LinkedIn outreach in 2024: 8 experts share strategies for sales…

LinkedIn's sales are transforming. Staying ahead means adapting to these changes. In this article, we've gathered insights from LinkedIn experts to guide you through the 2024 sales outreach through LinkedIn. With the right strategies in place, thanks to our experts’ insights, you're going to ride the waves right to success. Let’s hop into the future of LinkedIn outreach and skyrocket your sales in 2024!

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Сo-founder & CRO @Flowla — interactive deal rooms that WOW buyers.

Alper is a seasoned sales leader with an impressive professional background that ranges from advising top firms at Bain and Accenture to closing multi-million deals at General Assembly. As the co-founder of Flowla, he is in charge of revenue operations, combining his diverse sales experience to help teams close deals effortlessly and sharing his expertise through the Sales Therapy podcast.

Yes, it will remain relevant, even more than ever, as salespeople will need to diversify their outreach with the new limitations imposed by email service providers.

But, as with any other channel, you need to do it right. This means, first of all, differentiating between high-intent and low-intent buyers. You can catch high-intent leads with the right message if you know where and how to look for them.

Low-intent leads will require more education — sharing valuable, relevant resources for free — and a multi-touch engagement strategy using email, LinkedIn, and other channels.

We use a combination of things, but building relevance and expertise matters. First of all, you need to create inbound interest. People want to associate with whom they perceive as intelligent, “strong”, credible, and popular!

To build that, you must show your expertise, credibility, and generosity — give before you ask for anything.

Share your templates, frameworks, and things that help you become successful.

Social proof — engage with others who are in the same boat and genuinely feel free to try their products, vouch for them if you feel like.

Bring a distinct and unique point of view that sets you apart from others.

Multi-channel! But you have to do it right. We use LinkedIn first to create familiarity before emailing a prospect directly. It’s important to remember that LinkedIn inboxes are full of pitch-slaps, so learn about their persona from their profile and engage with them — read their posts and leave meaningful comments that show you read their content!

After a few interactions on LinkedIn, you can send an email mentioning those previous interactions and either pitch your product or ask for time to catch up on a call. With this approach, you increase your chances of getting a response since prospects will recognize you.

A big ‘no’ to connections — big, huge ‘no’ — people sniff inauthenticity, eventually killing your credibility. My worst-ever mistake was reaching out to 100 sales heads with what seemed like a generic message just to test, although it was not a mistake but an intentional test. I will never do that again!

However, you can use some automation for activities like follows and views, I can recommend Waalaxy for this.

Followers, meaningful engagement, and traffic from LinkedIn to your owned channels (website). LinkedIn following is good and needs a bit of vanity metrics for TOFU, but you should aim to balance it with MOFU/BOFU content and interactions.

Having a large LinkedIn audience is good, but the next step should be to bring them to your owned channels and keep sharing so they know to follow you.

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СMO @NetHunt CRM — CRM for end-to-end outbound sales

As CMO, Anna maximises marketing efforts to drive profitable revenue growth, directing product launches and shaping brand identity. Passionate about startups and brands during the day, Anna is flower enthusiast, barre practitioner, and foodie at night.

With the recent requirements announced by Google for email senders, I believe that LinkedIn outreach will become even more relevant in 2024. If LinkedIn is a home of people from the industries you target, it’s definitely a channel to go to. Moreover, the long-lasting trend of connecting with people behind the brand and making purchases from individuals adds to its significance.

However, I think that LinkedIn outreach is going to transform as the platform evolves. Video content, as well as voice messages, are likely to play a crucial role, introducing a new level of potential personalization on LinkedIn. Additionally, the rise of AI-driven tools for personalized outreach and relationship building may redefine the way professionals connect on LinkedIn. Don’t forget about the nature of LinkedIn – it’s all about connections and relationships. This means no harsh sales messages.

In addition to merely sending connection requests, I’d recommend expanding your network by engaging with a relevant audience by initiating meaningful conversations under their posts. Your goal here is to establish credibility, drawing people to visit your page. Once you attract visitors, ensure your page is not empty; provide a reason for connection requests by developing your own content.

To enhance connection retention, as I previously mentioned, use short-form videos or share engaging multimedia content related to your expertise.

I recommend adopting a simultaneous multi-channel approach for a comprehensive outreach strategy. By utilizing multiple channels, you ensure that your message reaches a wider audience. At NetHunt CRM, we strategically leverage different platforms for certain purposes. LinkedIn serves as a tool for building rapport and warming up leads, while emails are reserved for detailed pitches. We start on LinkedIn, which allows us to engage prospects from multiple angles – through interactions with their posts, our own content sharing, and targeted ads aimed at individuals on our outreach list.

