Are you looking to actively engage with new prospects via LinkedIn? One of the best ways to do this is through LinkedIn messaging. Lead Generation through LinkedIn Messages can be divided into two parts – Invitation messages and follow-up messages. In this blog, we’ll discover some tactics businesses should use to start or improve their LinkedIn lead generation.
Invitation Messages
Personalize Your Message
An important aspect of lead generation through LinkedIn messages is sending out personalized messages. Social selling focuses on developing relationships that create value and trust. Through personalization, achieving these outcomes becomes possible. The importance of personalized messages gains momentum with people you have never met or known before. If you do not send out a personalized message to an unknown connection, there are high chances that this person will not be interested in your message.
When to Send Your Invitation Message
Have you ever wondered when to send a LinkedIn message to a new prospect? Perhaps you thought that 9 a.m. on a Tuesday might have been a good option, or that Friday was even better. With LinkedIn messages, there is no perfect ‘one time fits all’ ideal message time. In reality, timing depends immensely on your company, industry, target audience and more. To discover the best time for your business to send LinkedIn messages, it is recommended to do your research and try out different times while measuring their performance. This process is repeated several times to find the time that generates the best response rate.
Specifics of A LinkedIn Invitation Message
The specifics of a LinkedIn Invitation message depend greatly on who you are trying to connect with and the purpose of your message. Now, viewing it from a sales angle, you might be tempted to jump straight to composing a sales pitch. However, an overt sales pitch can take away from the meaningful relationship you could have had with your prospect. On that note, here are two specifics to follow when crafting your LinkedIn message:
A polite and professional tone
Whether you know the connection or not, you should always follow the rules of business communication. Your message should be pertinent, polite and professional.
To the point and brief
LinkedIn has a 300 character limit for invitation messages, which means you must choose your words very carefully. Avoid fluff and be sure that your message is straightforward.
Follow-Up Messages
Message timing
Follow-up messages are just as important as the initial connection message that you send out to prospects. The first follow-up message is generally sent out a few days or a week after the connection invitation. Similar to an invitation, there is no ‘one time fits all’ time to send a follow-up. You can start by sending it at any time you deem fit and measure your results against other times. After the first follow-up, additional follow-ups can be sent days or weeks apart from each other. Generally, the more follow-ups you send, the more time you wait between sending each message.
How Many Follow-Ups to Send?
Though there is no specific limit to the number of follow-ups that you can send, no one likes to receive too many messages. About 2 to 4 follow-ups after you send your invitation message can be considered to be a safe option. However, make sure you maintain a suitable time gap between every follow-up message that you send, to avoid being spammed or ignored in the process.
Specifics of Your Follow-Up Message
LinkedIn has a lot of quality prospects to offer. However, several of them do not necessarily realize that they need the services and products you provide. Thus, it is important that you craft a follow-up message that convinces them to come and connect with you.
Some of the most vital specifics of LinkedIn follow-up messages are:
- Never use the standard message offered by LinkedIn and ensure that your messages are personalized for each prospect.
- Try and specifically mention your reason for wanting to connect with the specific person.
- Send out a clear, concise message. An extremely lengthy or confusing message is most likely to be discarded by the recipient.
- Try to resolve their pain points through your message and outline problems that they might have been facing for a while and the ways to overcome them.
LinkedIn messaging has long been an effective means of lead generation for marketers. The key is to know and follow the functional attributes of these messages and use them to your advantage. LinkedIn lead generation, when done right, can be a major contribution to the growth of your business.
