4 Step LinkedIn Outreach Campaign For Better Results

In 2021 Salesbread generated close to 5000 qualified leads for our clients. 

Where did we find these prospects?

Mainly Linkedin…

If used the right way, Linkedin is a gold mine for lead generation. 

In this article, we will share how we use Linkedin to generate 1 guaranteed b2b lead a day. And not just any b2b leads, but rather leads that actually want to get on a sales call. 

But first… Have a look at your Linkedin account..

Does your Linkedin profile look like this?

Or like this…

You might reason that the second guy is at least in a suit… But still. The mirror selfie doesn’t scream professionalism. 

REMEMBER: Your Linkedin profile is your first point of contact with a potential lead and if your account is still reading like a resume, or has random photos, a prospect is not going to take your or your business seriously. 

So before you even begin working on your Linkedin outreach strategy, make sure that your profile is professional. 

Have a look at the good examples below:

Notice that the profile photos are professional, and the “about sections” are not read like a resume; Rather these sections tell a story about the person and draws the reader in. 

There is also some “humanity” to the profiles making the person seem relatable and approachable. 

If your Linkedin profile needs a little bit of a revamp, rather fix it first before you begin your outreach campaign. This will ensure that prospects view you as a professional. 

This article “10 LinkedIn Profile Summaries That We Love (And How to Boost Your Own)” from Linkedin itself, shares some helpful tips on how to create an irresistible profile that prospects will want to engage with. 

Make sure that you have a Linkedin Sales Navigator account

If you are serious about outreach, investing in a Linkedin Sales Navigator account is a no brainer. 

Why do we say this? 

Well, this is a prospecting tool that Linkedin itself provides. 

This tool offers various features (depending on the package you choose) such as:

• Advanced lead and company search
• Alerts on your saved leads and accounts
• Customized lists
• Content sharing and engagement tracking
• CRM synchronization
• Inmail 
• Access to Linkedin subscriptions 

How much does it cost?

Depending on which package you choose, the cost varies. The advanced package costs $125 per user per month and is billed at $1,500 annually, whereas the advanced plus package could cost quite a bit more depending on your needs.

You can compare what each pricing plan offers below:

Why we love using Sales Navigator

This sales prospecting tool is great for marketers looking for prospects that work for a specific company; So, if you have a list of companies, you will be able to find people who work in those particular companies and target them. 

You can also get really granular about how you target prospects, from their job title, geography to their seniority in a business. 

You can even use specific keywords to search for a prospect. 

But once again, Sales Navigator isn’t a perfect tool, but there are some hacks that can be used in order to use it the best way, which you can read about here.

Invest in the following lead gen tools

When it comes to building the perfect list of prospects, having the following tools can really help make your life simpler.

Yes, these tools can be a little costly, but they will help create lists that get results.

Apollo.io

Appolo.io is a powerful tool for b2b sales prospecting. 

We use this specific tool for data mining. It allows us to find the email addresses and phone numbers of contacts on Linkedin. 

You can find your ideal prospects with laser-focused details. 

Apollo.io is basically a tool that has scraped all the info off Linkedin, so when it comes to finding info about companies, for example, it allows you to essentially do a Linkedin search, but far more effectively. 

What’s great about Apollo.io

We have found that Apollo is the best database for finding information about companies (for example, contact data) and tracking different types of technologies. 

Apollo also offers affordable pricing, which is excellent news for marketing teams just starting out. 

Have a look at their pricing plans below (They also offer 14day free trials for the paid packages): 

Another feature that we find powerful is that it offers various filters that allow for laser-focused targeting.

So in short use Apollo for:

• Finding email addresses for email campaigns
• Contact information for cold calling
• Finding companies
• Tracking tech

Expandi.io

This is an automation tool you use once you take all the accounts you have found on Apollo, Crunchbase, or ZoomInfo. You can then pull and plugin the data into the Sales Navigator search. 

You will then grab that search URL, and Expandi will scrape those prospects for you and add them to a connector campaign automatically. (Just make sure the first names and company names are written perfectly before you start messaging.)

What we like about Expandi

We like using Expandi to extract data. It’s a really safe way to extract prospects that you have reached. Not like chrome extension tools (Zapier or Prospect.io) which can be detrimental to your Linkedin profile) 

It also has “safe limits” for messaging, meaning that the chances of  Linkedin suspending your account are very low.

