Dos and Don’ts of LinkedIn Outreach
The ultimate guide to the subtle art of outreach marketing on LinkedIn
Outreach is a powerful weapon in any B2B sales or marketing team’s arsenal, as it helps with:
- lead generation,
- raising brand awareness and visibility,
- improving your credibility.
In a word, it really puts you out there, in the very epicenter of any and all business activity.
And the best place for B2B outreach is without a doubt — yeah, you’ve guessed it right — LinkedIn.
Given that LinkedIn is an exclusively professional networking site that has more than 800 million members worldwide, it’s no wonder it plays the biggest part in lead generation compared to other social media.
In effect, LinkedIn is the best spot to find a bunch of potential prospects and expand your professional network by connecting with other businesses, professionals, and experts in every industry alike. If you’re serious about succeeding, there’s no reason to miss out on such an abundant spring of possibilities.
However, there are a couple of things to always keep in mind as you embark on your LinkedIn outreach adventure. Think of them as simple guidelines that will help you achieve your goal in the most efficient and sustainable way, without unnecessary detours and missteps along the way.
1. Do target your prospects carefully
LinkedIn has recently introduced a weekly limit on the number of invitation messages you can send to other users. Previously, you could send up to 100 messages per day, whereas now you can send a total of 100 messages per week.
That was quite a game-changer for businesses looking to reach as many potential prospects as possible or raise their brand awareness. However, when the rules of play change, all you need to do is get a grasp of them and learn to play the new way.
This basically means that you should strategize more. Instead of going all out in a desperate attempt to reach crowds of random people, you should create a profile of your prospects and target businesses and professionals that fit into that profile.
Find professionals who are in your industry, or the industry you intend to do business with, and reach out to them if you think you have value to offer them. It may take some time to figure out who to target, but in the end, it’s much more time-efficient to invest your energy in actually contacting only those individuals and companies that will probably be interested in closer cooperation with you.
When you’re forced to think through your plans carefully and place your requests and messages tactfully, the chances you’ll reach all the right people significantly increase in time. So, instead of seeing LinkedIn’s limit as an obstacle, think of it as another means to leverage your business.
Swap quantity for quality and the end results are sure to be even better than they would if you were to pester arbitrary people online, begging them to check out your ‘superb product/service’.
2. Do share content
By sharing both original as well as other people’s content that’s relevant to your business, you show potential prospects and connections that you are up-to-date with all the really important stuff that’s going on in your niche or industry.
Publishing articles is a very nifty LinkedIn feature, as it notifies your network that you’ve shared original content. That’s a great way of getting their attention, as well as showcasing your expertise in a certain area.
That combined gives you an excellent opportunity to promote your brand or business in a creative, unpretentious, and non-spammy way.
On the other hand, you don’t have to write your own articles every single time, as we’re not content-making machines that can spew out excellent pieces at a computer rate. You can always share other creators’ content, such as blogs, videos, or podcasts you’ve found interesting or educational, that are at the same time relevant to your business.
Be smart with the content you share, as it can drive a whole lot of attention your way, so make sure you make the most of it.
3. Do be original
When reaching out to people, whether you’re inviting them to connect, or pitching an offer, always personalize your messages. There are but a few things more irritating and downright disrespectful than receiving a blatantly generic message, brimming with false flattery and oh-so-familiar tropes that simply scream ‘auto-generated message’.
That’s one sure way to put people off for good and lose credibility. Remember that you’re dealing with other people, not machines. Those people deserve your respect and common human decency, so treat them accordingly.
Take a good look at their profiles, take notice of the content they’ve shared, the comments they’ve left on posts, skills they’ve endorsed, or recommendations they’ve given or received. Take every single thing into consideration, even those that seem insignificant at first.
That way you’ll be able to draft a truly personalized message that’s going to resonate with them. They’ll feel like the words you’ve written were really meant for them and no other and that you’ve shown actual interest in their work, their thoughts, and ideas.
By having a human approach you significantly raise your chances of success, as people tend to treat you the way you treat them. Show some warmth, spark their interest, imply you’ve taken the time to look them up properly, and you’ll have a manifold return of the efforts you’ve invested.
4. Do follow-up
There’s seldom a person out there whose lifestyle isn’t hectic to some extent, and it particularly goes for business professionals. They are constantly on the go by default, so finding time to reply to messages and emails from strangers can be a bit tricky.
And that’s where follow-ups come in. Reminding your prospect or connection of your humble existence is always a good idea.
When it comes to LinkedIn, two possible scenarios imply the use of follow-up messages.
The first case scenario would be one where you’ve sent a connection request that’s been accepted. Your efforts don’t end there, though, as making a connection is but the tip of an iceberg you are yet to conquer.
