Are you struggling to find new ways to reach out to potential customers with your cold outreach program?
It can be tough but not impossible to connect with people who know nothing about your existence. You have a good chance of attracting new potential clients even when there are so many other companies vying for their attention. But how?
Email and LinkedIn are two ways businesses have always used to initiate contact with prospective clients in the past and present, and you, too, can jump onto the bandwagon.
If you’re new to email marketing, social media marketing, and LinkedIn cold outreach message templates, say no more! This article will guide you through how to cold outreach on LinkedIn and email, and the best practices to turn strangers into buying customers.
What is Cold Outreach?
Cold outreach is the process of initiating contact with potential prospects that are totally or partially unaware of your company or your products. It’s usually done through some kind of marketing campaigns such as email, direct mail, telemarketing, or a combination of these.
Email and LinkedIn cold outreach are a little different from what many think of as “traditional” selling. Instead of connecting with prospects at their request, you initiate contact with them and give them information about your product to turn them into customers.
What Makes LinkedIn Messages Different From Cold Emails?
LinkedIn is a social network, and people are more likely to respond to the people they know and trust. To build that trust, you need to deliver value through your LinkedIn message. On the other hand, email is a communication channel used by businesses to find new customers and penetrate new markets.
Here are a few general differences between LinkedIn and cold emails:
Engagement – Unfortunately, most people who receive a cold message may not want to read it if they don’t know the sender. Cold emails are often viewed as spam. As such, cold emails often get ignored, deleted, or marked as spam because they come from strangers who don’t have a personal connection with the recipient.
LinkedIn cold outreach messages can help capture your leads‘ attention more effectively because of the platform’s professional reputation: people expect to get business-related communications on LinkedIn, so a message from a business professional may well catch their attention.
Personalization – Most cold email outreach strategies end up in the prospect’s junk box. The sender barely knows the person they’re reaching out to or if they would ever be interested in your product/service. LinkedIn messages appear more personalised since the sender has access to more information about their connections than they would ever have about email recipients.
Cold emails often come across as impersonal, which is a turn-off for the majority of people who receive them. Cold emails are sent from one person to another without any context or relationship between them. The communication format on LinkedIn is different — it’s much more personal than an email because it’s a message in their inbox rather than an email sent from an unfamiliar address.
In short, a connection request on LinkedIn is easier to talk to than an email recipient, provided that you have something valuable to offer.
The Email as a Cold Outreach Channel
According to statistics, there are more than 4 billion email users worldwide, with a majority of internet users having access to an email account. This makes cold email outreach a viable marketing option. However, how effective can it be?
Email Outreach: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
Email marketing is one of the best ways to keep in touch with your audience and build new relationships. With email, companies can create highly-targeted, cost-effective campaigns and get their message out to the world. Whether you are marketing your business, a product, or a service, you can use email marketing to reach your target audience wherever they are.
The Good: Easy and Instant
If you are looking to reach out to and engage with your customers or prospects, email is probably the easiest way to go. It is one of the most popular and efficient customer communication channels. It enables you to communicate almost instantly with more people in a more personalised manner.
The Bad & The Ugly: Endless Spam and Fake Accounts
While email is a well-known communication channel, it is often abused and misused. There are endless spam emails, email distribution lists with fake users, and dubious links. Sometimes, it is hard to reach genuine recipients via email. New filters and advanced spam-detection algorithms may also work against your favour and make it harder to reach genuine recipients via email.
Did you know?
“Companies that post weekly on LinkedIn see a 2x higher engagement rate”
LinkedIn Market Study2021
LinkedIn as a Cold Outreach Channel
The world of social media is evolving rapidly. Where once the focus was on establishing your profile, posting photos, and sharing articles, things are moving in a much more business-oriented direction.
So how can you use LinkedIn to connect with professionals you wouldn’t usually be able to reach?
Create and Maintain a Professional Presence
One of the most important things when using any social media channel is having a professional presence. This is especially important on LinkedIn, as most people consider it to be a business-oriented platform. Make sure your profile information is clear and concise. Make sure it highlights your skills but also the value you can bring to other professionals.
Find Potential Contacts Through Search
If you’re looking to find new contacts on LinkedIn, you can use the search function to find people who you share something in common with. For example, if you’re a real estate agent, you might want to find people who are interested in moving to a new home.
You can use search terms like “house hunting,” “moving,” and “new homeowners.” You can then sort the results to find people who might be interested in connecting with you.
