Perfecting Your LinkedIn Cold Message: Tips and Tricks

Are you trying to make professional connections on LinkedIn? If the answer to this question is Yes, then have a hold on your search because you are at the right place. 

As we all know that LinkedIn is all about generating more qualified leads and growing your business. However, the only essential thing required is LinkedIn cold messages. If you do not follow appropriate LinkedIn outreach strategies, your outreach messages will not give you the desired results. 

It is correctly stated that using personalization in your LinkedIn cold messages can quickly help you increase your average response rate by almost 30%. You need to ensure the right personalized message reaches the correct potential customer without sounding like some freaky stalker. So let's move ahead and take a look at the benefits of LinkedIn cold messages and some tips to improve the same.

Definition of a LinkedIn Cold Message

LinkedIn is the most influential platform for getting new clients for your business, especially for those B2B companies that use LinkedIn for marketing. However, to maximize the utility of LinkedIn, you should be well aware of how to use it. 

A LinkedIn cold message is a message you send to one or more people you don't know to start a simple conversation. This way, you can reach out to a list of people who can be interested in your products or services. To effectively use and benefit from LinkedIn cold messages, you need to know your target audience and their needs. Once you know about this, you can send personalized LinkedIn official blogs to attract them to your business. Cold messaging strategy is a technique that can give incredible results if done in the right way. 

Source. 

Importance of Crafting a Compelling Cold Message

LinkedIn cold messaging strategy is the way to get in touch with your customers, just like the same way you would do via phone or generic messages. The only difference is that this conversation would be happening over LinkedIn. There are several advantages to using LinkedIn cold messaging efforts for the growth of your business, such as:

• You can make a direct contact with an unlimited number of qualified leads.
• This is typically a low-cost way to get new and more potential customers for your business.
• You can reach out to those high-quality and qualified prospects you cannot contact otherwise.

Source. 

• You can talk to them and build relationships with them by knowing their requirements and needs. Then further selling your products or services to them as per their needs. 
• LinkedIn cold messaging strategies the best way to build and increase your brand awareness
• LinkedIn cold messaging is the direct way to get good and warm leads without spending a lot of money. Indeed, it is time-consuming. 

How to Compose a Perfect LinkedIn Cold Message?

Now that you know why you need to send a LinkedIn cold message, you should move toward how to write it. Below are the steps explained on how you should write a perfect Linked cold message:

1. Understand your Target Audience

Firstly and most importantly, you should send prospecting messages to only that target audience who are interested and care about your business. It is fitting that not everyone on LinkedIn will be interested in everything you say and promote about your business. So before sending a LinkedIn cold message to anyone, look at your exact target audience's profile. This way, you can see if anything indicates that they can be interested in your products or services. When you know about your audience's interests, you can easily compose a personalized LinkedIn post for them and send it. This step helps in increasing your chances of getting responses from them. 

Source. 

2. Write a Compelling Subject Line

Writing compelling subject lines for your LinkedIn cold messages is the primary and the most crucial part of the messaging campaign. Because it is the only thing that leaves an impression and stands out in front of your client's eyes, it all depends upon the subject lines whether the reader will read and respond to your LinkedIn cold message or not. You can refer to Smartlead examples of writing unique subject lines that can quickly increase your average response rate. 

‍Also, to make it look more compelling, follow the below steps:

• Ensure the subject lines are concise, short, and to the point; they should be 6-8 words at most.
• Add personalization to your subject lines, like including the recipient's name.
• Highlight in 2-3 words the reason why you are messaging them
• Never use any buzzing words or spam words in your subject lines

Source. 

So, why is a vital subject line important?

Below are the reasons to understand why is a vital subject line important:

• It is the key to getting the message looked upon and opened.
• The messages can be deleted or ignored without a compelling subject line.
• It helps in increasing the opening and responding rate from the recipient end.
• It also helps build credibility and a strong trust relationship with the clients.
• A strong subject line delivers excellent and valuable information to the clients.
• It helps in building your business or brand.
• Tips for crafting an attention-grabbing subject line
• Ensure to keep your subject lines short and personalized.
• Add some data or specific statistics that catch customers' eyes.
• Write some words in your subject lines that make reading it look urgent.
• You can also add humor to make your subject lines stand out.

3. Write a Personalized Opening

Including some personalization in the opening lines of your LinkedIn cold messages is the best way to increase the chances of getting client attention and engagement. You can succeed in this step by following the below tips:

• Do some prior research about your potential client to include their interests and background in your message to grab their attention.
• Start your opening line with the client's first name to make your message look more personal.
• After researching the customers, highlight your interests or hobbies in common with them.
• Please find any mutual connection with your customers, as it helps build your report in front of them.

Source. 

So, what is the importance of personalized opening lines

We all know personalized opening lines are crucial for leaving the first and last impression on the customer. This impression helps in getting more responses from the customers. So addressing your clients with their names, discussing their likes or dislikes, or acknowledging their work can prove that you have especially taken time for your potential customers. This personalized approach can grab customers' attention and establish a strong relationship. Lastly, a customized opening in your LinkedIn cold messages makes it look professional and shows your interest and sincerity for your customers.

‍

4. Building Credibility and Establishing Trust

Building credibility and establishing trust with the help of LinkedIn messages is essential to get into a connection or relationship with customers. To expel this, you must showcase your professionalism, sincerity, and expertise in your LinkedIn cold messages. To build credibility with your customers, you can take references from their backgrounds, personal and professional, to prove that top care about them and have good knowledge about the likes and dislikes of your customers. To gain the trust of your customers, never force them into buying your products or services. Show some concern in your messages to look sincere. These steps take a lot of time and effort.

