8 Brilliant LinkedIn Outreach Strategies To Reach More Prospects

Like all aspects of your business, it’s important to have a proper strategy in place to guide you to success. The same is true for LinkedIn! Nowadays, with membership soaring well over 810 million active users, it’s super important to find LinkedIn outreach strategies that will help your company convert more leads.

So, what is LinkedIn outreach? Which messaging strategies should your business use? And most importantly, how will these strategies help you reach more prospective clients?

In this article, you will get the answers to all of these questions and more, including:

• What are the top 8 LinkedIn outreach strategies
• How to put these practices into action
• Informative messaging templates & examples

Ready to get started? Let’s dive right in.

What Is LinkedIn Outreach?

Simply put, LinkedIn outreach occurs when a business researches, targets, and ultimately reaches out to prospective customers on LinkedIn. The goal of the outreach process is to:

• Pull in more leads
• Develop stronger relationships
• Grow conversion rates

For the most part, Linkedin outreach takes place in the “Messaging” section of the site.

Why You Should Use It

When done right, LinkedIn outreach is a fantastic way to generate more leads, especially for B2B businesses. This is because LinkedIn is the fastest growing B2B social network in the world.

Furthermore, you can also use LinkedIn outreach strategies to foster relationships with new or existing customers, especially when you’re trying to increase client retention rates and encourage engagement.

So, how can you add Linkedin outreach to your digital marketing toolbox?

8 Fantastic LinkedIn Outreach Strategies You Need to Follow

Unfortunately, so many businesses fall short when it comes to this unique marketing tool. When messages become too long, profiles look disorganized, or value isn’t provided, LinkedIn outreach has a slim chance of actually working.

Here’s the good news: With these top 8 LinkedIn outreach strategies, you can improve your messaging game and FINALLY see the results you’ve been hoping for. Keep reading to see what you should do first.

1. Optimize Your Profile

First things first, you’re going to want to make your profile picture perfect. In other words, it’s time for a makeover!

Here’s What You Need To Do

Your profile reboot shouldn’t take too long. In fact, it’s as simple as 1-2-3!

Step 1: Update the profile picture and background photo to relevant pictures. Make sure the pics aren’t blurry, pixelated, or too chaotic and distracting.

Step 2: Disclose your title and company name on the profile. When a message is sent on LinkedIn, your formal title will appear under your name. Therefore, it’s important to include one!

Step 3: Rewrite your “About” section. If a lead is unfamiliar with you or your business, chances are they’ll dig around on your profile before they respond to your message. Your “About” section should be informative, easy to read, and personable. Keep language simple and cater to your audience (a.k.a. use lingo that your niche market is familiar with!).

All profiles that intend to reach out to prospects should take these simple steps to put their best foot forward. This includes your company’s profile as well. After all, first impressions really do matter!

2. Consider Your Messaging Options

Next, familiarize yourself with the types of LinkedIn outreach options available to you. For starters, there are 3 main avenues you can take. Keep reading to learn more about each one.

Open Profile

If you’re looking for an affordable way to send messages to prospects, then open profile is one way to go. Through open profile, you can shoot free InMails to LinkedIn members with open profiles.

With this kind of messaging, you have to manually select each person you would like to message. Plus, it doesn’t work with everyone, only profiles that were opted to remain open and that you are already connected to.

Although tedious, the process may still be worth it in the end.

Sponsored InMail

Next up is Sponsored InMail, also referred to as LinkedIn Message Ads. This allows you to send direct messages to several leads at once. This option is a fantastic way to deliver interactive and valuable messages for your prospects to engage with. You can also track your audience through engagement metrics and demographic reporting.

The only downside is Sponsored InMail comes at a price. However, if you have a large volume of prospects to reach out to, this option could be well worth the investment!

Premium Plans

Finally, when you sign up for a premium plan, you receive special “InMail Message Credits” that allow you to send InMails to prospective customers. You also reap the benefits of the Sales Navigator tool, which is included in the premium plan.

Like the open profile option, you are unable to send messages in bulk. However, you will have exclusive access to send messages to Premium members with open accounts, even if you aren’t connected to them.

3. Less Text is More

Now that you have developed your overall outreach plan, it’s time to talk about the messages themselves.

As a general rule of thumb, treat your message like a text – the shorter, more concise it is, the better! Here’s why.

Cut Back Your Word Count

Too many sentences will require your recipient to scroll. This deters them from actually reading the message! Especially if it’s the very first message you’ve ever sent them, you don’t want it to be too wordy.

