectives is the key to leveraging them for ROI.

How Do You Plan to Use LinkedIn for Prospecting?

Begin by defining how exactly you will be using this platform in order to prospect. If LinkedIn is only going to be used for purposes of job searches alone, making a few InMails and a few job applications, then the LinkedIn Premium business version might suffice. It helps improve exposure, and these possess enhanced filtering that can help get to targeted consumers.

However, if you are interested in developing highly targeted B2B contact lists, tracking leads, and having a more structured sales process, then Sales Navigator is much better. For precise prospecting, its extensive filters, leads suggested by the application, and real-time notifications are extremely useful.

The Role of LinkedIn in Your Sales

It is, therefore, important that you do not underestimate the value of LinkedIn, more so where your total sales strategy is concerned. A source used to find and connect with potential buyers is LinkedIn; thus, Sales Navigator's tools will be effective. 

It provides analytic data and solutions and enhanced integration with customer relations management systems. In the same respect, if you use LinkedIn amongst other software that you use for prospecting, then LinkedIn Premium may suffice with the bare essentials you need.

Human Resources for the Tool

Determine whether your team has enough resources and time to get the most out of Sales Navigator. Sales Navigator is also strong and has more functions, but it has more interactivity and needs support. However, using an email search engine can alert you to the right email address with a single click by searching various databases.

LinkedIn Premium can also be more convenient for small teams or one-man businesses. It does not take much time and is cheaper. Sales Navigator is more suitable for large sales teams because of the functionalities of lead sharing as well as tracking.

Do You Need Faster Results?

If you need faster and more calculable approaches, that is where Sales Navigator is really helpful. It has real-time alerts and serves lead recommendations that enable one not to waste time chasing irrelevant prospects.

For those who might need some time before contacting potential clients or those whose sales cycle might be overlong, the LinkedIn Premium offers the necessary means to develop relations and connections without additional effort.

Maximizing ROI and Effectiveness

If you’re using LinkedIn, whether it is the standard LinkedIn Premium or Sales Navigator, it is vital that you have a strategy. Despite the features provided, both of them need specific approaches to get the maximum result for sales performance.

Tips for Success with LinkedIn Premium

When it comes to the LinkedIn Premium account, it cannot be overemphasized that to gain benefits from it, you have to apply it with precision. 

It provides you with several features to help you work more efficiently. However, the strategy based on the precise choice of material and your job search type merely matters. Here are key strategies to make your subscription work for you:

  • Leverage InMail Wisely: The best feature that is included in the LinkedIn Premium package is InMail, which allows you to contact people with whom you have no connection. Avoid using mass messages because the targeted ones work well since every person wants to receive something that is personally directed to him or her.
  • Utilize Advanced Search Filters: LinkedIn Premium provides the user with advanced search, which makes it easier to locate a particular person or the opportunity of your choice. You can always easily filter by industry, seniority, location, and other criteria available for better matching.
  • Optimize Your Profile: This is why one is needed to make an enhanced first impression as far as the profile page is concerned. New achievements and acquired skills and experience are best reflected in a personal profile that should be updated constantly. A well-updated profile also attracts the attention of the employer or client, thus creating further interaction.
  • Track Profile Views: LinkedIn also offers you information regarding who has seen your profile through the LinkedIn Premium option. This list can be used to contact people who have expressed interest, either to develop new business relationships or to follow up on leads.

Applying any of these strategies will assist you in realizing the benefits offered by LinkedIn Premium for networking, finding a job, or promoting your business.

