LinkedIn Outreach Guide or how to reach out to prospects on LinkedIn
Here are 5+ steps for LinkedIn Outreach without Sales Navigator, just by using Advanced Search on your regular LinkedIn Profile.
First, let’s align on the terminology.
Outreach = is an effort to engage with prospects to fill in your pipeline. It’s a process of finding someone, connecting with them, and initiate interest for a call.
It’s essential to understand who is that ‘’someone’’, how to connect with them and how to initiate that interest.
Why the goal of this process is a call?
Because on the call you will have an opportunity to enhance that interest, which will give you a roadmap for the sales process.
Step 1: Define LinkedIn Buyer Persona
By doing that before prospecting you will be clear who you are going to send a message.
When you open on LinkedIn [All Filters] you can see all the available fields. However, I recommend focusing on the following criteria by asking yourself these questions:
• What’s the industry?
• What’s the title of the decision-maker?
• What’s the main keyword/topic in the content used in that industry — decision-maker may include that in the title.
• In which location is that person/company based?
Also, the list of companies you can prepare in advance by researching on Google. However, keep in mind that not all companies that you will find may have LinkedIn Company Page or executives Profile Pages set in place; double-check that. If you see that profile has no picture, few connections and did not post anything for more than a month — there is no reason to outreach.
Step 2: Identify
Set a daily target. For example:
• Send Connecting Requests to fifteen prospects a day.
• Send the first message to initiate the conversation to ten prospects a day.
That will help you to keep up with the process.
By using Advanced Search and insights from Step 1, you will get results in search. Play with information, fields and create different combinations for best results. Experiment by setting up your preferences.
Star opening profiles and learn about prospects. Read the profile pages, check their posts. It’s important to understand:
a) If your service would be relevant for them.
b) If actually, you would like to build a professional relationship with this person. At the end of the day, it’s about whether you and your potential client are a good fit to work together (beneficial for each other).
Step 3: Engagement Touch
Read your prospects About/Summary section. Like or Comment on your prospect’s updates. Feel free to comment with valuable insights.
Step 4: Send Connection Request
Create several templates for the messages. Different types to fit your personas. And I still recommend to personalize them, before sending them, to get noticed.
Note: The character limit for a LinkedIn connection request message is 300 characters. Don’t send over 100 invites in 24 hours.
Step 5: Welcome Message
Everyone is busy. So I recommend being polite and to the point. Quicker you figure out that your prospect has no interest in your service — faster you can move on to the next/new prospect.
Being to the point means being inspired by well-known Elevator Pitch.
On LinkedIn, that means saying in the message — What you do and How you help businesses. In the usual Elevator Pitch, you should also say — Who you are. However, on LinkedIn, before you Outreach you should have your LinkedIn Profile nicely polished. That means that when you send the message, your profile and especially Headline, Summary should already explain Who you are.
In the next message, try to get information on what they are facing — to see if you can provide a solution.
Step 6: Get on a Call
Maybe you will need just first message to get on a call. Maybe, you need more.
So, here I would like to give you a few recommendations on how to keep a good vibe before that:
• Don’t launch into the sales pitch right after the invite is accepted.
• Don’t send any files, documents without asking the person for permission.
• Maybe the person would like to get in touch with you within six months. Note that in your CRM and follow up later.
• Find the right balance in your messaging — stay professional, be nice, be short and keep your message in the proper structure from the beginning to the end.
• Feel the situation. If there is space for it, ask if there is someone in the network to whom your services may be relevant.
And keep in mind, If a potential client challenges the value of your product/service, you must defend yourself and kindly explain the value.
I hope that these steps will help you to build relationships and drive business opportunities using LinkedIn.
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