If you are using Linkedin as a form of outreach, then Expandi is a really useful tool, as it is used for the final stage in your Linkedin prospecting process.

For a more in-depth article about prospecting tools, click here

Okay, so now that your Linkedin profile is looking stellar, and you have invested in one or 2 prospecting tools, you can FINALLY begin with your outreach campaign.

STEP 1: Build a list of your ideal target audience

FACT: The reason most b2b outbound lead generation campaigns fail is because of poor targeting. So if you want a profitable Linkedin outreach campaign, you are going to have to go beyond basic targeting. 

If you are going after potential clients that…

• Don’t have the pain point you solve.
• Don’t have the budget
• Don’t have purchasing power

Your campaign is doomed for failure.

Sure, every lead gen agency will ask you “who’s your ideal customer” – and that’s a great place to start.

But read this…

You might respond by saying that you sell to CFOs and finance VPs in the healthcare space. The agency then tries to find people and starts its outreach campaign. 

You might think that the job is done right?

But unfortunately, this level of targeting discussion introduces too much risk. 

How so?

Well, there is just not enough level of detail in this simple description.

Salesbread obsesses about list building… 

Why?

Because if your list is right, the chances are you will contact prospects who really want what you’re selling. The chances of failure will be less and this means more money in the bank. 

When we onboard new clients we spend about an hour on a call with them, discussing their ideal prospect’s profile. 

A.) We actually ask the following questions when building lists for our clients:

Here’s an example. Say that you would like to target CEOs in the healthcare industry.

Great.

Let’s take this a step further…

A.) What kind of health care company? (e.g. Health Insurance? Hospital or Clinic? Non-Profit)

B.) What’s the size of the company? (250 beds+? Top 300 University-affiliated hospitals in the U.S.? 5,000 employees? 40 Billion in Annual Revenue?)

C.) What services do they offer? (Outpatient? Emergency?)

D.) What’s their location? (U.S. and Europe? 350 miles from Newark, NJ?)

E.) What departments/employees do they currently have/not have on payroll? (Marketing, Social Media, CNO?)

Our job at Salesbread is to analyze your current customers using 34 business attributes and “signals” so that we can detect “Buying Patterns” and uncover your “Look-A-Like” customers that, based on data, will need what you are selling. 

There are over 34 target account filters that we use to analyze your current customers/accounts and find “Look-a-like” customers.

List building is all about data. 

Have a look at the video below to explain in greater detail:

C.) Next… Filter your list through your 2nd degree connections on Linkedin

You should then take this list and choose 2-3 segments to work with because this reduces the risk of our outreach campaigns.

Remember the more that you can narrow down your list so that it’s ultra-targeted, the better. 

At this stage, we ask our clients to review the initial list of prospects. Here we expect to be 70-80% accurate. 

We then plug this list into Linkedin Sales Navigator and filter it by our clients’ 2nd-degree network and by recently posted.

Why do we do this?

If a potential customer is already in your second-degree network, the chances of them engaging with your messages will be much higher. 

And why do we filter by recently posted? 
Well, if you think about it, what’s the point of targeting prospects who aren’t actively using Linkedin?

They won’t see your message anyway.

If they aren’t active on Linkedin, we take them out of the Linkedin campaign and add them to a cold email outreach campaign instead.

We then have our clients review the list again.. Until it is 99.999% accurate. 

Side note: You might be thinking…

This seems like a lot of hard work. And you are right. 

List building is hard work, in fact, it takes us an entire week before we launch our first Linkedin outreach campaign. 

We would rather have 500 ultra-targeted prospects, who have a greater chance of accepting a meeting, than 2000 wishy washy prospects, who would most probably say no.

We do this because we don’t want to waste our clients’ time and money. 

Step 2: Write personalized messages

Once we have perfected our list of prospects and the client approves, we will then start with writing the copy of our cold outreach messages. 

Salesbread always asks our clients to imagine a room of 100 of their best prospects. We then ask them to imagine a stage and a podium and that they were standing on that stage. 

What would you say to those 100 prospects to capture their attention? 

And this right here, with this question is where we take extensive notes.

• We get straight to the best selling points of your business. 

