Best CRM for LinkedIn

As a LinkedIn user, managing professional connections, tracking leads, and nurturing business relationships can be challenging, especially as your network grows. A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system that integrates with LinkedIn can help you streamline these tasks by organizing contacts, automating follow-ups, and tracking interactions—all within a single platform. With the right CRM, you can maximize your LinkedIn outreach, build stronger relationships, and drive more business opportunities.

In this blog post, we’ll explore the best CRM options for LinkedIn users like you, highlighting tools that will help you efficiently manage your connections and grow your professional network.

Why you need a CRM

LinkedIn is one of the biggest professional networking platforms, but lacks features that tell you everything you need to know about your last interaction and more. Making a CRM useful to help you streamline your operations, communications and business opportunities.

Challenges without a CRM

As a LinkedIn user, you might already be facing the following challenges without realising how much time it eats up. Or – are very familiar with these and unsure how to solve it.

• Disorganization: Tracking connections and conversations manually can quickly become chaotic.
• Missed opportunities: Without reminders and tracking, potential leads can slip through the cracks.
• Inefficient processes: Manually updating contact information is time-consuming and prone to errors.
• Lack of insight: Limited data analytics makes it hard to measure the effectiveness of LinkedIn strategies.
• Inconsistent communication: It’s challenging to maintain regular follow-ups and personalized interactions.

Benefits of a CRM

Just in case you might be unfamiliar with a CRM platform, we've listed some direct benefits it can have on your business relationships across your business whether you're a solopreneur or business owner.

• Centralized information: All LinkedIn interactions and contact details are stored in one place.
• Enhanced efficiency: Automated workflows save time and reduce manual tasks.
• Improved customer relationships: Personalized communication and timely follow-ups build stronger connections.
• Better decision-making: Data analytics provide insights for more informed strategies.
• Increased sales: Streamlined processes and better lead management boost conversion rates.
• Consistent communication: Scheduled reminders ensure no interaction is forgotten.

How to evaluate and choose a CRM platform

If you're looking into CRM platforms for the first time, we've got some pointers for you below to consider for your decision-making process.

1. Define your requirements

When selecting the best CRM for LinkedIn, start by identifying the key features your startup needs. Look for functionalities like LinkedIn integration, lead management, and automated follow-ups. Ensure the CRM can seamlessly sync with your LinkedIn activities to capture leads, track interactions, and manage your connections efficiently.

Key features of a CRM for LinkedIn

• Automated processes: Streamlines tasks by automating repetitive workflows.
• Contact enrichment: Automatically finds Leads, Candidates, Customers email addresses and contact information, enhancing efficiency.
• Structured Pipeline: Tracks Leads, Candidates, Customers through defined stages, ensuring process clarity and effectiveness.
• Email Sequences: Increases communication efficiency with follow-up templates and automated sequences.
• LinkedIn Connection: Seamlessly imports Leads, Candidates, Customers from LinkedIn and tracks conversations within the CRM.
• Reporting & Forecasting: Provides essential data analysis and predictive insights for better planning.

2. Budget considerations

Balancing cost and return on investment is crucial. Evaluate the pricing models of different CRM platforms and consider the value they bring to your LinkedIn strategy. While some CRMs might have higher upfront costs, the automation and efficiency gains can lead to significant savings and better lead conversion rates in the long run.

3. Selection process

Researching and choosing the right CRM vendor involves several steps. Start by reading reviews and testimonials from other startup founders who use LinkedIn. Check for vendors that specialize in LinkedIn CRM solutions and offer robust customer support. Attend webinars or request demos to see the CRM in action and understand how it can cater to your specific needs.

4. Get a demo

Trial and comparison are essential steps in making an informed decision. Many CRM vendors offer free trials or demo versions. Use these opportunities to test how well the CRM integrates with LinkedIn, its ease of use, and its overall effectiveness in streamlining your LinkedIn activities. Compare features, usability, and customer support before making your final choice. Get started with a demo of folk here.

3 tips for implementing a CRM

Once you've decided which CRM is best for your needs, it's time to introduce it to your tech stack and workflow. We suggest you start with the following so you cover basic ground before diving right in.

