Your LinkedIn account is a crucial part of your outreach and marketing strategy. When it is used correctly, you can harness the power of LinkedIn to get new prospects and make meaningful connections. Plus, with the help of a LinkedIn automation agency or platform, you can do this on a larger scale.
Once you start looking into LinkedIn automation tools, you will quickly realize that there are numerous options in the market, including tools like Skylead and Alfred. Both of these systems will automate LinkedIn marketing and integrate with email marketing.
Whilst Skylead stands out with innovative features, like the ability to personalize gifs and images to set yourself apart from competitors, Alfred offers something similar via its direct integration with Hyperise. However, Alfred goes above and beyond this with its variety of plans, vast template library, and social media post scheduler.
Continue reading below to compare Alfred and Skylead and to understand why, despite Skylead being good, there are more companies choosing Alfred for their LinkedIn outreach automation.
As both the Skylead and Alfred tools contain LinkedIn automation software, they have a lot of things in common. Below are just some of the functionalities you can get with each LinkedIn automation tool:
The above similarities are enough to make you consider either option for LinkedIn lead automation, however, there are also some notable differences between the two tools:
One major difference between the two LinkedIn message automation tools are their plans and pricing. Skylead keeps things simple with a single plan, priced at $100 per account per month.
On one hand, this saves you the hassle of comparing plans or determining what features you need. But the problem with only offering a single plan is that it won’t appeal to everyone. Most companies will not want all of the features that Skylead offers or have to pay for features they don’t need. On top of that, at $100 per account per month, Skylead is a bit pricey.
By contrast, Alfred understands that the best LinkedIn automation software should come with various plans and price points. After all, no two companies are alike and being able to choose from several plans enables every business to select the one plan that best fits their needs and budget.
To address this, Alfred offers three plans at varying price points. The Personal plan is $49 per month ($29 if you pay annually). The Business plan is $89 per month ($59 if you pay annually), with each additional user costing $59 ($39 if you pay annually). Lastly, the Enterprise plan is $499 per month ($299 if paid annually) and already includes ten users. Moreover, if you need more users, just pay $49 a month for each ($29 if paid annually).
When looking specifically at the prices, you will notice one more difference between using Alfred and Skylead for automated LinkedIn lead generation. That is, if you decide to pay for Alfred annually instead of monthly, you would save 33%. By contrast, Skylead doesn’t offer any such annual discounts.
Whether you choose Skylead or Alfred, you can send personalized LinkedIn messages, but it is the degree of personalization and the focus that differ.
Skylead focuses on visual personalization. You can use personalized images and gifs or get creative by customizing the images you include for your prospects. While it is a flashy feature, it isn’t the type of personalization most prospects really want.
A personalized gif or image will catch prospects’ eye, but Skylead does not have as many personalization tools within the messages themselves. By contrast, Alfred has hyper-personalization. This means you can start by using a template and inserting the prospect’s name, company, or job title. More impressively, you can also import a .csv file of leads. Alfred will capture the extra columns, allowing you to add even more customization to your messaging.
When talking about the features that Alfred and Skylead have in common, we mentioned that both have some degree of email integration. So, you can use either platform to send emails to the addresses that you get from a LinkedIn email scraper.
Whilst this is definitely an important feature, Alfred takes its integrations to the next level. Despite costing less than Skylead, Alfred enables integration with other social media platforms. The free social media post scheduler included in the Alfred software also works with Facebook, Twitter, and more.
Higher response rates when sending connect requests compared to
Skylead.io
Higher response rates when sending messages compared to
Skylead.io
Higher response rates when sending connect requests compared to
Skylead.io
With some assistance from Alfred, LinkedIn is more than just another facet of your multichannel marketing strategy. Companies are consistently choosing Alfred for its value, features, and longevity, among many other factors.
While LinkedIn campaigns are now a standard part of multichannel marketing, this was not the case back in 2014. Then, LinkedIn was still fairly new itself, and most companies hadn’t even started thinking about all the ways they could use it.
From the beginning, Alfred has been an innovator. It was one of the first platforms to automate LinkedIn outreach and its reputation as an innovator has continued throughout the years. Moreover, when LinkedIn announces new features, Alfred is quick to adapt. For example, after LinkedIn added events, Alfred added LinkedIn event tracking and gave the ability to users to scrape an event on LinkedIn for contact information.
This is just one example of Alfred's ability to adapt to changes and innovate. The fact that Alfred has been around for well over a decade and a half shows that it is continuously improving its services. After all, without the ability to adjust, it would have been left behind years ago.
Aldred’s longevity should give you peace of mind. Not only do you know that it will add more functionality for new LinkedIn features, but you also are assured that it will stay up-to-date with changes to algorithms and factors like LinkedIn daily limits. This will prevent your account from getting flagged if the platform makes changes that you are not aware of.
Your entire team will appreciate the simplicity of setting up and using Alfred. Everything from LinkedIn group management to automated LinkedIn messaging is intuitive in Alfred.
In the rare case that you get confused by a feature or want to learn more about its functionality, Alfred is here to help. It starts with your demo, where a member of our team will show you the most important features of Alfred and answer your questions.
At the same time, the Alfred team understands that you won’t have all your questions off the bat. That’s why Alfred offers 24/7 support and responds in five minutes or less. If you prefer to handle matters yourself, you can also browse the dozens of videos and articles that give you step-by-step guidance and tips on using Alfred.
When you use multiple marketing channels, you likely have to use several different tools as well. But Alfred integrates with more than 3,000 different apps and tools to ensure that you can use your favorite solutions. The integration methods depend on your preference and the tool in question. Some have native integrations, others use webhooks, and then there are those that use the Zapier app.
