Did you know that LinkedIn generates 80% of B2B leads?
This makes it the best platform to grow your network, generate high-quality leads, and drive business growth.
So, how can you do LinkedIn outreach without being spammy?
We’ll share how to optimize your profile for LinkedIn outreach and how to find high-quality leads and turn them into paying customers.
Additionally, we’ll list the most common LinkedIn outreach mistakes that may sabotage your efforts.
What Is LinkedIn Outreach?
LinkedIn outreach is connecting and engaging with LinkedIn members to develop professional relationships, share insights, find new job opportunities, or propose business partnerships.
Why Does LinkedIn Outreach Work?
Traditional outreach methods, such as cold calling or mass email blasts, often feel intrusive or impersonal. Cold calling can be ineffective, and mass emails frequently land in the spam folder.
LinkedIn outreach helps you build a rapport with your prospects. You can engage with their content or participate in group discussions before directly reaching out.
This outreach method makes your interactions feel genuine and improves your chances of getting a positive response.
LinkedIn Outreach Benefits
Here are 5 reasons why LinkedIn outreach is so efficient:
1. You have more credibility
What do your cold email recipients know about you? Usually, not much. The lack of context makes it easy for your prospects to ignore or dismiss your message.
LinkedIn outreach gives more info as your prospect has immediate access to your profile.
Your LinkedIn headline, summary, work experience, skills, and mutual connections add instant credibility.
2. It’s easier to qualify your leads
Instead of wasting time on unqualified leads, you can identify and connect with the right people with LinkedIn outreach.
Their profiles provide detailed information about their role, company, industry, and professional interests.
This allows you to identify potential clients, business partners, or decision-makers within your industry.
3. You can generate new leads
Do you know your ideal client profile? You can generate new leads that fit your ICP through mutual connections, groups, or LinkedIn’s search filters.
Also, as you get more LinkedIn connections, your network can be a valuable resource for business opportunities, collaborations, and increasing revenue.
4. Leads can find you
Usually, getting new leads is a one-way street. You must spend countless hours researching prospects, sending personalized messages, and waiting for a response.
LinkedIn outreach works both ways. Potential leads can find you if your content resonates with their needs and your engagement highlights your expertise.
Instead of looking for new leads, an active LinkedIn profile establishes you as an industry expert and attracts new opportunities.
5. It doesn’t cost you much
How much are you paying for leads?
The costs of doing cold outreach can quickly build up with cold email software, paid ads campaigns, or attending industry events.
On LinkedIn, even a free account helps you build your brand and connect with your potential clients. If you decide to pay for a Premium account, you can expand your reach through LinkedIn InMail or advanced search tools.
Note: You can accelerate your growth and streamline LinkedIn outreach with a LinkedIn automation tool.
How to do LinkedIn outreach
Here are 5 steps to turn LinkedIn outreach into your best client acquisition channel:
Step 1. Update Your LinkedIn Profile
Your profile adds credibility to your LinkedIn outreach efforts.
Here are some tips on how to optimize your profile for LinkedIn outreach:
Add a professional profile picture
Would you trust someone you can’t see? A high-quality profile picture builds trust and makes you look more approachable.
Avoid using selfies or pictures that are too informal.
Note: LinkedIn profiles with a profile picture get up to 21 more profile visits than profiles without a picture.
Add a headline
Your LinkedIn headline should highlight your current role, key skills, and the unique value you bring to clients.
Write a headline that catches your leads’ attention with Taplio’s headline generator.
Write a compelling summary
Your LinkedIn summary should clearly communicate your professional brand and value proposition.
Now, your professional experience may not be enough to stand out in search results. Focus on including keywords relevant to your industry to boost your profile visibility.
You can create an optimized LinkedIn summary with Taplio’s summary generator.
Update your work experience
Highlight your professional experience by adding relevant roles, responsibilities, and achievements.
Make it easy for leads to understand your expertise. Highlight key achievements, quantify results, and mention projects where you played a key role.
