How to reach out on LinkedIn

How to reach out on LinkedIn

Without doubt, LinkedIn is the most powerful tool when it comes to making business-to-business introductions. In this article, we will give you tips on how to connect to people on linked in and book meetings. Our team has had years of experience in cold outreach and we’ve learned how to do it well.

Have a LinkedIn Strategy

Probably the people you are trying to reach are on LinkedIn, if they are not you’ll have to use other ways to connect with them.

Before you start your outreach you need to ensure you have identified very specific job titles that you want to target and get your messaging bang on. As Kristi DePaul states in Harvard Business Review, many companies make these fatal mistakes when undertaking outreach:

Targeting the wrong people
Not connecting to the decision maker
Having an uclear offering
Weak messaging
Not being persuasive enough

2nd Degree Connections

If you are on a budget and do not want to splash out on the premium LinkedIn sales navigator, you can focus on organic outreach to start with. You can run a search in LinkedIn for certain types of roles on a basic level, and we suggest connecting with your 2nd degree connections first, and then later 3rd degree connections.

You are far more likely to have people accept your invite if they are 2nd degree, and this will help you quickly grow your network.

Credit this blog – search like a pro – LINK

Connecting Message

The jury is out on this one, some say the first message you write when you connect should be very short, some say you have to show your intention in the first message. We think its a simple mix. A great connection message example is:

Hi [Name], I would like to add you to my LinkedIn network, we work in a similar space and it would be great to connect.

You may also like to write.

Hi [Name], it would be great to connect with you as I work for [Company]. Can I tell you about what we do?

In summary, keep the message pretty short. The decision makers you want to connect with are often very busy people. Here is a nice example of sharing something that may be of interest:

Credit 10 LinkedIn message templates – LINK

Follow Up Messages

Have a plan for the follow-up messages you are going to send. When someone accepts your invitation you need a CLEAR message to send them. Example:

Hi [Name]. Thank you for connecting with me. I work for [My company name], we offer [services] which provide you with [benefit].

Are you the right person for this topic? Can I send you a short deck to show how we can help your company?

When you send your deck, you do need to make sure it’s tracked, we advise using HubSpot to send over documents so that clients enter in their email addresses and you source permission from them to send them information.

You can also ask for their email address, however, sending them something to view will bring you better results.

After these messages, if you’ve had no reply, you will want to send around 2 more messages asking if they have time, or if you should contact someone else. Write in your own style, and keep it both short and a little formal.

Try Using Bullet Points

Here at SalesSource we are big fans of bullet points? Why? Because they are easy for people to understand and digest, especially discussion makers who are very very busy people.

If you find you are contacting people and not seeing the results, try messages with bullet points that explain what you do, and the USP’s. For example:

Hi [name], thanks for connecting. We offer brands like [brand examples], the following services:

Design
Branding
Creative strategy
Art direction

Can any of these services be of interest to you?

You may also want to use this kind of messaging in your emails that you send to people you will be surprised with the results!

Make Your LinkedIn Profile Shine!

When you connect to people you need to instantly build trust. They will be asking:

Who is this person?

Why do they want to connect with me?

How can this connection benefit me?

For these reasons you need to make very clear what you do, what your title is and what your company offers. A poorly displayed LinkedIn profile will lower the chances of connection success and your credibility.

You should make sure you have a clear title, a banner that displays your company and USP’s and also keywords on your job position profile. You can also add a deck into your profile that people can download.

In future articles, we will dive into how you can make your profile top notch.

(Credit – Paul Braam – Virtuagym)

An excellent example of a well branded profile on LinkedIn. It is clear from this display, the person’s title, company brand and that they offer some kind of software.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator Search

If you have the marketing budget, we always recommend investing in LinkedIn sales navigator, as it will give you a very powerful contact search tool to use to find the right people and decision makers.

Search first for closer connections
Target the industries that suit your product offering
Have a range of titles to choose from, think about all variations
- i.e. Producer, Integrated producer, digital producer
Check the seniority of the contact
Check the company size, you should know the size of company to target

You can also save search types in sales navigator, which is really handy when you want to re-visit searches and see if new contacts have been promoted or joined companies in positions that you typically target.

LinkedIn Limitations

You do have to be careful when connecting to people on LinkedIn, as it is not advisable to have a spray and pray approach and add random people to your network. Ideally you should have some genuine connection to these people or a strong reason to do business together. LinkedIn will encourage you to ‘follow’ people instead of adding them if they are further than a second degree connection.

If you do decide to add people on a regular basis, then you should add maximum 15 connections per day. Why? Well LinkedIn will be looking at your acceptance rate. If people decline your invitations that will place a black mark on your profile and you may get blocked by linked in. In some cases you can add 20 connections per day, but we advise 15 to be safe.

There are a range of automation tools available, including Phantom Buster, where your LinkedIn network can be grown automatically using their software. This is great if you are short on time and just want to boost connections, however we see the personal approach providing far better returns on investment.

Let us help you

All in all, connecting with people on LinkedIn will only really work if you have a clear strategy and take a qualitative approach. You may be busy on other projects, so leave the work to us and we will help you make more connections and boost your growth. Contact us today.

2022-10-25T21:26:34+05:00

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Adrian

Founding
team

Justin

Adrian Silenieks

Adrian is an experienced entrepreneur with a strong marketing and strategy focus. Adrian has worked in digital marketing for over 15 years leading a digital development agency. Adrian offers sharp skills in strategic thinking, demand marketing and cutting-edge content production.

Justin Campbell

Justin has 20 years of B2B sales experience working for the likes of American Express, Dice, and Red Energy. He co-founded a digital production agency AGCS in Amsterdam. His expertise lies in B2B sales outreach, content marketing, and sales coaching. Justin also enjoys deep-writing for content projects.

The Team
of experts

Behind the scenes, we will be working with a team of experts that provide excellent output that suits your needs. If you need content, we have writers.

LinkedIn Outreach Specialist

Mickey Gutierrez

Our LinkedIn outreach expert is here on hand to help you reach out to the right people and engage them into a conversation that converts to business.

Marketing Automation Expert

Anton Brae

Will set up marketing processes and automation in such a way that you can grow your business and save huge amounts of time in processing leads.

Senior Content Writer

Ana Mladenovic

You will be able to produce excellent quality content from our team members who have years of experience writing engaging and SEO worthy articles.

Lead Data Analyst

Bhavesh Usadad

If you need clean data, and new leads, then we have the expert on hand to achieve that for you. Bhavesh is the king of data and spreadsheets.

Content Writer

Jasmin Talin

We love working on the content that is going to drive leads to your business. We know what engages people and what sort of articles they want to read.

CRM Expert

Md Yeanus

Is a man with thousand hands. Md configures all marketing systems and has a wealth of experience with many different platforms. You will be in very safe hands.

Statistics prove that if an incoming lead is contacted within 2 hours of initial connection, you will improve your likelihood of sales conversion by 60%.

Put us to the test.