The integrations make it easy to turn Alfred into a CRM sync LinkedIn tool. That said, you get a built-in LinkedIn CRM, so this isn’t even necessary. The built-in CRM lets you see what actions Alfred performed for each connection. You can manage contact information and exclude prospects from campaigns. Using this CRM sync, you can also get information like Twitter handles, Skype IDs, phone numbers, emails, and more.
As mentioned when comparing with Skylead, Alfred supports the ability to automate messages across email and LinkedIn. We also mentioned that you can use a social media post scheduler for various platforms. However, one unique feature of Alfred is its ability to combine all of this into a single marketing campaign.
Start your sequence when you automate LinkedIn messages. If you don’t get a response, follow it up with an email, then a Twitter DM. You can then go back to email. Add these steps in whatever order you prefer and make the campaign sequence as long as you want. There is no limit to the length of this type of LinkedIn campaign.
This matters because Alfred lets you reach out to prospects on their preferred platform. Just because you originally found someone on LinkedIn doesn’t mean they check the platform frequently. With these sequences and the LinkedIn profile scraper, you can create campaigns that ensure you reach prospects on their preferred social media platform or the channel they are most likely to check.
Build a completely automated outreach workflow using multiple channels including LinkedIn, Email, and Twitter. Change actions, select time delays, include smart filters, and increase lead generation with Alfred.
Create multiple campaign sequence
Complete workflows from social to email
Response detection stops follow-ups
Email or Twitter cadences after invites are accepted
Engage with prospects at scale, and personalize your LinkedIn outreach with a smart LinkedIn automation tool at your side.
Deliver personalized content and messaging.
Include attachments and hyperlinks.
Create custom Tags for your leads.
Collect notes during every interaction.
Stay in touch with the leads that are interested in your business and export your LinkedIn contact data in a CSV file.
Access all connections and prospect information.
Extract qualified emails, phone numbers and more.
Synchronize LinkedIn conversations and replies.
Track your prospects, without leaving the Alfred interface.
Automate all LinkedIn InMails to save time, engage with your leads and increase your revenue.
Directly message leads, even if you’re not connected.
Include InMail in Multi-channel campaigns.
Fully customize your subject and InMail message body text.
Include attachments and hyperlinks.
Target prospective customers in a LinkedIn group you’re a member of, identify people who are attending a LinkedIn event or use LinkedIn posts to generate leads.
Import your leads in one click
Send personalized messages to event attendees
Directly message members of a LinkedIn Group
Target leads who interacted with any LinkedIn post.
Maximize your sales and marketing team’s productivity and efficiency, and manage multiple LinkedIn accounts with Alfred.
Monitor team's campaigns results
Review social selling activities performed
Analyze engagement timeliness by prospect
Central billing and access management
Use Alfred’s power of automation to streamline your workflow and automate LinkedIn without the risk of going over LinkedIn limits.
Full control of your automation schedule
Smart campaign activity using A.I.
Auto detection of Linkedin warnings
Limits based on your Linkedin membership
Alfred’s social media posting feature saves time and pushes more types of content to your audiences.
Save time by scheduling content
Increase your Social Media presence across LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram
Sync photos & videos from your devices
Analytics performance of your posts
Create, Edit, and Save personalized messaging templates for all of your campaigns right inside of your account. This feature is 100% editable to put you in control of your messaging and brand voice.
Run more successful campaigns with proven messaging.
Create your own custom templates.
Save and share templates with your team.
Clone and modify provided templates from Alfred’s library.
Do you want to learn how to utilize LinkedIn analytics and turn cold prospects into steady clients? Analyze lead performance and optimize automated outreach campaigns from multiple angles with Alfred.
Real-time dashboards to stay up to date
Activity tracking for every lead & campaign
Daily limit usage reporting
Export campaign performance & data
Meet Alfred has 78,299 users spread across 87 countries, including SizeBay, Amazon, Airbus, WeWork, and NextDoor. Here’s what just some of Meet Alfred’s satisfied clients have to say about its LinkedIn tools for business.
Aron Sawyers calls Alfred “an amazing platform” and says it is “easily the best out of all of them.”
Tobias gave a similar comment, calling Alfred the “best LinkedIn automation out there.” He also highlights that it has “lots of integrations to use your favorite channels and network effortlessly.”
Some reviews are from newcomers who are still getting a feel for all the features at Alfred. For example, Mattin was so happy with Alfred during his free trial that he wrote a review saying, “It’s exceeding my expectation.”
Other reviews come from customers who have been using it for years without any issues. Long-time user Andre Lorenceau says he has “been using Meet Alfred for years.” He went on to say that it “made LinkedIn dramatically easier to use.” In his review, Lorenceau says he builds serious campaigns in a matter of days when it “would have taken months before.”
Alfred also has 515 reviews on Trustpilot with an average rating of 4.8, which is “Excellent". The free trial and demo can give you a taste of this, but you can also build your confidence in Alfred from customer reviews.
Anytime you incorporate automation into your workflows, you will notice a boost in efficiency. Alfred enables you to set up your automation sequences once and runs them for as long as you want. This helps you focus your time and energy on tasks that can’t be automated.
For even more efficiency, take advantage of Alfred’s Teams Admin Panel. This lets you give each team member specific permissions based on their responsibilities and roles. You no longer have to worry about giving team members more access than they need. At the same time, you can involve more members of your team who will attend to prospects during the customer journey.
Get LinkedIn help by automating messaging, connection requests, and more with Alfred. Let Alfred be the newest and most efficient member of your team. Contact us to schedule a demo or to take advantage of our 7-day free trial, without any credit card required.