Add skills and endorsements
Help potential leads understand your expertise by adding skills to your LinkedIn profile. Ask clients, coworkers, or partners to endorse your skills to build your profile credibility.
Customize your profile URL
A generic LinkedIn URL with random numbers or letters will make your profile harder to remember and search for.
It is difficult to find your LinkedIn profile if it’s made of random numbers or letters. Make it easy for leads to find you by customizing your LinkedIn URL.
Ask for recommendations
Did you know that 70% of people will trust a recommendation, even if it comes from someone they don’t know?
Add social proof to your LinkedIn profile by asking clients, team members, or managers to write recommendations highlighting your skills and accomplishments.
Note: For best results, check out our guide on how to ask for LinkedIn recommendations.
Step 2. Identify your leads
Before starting your LinkedIn outreach campaign, make sure you’re contacting the right people.
You can’t spam everyone with DMs or connection requests because LinkedIn could restrict your account.
Instead, focus on your ideal customer profile. If you haven’t identified your ideal client, you can use lemlist’s free ICP generator.
Here are 5 LinkedIn outreach strategies to find your ICP:
1. Use LinkedIn Search Filters
Find people that fit your ICP with LinkedIn search options. You can filter the results by name, location, or current company.
To dig even deeper, you can use LinkedIn Sales Navigator. You can filter the results by job title, seniority level, and company headcount.
2. Join relevant LinkedIn groups
Get close to your target audience by joining relevant LinkedIn groups. These groups are a great resource to engage with potential clients and build relationships within your industry.
Position yourself as a thought leader and get the attention of the people who fit your ICP. Engage in group discussions, share your insights, and provide valuable resources.
3. Check your content engagement
Sometimes, your leads may find you.
To find leads for your LinkedIn outreach campaigns, pay attention to the engagement your posts receive. Most of the time, your target audience will like, share, or comment on your posts.
4. View your profile viewers list
The “Who viewed your profile” list is more than a curiosity satisfier.
LinkedIn members visit your profile because they want to learn more about you and your professional experience. Identify potential clients by analyzing their profiles and reaching out with a personalized message.
5. Use Taplio database
The easiest way to generate new leads on LinkedIn is to use Taplio’s lead database of 3M+ enriched profiles.
You can find your next client by filtering the database by location, company name, job title, seniority level, and so on.
Once you find LinkedIn members who fit your ICP, you can have Taplio’s AI generate an ice-breaker to reach out to them.
Step 3. Contact your LinkedIn leads
You found your leads. So, what’s the next step?
Depending on your LinkedIn connection degree, you can send them a direct message, InMail, or find a different way to start a conversation.
Let’s take a look at the different LinkedIn outreach methods.
Send DMs to your LinkedIn connections
If your lead is already in your network, you can DM them.
Go to their profile and click on the “Message” button.
But how can you write a LinkedIn message that gets you replies?
Here are 5 tips to help you write a LinkedIn outreach message:
- Personalize your message. Adding your lead’s name to the message isn’t enough. Mention their recent post, work achievements, or mutual interest.
- Be timely. Reach out to your leads when they are most likely to reply. If they recently shared a personal or work milestone, include it in your outreach message.
- Don’t sell. Avoid turning your LinkedIn outreach message into a sales pitch. Instead, focus on providing value.
- Keep it short. You’re less likely to get a reply if you overwhelm your leads with long, wordy messages.
- Add a CTA. End your outreach message with an easy, actionable step. Ask for their opinion or offer to share more information about the discussed topic.
To get more replies to your LinkedIn outreach messages, check out our guide on how to write efficient outreach messages (templates included).
Send a personalized connection request
When doing LinkedIn outreach, first impressions matter.
Increase your acceptance rate by customizing your connection request note. The default “I’d like to add you to my network on LinkedIn” message doesn’t tell anything about you, why you want to connect, and what can you offer your leads.
Instead, write a note that highlights the value of connecting with you.
For example:
Hi [Name],
I found your profile while researching [industry/topic]. I have to say that I’m a big fan of your work at [company].