Need an example? Check this one out:

Notice how simple and straightforward the message is? A short and sweet message is your first foot in the door. Once you get a bite or are ready to send a follow-up message, you can go into further detail about your offer.

4. Personalize, Personalize, Personalize!

Automated messages are great and all… except when it feels like a robot is talking to you. People want to talk to other people because it feels more authentic.

So, to avoid ending up in the ‘unread messages’ bin, be sure to personalize the message to the recipient.

How to Personalize a Message

For instance, use their name in the greeting! That’s the first step.

Next, take the time to go through their profile and find a reason WHY you’re sending them the message. It’s okay to point out an accomplishment, certification, or business portfolio that your prospect is showcasing on their profile. This makes it more personal.

Take a look at this example:

In this example, the sender viewed the recipient’s profile and found that they are interested in leadership and online programs. This is a perfect reason for the sender to give the recipient this message!

5. Include a Free Resource

PAY ATTENTION to this next strategy! You will definitely want to include this one in your overall LinkedIn outreach strategies toolbox…

GIVE YOUR RECEIVER A VALUABLE RESOURCE!!!

If you want to really attract your prospect to your initial proposal, you need to give them a good reason to stick around. A free resource is the perfect solution.

Plus, it’s the perfect way to push them further into your sales funnel and begin the relationship building process with them. It’s all part of the ultimate lead nurturing strategy.

Make Sure It Offers Value

So, what kind of resource does your prospective client need? Let us emphasize the word NEED.

Keep in mind that you should always cater to your audiences’ wants, needs, and desires. This is marketing 101. Therefore, your free resource should be something they would actually be interested in, such as a:

• Helpful Ebook
• Exclusive webinar
• Useful blog
• Informative video
• Free trial to a service or product

Here’s an example:

Pro-Tip: See how the sender also included reasons WHY the recipient would want to try their service for free? They included pain points and how their product would help the receiver out. DO THIS!

6. Find Commonalities & Mutual Connections

It’s no secret that the more similarities and connections you have in common with your lead, the more trustworthy you will become in their eyes. And when it comes to business, especially answering a message from a complete stranger, every bit of trust counts.

So, make sure you get to know your prospects before and during your first conversations with them.

You can also send them your profile and ask them if they would like to connect with you first before you dive into your proposal. This gives them the option to consent to your request, highlighting you as a considerate person.

7. Send a Follow Up

Did your message get a response? If so, that’s fantastic! Be sure to reply as soon as you can – preferably within 12 hours or sooner.

On the other hand, if you did not receive a response, go ahead and send them a follow up message. Make it short and sweet.

How Often Should You Send Follow Ups?

In general, it’s acceptable to send up to 4 follow up messages to unresponsive prospects. Make sure to space them out over time (for instance, over a 2 month period).

However, if you don’t get a response by then, it’s best to just move on. Sending too many messages can put a bad taste in your prospect’s mouth.

Pro-Tip: You can even include a subject line in bold, such as “Just had to try again” or “Sending again. You will really like this!” This makes the message more enticing and will hopefully encourage them to take a quick peek at what you sent them.

8. Keep A Tab on Promising Prospects

In other words, track your leads! This is a useful strategy if you plan to send messages to many people at once or if you need to keep track of your follow up messages.

On your LinkedIn profile, you can actually subscribe to an internal reporting and analytics tool to measure the ROI of your messages. Through this tool, you can monitor conversations, get real-time data on your performance, and gather demographics on your preferred leads.

A Few Extra Tips to Keep in Mind

Along with these 8 LinkedIn outreach strategies, consider the following additional tips to really boost your message campaign.

Be Careful with Links

Proceed with caution when you add a link to your recipient’s message. On LinkedIn, a link pops up as a large thumbnail in the chat. Unfortunately, this can take up a lot of space in the message and can make the actual message difficult to read.

If you do include a link, it’s best to attach it at the end of the message instead of at the beginning or in the middle.

Automate Your Messages

As you begin to reach out to more and more people, keeping up with your long list of chats can quickly become a daunting task.

Luckily, you can choose to automate your messages to reach more people and stay on top of responses… without everything falling out of control.

Bonus: LinkedIn Outreach Messaging Template

Now that you have some strategies in your toolbox, it’s time to put them into play.

Not sure where to start? Download this messaging template to get some easy ideas for your first messages!

LinkedIn Messaging Scripts

So, Which LinkedIn Outreach Strategies Do You Like Best?

Let us know which strategy is your favorite in the comments!