B2B lead quality lead generation is so dependent on LinkedIn today that it is hard to ignore automation, especially for those who are so familiar with email marketing automation. I mean why not? If people are responding better on LinkedIn then shift you guns and continue shooting, eh!
There are several things that are different. I am not talking about spam box etc. They sure are considerations but assuming you have something meaningful to say and trying to rightfully reach your prospects. So, before jumping on automation let’s just do a quick comparison in context. Email marketing v/s LinkedIn inbox marketing.
Competition
Number of other marketers you are competing within user’s inbox v/s LinkedIn message box is significantly different. So, just lack of competition may sound like a easy win for LinkedIn but is actually not. What we found was that if the hit rate for regular email marketing is in single digits the number for InMail isn’t very different. Turns out to be case because of general user perception. I mean your contacts typically don’t send InMail to you and so if it is outside of the network, then there is a good chance that they are trying to pitch for something and so the natural reaction is to avoid or ignore. Considering that InMail is more expensive, it is hard to make a case baring exceptions.
Most automation discussion will end here and declare the winner. But wait, are we doing it right? Email marketing automation is very limited on the information about the target and therefore very low on personalization i.e. the pretty much the same message to all and for the discerning few a personalized salutation or a pic.
So, when you shift your automation approach from email to InMail and keep doing the same thing, it’s sad because LinkedIn gives you so much more info about the user you are sending the message to.
LinkedIn Automation as we know it is wrong when you send as if sending emails.
Connect Requests
I know what you are saying. Send connect requests instead of InMail as they show up as a regular message and not called out separately like InMail and therefore better response rates. We know recruiters as one power user segment use this a lot. However, remember this is a one shot trick and so if you don’t get it right, you don’t get another chance. Also severe character limits apply which means you have to get it very short and crisp.
Links with meta data to power previews work great here i.e. connect request messages. So, if you sending just text or throwing a link with no preview you can have a much better conversion if you switch just that.
What if you can make a unique preview and landing page? Now we are getting somewhere.
Don’t Automate, get smarter with search
That’s right. If you can use the rich profiles to go precise then you can do lot better to really evaluate if you really need to splash to so many. “Spray n Pray” is often used in the context of email marketing but you are doing it wrong if you are approaching it the same way on LinkedIn. There are too many automation extensions doing the rounds of visiting profiles, random endorsements. Just because you can does not mean you should. The fun stops very soon.
Instead get your search lot sharper and limit your sends so that what you do send is very high quality even before it leaves your outbox.
Use smart profile analysis assistants to make that job quicker so that you don’t have to compete on volume.
At LINKDRA when we started looking at automation the first step was actually a step back to take a look at what not to do. LinkedIn is a great platform for B2B marketing and the last thing we want to do it end up where email marketing is today. Of course we are building it to be really effective and absolutely not run it like emails. In fact search and screen is the significant part that we have trained our guns on.
Would love to hear how fellow marketers are hacking it out there.
