LinkedIn has become an invaluable platform for sales professionals to identify prospects, nurture relationships, and drive pipeline. With over 850 million members, LinkedIn offers unparalleled access to decision makers across virtually every company. According to LinkedIn’s 2022 State of Sales report, 95% of sales professionals use LinkedIn to connect with buyers
Crafting an effective sales message on LinkedIn requires understanding your target audience and their needs. The first 60-120 words of your message should quickly communicate value and compel the prospect to keep reading. Avoid spammy pitches and focus on how you can help prospects achieve their goals.
Compelling outreach messages requires for salespeople looking to cut through the noise on LinkedIn. Generic copy-and-pasted templates simply won’t capture attention in crowded inboxes. The most effective LinkedIn sales messages are personalized, deliver value, and motivate action.
Follow these 20 tips to create successful LinkedIn outreach:
1. Personalize with Research
Before connecting with a prospect on LinkedIn, take time to thoroughly research their profile, company, role, and interests. References specific details from their background to demonstrate you understand their professional focus and challenges. Personalized messages that reflect knowledge of a prospect’s specific needs will always outperform generic templates. Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to uncover key details for customizing your approach.
2. Demonstrate Value
Your message needs to communicate tangible value focused on helping prospects achieve their goals. Avoid vague claims about your excellence or overloaded product feature dumps. Succinctly explain how your offering will enable prospects to solve problems, seize opportunities, or reach objectives. Quantify the impact with metrics and data whenever possible.
3. Ask Engaging Questions
Well-crafted questions drive dialogue by encouraging thoughtful responses beyond a simple yes/no. Pose questions tailored to the prospect’s role and company that illuminate pain points, challenges, goals, or ideal solutions. Then position your capabilities as the answer. For example, ask a marketing leader what’s on their priority list for the quarter or how they measure content success.
4. Include a Clear Call-to-Action
Don’t leave next steps ambiguous. Prompt the prospect to take specific, frictionless action like scheduling a call, viewing a demo video, downloading an assets kit, or connecting on another channel. Clarity and direction here can mean the difference between continuing or terminating the conversation.
5. Keep Messages Concise
Respect that prospects are busy and avoid long blocks of rambling text. Get quickly to your core value proposition within the first few sentences, while keeping messages under 300 words when possible. Selectivity and brevity give your strongest selling points room to shine. Extraneous details can muddle your positioning.
6. Reply Rapidly
When prospects do engage your messages, respond promptly to capitalize on momentum while their interest is piqued. Quick replies signal professionalism, enthusiasm, and responsiveness. Follow-up consistently within the first hour if feasible.
7. Segment and Target Outreach
Avoid blasting the same generic message across your entire network. Instead, segment prospects based on factors like company, industry, role, geography, company size, etc. Then tailor messaging accordingly with themes that resonate. Prioritize leads showing buying signals.
8. Include Social Proof
Support claims about your product or service with concrete examples of success through logos, testimonials, case studies, and awards. This third-party validation builds credibility and trust that your capabilities live up to promises.
9. Incorporate Visual Content
Messages incorporating visual content like images, charts, graphics, or video will stand out better in the LinkedIn feed. But ensure visuals directly reinforce your core messaging and value proposition vs. just decorative elements.
10. Mind Tone and Voice
Adopt an earnest, consultative tone focused on understanding needs and providing solutions, rather than “selling.” Avoid hype and hyperbole. Be transparent and straight-forward. Write conversationally but professionally using natural language.
11. Proofread for Errors
Grammar and spelling errors undermine your message’s professionalism, distract the reader, and could even come across as disrespectful. Proofread every message before sending to flush out typos or mistakes. Enlist a second set of eyes if needed.
12. Leverage LinkedIn Capabilities
In conjunction with personalized messages, make full use of built-in LinkedIn capabilities to supplement outreach. For example, sending InMail, optimizing your profile, using targeted ads, creating lead gen forms, and more.
13. Practice Patience and Persistenc
Prospects won’t always respond instantly to initial outreach. Follow up periodically with new value propositions, content shares, or questions without being pushy. Nurture the relationship over time. Patience and structured persistence pay off.
14. Share Relevant Content
Include links to gated and ungated content like articles, blog posts, guides, and webinars with your outreach notes – chosen strategically based on the prospect’s interests. Sharing valuable material demonstrates your commitment to inform vs. self-promote.
15. Highlight Open Roles
If you have strong job candidates well-matched to openings at a prospect’s company, reference these opportunities to grab their attention. Tailored recruiting support offers mutual benefit.
16. Connect Common Interests
Look for indicators of shared interests, associations, or experiences – university attended, hometown, volunteer work, group memberships, etc. These provide natural conversation starters and occasions to establish rapport.
17. Request Warm Introductions
Ask mutual connections if they’d be willing to introduce you to a prospect with a recommendation. An endorsement from a familiar contact gives you built-in credibility that cold contact lacks.
18. Link to Current Initiatives
Research initiatives, projects, challenges, or milestones at the prospect’s company based on their website, news articles, etc. Then tie your offerings to their strategic priorities. These real-world connections resonate.
19. Promote Recent Awards
If your company or offerings have received industry awards or recognitions lately, reference these in outreach as social proof. Awards spotlight your achievements.
20. Close with Gratitude
Finally, thank prospects for their time and consideration. Express enthusiasm for the potential opportunity to work together and add value. These pleasantries can nurture ongoing conversation.
With over 3 million Sales Navigator users, LinkedIn remains the #1 social selling platform. By taking an insightful, customized approach, sales professionals can cut through the noise to drive meaningful engagement. The above tips will help craft messages that capture attention and convert prospects. Remember, outreach is not a set-it-and-forget-it activity, but rather an ongoing conversation requiring strategy, persistence, and service.
