How to cold message on LinkedIn easily?

Cold messaging on LinkedIn should not be done any old way. The problem with pseudo “digital salespeople” is that they don’t prospect the right way. ❌ Let’s see how to cold message on linkedin.

Prospects feel like they’re being mugged, are disinterested, and most importantly, skeptical as soon as they receive a private message on LinkedIn. The reasons are many:

• Wrong target defined.
• LinkedIn profile not optimized.
• Acquisition system that does not convert.
• Non-effective prospecting campaign.

And above all: what to say in their cold prospecting messages?

Today, if you are asking yourself this question, then this article should appeal to you.

Here’s why: we give you the step-by-step process to follow to win new customers with “cold messaging“. In a moment, we will see the exact method of prospecting to define your target to reach the right people.

Are you ready? 🚀

Here it is…

Step 1: Define your target with precision

When starting a cold calling campaign, it is essential to answer the question:

Who is the right person for my offer?

Prospecting on LinkedIn always starts by defining your target with precision. That is to say…

• What are his frustrations?
• What are his pain points?
• What are his dreams?

Some will tell you to create a very complete persona with age, socio-professional class, level of education, etc.

These are additional elements to the three points mentioned above. Once you have defined a typical persona, what I would advise is to call them on the phone. 📞

That way you’ll have a lot more freedom to answer the 3 questions. This is a very effective strategy. You can also contact your customer avatars via :

• E-mail marketing.
• A contact form via your website.
• Private message on LinkedIn.
• Forums in your theme.
• Use prospecting tools to find your targets.

Paint your ideal target, then go to step 2. In a few moments, you’ll understand why you need to optimize your LinkedIn profile, and more importantly, how to do it in the best way possible.

It’s now…

Step 2: Optimize your LinkedIn profile to match your target

What happens on LinkedIn when you first send a message to someone? That person will immediately visit your profile.

Among other things, they will analyze:

• Your profile picture.
• Your LinkedIn banner.
• Your title and description.
• Your professional experience.
• Your educational background.
• Your certifications.
• Your recommendations.

Make sure you optimize all these elements. In the following lines, we will see in detail how to optimize your LinkedIn profile.

But before that, let’s see in detail why it is important to do so…

Why optimize your profile to cold message on LinkedIn ?

If you don’t hook the visitor during the first 7 seconds, he will leave your profile with a state of mind that can be :

• “I don’t know what this person does.
• “I don’t recognize myself in the image this person reflects”.

Cold calling on LinkedIn with a non-optimized profile will not give you great results. A good optimization allows the user to have more confidence in you. ✅

Now let’s see together how to do it…

How to optimize your LinkedIn profile to build trust?

Once you have gained the trust of your reader, it will be much easier to convert them into your acquisition system. We’ll see how to create one in the next part.

First, we will start with the element that must catch the visitor’s attention…

Your profile picture to catch the attention

Your photo should not be a selfie. Not even a picture taken with your computer’s webcam. You must immediately give these feelings to the person who looks at your photo:

• Curiosity to visit your profile.
• Professionalism.
• Enthusiasm.

Smile too. This will make you seem much more friendly and open to discussion. 😃

Focus on a photo that matches your company’s values. If you are in, or are, a very corporate company, then tailor your style. Similarly, if you are in a start-up with a relaxed atmosphere, then put yourself at ease.

The goal is to create consistency between the company and your appearance. Today, most LinkedIn profile pictures drown in the mass because they look too similar. For example at Waalaxy, we decided to go with a color circle around our photos.

This way, through a LinkedIn Advocacy strategy, we create a strong branding identity. In your company it’s the same thing.

You need to have a good profile picture before you even cold prospect on LinkedIn. 📸

Your LinkedIn banner to inform the visitor

Beyond your profile picture, your banner should also be consistent with your strategy on LinkedIn. It should be of the same graphic charter as your company. That is:

• The same colors.
• The same typography and fonts.

And also, you must match your company:

• Values.
• The tone.
• The commercial message.