This approach significantly enhances the visibility of our individuals and brand and increases the chances of email opening.

I would say ‘yes’ to a mindful approach to automation. If you don’t use automation to spam hundreds of people on LinkedIn, which is against LinkedIn rules, it can be a great timesaver. I think it can be used for connection requests and initial messages, while further interactions should definitely be personal. Set tight limits within your automation tool, mimicking your realistic manual actions. People don't typically engage excessively, commenting under dozens of posts and sending hundreds of connection requests. Also, ensure your tool allows personalization for connection requests and messages to maintain authenticity.

I believe AI tools can be helpful in content creation at this point, however I wouldn’t delegate outreach tasks to them.

Monitor the growth of your audience along with the increasing reach of your content on LinkedIn. Additionally, look at the traffic that you redirect to your website and the number of inbound leads that you get through your LinkedIn efforts.

Ultimately, I think the primary goal of LinkedIn outreach for most brands is to generate revenue. Thus, assess the impact of your activities on the sales funnel, from lead generation to conversion.

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Chief Operating Officer and a LinkedIn Strategist @MAVERRIK

The catalyst for your LinkedIn success" - Social Selling on LinkedIn | 30+ years driving Growth & Innovation | LinkedIn Top Voice

With over 30 years of experience in leadership and management across media, distribution, and non-profit sectors, Terry has a proven track record of success in driving growth, innovation, and customer satisfaction.

LinkedIn is working hard to eliminate 'pitch-slappers' from the platform. You know them... they connect and hit you with their 'War & Peace' sales pitch on day one. Already, free users have seen the number of connection requests with a message they can send fall to as low as 5 per week.

So, the future of LinkedIn outreach will be heavily weighted towards relational connections. It will involve making prospects aware you exist, developing curiosity around you and your products, and being willing to play the long game in securing the sales call.

Your content will drive the majority of inbound connection requests. If people find you or your products attractive, then they will connect. So, building a presence on LinkedIn through content marketing and developing your brand will be vital to growing your network.

How and where you do your outreach depends upon your target market. Most people selling on LinkedIn are B2B, so LinkedIn would be the priority, but I also encourage having a secondary channel. That secondary channel may be Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, in my experience.

If you are serious about LinkedIn for sales, then automation will be a consideration. However, the caution is not to lose yourself to the machine and become bland and overlooked. Inevitably, AI will feature in almost every area of life, but it has downsides.

I have tested several AI-based outreach tools in recent months, but none have been able to replicate a genuine human interaction. I recommend using AI for content ideation and process streamlining, but remain authentic and genuine in your LinkedIn interactions if you want conversations that lead to sales.

It's all about connecting with people and getting them interested in who you are and what you offer. So, tracking your profile visitors is a key metric. A healthy profile generating good content should attract at least 700 profile visits in 90 days. To best track who and how often they visit your profile, you need a LinkedIn subscription.

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Director, PLG Sales @Dealfront

Dipak has started his sales career at Uber and Hootsuite, and currently, he's the Director, PLG Sales at Dealfront and is on a mission to help B2B companies nail their prospecting efforts. Dipak names himself “Fulltime Backpacker” and is a strong advocate for remote work. His passion is travel and he doesn't stay in one place for more than 3 weeks.

With the rise in AI and how much can be automated regarding LinkedIn outreach, people will expect personalized and tailored messages. With Google & Yahoo clamping down on bulk email outreach, LinkedIn will likely play a bigger role as an outreach channel.

One of my main go-to’s has been ‘Following first, connecting later.’ By doing so, I can get a feel for what a particular individual likes consuming based on their reactions, comments, and shares. This allows me to craft a more personalized message, increasing my chances of accepting my connection request.

Voice messages have also helped me kickstart conversations. They feel more bespoke because they can’t be automated, are sent in bulk, and can only be recorded via the mobile app.

Multi-channel all the way!

I’d steer away from automation when conducting actions on LinkedIn. It breaches their T&Cs, and you risk jeopardizing your account. There are no shortcuts to building long-lasting relationships, you’ve got to put in the work.

You can use LLMs like ChatGPT to help you craft personalized messages that you can then add your flair or touch to bolster the quality of your outreach. I’d embrace automation when it comes to improving your content creation or time management process, which would then ‘buy’ you more time that you can dedicate to things that matter, like building the relationships, as mentioned earlier.

Is your profile and content being viewed by more people over time?

Are your profile and content being viewed by the right people (ICP and buyer personas) in your target geographical locations?

How engaged is your audience? What does the Click-through rate look like when you include a call-to-action? I’d only include a CTA when it flows with the rest of the content.