The Good, Bad & the Ugly
There are plenty of good reasons to use LinkedIn as your main channel for reaching out to new contacts. However, it’s also worth noting that social media networks are not one-size-fits-all. There are certain drawbacks to using LinkedIn that you need to be aware of before diving in.
Let’s take a look at the good, the bad, and the ugly of using LinkedIn for cold outreach:
The good – You have access to verified professionals who work in your niche. LinkedIn is used by people at all stages of their careers, so there’s a good chance you’ll be able to find the right person for your campaign.
The bad & the ugly – Most people are extremely cautious when they’re on LinkedIn. They’re used to receiving marketing pitches, so you need to be careful about what you say. It’s very easy to come across as spammy or untrustworthy if you don’t follow the guidelines. If your message reads like you have nothing to offer, you’re unlikely to get a response.
Overall, cold email outreach and LinkedIn can be scary at first if you’re not sure where to start. Research and plan. Make sure you’re sending personalised messages and asking questions that show you’ve done your research.
Combining Email and LinkedIn for Cold Outreach
Reaching out to new customers is a never-ending cycle. While some strategies become less effective over time, others can convert more people into customers depending on the landscape.
What does this mean for your B2B outreach strategy? You need to be even more intentional about finding new contacts and pipelines with all the resources at your disposal. That’s because there are always ways to improve your cold email outreach and still find new opportunities with social media.
Here’s how you can combine email and LinkedIn cold outreach to meet your business objectives:
Create a Calendar of Events
There are many conferences, summits, and events in your industry every year. Perhaps you’re already taking advantage of this. If not, you should be – getting to these events, both as an attendee and presenter, is a great way to meet people. If possible, launch your events, share your knowledge and build your reputation in your field.
Measure Your Results
Marketers have always tested their ads and marketing materials. They continue to do so as they test which LinkedIn and cold email outreach campaigns work and which ones don’t. There is no right or wrong way to start – you might want to get started with creating different cold outreach email templates and measuring the conversions.
Use Your Current Network to Find New Connections
Your current network may know other people who might be interested in your business. You can use these connections to find more people to outreach to. This can be as simple as asking your friends and family to let you know if they know anyone who would benefit from your products and services. You can also ask your network if they know anyone who would benefit from your products and services.
Write a Blog Post and Invite People to Read It
If you don’t have the time or resources to create a full-blown outreach campaign, don’t fret. You can write a blog post and invite people to read it through email or LinkedIn. Once you have a blog post written and published, you can spread the word further through social media.
Diversify Your Channels
One of the best ways to expand your outreach program is to diversify your channels. You may be only reaching out to people via cold email outreach and need to expand beyond that. Take a look at your list and find people who prefer to be contacted via different channels — for instance, direct mail, text messages, or calls.
Personalise Your Message
Once you’ve identified a perfect potential client for your business, send them a personalised email or LinkedIn cold outreach message. Include the person’s name on your message, greet them, and introduce your business. Don’t just copy and paste text in other LinkedIn message templates. You want it to feel like you’re speaking to that person and that you know them.
Follow-Up
Once you’ve sent a few messages on LinkedIn or email, it’s time to move on to the next step. You don’t want to pounce on these people and hope they don’t notice. But you also don’t want to sit around hoping these people reach out to you.
Instead, consider following up with your potential customers after a week. Send a simple follow-up message to the person you’ve been in touch with. Follow up with another email a week later if you don’t hear back. However, don’t breathe down their neck if they don’t respond.
As long as you’re following up professionally, you shouldn’t be too worried about offending this person. At the very least, you’ll make an impression on them and show them how much you would want to hear from them.
Why Outreachly for Your Next Cold Outreach Campaign
With Outreachly’s cutting-edge technology, you too can leverage the power of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in your Linkedin lead generation strategy. Our tool scans potential prospect profiles and helps you find the most qualified decision-makers to drive them straight into your sales pipeline.
Our AI can boost your connection rates by 30%, which translates to more engagement, improved leads, and optimum outbound sales.
Expert copywriters to craft compelling sales copy for your business
24/7 instant notifications and reporting when someone reads your outreach messages
A personal campaign manager that will always be on hand to help optimise your campaigns
Expert help to move leads further into your sales funnel and help you close deals.
So, whether you are new to email & LinkedIn cold outreach or have tried it before but wanted something more, Outreachly has everything you need.
Ready to find out how it works? Book a demo today!
Final Thoughts
Email and Linkedin cold outreach remain two of the most reliable ways to reach out to an audience unaware of your existence. If you still can’t figure out how to increase direct outreach cold email results, don’t fret. Talk to an expert today!