A great LinkedIn banner should meet these 4 criteria (from the AIDA method):

1. Grab the reader’s attention.
2. To arouse his interest.
3. Creating desire.
4. Call to action.

First, to grab attention: you need to create curiosity to stay on your profile and learn more about you (the next step “interest”). Use colors, and great text to do this. 🔵🟠

Second, to generate interest: you need to make the person feel like they are interested in what you offer and who you are. Name your expertise, your industry, even the products/services you offer with your company. If your visitor says “I’m interested in learning more”, then you’ve earned their interest. Then you can move on to the next part. ✔

Third, to create desire: you need to give the visitor the impression that you have value. To create desire, you can talk about the benefits you provide. Just like saying that you are an expert in this or that field of activity. Here, the goal is to reinforce the perceived value before moving on to the last criteria. 📊

Fourth, you need to get your readers to take action. If you’re talking about your products in your LinkedIn banner, it can be, “Check it out below” or “Click on the first link below.”

However, the best call to action is still contact: “follow me in one click” or “tell me about your project at 07.45…” ⚡

Here’s a good LinkedIn cover photo that brings these 4 elements together (in French because I am):

Your LinkedIn headline and description

This is one of the most important elements of your LinkedIn profile. It’s your title and description. First, your title. It should be both:

• Short.
• Meaningful.
• Engaging.

It should be easy to read and digest to immediately understand your assignment title. 🔥 Additionally, you can put a call to action inside. Ideally, the same one included in your LinkedIn banner.

Second, your LinkedIn description (also known as a “LinkedIn summary“) should be optimized. And you can do this in several ways:

• Storytelling.
• Bulleted list.
• AIDA formula.
• Etc.

For example: Source: https://www.linkedin.com/in/franckrocca/

Your work experience on LinkedIn

When you want to do cold calling on LinkedIn, you need to prove to your prospects that you are an expert in your field. ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

And that goes through your professional experiences. Don’t hesitate to be exhaustive and list all the companies:

• Where you worked if you are an employee.
• What you’ve coached if you’re an entrepreneur.

In the details of each experience, list 2 things:

1. First, what you did in your position.
2. Secondly, what you have contributed as results.

The goal is persuasive. And you must act on 2 pillars:

• Social proof through the company logo (if it is known, the leverage is even more powerful).
• Authority through your results.

Then you can move on to the next optimization of your LinkedIn account…

Your educational background on LinkedIn

Your educational credentials are also a very big plus to build confidence in your prospects when you are prospecting. 💥

• Schools attended.
• The scale of your studies (Bachelor, BTS, DUT, Bachelor, Master…).

The trick here is to highlight your strengths. For example, if you got good grades during your education, then you can put your GPA under each course.

Of course, you don’t need to have a bachelor’s degree to prospect on LinkedIn. It’s just a great plus to prove your analytical skills, commitment and perseverance to your visitors.

Your certifications

The licenses and certifications you have received also play a big role in optimizing your LinkedIn profile. 📗

For example, if you have completed training on the following platforms:

• Udemy.
• MentorShow.
• LiveMentor.
• An authority site in your field.

Then you can mention it in this part of your profile. It will give you more credibility, but it is not the element that will bring you the most. It’s the next one…

LinkedIn testimonials and recommendations

This is definitely the part that can help convert the most leads into customers. Your role here is to highlight your soft and hard skills from other people. Especially if your testimonials are from people with high authority. 💪

Here’s the ideal structure for creating persuasive recommendations on LinkedIn.

1. Talk about the problem you experienced before meeting you.
2. Highlight the actions you took.
3. Praise the positive results after your help.

You can ask your existing clients or contacts for a recommendation on LinkedIn. And if they don’t have an idea, you can follow this simple 3-step framework.

What to do after optimizing your LinkedIn profile?

This is a must-do step before cold calling on LinkedIn.

But now you’re ready for the next step. In the next steps, we’ll look at how to create a system to convert your visitors into leads. Then into customers. 🔥

Finally, how to use the #1 tool to do multi-channel prospecting on LinkedIn and through the leverage of prospecting emails.

Here we go…

Step 3: Create your lead and customer acquisition funnel

Here you are at the stage where it’s going to bomb. 📣 If you followed steps 1 and 2 with finesse, you can start this one.

First, it’s important to know a few digital marketing concepts. They are essential to understanding the basics of the strategy.

SMO = Search Media Optimization. This is the creation and optimization of your organic content for social networks.

It is the source of traffic that you will have to put into your acquisition system.

What is an acquisition funnel?

It’s a funnel process that takes a simple visitor to the ambassador stage.