• What are the benefits of your product or service? 

• What do you have to “sell”  it up? 

• What credibility, social proof, figures, and stats do you have that show what you have done for your clients? It’s all about trust signals. 

• Do you have a lot of users?

• Have you been featured in a magazine? 

So when it comes to writing the perfect copy, think about the above. What can you say during your Linkedin outreach campaign that will make a stranger believe what you are telling them? 

Never forget how important personalized messages are

If you want a profitable Linkedin outreach campaign you are going to have to write personalized messages. This goes for connection requests and follow-up messages.

This goes beyond just using the prospect’s first name. 

So you are going to have to research each and every prospect on your list before you send them a connection request message.

Why?

Prospects are spammed daily on Linkedin. Eventually, people switch off and don’t even read their messages, thinking that it’s just some spammy bot. 

But when you use personalization it makes prospects stop and think.. “Wait a minute, this is different. This message is especially for me.”

So, we suggest the following:

C.ommonality

C.ompliment

Q.uestion

Find some common ground with your prospect; Whether it’s a shared Linkedin connection, or an interest that you both share.

You can also compliment them on an article that they have written, or on a new achievement. Or you could ask them a question. 

Click here for personalized connection request templates.

A side note on sales pitches

Pro Tip: DO NOT USE A SALES PITCH in your Linkedin messages…

No one is interested in sales pitches. When you receive a sales pitch from someone via email or Linkedin, what do you do? Most probably ignore 95% of them…

Here is a bad example of someone who went straight for the sales pitch:

1st Message (Follow Up) – Day 1

Hey {first_name}, if you buy Cisco, we offer refurbished hardware for 50-90% less than new. All equipment is in great condition, with free lifetime replacements and setups.

Mind if I send over a list of equipment?

2nd Message (Follow Up) – Day 10

Thought I’d just paste the equipment list from a few days back: https://lp.constantcontactpages.com/##

Since you help manage your network, I figured you had a hand in these purchases. 

3rd Message (Follow Up) – Day 21

Can we have a 15 Minute Call to Discuss? Use my calendar below to select a time. 

https://calendly.com/****

The salesperson went straight for the sale. They spoke about their product or service most of the time, and not about the prospect. 

Remember to keep it short, and speak about the prospect 90% of the time. Only mention what you do for context and rather go into detail on a sales call. 

Also, use high commitment CTA’s when asking for a meeting

High commitment CTA’s:

• Are you available for a 20 minute chat on [MONTH] [DAY] at [HOUR] [TIMEZONE]?
• How about a quick 30 min call next {{=day}} at 4 pm [TIMEZONE] to discuss more.
• What will it take to get 25 minutes on your calendar next week?
• Can I steal you away for a 15-minute phone call tomorrow at 5 pm [TIMEZONE]
• Let’s catch up for 15 mins. Just select any date and time on my calendar link.
• Please choose a date and time of your choice using this link.
• Please book a 15 mins slot at your convenience. Here is a link to my calendar.
• Would you have 10-15 minutes for a call on {{=bday+3}} at 11 am to discuss further?

Step 3: Follow up 3 times

At Salesbread we follow up 3 times with a prospect. If they reply to our message, great.. We ask for a meeting. If not, we still follow up 3 times. 

If the prospect still hasn’t replied via Linkedin, we will then add them to an email campaign.  

Step 4: Ask for a meeting.

We also always ask for a booked sales call. This can be as simple as asking:

• What does your calender look like in the next few days?
• Can we schedule a quick call to discuss this?
• Is this worth a quick conversation?
• Send me your Calendly link and I will book a slot

Does this work?

Yes. This process does work. 

With close to 5000 leads generated in 2021 for our clients, we know what works on Linkedin and what doesn’t.

We use this exact formula for all our campaigns, and we are happy to say that we have many happy clients which you can read about here.

Conclusion

remember these points when it comes to having a profitable b2b lead generation campaign on Linkedin

• Have a great Linkedin profile that looks professional
• Build an ultra targeted list of prospects
• Filter your list by your second degree network
• Write personalized messages
• Forget the sales pitch
• Have a high commitment CTA
• Follow up 3 times
• Ask for a meeting

If you are interested in learning more schedule a free 15 minute strategy session.