How to connect with people in LinkedIn groups even if you are not part of them

*Please note that you will need to have a LinkedIn Sales Navigator account for this to work.

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When searching for new prospects to connect with on LinkedIn, it's best to be as targeted as possible, so that you can make your messaging more relevant and improve your conversion rates. Creating targeted lists of prospects can be achieved through filtering searches by industry, location, job roles and a mix of other categories.

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(For a recap of how to use LinkedIn searches take a look at our LinkedIn search and filter masterclass).

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Usually, a search will bring up 1000s of people who fit your criteria. But this can often be too broad a search.

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Searching based on 'interests'

You may want to try and connect with people that have a certain interest in specific areas. This can be much more difficult. For example, if you are searching for profiles interested in property development, outdoor events or interested in buying Bitcoin, these interests are unlikely to be listed on their LinkedIn Profile.

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Or, you may want to make your connection request really relevant, in order to improve acceptance rates.

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This is where our LinkedIn Groups can be really useful. They offer communities where members can share common interests. So, if you can find LinkedIn Groups that are relevant to your target market, the likelihood is that the people in these groups are going to be the perfect target audience for you to connect with.

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(For a recap on how to join LinkedIn groups and use Dux-Soup check out our blog 'How to get the most from LinkedIn Groups using Dux-Soup').

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This outreach strategy works incredibly well if you can get accepted into the most relevant LinkedIn groups. However, we receive a lot of feedback from the Dux-Soup community members that they are finding it difficult to join all the groups that they want to be part of.

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DON’T WORRY! YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE ACCEPTED INTO A GROUP TO SCRAPE ALL THE USERS OF THAT GROUP, OR CONNECT WITH THEIR MEMBERS!

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That’s right, by using this LinkedIn hack, you can find your perfect target audience from groups without even trying to join them. Excited? We're going to show you how. And, even better give you a step-by-step guide to how we achieved a 66% connection acceptance rate.

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Step 1: Start your search using Sales Navigator filters

*Just to remind you, this hack only works with Sales Navigator and not basic LinkedIn account.

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Let’s get started! Go to Sales Navigator.

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And create a new search for ‘lead filters’. Once you have clicked on 'lead filters' you will see a popup box to input all the criteria you are looking for:

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Input all the search criteria to find your target market. In this example we am going to use:

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Industry: Marketing Services

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Geography: United Kingdom and United States

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Title: Founder / Owner / Co Founder / Director

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Your search should now look like this:

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Although this shows 64k+ results, there are way too many prospects here to target effectively. In the context of this example, let's make our target market smaller, and make our connection message more relevant by finding members of groups that we are interested in. So we'll search all the groups containing agency owners.

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Step 2: Add Group search to Sales Navigator settings

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Simply scroll down, and under the 'Personal' section you'll see 'Groups'. You may not know the exact names of the Groups you want,  so just type in anything related to agency owners for this example and you see a dropdown of all relevant groups:

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Add any groups that you think could be relevant to you.

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Now, if you scroll back up to the top of the page, you will see that the search criteria will have changed and narrowed down to a smaller number. In this case we have 53 matching profiles.

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The number is very small, is this broken????

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The answer is no, this small but very accurate number is perfect!

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Remember, your goal on LinkedIn is not to connect with everyone (connecting with irrelevant people might lead to them marking you as ‘I don’t know this person’ which can result in your account being flagged).

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The goal is to connect with highly relevant people who would be interested in speaking to you. Therefore, in this example 53 profiles who have an interest in networking with other agency owners is much better than targeting 64k+ people, and we can talk to them about a common interest.

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Step 3: Let’s connect!

Now that you have a great list of potential leads, this where Dux-Soup comes in. Instead of manually clicking on each profile and sending the connection message, Dux-Soup will automate the job for you, even personalizing your connection messages for you.

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The good news is that you can try Dux-Soup for free - just hit this free trial link.

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How do you send your connections requests with Turbo/Cloud Dux?

With your list active in Sales Navigator, go to your Dux-Soup extension make sure you are in expert mode under the 'Options' 'User' tab.

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Then from your extension, click on 'Visit & Connect'. (Make sure you type your connection message in the box here too).

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Below is an example of a connection message that was sent to Group members which achieved a 66% connection acceptance rate!!

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It's that simple! Dux-Soup will queue and send your connection requests for you, personalizing each one.

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What about the results?

You can access your campaign results from the Funnel Flow in the Dux-Dash. It allows you to monitor your invited profiles and connection acceptance rates to see what's working best for you.

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Sending connection messages with Pro Dux

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Your options will be slightly different, with Pro - just click on 'Connect' from the Dux-Soup extension.

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A box will pop up to type in your connection request message. Make sure to use the personalization markers, like first name, to make your message hit the mark. When you're done, click 'OK'.

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Pro tip: read our blog post Dux-Soup: sending personalised connection request messages and learn how to write effective connection messages.

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We hope this hack helps you find and connect with your perfect target audience.

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Dux-Soup is all about saving time on manual tasks like sending connection requests. Our LinkedIn Hacks will help you to engage with your perfect target audience to generate more leads for your business. Get in touch with us at anytime if you have any questions on live chat or via info@dux-soup.com.

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