If you’re using LinkedIn for sales or recruiting purposes, it’s likely that you’re spending a ton of time connecting with valuable prospects. At some point, it’s beneficial to gather the contacts of all those people so that you can continue your communication through other sources.
Here’s where most people struggle, as they don’t know the most effective way to export LinkedIn contacts. That’s why our focus in today’s article will be on learning how to download Linkedin contacts and what to do after you have them at hand.
Let’s get started.
Why Should You Export LinkedIn Contacts?
Having many connections on LinkedIn is great for building your network. However, getting more detailed information about these people is valuable for several reasons.
First, it lets you stay in touch with all your connections. Over time, as you connect with more people, you may start losing your old relationships. Regularly downloading and updating their contact data minimizes the likelihood of that happening. Furthermore, all this data can be used for both sales and marketing purposes and can help you do customer analytics, which later comes in handy when considering communication approaches and advertising campaigns.
Last but not least, there’s always a chance for something to happen to your LinkedIn account. It may get hacked, deleted, corrupted, or compromised, which will leave you with no contacts. By downloading them and saving them on another platform, you will be reducing the risk of losing all that information.
How to Export LinkedIn Contacts
The process of exporting LinkedIn contacts to Gmail and to Excel is pretty much the same. The data will be sent to an address associated with your LinkedIn account, and if that’s a Gmail account, you will receive it there. If you want to have it in an Excel sheet, the process remains the same; you will just have to download it in a . CSV format.
Let’s take a look at the steps you need to take to export your LinkedIn contacts.
Step 1: Select the “Me” Dropdown Menu
This step is pretty straightforward; you only have to go to the homepage of LinkedIn and log into your account. From there, just click the “Me” icon in the top right corner.
Step 2: Click on Settings and Privacy
Once you get to the Profile menu, select “Settings and Privacy.”
Step 3: Choose Data Privacy
From the Settings menu, choose “Data Privacy.”
Step 4: Select “Get a Copy of Your Data”
Choose “Get a copy of your data.”
Step 5: Choose the Data You Want to Export
Usually, that’s imported contacts, connections, and profiles. Once you do that, you will see the request pending notification. Then you should get the exported data in your e-mail in the next 10 or so minutes.
Step 6: Download the Data
Once you get the e-mail that your data is ready, you can download it either through your e-mail or through the same menu on your LinkedIn profile, and that’s it.
What To Do With the Data Afterwards
Okay, you have all the data now. But the question of what to do with it remains. But don’t worry; we’ve got you covered. Here are our five ways to take effective action with the LinkedIn data you just acquired.
1. Contacts to CRM
Once you’ve exported and saved your LinkedIn contacts, you can upload them to your CRM (customer relationship management) tool. That will allow you to generate new leads and can help you grow your brand and expand its exposure. What’s more, with all these new CRM contacts, you can make more detailed analyses of demographic trends and thus identify marketing areas of opportunity.
2. Improve Your Market Targeting
Having your LinkedIn contacts saved and exported can also help you improve your market targeting with improved segmentation and separation. This is truly useful for companies that offer niche products or ones that have B2B services – seeing as LinkedIn is a platform aimed at working professionals, the quality of those connections is far better compared to other social media platforms, and so these contacts can be super valuable for expanding market efforts.
3. Make a Larger Contact List
As a working professional, it’s likely that you already have a pretty huge contact list. But it’s still worth growing it through your LinkedIn contacts if you deem they could be useful. The only problem here is that you will have to review all the contacts you exported to find just the ones you need and which could be helpful to you in the future. If you already have good relationships with some of your LinkedIn contacts, it’s worth letting them know you have their contact from the export. That will help you advance your communication even further.
4. Use It As Back Up
This list of exported contacts can also serve as a backup in case your current profile is corrupted in any way. That way, all the connections you worked hard to create won’t be lost forever, so it’s definitely worth keeping.
5. Start Automated Sales Campaigns
If you plan on stepping up your sales initiatives, you can use LinkedIn contact details to create automated sales campaigns. If you pair them with targeted marketing and automation tools, the details you have of these people will enable you to start campaigns that automatically connect with potential prospects while also following up on leads and giving you relevant information.
In Conclusion
Exporting your LinkedIn contacts can help you in several different ways. First, it will allow you to use that data for reporting, future marketing, and sales campaigns, and even for cold calling when needed. Along with that, it will ensure you have a backup of all your valuable connections so that if something happens to your LinkedIn account, you can still access them and use them when needed.
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