Let's know about the strategies for building credibility and trust in your message

• We all know that building trust relationships with customers directly increases the chances of mutual connections. Below are some strategies you can follow to achieve this:
• Take some time and research the interests and history of your customers to understand them better.
• About their specific background image, demonstrate your relevant experience and credibility in that area.
• Provide valuable and relevant content in your messages to your customers that will benefit them.
• You can also include some testimonials, social case studies, or your success stories to show your reputation.
• Avoid using aggressive language, and be genuine in your cold messages.

Source. 

5. Creating a Clear Call-to-Action

‍

Including call-to-action (CTAs) in your LinkedIn cold messages is essential because it tells the customers about the desired next step. It is a statement describing to the customers the action we want them to take after reading our LinkedIn post. CTAs should be clear, specific, and concise. For example, you can ask them for a phone call, a meeting, or a simple response to your cold message. Add some sense of urgency to your call to action so that it can motivate the customer to respond. 

With clear CTAs, there can be situations in which clients can understand what action they are supposed to take. Therefore, adding clear call-to-action in your LinkedIn cold messages is crucial. Because it proves that you have a clear plan for the customer and value their interests and time, this leaves a positive impression on the clients and further builds an excellent professional and successful relationship with them. You can also refer to Smartlead‘s proven techniques and best practices for writing the best CTAs

To create some compelling CTAs, you can follow the below tips:

• Clear your CTAs to let the customer know what you want from them.
• CTAs should be relevant to the information included in the cold messages.
• Create some sense of urgency in your CTAs
• Make your CTAs concise and compelling, and avoid using vague words or phrases. 

Source. 

6. Importance of Incorporating Social Proof

Incorporating social proof in your LinkedIn post typically establishes good trust with your customers. In this digital era, social proof influences relevant people to take action. These days, before buying anything or traveling anywhere, we all check the social reviews or social explanations of what actual people think about these several products or services. So by including social proof in your cold messages, you are sharing your positive experiences, further building trust between you and the customer. 

Source. 

Below are some strategies to help in incorporating social proof in your LinkedIn cold messages:

• Share your success stories or positive client studies about your products and services to provide reasonable evidence about your skills.
• Includes the data demonstrating how effective your products are for the customers already using them.
• Please include details about your mutual connection with your customers that creates a sense of familiarity with them.
• Refer to some awards or recognitions your industry would have worn to establish credibility. 

7. Tracking and Measuring Success
   

Tracking and measuring the success of your LinkedIn cold messages is an essential part of the business. Following these results lets you know what works for your business and where and what needs improvement. There are several metrics to track and measure the success of your cold messages, such as:

• Open Rates: This rate shows how many customers have opened your messages to the total number of cold messages you sent.
  

• Click-through Rates: This rate tells you how many customers have clicked through the links you included in your LinkedIn cold messages about your brand.
  

• Response Rate: This rate tells you how many customers have responded to your cold messages and the total number of messages you sent.
  

• Conversion Rate: This rate tells you how many customers have completed your desired actions and converted cold prospects into customers for your business.
  

Source. 

In this business world, following up with your customers is the key to achieving success and building long-lasting relationships. Research shows that when you send follow-up LinkedIn cold messages to your customers, there is a 72% of acceptance rate and 49% of average reply rate to those follow-ups. You can also refer SmartLead for tips on writing the best follow-up messages.

Source. 

Below are some reasons that prove that why you must send follow-up emails:

• The customer may have skipped reading your LinkedIn cold message.
• In this digital world, when all promotions are done through messages, customers tend to avoid them. So when you send them follow-ups, that shows your interest in them, and that increases your chances of credibility.
• There could be some issues with your initial messages, which could have sounded like the general promotional message to the reader.
• Your message sending timings could have been wrong.
  

What Should you be Aware of Before you Send a LinkedIn Cold Message to Anyone?

Before drafting and sending your LinkedIn cold messages, you must do some groundwork for a successful outreach campaign. Below are some rules you should know:

• Be aware of the reason for messaging actual people: It would be best if you had a specific purpose behind sending LinkedIn cold messages to anyone. Because here, you are not just sending prospecting messages to your target market, though you are trying to build a strong relationship with them. 

• Be aware of the reason before messaging relevant people: It would be best if you chose specific people for particular messages to increase your reply rates. For example, suppose you are a recruiter for a company and hiring for project manager positions. In that case, you need to look for actual people who have only recent project management experience. 

• Get some information about your audience from any common connections: Before sending direct message to candidate, check if you have any mutual connections. That mutual common connection can introduce you to that person, building trust and reputation. 

• Be well aware of the etiquette and ethics of cold messaging process: As we all know, there is a fragile line difference between cold and spam emails. So crossing those lines can lead to a bad reputation for your business.

• Never attach any files to your messages: Try to warm up your conversation without directly jumping into selling your business.

Conclusion

These days, when everything is being done online, so many B2B companies have thought to use LinkedIn cold messaging campaign to increase their potential customer base. LinkedIn cold messaging strategy helps initiate conversations with customers who have never met. With the help of some research and personalization in your messages, you can convey your information to them quickly and precisely. This way, you can get new customers and partners for your business.

‍