Source:

And when cold calling on LinkedIn, it’s imperative to have a system to convert and transform. 🎯

Very often, this is what a classic acquisition funnel on LinkedIn looks like:

• SMO content to attract visitors to your optimized profile.
• Premium (but free) content accessible on a landing page via your profile.
• Paid product or service offer accessible via another landing page.

And in between these steps, there are “warming” steps to build trust with your visitors and get them as far down that sales funnel as possible.

How to cold message on LinkedIn: How to create a sales tunnel?

There are many tools to create an automated sales machine. 🛒

But there are 2 that stand out:

1. ClickFunnels (American tool to create sales funnels).
2. Systeme io (very easy to use French tool for the same thing).

On these tools, you can create your entire pages. For example :

• Capture page (to collect information from your prospects).
• Thank you page (the step right after the capture page).
• Sales page (the landing page for your product or service).
• Payment page (to collect payments from your customers).
• Confirmation page (to reassure the customer of their purchase).

The 3 phases that take place between the “visitor” and “customer” state

Before seeing the methodology in detail, you need to understand how the evolution from visitor to customer takes place. Here they are…

1. The“discovery” phase.
2. The“evaluation” phase.
3. The“decision” phase.

The first phase corresponds to the moment when the user is aware of you and your product for the first time. He knows it exists, but not yet if you are the best solution to his need.

The second phase corresponds to the moment when the user knows you but compares your solution with the other offers on the market.

He is not yet decided but he is looking for the advantages and disadvantages of each solution. The third phase corresponds to the moment when the user decides.

When you do cold calling, you should already know which phase your potential customer is in. Then, you can move on to the concrete methodology. 👌

How to acquire leads and customers with an acquisition funnel?

To get new customers, you need to give value to your audience. And even more so if you want to do cold prospecting on LinkedIn.

What is giving value?

It’s simply giving what your target wants to solve their deep need (do the persona exercise in step 1). 👇

In your acquisition strategy, you need to create the following steps:

1. Attract targeted traffic.
2. Convert this traffic into leads.
3. Turn those prospects into customers.
4. Turn those customers into ambassadors.

Acquiring qualified traffic to attract leads

First, when you want to attract traffic: you have several choices.

• By creating content on social networks (SMO).
• By advertising on social networks (SMA).
• By creating content on search engines (SEO).
• Through search engine advertising (SEA).

You need to determine a traffic acquisition strategy through these 4 levers. SMO and SEA methods work in the long term.

They belong to the strategy known as Inbound Marketing. That is, attracting traffic so that it comes to us naturally. 🧲

While ADM and ATS methods are ideal for acquiring traffic in the short term.

They belong to the so-called Outbound Marketing strategy.

That is, claiming traffic by going out and getting it. ⚡ Here is a curve that helps to understand the difference between these 2 strategies.

The depth of content topics on LinkedIn

If you’re on this article, you’re looking for effective ways to get traffic via LinkedIn. Well, you should know that there are 3 types of content you can create:

1. The TOFU.
2. MOFUs.
3. BOFUs.

In other words, TOFU (“top of the funnel”) content is the so-called generalist content. ✔

They are aimed at most users on LinkedIn.

And they don’t have to be technical. Simple basics.

TOFU content if published as a LinkedIn post, gets many more views than other types of content.

This can be for example:

• Talking about the future of work.
• Management issues.
• The entrepreneurial mindset.

After that, MOFU content is a bit more specialized. ✔

They’re going to appeal to a target audience but it’s still pretty broad.

With these types of content as LinkedIn posts, you’re going to get fewer views but the audience will be more qualified.

This can be for example:

• Growth marketing.
• Copywriting.
• SEO.
• B2b Sales techniques.

Finally, BOFU content. Here very specialized. ✔

For a very small and qualified audience.

Here are some examples to stay in the same themes:

• Advanced SEO strategy.
• Persuasion techniques.
• Product tutorials.

Remember, we had determined a very specific target.

Then, you optimized your LinkedIn profile according to it. Now you need to create your content strategy.

Ways to create content on LinkedIn

And that can be in 5 ways:

1. Through private messages on LinkedIn.
2. Through posts on LinkedIn.
3. Through articles on LinkedIn.
4. Through groups on LinkedIn.
5. Through videos published on LinkedIn.