From a Marketing perspective, I’d also look at brand mentions over time.

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Founder & Owner @Social.ONE

That Sales Navigator Guy • Helping Sales Teams and Business Owners use LinkedIn on Steroids 💪 • Author of the #1 bestseller LinkedIn Sales Navigator for Dummies™

Since 2009, Perry has helped over 100,000 salespeople and business owners worldwide. He teached them how to find potential customers and make genuine connections on LinkedIn. Some of his clients include the United Nations and Korn Ferry. He has also worked with Deloitte, IHG, CrowdCube, KMPG, Mollie, and other companies.

The future of LinkedIn outreach lies in personalized communication. Clever use of technology is also crucial. Many sales professionals use automation and AI tools for mass outreach. However, the real key to success is using these tools wisely. Sales Navigator, for example, offers advanced insights into prospects and their companies. This allows for hyper-personalized outreach.

Combining these insights with a human touch can establish more profound relationships. Removing the urgency from the sales process is essential, too. The mantra for 2024: Go the extra mile in personalization, as there’s little competition there.

Beyond connection requests, engaging prospects with value-driven content is essential.

In Sales Navigator, use LinkedIn Smart Links to share informative PDFs. Track engagement to pre-qualify leads. Interactive content, such as videos and LinkedIn live sessions can significantly increase engagement. Engaging posts do the same.

Participating in and fostering LinkedIn Groups also helps build a sense of community. It can establish your authority in your field. The goal is to make prospects come to you, drawn by your value.

Companies need a multi-channel approach to reach diverse segments of their target audience. It also helps them adapt to changing online behaviors. However, it's more practical for individual sales professionals and small business owners to focus on where their target group is most active.

Typically, for B2B environments, LinkedIn is the platform of choice. That said, integrating LinkedIn activities with email marketing or other industry – specific platforms can enhance outreach effectiveness. Even on a small scale, it can create a more cohesive online presence.

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Head of Sales @MLex

With over ten years in sales, Iryna loves to combine sales, marketing, AI, and other new tools to make the life of sales execs as sweet as Italian gelato.

According to the Semrush research, LinkedIn will be one of the key social media platforms in 2024. So in case people are still not using it to the full extent — it is high time to give it a try. Among the trends and strategies, I would say:

Social selling. Providing value through the content to the audience and building trust.

Build relationships. No selling by slamming the door - building gentle and meaningful relations instead.

Grow the network through interactions. Remember — 20% content creation and 80% engagement.

Just sending connection requests will not bring you leads. The only way to boost your outreach through LinkedIn is to do as much personalization as you can—more research on the leads and on the companies.

And you can always flavor your outreach with humor — works perfectly.

I am the ambassador of Omnichannel Outreach. Based on research, a lead needs to interact with your brand over 20 times to move into a “ready-to-buy” phase. If you do it in one channel - your chances of becoming a “stalker” are super high. So embrace as many channels as possible (including marketing, PR, paid ads, etc).

Automation - definitely, yes. AI - definitely, yes. However, both tools should be used smartly - not making blind outreach to as many leads as possible with AI-written messages. Such a strategy will not work.

Key KPIs are connection and reply rate. I would recommend focusing on at least a 30% connect rate and a 20% reply rate. If your metrics are low - you are doing something wrong.

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Sales trainer & LinkedIn Coach @Help Me Sell

Companies and Individuals come to Jarrod for three things. One — his in-depth knowledge of LinkedIn to help them optimize their profiles and use it to generate pipeline for their sales teams or to show HR how to attract top candidates. Since 2019, Jarrod has optimized over 200 profiles and trained HR and Sales teams on how to use the platform for their objectives.

Many people don't like this vibe on LinkedIn anymore. It's a major turn-off. It's because I have not seen one trend take over LinkedIn. People are still only sending texts as their outreach. So, they're still using automated texts with a strategy of "just spam as many people as possible", and I think that's where the turn-off is. I was extremely excited at the beginning of 2022 when a couple of companies were going to introduce AI automation into videos. In other words, I can record one video and change the beginning to say Valerie, Jared, or James.

I was excited because. I'm like, OK, that's an excellent way for us to do video and en-masse. I have yet to see these applications. I have zero videos for the entire year, around 900 pitches, and zero. If you ask any other experts, they have yet to get any videos on LinkedIn. That's why that particular technique, I'm shocked, hasn't picked up.

I think having an optimized profile is the number one way to have your connection request accepted on LinkedIn. Because my profile is optimized, and I send a connection request, I can see what you do within the first eight seconds. If it may apply to me and is not a sales pitch, I would accept the connection request. The other thing I would tell the person on that note is that I'm still testing it, but I'll tell you this: test people who connect with you without a note attached.

