8 EFFECTIVE TIPS FOR WRITING LINKEDIN MESSAGES
LinkedIn is an excellent platform to get qualified leads from. However, how do you approach a potential lead? How do you connect with them directly? LinkedIn messages are an excellent tool, but many marketers fail to send the right message to their audience.
LinkedIn messages are a highly effective tool when done right, and can seem like a waste of time when you don’t have a strategy in place. Sending the same messages again and again with little to no personalization is unlikely to get you any significant results.
LinkedIn might not be the largest social network, but when it comes to getting qualified leads, this is definitely the place where you want to be. Here’s a look at LinkedIn’s member distribution:
Source: LinkedIn
Member distribution is one thing, but you also have to consider the effectiveness ratings for different social media platforms. LinkedIn ranks at the top in terms of content marketing effectiveness:
Source: https://contentmarketinginstitute.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/2016_B2B_Report_Final.pdf
Many businesses make the mistake of confusing cold messages with LinkedIn messages. Understanding the difference between the two is especially important.
What is the Difference Between LinkedIn Messages and InMail Messages?
The LinkedIn Messages feature allows you to send messages to your primary connections only. Essentially, these are messages you can send to leads you have connected with.
InMail messages are available to LinkedIn Premium users. Each Premium plan comes with a specific number of credits that you can use in order to send messages to anyone. InMail also has a Subject option which allows you to personalize the message further (available on Sales Navigator).
InMail is more like the ads that you see at the top when you search for something in Google or any other search engine. LinkedIn messages, on the other hand, are organic and carry much more weight.
Before you start sending LinkedIn messages, you need to build an ideal persona for your qualified leads. Without that, your messages may fall on deaf ears. There are several factors that you could take into account when creating a targeting persona. Some of the most common ones include:
Industry
Geographical region
Type of products or services sold
You can set your criteria accordingly when building a target audience. If you haven’t filtered profiles, you should know that people respond most commonly to the degree of personalization in your message, how appropriately it has been written, and the value proposition you offer.
Imagine if you approach someone at a trade fair, telling them all about yourself and swapping them with your work. Do you think they would be interested? Probably not. It’s the same here.
How Many Messages Can You Send on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn closely monitors the use of its platform to ensure that users are not using it excessively. If you exceed, there’s a risk your account might be classified as spam.
It’s about sending quality messages not just quantity alone. Growth-X is an excellent automation platform that can help you send personalized, quality messages to your audience while saving you lots of time.
Building a Target Audience for Your LinkedIn Messages
The LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a highly effective tool that you can use to build your target audience. Without an appropriate audience to connect with, you are going to have difficulty in getting your message across and generating more qualified leads.
The Sales Navigator allows you to categorize profiles based on industry, geographical location, keywords, relationships, and several other factors.
Source: LinkedIn
8 Effective Tips for Writing LinkedIn Messages
If you want to maximize the effectiveness of the messages sent to prospects, here are 8 tips that will help you.
1. Keep It Short
LinkedIn messages are similar to texting. They pop up in a tiny window, so any prospect will have to scroll downwards to read the whole thing.
You should keep your networking message as short as possible. Your initial message should never exceed more than three sentences. It’s limited to 300 characters. Your only goal with the initial message is for the prospect to read your message and express their interest.
Here’s one of the best pro tips you should know: any message that’s more than a few sentences will require the recipient to scroll down. If the first few lines of your message are not catchy enough, your messages will be largely ignored. Here’s a preview:
As you can see, the bottom part of the message is hidden, and you have to scroll downwards to see it. If you have a random message popping up with no personalization chances are that the message will receive less attention.
Your prospects don’t have any relationship with you, so sending them LinkedIn messages continuously without offering anything of value is not a great idea. They may associate your name with spam. If that happens, they won’t bother opening your messages again, and your LinkedIn cold outreach strategy will suffer.
Therefore, you have to understand the importance of making a strong first impression. When writing a message to an audience, make sure you personalize it. Segment your target audience effectively via the LinkedIn Sales Navigator, so that you know how to send messages the right way. Conversely, here’s how a well-thought-out invite message would look like:
Hi {receiver.first_name},
I hope you are well.