Tips for Success with Sales Navigator

There is no doubt that you have a very powerful tool at your disposal by using Sales Navigator. However, it should be used appropriately to achieve the right results, as observed in the use of innovations in education. By following these strategies, you can optimize your sales process and maximize your lead generation efforts:

  • Use Lead Recommendations: Leads are filtered by the particular sales search as well as by users’ preferences in the Sales Navigator. Sift through these suggestions occasionally so that you will be able to identify newer opportunities that will be of interest to your readers. This may be handy in the sense that it will take less time, but the pipeline has to be filled with fresh leads.
  • Save and Revisit Searches: Another great advantage of the Sales Navigator is that one is able to set follow or save searches. This way, you will always be on track with prospecting, and you will never have to start filtering the searches all over again, time and again.
  • Set Up Real-Time Alerts: Make use of the alert feature in order to have a notification every time there is a change with regard to the leads and accounts that are saved. That is why, in the future, when your prospects switch to other companies, have their accounts updated on social media sites, or are featured in news articles, you will be in a position to get in touch with them.
  • Leverage Advanced Filtering Options: With Sales Navigator, there is a way to search through the filters by company size, job title, seniority, and so on. This makes it easier to prove that you are quoting decision-makers more proficiently and this means that you are marketing to the leads that are most important to you.
  • Integrate with Your CRM: Hence, if you want the Sales Navigator to work in the right manner, it has to link with the CRM. This helps in tracking the leads and ensuring that only the right data is taken along with your sales push and not the wrong data that will worsen the situation. This will help you in compiling all the leads in one place and hence increase your team’s efficiency.

When employing the above techniques, you could be in a position to optimize the utilization of the Sales Navigator, which, as discovered, has strong features that, if harnessed, enable the user to increase the chances of generating a high return on investment.

LinkedIn Premium vs. Sales Navigator: Key Takeaways

  1. LinkedIn Premium is ideal for students, business people and professionals, job seekers, and recruiters, among others. The members of sales, business development, and recruitment must use Sales Navigator.
  2. Although InMail is available in the LinkedIn Premium and Sales Navigator, the latter is more directed towards contacting the leads beyond one’s connections for the purposes of sales.
  3. Sales Navigator also has more specific lead and account search parameters, such as seniority levels, company size, and real-time, while LinkedIn Premium has industry, location, and experience search filters.
  4. Using Sales Navigator, sales professionals can engage the prospects or industry activities with real-time notifications of the prospect’s actions and enhanced lead suggestions.
  5. Sales Navigator offers unlimited searches, while LinkedIn Premium provides users with extra profile views and more search filters for better and more consistent lead generation.
  6. While the LinkedIn Premium subscription includes access to LinkedIn Learning – a collection of thousands of courses in various subjects – Sales Navigator is more about sales analytics and tools.
  7. With Sales Navigator, you can easily manage leads and see activity streams if you integrate it with popular CRM solutions, including Salesforce and HubSpot. However, LinkedIn Premium does not offer this feature for the users.
  8. Besides, with real-time alerts, Sales Navigator can notify a salesperson when leads are mentioned in the news or change their job.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is LinkedIn Premium Worth the Cost?

Yes. LinkedIn Premium is worth every penny if one wants to make relevant professional connections or search for career-boosting opportunities. Some of the notable features include but are not limited to InMails, LinkedIn Learning for You, Profile Views, and Insights.

What is the Cheapest LinkedIn Premium Plan?

LinkedIn Premium has a one month free trial, which enables the user to access its features. Following that, the standard package, referred to as the “Premium Career,” goes for $29.99 per month. It is an excellent package for job seekers out there who are willing to improve their chances of getting better salaries or even promotions through LinkedIn. Sometimes, you are also able to get 50% off your LinkedIn premium after the one month free trial. Also, it is possible to purchase InMail credits, use the ‘LinkedIn Learning For You’ option, and view profile insights.

How Do I Get LinkedIn Premium for Free?

LinkedIn allows the first month of any of its Premium plans to be a trial period for which you won’t be charged. However, as with many press facilities, to make the trial lively, one needs to link through LinkedIn’s Premium. Remember that if you don’t want to be charged for the next month after the trial, you should know how to cancel it.

There’s a way to get relevant information from LinkedIn without subscriptions and commitments. Bookyourdata lets you extract information from targeted LinkedIn profiles in seconds with 97% accuracy guaranteed. It allows you to pay as you go and avoid expensive plans. Get 10 leads for free, and see why Bookyourdata is the best in the industry, according to G2.

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