This is the series where we explore signal-based sales plays that drive real results using real-world examples. Namely, ours!
There are more than 1 billion people on LinkedIn. Chances are high that some of them are your target audience.
That’s certainly the case at Common Room. It’s why we prioritize LinkedIn for pipeline generation.
Our SDRs capture relevant signals on LinkedIn (think conversations happening under posts from industry thought leaders and even competitors) and use them to outbound high-fit prospects.
These plays succeed to the tune of 21.3% or higher reply rates and 9.5% booked meeting rates.
Today we’re pulling back the curtain on our playbook (check out the recording above for more insights).
Ecosystem plays
When we talk about “ecosystem plays,” we’re referring to plays built around posts from influential people (that is, people with large LinkedIn followings).
They can be divided into two camps: internal influencers and external influencers.
Internal influencers
The what
Founders and C-level executives are good examples of internal influencers, as they tend to have sizable organic followings.
But essentially anyone working at your company who publishes content that speaks to your ideal customer profile and sees solid engagement on their posts will work.
The why
The LinkedIn algorithm is more likely to show posts from real people versus posts from your company handle.
Plays built around internal influencers are a viable path for companies without a built-out advertising strategy (or a ton of ad budget).
The how
Common Room automatically pulls in activity from posts published by your company account. That said, it won’t grab reactions or comments on individual posts that don’t explicitly mention you.
This is where our Chrome extension comes in handy.
Step 1: Capture LinkedIn signals at scale with the Common Room Chrome extension
We use our Chrome extension to add posts from LinkedIn to Common Room with just a click.
Any person who reacted to or commented on the post in question is automatically added to our Common Room instance.
Chrome extensionCommon Room’s Chrome Extension for LinkedIn allows you to capture and enrich any public LinkedIn signal. This makes it easy to add and action on the people behind LinkedIn posts, reactions, and comments.
Thanks to our Person360™ waterfall enrichment, we get a complete profile (including contact information like email address and phone number) for every person.
Person360Common Room’s Person360 feature allows you to automatically collect, deanonymize, enrich, and match signals to a unified profile for individuals and organizations. This makes it easy to connect with the people and companies behind buying signals with full context.
These profiles also include job history, firmographic details, and other insights that help us qualify and prioritize prospects.
Step 2: Automatically segment contacts
Using Common Room’s filters and tags, we create segments built around our SDRs’ books of business in Salesforce that only pull in contacts from non-customer accounts that match our ICP and who fit our criteria for economic buyers.
SegmentsCommon Room’s segments feature allows you to automatically add individuals or organizations to auto-replenishing lists based on customizable criteria. This makes it easy to quickly surface, monitor, and engage specific people and companies at scale.
Step 3: Outbound based on prospect research
Depending on what kind of post the prospect engaged with, our SDRs will either add them to a preconfigured outbound sequence in Outreach or do a little more digging to understand their use case.
Sales engagement platform integrationsFor example, if someone comments on a post related to one of our new product launches, we can infer that they’re interested in this new functionality. But if the engagement is more ambiguous, our reps can quickly look through the prospect’s Person360 profile to view their activity across other digital channels.
Pro tipConnect as many relevant data sources as you have to Common Room. You may be prospecting on LinkedIn, but your buyers are active across a whole host of other digital channels, including your product and your website. The more data sources you connect, the more visibility you’ll get into the customer journey.
If a prospect is from an account we’re not familiar with, reps can use RoomieAI™ to quickly get more context on their organization (think product lines, competitive analysis, and user sentiment) and craft a personalized message.
RoomieAICommon Room’s RoomieAI—a suite of AI-powered tools specially designed for go-to-market teams—allows you to augment your day-to-day workflows to boost productivity. This makes it easy to summarize account research in an instant, create LLM-generated outbound snippets based on every available signal, and much more.
Bing, bang, boom. Prospects are sequenced in Outreach and we’re off to the races.
Outbound template for ecosystem (internal influencer) playsSubject: {{!internal author of post}}
{{first_name}}—saw you {{!reference action taken on post (e.g., liked, commented, reposted)}} {{!of our 'what persona of our leader' leader, 'name (e.g., Kevin)'.}}
{{!topic of the post}} is something we can help you out with. Specifically, we {{!list the capability of how the product works (e.g., capture signals into a single pane of glass and make them actionable for your teams).}}
Wdyt?
P.S. {{!case study customer name}} saw a {{!percentage lift (link to customer story)}} with this approach.
External influencers
The what
Essentially anybody with a high organic following who talks about topics relevant to your target market counts as an external influencer.
External influencer posts generally fall into one of two buckets:
- Tool-specific posts that talk about technologies related to your space
- Topically relevant posts that talk about subjects related to a problem you solve
The why
External influencer posts may or may not explicitly mention you or your product, but they open the door to having conversations about your offering.
If people are sourcing product recommendations or sharing pain points under one of these posts, they’re probably people you should know about.
The how
It’s pretty much the same deal as plays built around internal influencers. Time to fire up the Common Room Chrome extension!
Step 1: Identify relevant posts
It’s easy enough to find worthwhile external influencer posts.
We simply search for relevant keywords in LinkedIn and filter results for the past week. After a quick scroll we usually find some solid options.