Do not pitch to people who connect you with a message. I guarantee you 100% of the time that they will pitch. So if you send all connection requests that people don't add notes, just connect with them after they accept, then you can lead with a message to introduce yourself to them. That is a way better approach than anything else.

I don't think you should be aiming for personalization. I think you should be aiming for relevancy. If I could message you and it's relevant to what you're going through — that has way more emphasis than being personalised.

I am using automation for the purpose of reaching out on target audience. Relevancy matters in the question of automation. That's my stance.

I post content and I don't necessarily look at views or anything in terms of if it's making an impact.

I look at how many DMs am I getting because of my general activity on LinkedIn. I think that is the number one metric you need to look at. The other one you need to look at an acceptance of connection requests. The other one that you need to look at is your response rate on your automation.

Let's just say if you're running on automation on LinkedIn, and if your getting less than 10%, you need to lower how many people you're reaching out to. That would be the two KPIs I'd would look at. Everything else is secondary because it doesn't matter how many people you connect to. I think it just matters how many people are responding to your message.

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Oksana Bailo is a Communications Expert, Sales and Marketing Professional, LinkedIn™ Approved Coach and Consultant.

With over 15 years of experience in business and sales management, Oksana specializes in Social Selling, Lead Generation, Content Management, and Brand Packaging on LinkedIn. Her mission is to help people, teams, and professionals achieve their goals and grow their businesses through innovative and effective LinkedIn solutions.

This year LinkedIn reached the number of one billion members and unveiled its latest suite of AI tools, which is a well-deserved milestone and a new era of the platform.

Given the platform’s rising popularity and these latest technological advancements, LinkedIn is solidifying its position as a central hub for professionals in the digital age.

So be sure LinkedIn outreach will still be relevant, and here are 4 trends for 2024 to boost your LinkedIn outreach and sales results:

Target relevant prospects and personalize your outreach

Research every prospect and appeal specifically to their needs.

Personalize every interaction: tailor your message to resonate with prospects on a deeper level.

Build long-term relationships that can lead to repeat business.

LinkedIn tools are innovating quickly. The emerging trends and capabilities you should be on the lookout for are AI and Machine Learning. Artificial intelligence is reinventing what’s possible with prospecting and outreach. Expect tools with AI that:

Dynamically personalize messaging

Optimize campaigns based on response data

Pattern match ideal prospects

Qualify leads and route them

Predict behaviors and interests

Beyond outreach, analyzing client data will assists in categorizing them, filtering out unsuitable clients, formulating tailored offers, and determining the optimal pricing strategy.

Furthermore, ChatGPT can now analyze graphic files, for example, websites or social media screenshots. All this can serve as an excellent basis for crafting personalized outreach.

Sellers choose social selling for the opportunity, but they stay for the community, LinkedIn professionals say.

The future for social sellers seems to be all about professional automation to attract their leads to them. That it frees up time for the social sellers, so all they need to focus on are one-on-one communications with prospects and building strong relationships with customers.

The key in social selling is to become customer-centric. A personalized customer experience will create a valuable relationship with the customers that will keep them coming back.

Look for a LinkedIn automation tool with robust integration capabilities. This allows you to connect it with your other marketing and sales tools for maximum impact.

CRM — sync prospect data and interactions automatically

Email — coordinate outreach across LinkedIn and email

Webinar — promote events to your LinkedIn network

Calendar — schedule meetings with prospects

Ads — retarget website visitors on LinkedIn

To ensure that your company page is meeting its goals, it's essential to track its performance using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs):

Follower growth rate which is an indicator of the size of your audience and the level of interest in your brand.

Engagement rate that indicates that your content is resonating with your target audience and driving them to take action.

Conversion rate which measures the rate at which your LinkedIn page is generating leads or conversions, such as form fills, demo requests, etc.

Impressions that gives insight into the reach of your content and the visibility of your brand on the platform.

Click-through rate for tracking the effectiveness of your content in driving traffic to your website and generating leads.

Tracking these KPIs will help you understand the performance of your LinkedIn page, identify areas for improvement, and optimize your content strategy to achieve better results.

To succeed in 2024, you’ll need to leverage genuine engagement, multi-channel outreach, and CRM tools efficiently. Key strategies experts mention are personalizing connection requests and navigating the nuances of LinkedIn automation.

Plus, an optimized LinkedIn profile will remain a cornerstone for successful outreach.

Now, equipped with insights, you're well-prepared to adapt and excel in the evolving landscape of LinkedIn sales in 2024. Keep these expert guidelines close at hand, and you're all set for a successful 2024!

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Originally published January 16, 2024, updated January 30, 2024