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LEAD GENERATION COURSE

Hello!

Welcome to the sixth lesson in the B2B 
lead generation and nurturing course.

lesson 6

How to generate conversations with potential customers?

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17 minutes of listening
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AUTHOR
Jo Gniewek
Senior System Implementation Officer

My name is Jo Gniewek, and I am the Senior System Implementation Officer at the Sales4Team Agency, which has developed and implemented a system that organises, streamlines and automates the process of generating B2B leads on LinkedIn and nurturing them through email marketing automation.

Together with the agency's specialists, who implement lead generation strategies for our clients daily, we have created a series of step-by-step lessons to introduce you to B2B lead generation.

Here we go! 

 

Time to talk to potential customers

In the previous lessons, we have ensured a good first impression of your personal LinkedIn profile, careful targeting of decision-makers, networking and a suitable strategy for publishing on the portal. 

 

This way, we prepared you to start your first conversations with potential customers. 

 

In this lesson, we will focus on ways to start a conversation. Tips for maintaining contact with a potential lead will appear in the next lesson.

Why are private messages so effective?

From one of your first lessons, you probably remember that almost every decision-maker in your target group has a LinkedIn account.

If you send a message, the recipient will receive a notification on the portal
and mobile app a moment later, and this increases the chance of it being seen.

The most effective, however, is the automatic email notification.
It is through this that every message you send on LinkedIn has a good chance of being read.

Remember that in an email notification of a new message, the recipient will see your photo, name and headline. So make sure that these elements make a good impression.

Note that you can only initiate such a conversation from your personal profile.

This is why many companies involve employees from the sales team, marketing and other sales support departments, as well as top managers, in the lead generation process.

It also happens that Avatars, i.e. properly prepared fictitious LinkedIn profiles, are used for this task.

You can conduct LinkedIn conversations in the desktop version of the portal, but also in the mobile app. Users of the Sales4Team System have a special Smart Chat module for this to significantly streamline their work.

Who can you write a message to to start a conversation?

LinkedIn allows you to write a private message to a 'friend', i.e. a LinkedIn user who has accepted your invitations to get in touch, or vice versa: 

 

his invitation has been accepted by you and he is currently your 1st level contact.

However, few people know that many users have an OPEN TO CONTACT status, and this allows you to write them a single message without linking in 'friends'. 

 

Unfortunately, LinkedIn does not make it easy to find such contacts and, with manual action, only the trial-and-error method remains. You can only send another message to OPEN once the recipient has accepted your invitation or replied to your first message.

Users of the Sales4Team System have it much easier. The system recognises OPEN users itself and directs automated messages to them. 

 

In addition, the system exploits a vulnerability in LinkedIn and is able to send second, third and subsequent messages even though there is no response to the first one.

A long and incomprehensible message discourages people from starting to read

If your message is long and awkwardly formatted, you are making the task of your potential customers more difficult and yourself further away from achieving your goal. 

 

Messages broken down into short paragraphs of a few lines are much more likely to be read. 

 

Make sure your correspondence is easy to understand. Don't assume that your recipient is familiar with abbreviations and industry terms.

 

Avoid an aura of mystery, as this is counterproductive and discourages experienced managers from exploring the topic. 

 

(Image: message view in LinkedIn messenger)

Links in messages and attachments versus articles on LinkedIn

If you want to send your message recipient a link via LinkedIn messenger, pay attention to 2 important aspects. 

 

Firstly, you definitely don't want the recipient of your message to have random graphics stuck to the link you send. Check how your link looks in posts and messages using this tool: https://www.linkedin.com/post-inspector/

 

If the graphic automatically attached to the link is not appropriate, ask your site's webmaster to place a better graphic under the relevant page and mark it as a file for LinkedIn. The said graphic does not have to appear on the page. 

 

Once you have made the changes to your page, use Post Inspector once again to have LinkedIn download and update the correct file. 

 

(Image: link preview in Post Inspector)

Secondly, if you include a link from outside the LinkedIn.com domain in a message, such as to your company website, the recipient will be prompted to exit the portal when they click. See the previous lesson for a suggested solution to this problem as well.