I see we are both in the IT and Software space. Looking to connect with ambitious tech leaders in Nigeria.
I see from your role at {receiver.company_name} that you are responsible for growth, keen to discuss growing in Africa and trade insights.
Other LinkedIn Message Examples
There are plenty of other examples of LinkedIn connection messages. For instance, if you want to refer a contact to another person, you can use the following:
Similarly, if a prospect requires more information about your offer before making a decision, you need to be forthcoming. Here’s an example of a well-written response in this case:
Sure CUSTOMER!
Here is some more information about our product: www.link-to-more.information.com
However, no one-pager can do justice to what we offer- I would suggest setting up a quick demo with my colleague FIRST LAST so that he could elaborate more on Growth-X and how we can help you reach your goals.
You can use this link to set yo a meeting with FIRST LAST:
https://calendly.com/xxxxx
Thanks!
SALES REP
Now, if you have been sending follow-up messages to no avail, it’s important not to badger your prospects. Instead, you can send a last-resort message, which could actually elicit a response from certain prospects. Here’s a prime example:
Sure CUSTOMER!
Since I haven’t heard back from you, I’m assuming that you won’t be moving forward. Please, message me if you should decide otherwise.
I hope to work with you in the future!
Best,
SALES REP
These are some simple examples of well-worded messages that can generate positive responses from prospects.
You must treat your prospects like actual individuals. If you start pitching or selling with your first message, your recipients won’t care. Visit their LinkedIn profile so they get an idea that you paid personal attention to them. Obviously, this takes more time, but you can automate it using a LinkedIn automation app such as Growth-X.
Growth-X assigns a Customer Success Manager to each of their clients. The CSM expert works closely with clients in optimizing their targeting through the Sales Navigator and assists with the messaging.
Even one word can make a huge difference, so having someone with experience to guide you is always a bonus.
2. The Subject Line is More Important Than You Think
Recipients are not going to open your LinkedIn messages if the subject line is too long, or if it doesn’t appeal to them. To craft a good LinkedIn message, you need to create a subject line that looks as if it was personalized for the reader, but one that doesn’t give too much away.
Remember, your first message is all about starting a conversation. You should not be looking to make a sale in the first message. Your primary motive should be to start a conversation with the recipient, and once they are interested, you can continue with your pitch.
The length of your subject line is also of critical importance. Be direct about what you want. Remember, most people won’t read your LinkedIn messages if they are too long. The first rule of sending LinkedIn prospecting messages is to shorten your subject lines.
Even a simple “Looking to Connect” can increase your open rates by as much as 14% as compared to an empty invite.
Clearly, successful marketers know the importance of short subject lines. Research shows that 82% of marketers prefer sending messages with subject lines that are less than 60 characters.
Avoid writing generic subject lines in order to meet this short character limit. Even something as simple as “How about coffee?” is bound to attract attention.
Mentioning the recipient’s name in the subject line of your invitation message can also increase your open rates by as much as 26% as compared to sending a message with a generic subject line, especially when sending an introduction message.
3. Sending Follow-Up Messages
It is also highly probable that you might not receive an immediate response from a recipient right away as they may have been distracted at the time you messaged them and then forgot about it.
That’s where follow-up messages come into play. A follow-up message should be polite and courteous. You should never assume the worst. Personalizing your message is important (It’s recommended that you add their first name to the subject line, and then mention it several times throughout the message).
Before you send a follow-up message, you should decide what the follow up aims to accomplish. What aims do you wish to accomplish with your follow-up messages? Do you simply want to remain in the recipient’s mind in case they decide to make a purchase in the future, or are you actively looking to convert them?
Common follow-up objectives include:
Meeting requests
Request for information
Just catching up
This is important when writing your call to action as well. With time, as you continue to build trust with the prospect, you can provide more and more information about your product and service as well.
Follow-up messages must never seem like they were sent as a mass message to multiple recipients. You probably won’t have time to go through each and every profile, and that’s okay. However, if a prospect receives the same worded message again and again, they will probably not respond.
