Have you been frustrated by getting no response to messages you send on LinkedIn?
When you send a message to someone by email, on social media, voicemail or an “old school” handwritten letter, you want them to open it, read it, and respond. Of course you do.
LinkedIn offers some great messaging options but they’re often not used correctly and that leads to very disappointing open and response rates.
Let’s review the basics. There are several types of message available to you on LinkedIn. Each of them requires a slightly different approach.
Direct Messaging
This is what you use to send direct messages to your connections. It’s useful as it’s on the platform so you can reach them this way even if you don’t know their email address. Simply find them on your network list and click the ‘Message’ button. Alternatively, navigate to their profile page and find the ‘Message’ button there.
Inmail
This is available to members with Premium accounts. It allows you to send direct messages to anyone on LinkedIn, even if they are not your connections.
Navigate to the person’s profile page and hit the ‘Message’ button. If you don’t see a Message button click on ‘More’ and you should see it in the dropdown menu.
You will have a certain number of credits each month. They expire at the end of the month; they don’t roll over. However, the next month starts again with a new batch of credits.
Group Messages
You have two options here. You can start a Group Chat with several people. Simply click on the Messaging icon and click on the ‘More’ button – the three dots – select ‘Create group chat’ from the dropdown menu and then add the people you want to include.
Everyone in the Group chat will be able to see the whole conversation.
If you belong to any LinkedIn Groups you can also send messages to individual or multiple Group members. Navigate to the Group page, click on ‘See all’ on the members panel and select the person or people you want to reach with your message.
As you are both members of the Group you will not need to use Inmail credits to do this.
So now you know the types of messages you can send on LinkedIn you can’t wait to get busy?
STOP!
Before you hit ‘Send’, use this 10-point checklist to be sure you’ll get the response you want:
- Who is this message for?
- What degree of connection do you already have with them?
- Which message type is the most appropriate for this content?
- How is it relevant to them, right now?
- Does the subject line/first line entice them to read further? Trigger words?
- Is your language professional, but warm and ‘human’ enough to engage them?
- How does your message establish common ground?
- Can they read it in 8-10 seconds?
- Is it suitably p[ersonalised?
- Is there a clear Call To Action (CTA) – what do you want them to do in response?
If you follow this checklist I’m confident you’ll soon see a significant improvement in the “open rate” of your LinkedIn messages and a much higher response to your CTA.
BUT…Don’t get too busy sending masses of direct messages just yet.
There’s a great deal more than this to building trusted relationships on LinkedIn. It’s important to create a strong profile that’s rated at the very least All Star by the platform. That’s just the starting point.
You also need a clear strategy for how you plan to use original content and all the features of the platform to promote your business, generate leads and convert those leads into genuine sales enquiries.
Some people love figuring everything out for themselves and that’s fine. On the other hand you may feel that you can invest your time and energy better running the business than doing all this work on Linkedin.
P.S. Here are 5 ways we can help you accelerate your Lead Generation results:
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