 

We therefore recommend including redirects in the message, e.g.: to an article on LinkedIn, which you can use as your Landing Page inside the portal.

 

In the article, on the other hand, you can direct the potential customer straight to your website or any other service without unnecessary messages. 

 

Also avoid adding attachments to your messages. During IT security training, the danger of files attached to an e-mail or other message is mentioned virtually every time, which means that a large proportion of your recipients may negatively perceive a message with an attachment. 

 

(photo: LinkedIn notification after clicking a link in a message that leads to an external website)

Personalisation will help you make a good impression and gain the recipient's attention

We know that personalising messages to multiple recipients can be problematic, but as statistics show, customers expect it.

One of the specialised tools in the Sales4Team System can be used for this: automatic gender content selection and name variation.

A message starting with 'Mr Mark, nice to meet you' will make a good impression and is not a problem for automation.

Suggest a reaction to your message - CTA

Your sales scenario will yield much better results if you lead your potential customer in the right direction. 

 

So decide what goal you want to achieve at this stage. 

 

A CTA (call to action) will help you do this.

In the first paragraph of your message, you can briefly introduce yourself from a professional point of view, which should make the recipient aware of your competence and your offer. In the second paragraph, you can offer to send a presentation, an offer or an invitation to a meeting by e-mail. 

 

This simple message structure will already allow you to generate the first leads, which you will work on in your e-mail communication.

In the future, when the stream of leads generated from LinkedIn causes you more work, you can develop your strategy to keep leads longer at the automated stage in LinkedIn communications as well as by email. 

 

Such a change will also allow you to better warm up leads and direct them to the meeting stage only when they are perfectly prepared for it and almost determined to work with you.

Find an attractive pretext - lead magnet

Initially, focus on communications that will acquire an email address from a potential customer and help to build recognition of the company in a later, automated way.

An example is the 'B2B lead generation and warming course' organised by Sales4Team

The invitation to attend the course for free is an attractive lead magnet and many people are happy to leave their email address during a short conversation on LinkedIn.

The course is also an opportunity to educate prospective customers in the form of regular lessons, which builds brand recognition and an expert image.

The course also smuggles in information about the details of the Sales4Team system, i.e. the offer, and further lessons are automatically delivered to the participant's email. The process is therefore efficient and maintenance-free.

The course is just one example of a lead magnet. Yours may be much easier initially, and over time will probably evolve into more calculating and effective communication.

The tasks you set your leads should be simple.

One large task (e.g.: setting up an appointment) may prove too difficult to achieve a satisfactory conversion, so divide the larger task into several smaller ones (e.g.: emailing a presentation that includes an invitation to a meeting) to make it easier for your prospects to go through the process.

See this list of commonly used lead magnet ideas to give you inspiration before developing your own original idea:

Presentation, offer, meeting, course, webinar, trade show, training, article, newsletter, report, e-book, video presentations, podcasts, additional information.

Limited offer - i.e. don't let the lead put off responding

Limiting the time or quantity of your lead magnet is an additional intervention that can lead to conversions. 

 

Indicating a specific time in your communication catches attention and encourages people to consider the proposition right away without putting it off. 

 

However, you need to use these with care and ideally test and refine until you achieve satisfactory results.

Follow ups - an effective strategy for regular communication

If your message went unanswered it is likely to have been for two reasons: 

- inadequate communication 

- and/or inappropriate timing

If you renew contact after a few weeks by sending different content, you significantly increase the chance of a positive response. 

 

When preparing the content of your first message, take care not to close off the possibility of renewing contact in a few weeks' time.

The purpose of your messages, besides generating a lead, getting an email or arranging a call, should be to build brand recognition and an expert image, which will greatly help you to generate leads with future messages.

When sending an upfront message, assume that around 80% of recipients will not respond.

So prepare your content in such a way that you generate leads among the 20% who respond, while leaving a good impression with the 80% who do not respond.

Systematic work on your target group will enable you to achieve up to a dozen percent conversions from a sequence of 4 to 6 follow ups.

Automatic and systematic follow ups are easily taken care of by scheduling them in the LinkedIn Campaigns module of the Sales4Team System.