Every company has a different LinkedIn message cadence for follow-ups. Find what works best for you and make sure it aligns with your goals.
4. Avoid Personal Introductions with LinkedIn Messages
Avoid giving out lots of personal information about yourself in your LinkedIn messages. It’s ideal to keep it short.
Instead, create a first sentence that immediately attracts attention. Share an interesting stat with the reader, or tell them something that you think is relevant to their field.
It’s going to generate a much more positive impact than writing about yourself. It’s one of the most common LinkedIn outreach strategies that many people don’t pay attention to.
5. Get to the Point. Quickly.
We live in an era of 8 second attention spans. It’s not that adults are incapable of paying attention to different things. It’s simply that we are so overwhelmed with information that our brain is unable to pay attention to one thing for a prolonged period of time.
What does that mean? The average attention span of an adult nowadays is less than 8 seconds. That’s less than that of a goldfish.
If you don’t get to the point quickly with your first LinkedIn outreach, you are simply going to lose your audience. Keep in mind that the average reader needs around 15 seconds to skim over 50 words.
That’s one of the main reasons why you need to get to the point quickly, right off the bat. This is the best way to attract your reader’s attention.
Give them an interesting piece of information, and then dive in. Explain your opportunity as succinctly as you can. And, this brings us to the next point.
6. The Value Proposition
LinkedIn messages are all about value propositions. This is the core of the message, and if you do not describe this properly, you are not going to get many responses.
Source: Netaffinity
Having a strong value proposition can dig you out of the hole, even when your message is weak. But, if your value proposition is not on point, even the most well-worded messages are going to fall on deaf ears.
7. Leverage Social Proof – But Be Careful When Adding Links
To really hammer in your point, you need to leverage a bit of social proof as well. If your campaigns have yielded positive results in the past and you have quantifiable numbers, use them to attract attention. It’s a simple LinkedIn growth hack.
It helps build trust as well. However, be careful when adding links. When you include a link in your LinkedIn messages, the platform automatically expands it into a thumbnail.
This can take up the prospect’s whole screen and distort the message as well. Obviously, this doesn’t mean that you should never add links. However, it would not be good practice to add a link in your first message.
8. Offer an Incentive
Do you have a lead magnet or a free resource that you can offer to your prospects? For instance, an ebook or a report relevant to the prospect’s industry might be a great way to break the ice.
But don’t just shove it down their inbox. Instead, ask them permission first. Say something like, “I have compiled an excellent ebook that talks about X and Y points. If you want, I can send it your way?”
Make sure you emphasize the value that this offers. You can then supplement this by asking for a meeting or for a small follow-up call.
By doing this, you are effectively ticking three important boxes:
- You are asking for permission first.
- You are providing value to the prospect.
- Your chances of getting a “yes” increase dramatically.
Obviously, this approach primarily depends on the quality of the resource that you offer. One of the best ways to figure this out is to reverse the roles. What if you were the prospect and somebody else pitched this resource? Do you think it would be viable?
Remember, a small blog post that’s patched up together in an hour isn’t going to do the trick. It will actually hurt your LinkedIn cold outreach strategy.
Finally, you should thank the reader for their time. The last couple of lines should always be for thanking the reader and for paving the way to a future conversation. “I would love to hear from you,” or a simple “Would you like to talk more about this?” are both great.
Writing LinkedIn Messages – Checklist to Follow
Before you send LinkedIn messages to your audience, you may want to use this checklist:
Have you segmented your target audience?
Is your introduction short and interesting?
Does your message contain a link?
Is your message skimmable?
Do you have a list of follow-up messages planned?
Are you providing a free resource?
Have you added personalized greetings?
Is your subject line capped at 3-4 words?
When done correctly, LinkedIn messages can help you find quality leads easily. As long as you follow these best practices, you will see an immediate increase in your response rate.
I’m Growth-X’s digital marketing, copywriter, and customer success expert who focuses on growth hacks for B2B companies. When not working, you might catch me doing yoga or planning my next adventure.
