If you’re not using LinkedIn for more than networking and displaying your current work history, this is going to blow your mind. You can reach your target market easily with LinkedIn’s InMail messages. It’s not free, but if you’re looking to grow your leads this year, this could be a game-changer for you.
What is InMail?
InMail is LinkedIn’s way of giving you access to specific people either geographically, by title industry, or one of many other metrics. You must have a paid account to use this service. Your service level determines how many InMail messages you can send each month.
Did you know?
- According to Hootsuite, LinkedIn’s InMail has a 300 percent higher response rate than email.
- Hubspot found that LinkedIn is 277 percent more effective at generating leads than Facebook and Twitter.
- LinkedIn claims that one in three professionals on the planet is on LinkedIn.
What does this mean for you?
As a B2B business professional, this long-running social media platform might just be a white knight for generating leads. However, it takes a stealthy strategy and some patience to make it work effectively.
Get Started
Before crafting your InMail message, take these three things into consideration.
- Align your strategy with your business model. What does that mean? If your company has no barriers between it and its customers, this channel will work well. If your company has middlemen in the sales funnel, such as distributors between it and its customers, then this will be a challenging proposition that will more than likely produce more frustration than results.
- Define your people. The more you can narrow your target market, the more effective your InMail messaging will be. For example, rather than targeting CEOs and executives, maybe you should consider procurement or operations professionals who would be using your services. Those people then flag your business, research the services, and determine if it’s the solution they need.
- Consider the message(s) to send to each target market and craft them with the end-user in mind, which means using a conversational tone and some personalization. Avoid direct sales language in the introductory message. Rather, focus on making a connection and sharing information the person can use to demonstrate (1) your knowledge of their industry and pain points, and (2) your willingness to work with them and not just as a sales number.
Tips for Crafting an InMail Message
A subject line asking a question that either makes them laugh or nod their head in agreement or causes them to seek more information is a great place to start. Using a headline generator, such as Title-Generator, The Hoth, SeoPressor, and others, is helpful for creating stand-out subject lines.
Personalize the message using the %FIRSTNAME% field. That works well to get someone’s attention. Sure, using it in the greeting is fine, but common. Try using the field in another location within the message to make it pop. Language can also make a difference. Inclusive use of we, us, together, collaboration, etc. helps to form a relationship versus I, our company, and impersonal language. Remember, the message is about them, not you.
Create a relevant call-to-action link that tells the reader what to expect when he/she clicks on it, e.g., Download our ebook today and begin prospering tomorrow; View this 2-minute video to gain five valuable tips, or Listen to our most recent podcast for more information.
Also, the message format can play a role in the success of your campaign. LinkedIn offers these tips:
- Start your message off with a personal introduction and a clear purpose that specifically speaks to your audience.
- Keep the copy short and concise, generally under 500 characters.
- Formatting options like bulleting, italics, bolding, and underlining are available, although not recommended.
- Avoid special characters like < > # % { } \ ^ ˜ [ ] ` in the URLs included within the message body. Those characters may cause a hyperlink error.
- Ensure that the call-to-action hyperlink communicates clearly what’s to be expected on your landing page or LinkedIn Lead Gen Form. Tip: Use LinkedIn Lead Gen Forms to capture quality leads using forms that are pre-filled with LinkedIn profile data.
Sample Message
This example is for a firm looking to increase its leads with construction company office managers. Its target audience is chief construction officers, senior managers, and project managers.
Subject: Would you do a construction job with an Allen wrench?
Hi %FIRSTNAME%,
As someone that supports the construction industry, I know how important it is to you to have the right tools for the job.
With the big challenges some construction companies have to overcome, such as skilled labor, material costs, stagnant productivity, and more, I’d like to send you my [insert document name you’d send].
Specifically, for construction pros, it includes essential tips for managing inventory, internal controls best practices, and revenue management suggestions.
Download the ebook today at [insert link].
If you’d like to chat, schedule a free, 20-minute consultation with me here [insert link].
Signature/Name
Phone number
Email/website
If you feel this method will work for your company and you need help crafting the message and running the campaign, give us a call. We can help you from start to finish. What are you waiting for?