Intelligent automation keeps an eye on the appropriate intervals between attempts to generate a conversation and will itself interrupt the scenario when the addressee responds, and can even carry out A/B tests of different message variants.

Even hundreds of messages a week

LinkedIn, if you get to know it well, will provide you with enormous potential for communicating with your future customers.

If your target audience comprises thousands or even tens or hundreds of thousands of decision-makers, LinkedIn will definitely prove useful. 

 

The portal allows you to send the same message to up to several hundred people per week. You will reach more than a thousand leads in a month, and by working in a team using several LinkedIn accounts, you can easily multiply this effect. 

 

What's more, the process of using multiple accounts in a campaign can be made easier and automated by using the Sales4Team System. 

 

(Photo: statistics of messages sent from the Sales4Team System over 5 days from 3 LinkedIn accounts)

Conversations with dozens of people every week

Effective notifications from LinkedIn, of a new message on the portal, significantly increase the chance of message delivery, and this, in turn, can be seen in the responses.

 

Response rates to messages are often as high as 15-20%. Such a conversion rate can only be dreamed of by marketers reaching for cold mailing, accustomed to results of less than 1%.

A LinkedIn user sending 250-500 messages per week can result in dozens of short conversations. 

 

A team working in this way is already up to hundreds of conversations with potential customers in just a few days.

Smart Chat in the Sales4Team System was created to streamline and speed up the handling of conversations with leads. A single user can conveniently manage multiple employees' conversations simultaneously, from one location, and up to 30 times faster than directly in the portal.

LinkedIn culture favours you

If your target group includes mainly managers, I have good news for you: you can count on a high response rate and cultural responses.

Remember to tailor the language of the messages you send to your target audience, and if you are communicating in Polish, ensure generic and casual personalisation.

If you start off politely you can expect a similar style response, and inappropriate responses should be kept to a minimum.

Test communication options and choose the best

Prepare several communication options. You can also use the GPT Chat for inspiration. This tool, although not yet perfect, often suggests valuable wording. 

 

Try to avoid your own assessment of the content of the message. It is very likely that only a small percentage of the target group will have reactions similar to yours. Therefore, test several different ideas and choose the best one. Group action proves to be helpful in this case. 

 

In the Sales4Team, you can add further message variations very easily. The system will automatically measure each one in terms of responses and contact details left, and you will choose the best one. 

 

(Photo: "Conversions" in the Sales4Team System allow you to measure the effectiveness of your communications)

Best time to try to strike up a conversation

The simplest recommendation is, of course, working hours. We do not recommend sending messages on days off or outside working hours. 

 

Remember the time zone if you are targeting distant countries. 

 

You may, of course, deviate from the above rule in justified situations.

Contrary to intuition, a very good time to be active is during the holidays. LinkedIn is an environment that combines work life and private life, and this means that many people who are not available during the season have the time and inclination to talk during their free time. 

 

Activities during the holidays will also help you build a competitive edge ahead of the heightened sales period in September. 

 

Many of your competitors mute their communication with the market during the summer, so it is worth taking advantage of this quiet time to be more visible.

In the Sales4Team, you can easily set up a time window for sending messages along with bypassing days off.

Ensure correspondence is systematic and tidy

Your LinkedIn activities are part of a wider marketing strategy. When operating on a dozen contacts, this is not a major challenge. 

 

Managing a base of hundreds or thousands of contacts is a challenge where we should use a specialised tool. 

 

(Photo: example communication scenario on LinkedIn)

Summary of lesson 6
  • Being systematic and tidy in your correspondence is more effective for the activities you carry out, but it is also your company's calling card
  • When building your image and that of your company, you should take care to personalise your messages. Thoughtful and attractive content is also important so that the recipient feels that they are not one of many, but the most important contact for you.
  • When you develop effective communication, you can easily multiply the effect by joining in with your colleagues' activities. In a team, achieving so much more.
  • If the scale of your target audience is too large, reach for intelligent tools for which big numbers are no limitation.

Lesson 7 - managing conversations and qualifying leads

During the next lesson, we will take it a step further
and analyze how to organize conversations with leads.

I will also provide tips on how you can qualify leads to generate the best results.

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