Step 2: Capture LinkedIn signals at scale with the Common Room Chrome extension
Next we use our Chrome extension to pull in contacts who are engaging with relevant posts and let Person360 work its magic.
Step 3: Automatically segment contacts and personalize outbound
Finally, we auto-segment contacts based on account ownership and fit and let our SDRs handle last-mile personalization.
Outbound template for ecosystem (external influencer) playsSubject: {{!author name—topic of post}}
{{first_name}}—I follow {{!author of post}} and noticed you {{!reference action taken on post (e.g., liked, commented, reposted).}}
{{!topic of the post}} is something we (Common Room) can help you out with.
How? We {{!list the capability of how the product works (e.g., capture signals into a single pane of glass and make them actionable for your teams).}}
Wdyt?
P.S. We also used Common Room to pull in the signal that triggered this message. Happy to share how we did it if you’re interested.
Competitor plays
The what
This is exactly what it sounds like: plays built around posts from your competitors.
They work very similarly to external influencer posts, but they’re even more high-intent.
The why
Odds are your competitors aren’t mentioning you by name, but there’s a very good chance that they’re publishing tool-specific and topically relevant posts geared toward your target audience.
This makes them a goldmine for uncovering relevant activity among ICP accounts.
The how
Not every competitor post is worth pulling in. The ones that are most effective are product-centric posts (think popular posts about product launches that compete with you).
On the messaging front, we tend to slice and dice based on whether the competitor is a point solution versus a platform. Figuring out what our differentiators are based on the competitor is key to building out templates in advance.
Pro tipDo as much prep work as possible to help your sales reps act quickly. Predefining your ICP, building out messaging templates—it all allows reps to focus on taking action quickly instead of filtering for fit and agonizing over email copy.
And, you guessed it, it’s yet another play where our Chrome extension is crucial.
Step 1: Capture LinkedIn signals at scale with the Common Room Chrome extension
When we see a juicy post from a competitor, we use our Chrome extension to pull in contacts.
Step 2: Automatically segment contacts
We find it helpful to create large segments for each competitor, then build micro-segments off of them for each post.
It makes it easier to add people to Common Room quickly and then automate which burndown lists they’re added to after the fact.
Step 3: Add contacts to preconfigured outbound sequences
This is where having prebuilt messaging templates for different competitors comes in handy.
Based on the substance of the competitor’s post—and how our product stacks up against theirs—SDRs can quickly add prospects to preconfigured outbound sequences that hammer home our value drivers and differentiators.
Outbound template for competitor playsSubject: {{!author name—topic of post}}
{{first_name}}—I’m following {{!author of competitive post OR competitor name if from company handle}} and couldn’t help but notice you {{!reference action taken on post (e.g., liked, commented, reposted).}}
{{!topic of the post}} is something we (Common Room) can also help with. On top of that, we also give you {{!list of additional signal point solutions in the Common Room suite}}—all at a similar price point to {{competitor name}}.
Worth a convo?
P.S. We also used Common Room to pull in the signal that triggered this message. Happy to share how we did it if you’re interested.
Organic plays
The what
Organic plays are those built around posts published by your company handle.
Since they’re coming from a company instead of a person, you can count on lower engagement volume.
The why
Most B2B companies are going to post on LinkedIn no matter what. It’s table stakes. That makes organic post engagements low-hanging fruit.
Still, it’s worth checking to see if the juice is worth the squeeze. Plays built around organic posts make more sense if you’re actively investing in growing your company’s number of organic followers.
The how
Not every reaction or comment on organic posts will be worth a sales rep’s time.
It’s important to separate high-intent, high-fit engagements from the rest.
Step 1: Capture LinkedIn signals at scale with Common Room
Once you connect your company's LinkedIn account, Common Room automatically creates a Person360 profile for anyone who interacts with it and tracks all of their reactions and comments.
Step 2: Automatically segment contacts
We use our filters and tags to zero in on high-fit prospects and add them to segments based on our SDRs’ books of business in Salesforce.
Step 3: Outbound based on prospect research
Our reps do some digging to see which prospects are actually in-market.
Looking at things like job changes, job listings, and recent news events (all available out of the box in Common Room) helps them prioritize who to reach out to and determine how to personalize their message.
Outbound template for organic playsSubject: {{!topic of post}}
{{first_name}}—I couldn't help but notice you {{!reference action taken on post (e.g., liked, commented, reposted)}} one of our company posts highlighting {{!reference topic or use case of the post.}}
{{!topic of the post}} is something we can help you out with. Specifically, we {{!list the capability of how the product works (e.g., capture signals into a single pane of glass and make them actionable for your teams).}}
Worth a chat?
P.S. {{!case study customer name}} saw a {{!percentage lift (link to customer story)}} with this approach.
Every action on LinkedIn—posts, reactions, comments—is a signal sales reps can use to find high-fit accounts and craft personalized, relevant messaging.
Compared to traditional cold outbound, our socially engaged plays drive:
- 50% higher open rates
- 3x higher reply rates
- 2x higher booked meeting rates
They’ve helped us turn LinkedIn into our No. 1 source of sales pipeline.
Keep an eye out for the next edition of Plays that pay. Got a specific signal you want us to cover? Let us know.
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