Pitching on LinkedIn puts your brand at the table of the decision-makers, and this explains why your first cold message should be worth the time of senior executives.
However, while sending your LinkedIn cold message, your focus should be on two things; improving your response rate and safeguarding your account from being flagged by LinkedIn as a spam account.
In this article, we will talk about the steps to be followed to achieve this two-in-one message.
1) Search for a Common Ground
After targeting your sales prospect, you need to find factors in common.
Having common ground is a great way to break the ice while showing the prospect you have interests in their business and life, not just pitching to anyone.
Did you study at the same university? Or do you have a connection in common, or do even you share the same post?
Every customer wants to feel special, like they are chosen, and stand for something meaningful.
2. Take time to warm prospects.
There is a reason why great business deals begin with warm coffee; the reason is to warm the prospect.
Using LinkedIn, you can warm prospects to be engaged through a different channel or warm prospects before selling on LinkedIn. The primary aim of warming a prospect is to create a sense of familiarity and increase your brands’ presence before pitching.
People don’t buy from strangers; they buy from familiar brands.
According to Forbes, Coca-Cola requires at least seven touchpoints before making a sale. Being one of the oldest brands globally and a billion-dollar company, you would expect that its strong presence is enough to sell, but this is not quite the case. In your case, you need to create at least four touchpoints with the prospect before pitching. So how do you make the touchpoints?
- Ensure you have connected with or followed the prospect. If the first touchpoint is a connection request, ensure that your message is personal and engaging.
- Engage the prospect on their network. There is a difference between engaging the prospect and fluttering the prospect. Engaging means interacting with their content give an opinion, commenting, sharing, like, and giving your perspective on the subject. Flattering the prospect means being excited about every post, comment, photo, or update by the prospect.
- Tag, mention or recommend the prospect on your updates. Again, this should depend on the level of your relationship. If you have engaged the prospect on a specific topic previously and were responsive, it is okay to mention their opinion on your status. If the prospect’s response has been cold, don’t pitch the relationship by saying them, you can only do so in their comment.
- Share valuable resources with the prospect. This can be a video, article, eBook, link to a webinar, or checklist you have developed and are confident the prospect will be interested in.
- As you warm the prospect, be keen to see who is responsive and who is not responsive. If a prospect keeps ignoring your effort, they are not interested in your brand, take this positively and focus your attention on responsive prospects.
Remember, you aim to create at least four touchpoints with the prospect before selling.
3) Draft the right message
Therefore, follow this simple guideline to create the first four touchpoints:
- Connection request message. Instead of simply sending a request to connect, attach a personalized connection request message.
- Actively engage them on their timeline. Follow, comment, share, or like their update, articles, or any content posted by the prospect online.
- Share a free helpful resource like a book, article, or free website audit.
- Invite the prospect to a free webinar on a topic related to their business. This can be a webinar you will host or hosted by a colleague in the company you trust.
4) Keep it short
With more people accessing LinkedIn via mobile devices, you need a message that can be read at a glance through the mobile phone.
Make it easy for your prospect to read and respond to your message, and since your only aim on the first touch message is to move the conversation to the next level, you have no business drafting a lengthy three-paragraph statement.
5) Establish a relationship before sending a sales message
Your first LinkedIn cold message should never focus on selling. While your objective on LinkedIn is to sell, you should save the pitching for later.
First, focus on establishing a relationship with the prospect by finding common ground, taking time to warm the prospect, drafting a personalized message, communicating your value proposition and social proof, and finally prompting the response to reply.
