About to start your first campaign on LaGrowthMachine? Want to make sure you chose the right standard? Want to learn all the best practices in how to use it ?
These guidelines are made for you.
Table of contents :
Is Email > LinkedIn right for me? Or should I start with LinkedIn > Email?
If you haven’t already read our dedicated article to help you evaluate which channel you should start your outreach with, here’s a reminder. As always, common sense applies :
What is the primary source of leads?
If your primary source of leads is LinkedIn, then it means that you’ll have for 100% of your leads the ability to outreach to them using LinkedIn, while enrichment may vary. For more information on enrichment rates, read our guide on how we find professional emails.
It may make more sense to start with LinkedIn > Email sequence then, except if your leads are most likely to reply via emails (see below)
If your source is an outside database (your CRM or else), probably, most info you’ll have is :
Firstname + Lastname + companyName
Email
Hopefully, LaGrowthMachine is able to identify LinkedIn’s profile based on the combination of firstname + lastname + companyName, but probably you’ll have more info to start with using email.
If you’re still looking to be LinkedIn first on such a CSV, make sure to modify your sequence to segment based on LaGrowthMachine ability to find the LinkedIn Profiles
Where is your lead most active/likely to respond?
Don’t blindly follow recommendations. Know your audience.
Developers might have profiles on Linkedin but are barely active nor responsive there. It’s probably not the best channel to start with, but to use as a fallback
Tech founders are active daily on LinkedIn and very open there. Probably the best channels to start with, if not Twitter
Following the two examples above, ask yourselves :
Where is my audience most active daily?
Where am I most likely to build a relationship with them?
The rest should follow
What’s your channel enrichment rate?
Let’s suppose you’re outreaching to freelancers identified via LinkedIn. Most of them do not have any professional emails, so your enrichment rate will be very low. It doesn’t make sense to prioritize emails.
Given all of the above, if Email > LinkedIn still feels right, let’s deep-dive into how to best use it!
What does LinkedIn > Email do?
Email > Classic is a classic email first sales routine. After enriching the lead :
If the professional email was found by LaGrowthMachine, it will send two emails 5 days apart, before falling back to LinkedIn using a connection request and following up 7 days later.
If the professional email was not found, the lead will still be activated on LinkedIn, sending a connection request followed by three direct messages once the leads accepts the request.
What are the best practices regarding copywriting when using LinkedIn > Email?
Step 1 - Do we have an email?
The first step of this sequence is a “Visit & Enrich” action that will allow to enrich 30-60% of verified professional email. From there, two options will be able :
If an email was enriched, it will move on to a multichannel Email > LinkedIn sequence
If no email was found, it will still be activated using LinkedIn only
Step 2-A - Email found, let’s use it!
Via emails, you have no theoretical limit on length, but avoid boring out potential leads with long emails. Nobody likes to read long sales pitches: precision is of the essence.
In our sequence, we’ve built our emails as follow:
First Email :
Here, I’m playing with the fact that we’re a sales automation platform, and showcasing its capabilities.
My goal: catch their attention by disclosing how we do.
Second Emails :
Much more traditional :
A reminder of what we do
Proving you’re the best at what you do with social proof: segment your prospect by customer type/persona and use custom attributes to explain how customers matching their segment use your company to their benefit. For more research on how to segment and build custom attributes, do check out Dogpatch’s on writing personalized emails at scale. Here’s what we use :
{{customAttribute1}} matches with 3 clients from the same segment.
{{customAttribute2}} matches with the value -mostly statistics of improved conversion rate or increase volume- they get from LaGrowthMachine.
Closing with a demo proposal as CTA. You might notice we do not provide directly a Calendly link, as we believe this shows a lack of appreciation and demonstrates a mass-emailing approach. Though we send a Calendly link if they reply to easily schedule the call.
Simple yet effective
For an in-depth article on how to write great cold emails, check out Startupgrind’s 6 creative ways to use cold emails.