After you’ve connected with someone it would be wise to send them a follow-up message after a couple of days, just so you can introduce yourself and what you have to offer. That doesn’t mean you’re to be pushy and pester the poor man to his wits’ end, of course.
The right way to go here would be showcasing the value your product or service has to that particular person or business. More simply put, you’re to answer the question of ‘What’s in it for me?’ that your newly made connection is sure to ask themselves at some point.
Make sure that the follow-up message is more about them than you and the exquisite quality of your product — show them you understand the problems or challenges they might be facing in their line of work, and then proceed to explain the solution you have in store for them.
Remember to be clear and concise — again, as people are quite short on time these days, don’t expect that someone will read through an entire tractate.
The second case scenario would be one where you’ve sent an email or a message but haven’t received any response whatsoever. A follow-up would be wise here as well because there’s always a possibility that your message simply got lost or overlooked in a mass of correspondence.
All that’s already been said on the importance of personalized messages and follow-ups goes for this scenario as well. Always be polite, succinct, and don’t forget to focus on the goal you want to achieve and offer value.
And how many follow-ups are too many? When does a common business practice become spam and intrusion?
Well, there’s no unanimous answer to these dilemmas. Some believe that you need as much as five follow-ups if you want your chances of success to skyrocket. Others believe that you need no more than one follow-up since anything above that number would come off as rude and irritating.
There’s no magical formula that can tell you the right number of follow-ups, but I would advise against sending out more than 3 follow-ups tops. If you haven’t managed to spark your prospect’s interest with the original message, nor with a couple of follow-ups, that’s a good sign you’re to call it quits and move on.
5. Don’t be spammy
There is a fine line between promoting your brand and being obnoxiously spammy. Make sure not to cross that line, as it could get you blacklisted or even temporarily banned from LinkedIn.
Some of the good practices you’re supposed to follow to make sure you’re out of the spam-alert woods at all times are the following:
- do not send dozens of salesy messages to your contacts;
- don’t comment just for the sake of commenting — make sure your comment adds value to a post;
- don’t try to sell the minute you strike up a correspondence.
Simply put, LinkedIn is a platform devised to help professionals connect and not an online market. Having that in mind at all times should be enough to keep you on the right track.
6. Don’t rely on automation tools
Outreaching manually can be a tedious and time-consuming task, which is why there is a whole bunch of nifty automation software that does all the dirty work for you. The prospect of saving time rather than spending it on a dull task such as looking up and down LinkedIn, sending messages, endorsing skills, commenting on posts, and so on sure is tempting.
But (funny how there’s always a but when something sounds so damn good, right?) automation tools are not that innocent. In fact, they’re against LinkedIn Terms of Use, and as such could get your account banned — temporarily, or even permanently.
Yikes!
Some might feel that some of the unquestionable benefits automation tools have to offer make them worth the risk of being penalized by LinkedIn for their use. After all, they do help you connect with many more people — and at a faster rate — than you could ever achieve without a little shady help on the side.
They also take care of all the repetitive bits of connecting for you as they can:
- find potential prospects for you,
- scrap for their email addresses,
- send personalized messages and message sequences,
- comment on posts and endorse skills,
- import and export data you need,
- provide you with dashboards on valuable insights,
- lead campaigns and so on.
Moreover, as LinkedIn algorithms get better at discovering them, they get better at avoiding being discovered. They achieve that mainly by being entirely cloud-based, as well as by mimicking human activity.
On the other hand, no AI can make a truly personalized message better than you, nor write a meaningful comment, and in effect make a lasting and valuable connection. Putting a little effort into creating connections that will be mutually beneficial goes a long way. After all, the whole point of LinkedIn is precisely networking and creating connections by personal action and activity.
If you’re really intent on spending a buck on a handy tool, then I’d suggest opting for LinkedIn Sales Navigator plan that has a lot to offer and is completely safe at that.
7. Don’t be impatient
Rome wasn’t built in a day, so you can’t expect to create a budding network of followers and connections overnight. Set realistic goals and create a strategy that can get you where you want to be and remember that nothing can happen in a blink of an eye when B2B is concerned.
Always have in mind that one of the imperatives for success in outreach marketing is targeting the right people. And I’m sure you might get tempted to bombard as many random folks with invites and incessant emails to get your brand in front of the biggest audience possible, but…
Remember LinkedIn’s limit we’ve written about earlier? Well, it does a great job of preventing you from doing such an imprudent thing.
It seems that even LinkedIn is pushing you to devise an actual strategy so you could make the most of what you have at your disposal.
So, to wrap it all up: be prepared to plan, strategize, and invest some time and money into promoting your brand or business by applying all of the aforementioned LinkedIn good practices. That way, success is sure to follow.
Found this useful? If so, be sure to check some of my other related articles and stir up the comment section. ;)