When you’re cold prospecting, you need to find the medium that will break the ice and get them to discover you (1st phase out of 3 we saw earlier). 🧊

Acquiring interested prospects to turn them into customers

Once your prospect has gone through the first phase. It is necessary to take it further to bring it closer to purchase. This is when you can offer him content called “evaluation”.

Here, we’re more into so-called “MOFU/BOFU” content. 👈

This can be for example:

• Posts and messages with the benefits of your offer.
• Posts and messages with customer testimonials.
• Posts and messages with competitor VS.

Your goal during this second period is to tout the benefits of your offer and address your prospect’s disincentives.

The obstacles that prevent your prospects from becoming customers

A very interesting exercise is to define the mental brakes of your potential customers. Those that prevent them from becoming a customer of your solution.

What are the brakes of my prospects, which prevent them from becoming a customer?

Generally, there are 3 types of brakes, the most known:

1. The time brake.
   1. Isn’t this solution time consuming?
   2. Will it save me time?
2. The price brake.
   1. Does it fit in my budget?
   2. Will it pay for itself quickly?
3. The brake of effort.
   1. Is it easy to use?
   2. Is it simple to set up?

When you have determined these obstacles, you can create your “lead magnet”.

How to cold message on LinkedIn: What is a lead magnet?

It is simply a premium content (but free) that you will send to your prospect in exchange for his contact information (very often the email address, but it can be the phone number, the first name, etc…).

This step allows you to convert a visitor into a lead. ✅ And you need to create content for them that produces the“wow effect“, creating interest in the topic, without giving away the whole solution.

His need doesn’t have to be completely satisfied with your premium content. The prospect must still be “thirsty” after consuming it.

How to create a successful lead magnet on LinkedIn?

Once you’ve completed step 1, you know who you’re targeting. Well, by knowing what your audience’s frustrations are, you can create your lead magnet.

It can be in the form of:

• A digital book.
• A series of videos.
• A checklist.
• An online conference.
• Etc.

Once you’ve created a lead acquisition strategy, you can move on… 👇

Customer acquisition when you are cold calling

If you have followed all the steps explained in this guide well, then you can move on to this step. Here, you need to turn your prospects into customers.

That is, take them from phase 2 “evaluation” to the third “decision”, through content creation. You need to give everything in this part to build the person’s trust in you and your product. 🚀

Here are the types of content you can send to your prospects to convert them into customers:

• Tutorials.
• User guides.
• Testimonial videos.

Once, your prospect has passed this stage, they have become a customer. Congratulations, you have an ultra-effective strategy for cold calling on LinkedIn.

Now, you will discover a way to use all these strategies to prospect massively and qualitatively. Let’s find out right now…

Step 4: Create your multi-channel sales prospecting campaign with Waalaxy

Imagine for a moment this moment: You have a content strategy in place to drive traffic. You are gaining visibility day by day. More and more of your visitors become prospects by downloading your lead magnet.

And more and more people become your customers. However, after a while you reach a plateau. Because you are limited by time. ⌚ That’s when you need to automate your marketing actions to save time.

Waalaxy is the solution to clone you without you having to act. With our automation tool, you can:

• Scrap LinkedIn profiles and import them into an integrated CRM.
• Create automated sequences on LinkedIn (profile visits, invitations, messages, etc.).
• Mix LinkedIn actions with e-mail marketing to benefit from the power of multi-channel prospecting.

In addition, here are the advantages of our prospecting tool over the competition:

1. We offer multi-channel prospecting for maximum performance.
2. We offer a 7-day trial version to test with confidence.
3. We have focused on the user experience (UX).
4. It’s totally secure for your LinkedIn account.
5. There’s customer support via chat.
6. The best part: thanks to our engineers, you can exceed the 100 weekly invitations imposed by LinkedIn without risk to your LinkedIn account! 💪

For a hyper-affordable rate, you can multiply your results with the cold message strategy you just learned.

We have 3 offers.

1. The Pro version at 25€/month.
2. The Advanced version at 50€/month.
3. The Business version at 80€/month.

The first version allows you to do automated prospecting on LinkedIn.

The second one is a bit more advanced because it allows you to self-import leads. For example, this is useful if you make a post where you encourage your audience to comment on your post to receive a resource. 💡

This allows you to import more qualified and less “cold” people into the prospecting temperature scale.🌡