I’d love to connect and hear more from you on [topic].
Want to make sure people accept your invitation request? Read or follow this guide on the 7 steps to writing a LinkedIn connection request message (templates included).
Send LinkedIn InMails
Why add InMails to your LinkedIn outreach strategy?
Unlike direct messages, you don’t need to be connected with a LinkedIn member to send them an InMail.
LinkedIn says that InMails are 2.6x more effective in hearing back than email or cold calls. LinkedIn InMails are so effective because they land directly in your lead’s email inbox instead of getting lost through their DMs.
Add AI to Your LinkedIn Outreach
You can find leads and turn them into customers with the above methods. However, manually contacting and keeping track of every lead can become overwhelming.
Here’s how Taplio can boost your LinkedIn outreach effort:
Contacts list
New comments, likes, or replies might get lost through LinkedIn notifications. Taplio makes sure you’re not missing opportunities by listing everyone who interacted with your content.
The list includes their name, email, company, job title, and number of followers. In addition to the basic info, Taplio writes the icebreaker for you.
Direct messages assistant
Are there many leads you have to reach out to on LinkedIn? Now, there’s no point in sending bland, generic messages.
To get more replies, Taplio helps you personalize each message with your recipient’s name, company, job title, city, and more.
Mentions tracking
People who already talk about you or your business are high-quality leads.
Whether someone tags you in a post or a comment, you can turn passive mentions into active engagement opportunities.
Lead database
Can’t find people that fit your business ICP within your network?
Find and connect with high-quality leads on LinkedIn with Taplio’s 3M+ lead database.
Filter the database by criteria such as country, industry, job level, topics, etc. Once you find your next client, you can use Taplio’s icebreaker generator to reach out to them.
LinkedIn outreach mistakes
1. Sending non-personalized messages
Copy-pasting the same message for every lead makes your outreach impersonal and spammy.
To get more replies and build a connection, take the time and research their interests, pain points, and goals.
When writing the message, focus on how you can help them reach their goals or provide value.
2. Targeting the Wrong Audience
Reaching out to people who don’t fit your ICP wastes time and effort. With no replies to your outreach messages, LinkedIn may flag your account for spammy behavior.
To avoid this, define your target audience and reach out to members who are a good fit for your product or service.
3. Ignoring LinkedIn Limits
LinkedIn has limits for connection requests, direct messages, profile views, and searches to prevent spamming.
LinkedIn could restrict your account or even ban it if you go over the limit.
To avoid LinkedIn restrictions, focus on quality over quantity. Prioritize building relevant connections instead of spamming a lot of irrelevant contacts.
LinkedIn Outreach: Frequently Asked Questions
How many connection requests can I send?
You can send between 100 to 200 weekly LinkedIn connection requests. To play it safe, don’t send them all at once.
How many DMs can I send?
There’s no clear limit on sent DMs.
However, to avoid restrictions, you shouldn’t send more than 150 DMs per week on a Premium account. On a free account, don’t send more than 100 DMs per week.
What should I do before sending a connection request?
Engage with their content. Show genuine interest and like, share, or comment on their posts. This helps you stand out and builds a rapport before you send a connection request.
Should I withdraw unanswered connection requests?
Short answer: yes.
If your lead ignored your request for more than a week, it’s better to withdraw it. Having many unanswered requests impacts your LinkedIn account health.
Can I use LinkedIn automation tools?
Yes. You can streamline your LinkedIn outreach efforts with automation tools. Taplio helps you identify high-quality leads, personalize your messages, and track interactions.
Is LinkedIn the best channel for outreach?
LinkedIn is one of the best platforms for professional outreach, whether you want to connect with industry peers or engage with decision-makers.
However, it’s not always the best fit for every audience. In this case, you should use other outreach channels like email or social media.
LinkedIn or email outreach – which one is better?
LinkedIn is more effective than email outreach because it allows your leads to connect with you on a personal level.
Your prospects can view your profile and see your face, making them more likely to respond. Cold emails are often perceived as spammy and distant.