1. Import your data in your new CRM

Once you've chosen your CRM, the next step is to import your existing data. This step ensures that all your LinkedIn contacts and interactions are seamlessly transferred.

2. Create your first pipeline

After importing your data, it's time to create your first pipeline. This should be tailored to your LinkedIn activities. For instance, you might have stages like 'New Connection', 'Initial Outreach', 'Follow-Up', and 'Conversion'. Customizing your pipeline to reflect your LinkedIn workflow will help you manage your leads more effectively.

3. Explore its integrations

The final step is to look at what tools your new CRM can integrate with. Some CRMs have LinkedIn integrations that you can install on your Chrome web browser. Others have Gmail extensions, and more. Use this chance to see how you can personalize your new CRM further, so it can align seamlessly with your workflow.

The 4 best CRMs for LinkedIn

1. folk

folk is a modern CRM platform for managing contacts, workflows, and relationships, offering customizable pipelines, AI-driven tools, and integrations to enhance deal management and prospecting.

Key features

• Contact enrichment: Automatically enriches contact details by finding emails and LinkedIn URLs, enabling efficient outreach without manual data entry or additional costs for email services.
• LinkedIn integration: Seamlessly import contacts and search lists from LinkedIn and Sales Navigator, track all your contact information in folk, and use templates for quicker, streamlined communication.
• Mail merge and email sequences: Full email sync, templates, and tracking features, enabling users to manage all communications directly from the CRM.
• AI-powered features: AI tools assist in managing contacts and relationships, automating routine tasks, and suggesting actions to improve productivity.
• Integrations: folk integrates seamlessly with over 6,000 apps, including Gmail, Zapier, and Make, allowing users to centralize their workflow and reduce manual data entry.

Pros

• Ease of use: folk is praised for its intuitive interface, making it accessible even to non-technical users with quick onboarding and a minimal learning curve.
• All-in-one: folk streamlines your workflow by allowing you to import contacts from LinkedIn, automatically find their emails, reach out through customizable email sequences, and track interactions in a pipeline, eliminating the need for multiple tools and saving time and money.
• Personalization: Make folk work for you with its custom fields, dashboards pipelines, automation, workflows and more.
• Integrations: folk integrates seamlessly with over 6,000 apps, including Gmail, Zapier, and Make, allowing users to centralize their workflow and reduce manual data entry.

Cons

• Reporting: Currently lacks reporting features, but there are plans for future implementation.

Price and plans

You can try folk for free with a 14-day free trial. After that, a monthly or annual subscription plan is as follows.

• Standard: $20 per user, per month.
• Premium: $40 per user, per month.
• Custom: Starts from $60 per user, per month.

2. HubSpot

HubSpot CRM is a user-friendly, scalable platform offering integrated tools for managing sales, marketing, customer service, and operations efficiently.

Key features

• Marketing Hub: Includes email marketing, ad tracking, landing pages, and lead generation tools, ideal for capturing LinkedIn leads.
• Sales Hub: Provides deal tracking, pipeline management, sales automation, and reporting, perfect for managing LinkedIn leads and customers.
• Lead scoring: Prioritize LinkedIn leads with predictive scoring to improve sales efficiency.
• Operations Hub: Syncs and automates business processes across different systems, ensuring LinkedIn data is seamlessly integrated.
• Service Hub: Offers customer service tools like ticketing, live chat, and knowledge bases, useful for LinkedIn customer interactions.

Pros

• User-friendly interface: HubSpot is known for its intuitive and easy-to-use interface, making it accessible for users of all skill levels managing LinkedIn contacts.
• Comprehensive free plan: Offers a robust free version that includes essential CRM features, ideal for startups using LinkedIn for lead generation.
• Seamless integration with marketing tools: Integrates smoothly with its marketing, sales, and service hubs, creating a unified platform for managing LinkedIn leads, candidates, and customers.
• Automation capabilities: Provides powerful automation tools for tasks like email marketing, lead nurturing, and sales workflows, helping businesses save time and improve efficiency when working with LinkedIn data.
• Extensive learning resources: HubSpot Academy offers a wealth of free courses, certifications, and resources to help users get the most out of the platform, including LinkedIn-specific strategies.

