Little known, highly effective in prospecting, with no weekly limit, LinkedIn messages request has everything to please! We explain why and especially how to take advantage of it! 😁
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LinkedIn messages request, a “hidden” feature
This feature has been around for a long time on LinkedIn. However, until a few months ago it was of little interest to most because it was limited to 15 sends per month… But with the updates made by LinkedIn, these quotas have changed and its become so much more interesting.
What is a message request?
Between the invitation and the message, the message request allows you to send a message to a person with whom you are not connected on LinkedIn, provided:
- You are in the same group,
- You are part of the same event,
- You are in the same company,
- That the person has an “Open to work” profile.
In terms of customer acquisition strategy, we can say that the last two points are going to interest us much less today 😉
We can see here that I can send a message to this person while I don’t have a premium account and we are not in a relationship, which is normally impossible. Simply because we are in the same group. So the message request arrives in the LinkedIn messenger, in the form of a small notification insert.
The prospect can then accept or decline your message request. But you won’t know that…
What is the point of LinkedIn messages request?
As you may know, LinkedIn has made an update that, as of May 2021, limits the sending of invitations to 100 per week. For most users, this is a decent volume that doesn’t hurt their experience. But for recruiters and especially anyone who uses LinkedIn to find new clients, it’s a real thorn in their side. Even though Waalaxy now allows you to send 500-700 invitations per week, you may be limited sooner, depending on who you’re prospecting. So the message request is a godsend to keep contacting many people without being limited. Here are some benefits:
- No known weekly limit (Waalaxy blocks you to 80 per day maximum to ensure the security of your account, that is more than 500 additional possible contacts per week). 🧢
- You go straight to your prospect’s email and even get bumped to the front of the line with this intriguing notification that your prospects will definitely go to see. 🎯
- You don’t have a character limit for your first message (although as a reminder, a 300-character message transforms 2 times better than a 1000+ character message).
- To date, few people use this feature so a real competitive advantage for your marketing campaigns. 🚀
- It’s a message so you can put links and images right in the first message.
- If the prospect doesn’t respond, you can still send reminders (knowing that if they decline your message request you won’t know about it and your further messages will never reach them…).
- Groups and events are great segmentation elements to find prospects that match your audience. For example, a LinkedIn user who attends a LinkedIn prospecting event or belongs to a group on prospecting best practices is a great prospect for us. 😁
How to use message requests with Waalaxy?
Now we come to the interesting topic. Because who says different LinkedIn functionality than invitation or message, says different usage on Waalaxy.
Waalaxy will allow you to send message requests, when possible, up to 80 requests per day. This is a new “type of action” and is therefore only available in specific sequences.
Scraping event participants
When you search on LinkedIn, you can search for people, posts, companies but also groups and events. For example, I will search here for events on the topic of “LinkedIn”. Find an event that may match my targets and participate in the event. By participating in the event, you suddenly have access to all other participants. 
Once you are a “participant in the event”, all you have to do is click on “View participants” and magic!
You will see a search with all the participants. All you have to do is import these prospects into Waalaxy. 
⚠️ Warning:
- this search unfortunately cannot be opened in a Sales Navigator search (LinkedIn just hasn’t developed the feature yet).
- you are limited to the first 1,000 results, just like any regular search. So I advise you to add additional filters (see our article to access more than 1k results in a search).
Scraping members of a group
Accessing members of a group can be a bit more difficult, for the simple reason that you need to be accepted into the group to access it. Like the event search, you can search for groups directly on the classic LinkedIn search.
⚠️ Beware, you are limited to about 10 pending requests to join a group, after which LinkedIn blocks you. So I advise you to choose the groups you apply to carefully. Unfortunately, like events, LinkedIn does not offer more advanced filters for groups…
From the list of members of a group
Once you’re in a group, it’s easy to find the members. You click on “View members” and then import the leads into Waalaxy.
However, this technique has one major drawback: you cannot add any filter to your list. It’s easy to join a group on LinkedIn, but you rarely leave them. So you might find yourself prospecting people who have changed jobs a long time ago.
So, of course, you can always reprocess the list in Waalaxy (by playing with some existing filters). But at the time of writing this article, Waalaxy doesn’t have a lot of filters to allow you to really sort out the list (I have to say this, but I promise it will change in the upcoming months).
From the Sales Navigator
Sales Navigator offers an interesting feature regarding groups, since it is possible in the advanced filters to select “Group members” in addition to other filters. You can then target the members of the “Digital Marketing” group, for example, (with more than 1 million members) and add the filters you want such as title, region, company size etc. You will then get prospects who have shown an interest in digital marketing but with a finer segmentation than from the list of members of a group.
However, and we will come back to this later, you must also be a member of the group to be able to contact these prospects with a message request. 
Importing an event participant or group member from their profile directly
Some of you are also used to importing their profile 1 by 1, qualifying them as best as possible. Time consuming, but a great practice. If you are a member of the same group or event, you can see on the profile that this is the case and Waalaxy will also capture this information. 
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How to send a LinkedIn message request without a premium account?
Now let’s take action: How to send your first message requests. There are two possibilities: Waalaxy can either directly identify your “commonality” (event attendees or group members) or not. 
Waalaxy can identify your “common ground”
If you have imported your leads from event members, group page or profile directly, Waalaxy is able to detect it. By using the filters “Is in the same group as me” or “Is in the same event” these prospects will appear without any problem. In this case, they are directly eligible for a message request. All you have to do is create your campaign and filter among the templates by “Message request”. 
Like a classic campaign, you can then add your prospects. All sequences containing a message request will work for these b2b prospects.
Waalaxy “can’t identify your commonality”
When you import from any other type of search, including Sales Navigator with the “Is in group XXX” filter (and you are indeed in the group), Waalaxy does not know how to identify at the time of lead import that the lead has something in common with you, which makes them eligible for a message request. Therefore, you will have to visit the profile first, so that Waalaxy can retrieve this information and send the message request. Without visiting the profile, it will not appear when you filter with “Is in the same group” or “Is in the same event” in Waalaxy.
Conclusion
To me, this feature is just crazy and will propel your prospecting into another Waalaxy. If you have any questions about it, feel free to contact us directly on the chat support. And to stay up to date with the latest news, upcoming lives and best practices, feel free to join our community.
Frequently Asked Questions : LinkedIn Messages Request
Who can I send LinkedIn messages request to?
You can send a message request to anyone who has something in common with you such as: attending the same event, being in the same LinkedIn Group, working at the same company. You can also send a message request to “Open to work” profiles. Waalaxy only works with groups and events.
Why doesn’t a prospect in the same group or event as me appear in Waalaxy filters?
Depending on where the prospect was imported into Waalaxy, the information may not have been retrieved. In this case, you need to use a sequence with a profile visit before the message request so that Waalaxy can retrieve this information.
How many group members can I import?
The official limit is not given anywhere, but we have found that it is impossible to browse more than 10,000 members of a group. So obviously, Waalaxy can’t import these members either (except via Sales Navigator).
That’s it, you’re ready to send your first LinkedIn messages request!🥳