Cons

• High cost at higher tiers: HubSpot’s pricing can become expensive as you move to higher tiers, which may be prohibitive for small businesses as they scale using LinkedIn.
• Limited customization in free plan: The free plan and lower tiers have limited customization options, which can restrict flexibility for growing businesses managing LinkedIn contacts.
• Complexity in advanced features: Some advanced features, such as custom reporting and workflows, have a steep learning curve and may require additional training, especially for LinkedIn integrations.
• Email marketing limits: Email marketing functionality in the free plan is restricted by limits on the number of emails you can send, which can be a drawback for businesses with larger LinkedIn contact lists.
• Additional costs for add-ons: Many useful features, like advanced CRM capabilities and integrations, come as paid add-ons, increasing the overall cost for LinkedIn-focused businesses.

Price and plans

Prices and plans for HubSpot's Marketing hub on an annual subscription are as follows.

• Starter plan: Starts from $15 per user, per month.
• Professional: Starts from $800 per user, per month
• Enterprise: Starts from $3,600 per user, per month.

3. Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a web-based CRM for small businesses, offering lead management, automation, email integration, and customizable pipelines to optimize sales.

Key features

• Lead and deal management: Centralized tools to manage LinkedIn leads, candidates, and customer data, interactions, and sales pipelines, helping teams act quickly on opportunities.
• Sales automation: Workflow automation to handle repetitive tasks, such as lead routing, follow-ups, and email sequences, allowing sales teams to focus on closing deals.
• Email integration: Full email sync, templates, and tracking features, enabling users to manage all communications directly from the CRM.
• Advanced reporting and analytics: Real-time data analytics and custom reporting tools to track sales performance, forecast revenue, and gain actionable insights.

• Customization and security: Options to customize pipelines, fields, and user permissions, with robust security measures to protect data.

Pros

• User-friendly interface: The CRM is known for its intuitive and visually appealing interface, making it easy for users to navigate and manage their LinkedIn leads and contacts.
• Sales pipeline focus: Specifically designed for managing sales pipelines, offering a visual approach that helps track LinkedIn deals and activities effectively.
• Customization: Allows for a high degree of customization, enabling users to tailor the platform to their specific LinkedIn sales processes with custom fields and workflows.
• Automation features: Includes automation tools that help streamline repetitive tasks, such as sending follow-up emails and moving LinkedIn deals through the pipeline, saving time and boosting productivity.
• Third-party integrations: Integrates with a wide range of third-party applications, such as Google Workspace, Slack, and Zapier, enhancing its functionality and flexibility.

Cons

• Limited advanced features: Lacks some of the more advanced CRM features, such as extensive marketing automation and AI capabilities, which are available in other platforms.
• Basic reporting in lower tiers: The reporting and analytics features in the basic plans are somewhat limited, requiring upgrades to access more in-depth insights.
• No built-in email marketing: Does not include built-in email marketing features, requiring users to integrate with third-party email tools for such functionality.
• Limited customer support hours: Customer support is not available 24/7, which can be inconvenient for businesses operating in different time zones or needing immediate assistance.
• Price increases with add-ons: The cost can increase quickly when additional features or integrations are added, making it less cost-effective for businesses with growing needs.

Prices and plans

An annual subscription plan basis is as follows.

• Essential plan: Starts from $24 per user, per month.
• Advanced plan: Starts from $44 per user, per month.
• Power plan: Starts from $79 per user, per month.
• Enterprise plan: Starts from $129 per user, per month.

4. Zoho

Zoho is a CRM system with a strong sales focus. Its got features such as journey orchestration, sales process management and workflow automation. There's also something for marketing teams, including lead hurting, event management and customer segmentation.

Key features

• Lead and contact management: Manages LinkedIn-generated leads, candidates, and customers, tracking interactions and segmenting contacts for targeted campaigns.
• Sales automation: Automates LinkedIn sales tasks like lead management, deal tracking, and follow-up actions.
• Multi-channel communication: Integrates with LinkedIn, email, phone, and social media to manage customer interactions seamlessly.
• Customizable dashboards and reports: Allows users to create and customize dashboards and reports for in-depth analytics on LinkedIn activities.
• AI-powered sales assistant (Zia): Provides predictive analytics, task automation, and intelligent suggestions to enhance LinkedIn sales performance.

Pros

• Affordability: Zoho CRM offers competitive pricing with various tiers, making it accessible to startups using LinkedIn for business growth.
• Customization: Extensive customization options allow businesses to tailor the CRM to their LinkedIn needs, including custom fields, modules, and workflows.
• Integration with Zoho Suite: Seamless integration with other Zoho products creates a comprehensive ecosystem for managing LinkedIn leads and contacts.
• Multi-channel communication: Supports email, phone, LinkedIn, and social media, enabling businesses to manage all interactions from a single platform.

• AI-powered features: Zia, the AI assistant, provides intelligent insights, predictive analytics, and task automation, helping to improve LinkedIn sales and marketing efficiency.

Cons

• Steep learning curve: The extensive customization options can be overwhelming for new users, requiring a significant time investment to master the platform.
• Complex setup: Initial setup and configuration can be complex, particularly for businesses without technical expertise or dedicated IT resources.
• Performance issues: Occasional reports of slow performance, especially with large datasets or complex operations, can hinder productivity.
• Limited third-party integrations: While Zoho integrates well with its own suite of products, integration with third-party applications can be limited or require additional effort.
• Data migration challenges: Migrating data from other CRMs to Zoho can be difficult and time-consuming, often requiring manual adjustments.

Prices and plans

Zoho has a free plan limited to three users suitable for small businesses. After that, an annual subscription plan is as follows. Zoho Social is available on a separate plan.

• Standard: $20 per user, per month.
• Professional: $35 per user, per month.
• Enterprise: $50 per user, per month.

Conclusion

Choosing the best CRM for LinkedIn can significantly streamline your startup's operations, enhance lead management, and boost overall productivity. Each CRM discussed—folk, HubSpot, Pipedrive, and Zoho—offers unique features tailored to different needs and budgets. folk stands out with its seamless LinkedIn integration and AI-powered tools, making it an excellent choice for startups looking for a modern, all-in-one solution. HubSpot's comprehensive suite and user-friendly interface make it ideal for those needing extensive marketing and sales capabilities. Pipedrive's focus on sales pipeline management and ease of use is perfect for sales-driven teams. Zoho offers robust customization and affordability, making it suitable for businesses looking for a highly adaptable CRM. Evaluate your specific requirements, budget, and team capabilities to make an informed decision. Remember, the right CRM can transform your LinkedIn strategy and drive your startup's growth. Try folk for free here.

Frequently Asked Questions

What do LinkedIn users prefer as a CRM?

LinkedIn professionals often use CRMs such as folk, Hubspot, Pipedrive, or Zoho. Folk stands out for its ease of use and seamless LinkedIn integration, while Hubspot offers comprehensive marketing tools. Pipedrive is known for its sales pipeline focus, and Zoho provides extensive customization options. Each of these CRMs helps streamline LinkedIn interactions and improve lead management.

Do I need a CRM?

Yes, depending on the complexity of your process. A CRM can help manage your LinkedIn connections, automate follow-ups, and provide valuable insights, making it essential for startups looking to scale efficiently.

How much does a CRM cost?

CRM costs vary widely, ranging from free plans to premium options. For instance, folk starts at $20 per user per month, Hubspot's professional tier is $450 per user per month, and Pipedrive's plans range from $24 to $129 per user per month. Zoho offers plans starting at $20 per user per month.

Does folk’s CRM respond to LinkedIn needs?

Yes, folk’s CRM is highly suited for LinkedIn needs. It offers seamless LinkedIn integration, allowing users to import contacts directly, track conversations, and use templates for streamlined communication. Its intuitive interface and AI-powered features make it easy to manage LinkedIn interactions, automate tasks, and improve productivity, making it a top choice for LinkedIn-focused CRM solutions.