Adding the lead on LinkedIn:
The goal of this first touch is the LinkedIn connection request as a soft reminder of your email
If he accepts my connection request, I now have the ability to follow up on LinkedIn. Since already quite a few messages have been sent via emails and LinkedIn, I’m keeping it short and simple!
You may choose to have more than 3 follow-ups, depending on your copywriting style and information you feel valuable to share.
If the leads doesn’t accept you, you might have to accept that he isn’t the right person.
As a closing email, several approaches may work :
Request for an intro: A classic closing would be to acknowledge that he might not be the right person to talk with and request an introduction to the right person.
This is great if you’re addressing bigger companies and are truly unsure about who to touch base with
In the example below, we’re reminding value (as a last attempt to arouse interest) while requesting the intro
Sending Marketing Material: another approach would be to close the loop
Step 2-B - Email not found? Let’s engage with him on LinkedIn
Unfortunately, LaGrowthMachine didn’t find any verified email. To increase your chances, your chances of finding emails, you may choose to activate catch-all emails, but let’s image you still don’t have any email.
Since we have his LinkedIn profile, we can still activate him on LinkedIn. LaGrowthMachine will send a connection request. You can choose to add a note or not. We strongly advise you to add an honest and transparent note as all data we have shows that a transparent connection request leads to a higher rate of qualified calls.
We recommend focusing on the perceived value of our tool and close with a demo proposition as CTA.
Here’s an example below of what we use :
For more information, you can read our guidelines on how to evaluate if you should add a note or not.
The lead accepted your connection request, probably because :
Because your note was interesting
Or if you haven’t put a note, because your profile is optimized to build trust
Either way, that’s great news, since you will now be able to send him messages on LinkedIn.
Before writing your DMs, you should read our guidelines on best practices for copywriting on LinkedIn
1st DM :
Two types of DMs may vary depending on whether you chose to input a direct note of not.
If you’ve imputed a direct note, it’s probably an acknowledgment that he’s interested! You should jump on that.
In our case, since our note offered a demo, I’m jumping on the occasion, not pitching more than. Why? Because it feels natural and in good context to what happened before
If you didn’t put a direct note, or a note at all, you might have to remind what you do and build both trust and awareness.
In our case, as with the first email, we’re still playing around the fact that we’re a sales automation platform and disclosing what’s happening. The goal is the same: catching attention.
2nd DM :
Following recommendations from email, we’re using the same content, slightly adapted to fit LinkedIn’s constraints.
You’ll notice that we added the link in the message to have the preview drive traffic. Don’t know what I’m talking about, you should definitely read our guide to optimizing links for great click-through rate on LinkedIn
Still no reply? Unfortunately, since no email was found, we don’t get to switch channels. Not getting a reply on LinkedIn despite connecting doesn’t mean he’s not interested, but can have many reasons :
He’s just not that active on LinkedIn
He’s receiving a lot of messages on LinkedIn and can hardly respond to all of them or manage them properly. We can’t blame him, LinkedIn’s conversation system is a mess
Indeed he’s not interested
He’s not the right person to talk with
The timing isn’t right….
Given all of the above, as a closing DM, several approaches may work :
Request for an intro: A classic closing would be to acknowledge that he might not be the right person to talk with and request an introduction to the right person.
This is great if you’re addressing bigger companies and are truly unsure about who to touch base with
In the example below, we’re reminding value (as a last attempt to arouse interest) while requesting the intro
How to best analyze performance?
Using LGM’s Dashboard :
Using LaGrowthMachine's dashboard, you can track all major KPIs :
Connection Rate
Email Enrichment Rate
Reply Rate
We recommend reading our guidelines about how to analyze and optimize your KPIs
Using your CRM :
If you’ve connected your CRM natively and followed our recommendations on how to set up lifecycle stages, you’ll have set up the following :
Contact automatically set as a prospect when started
Contact automatically set as a lead when they reply
Contact manually set as a sales qualified lead when the lead is engaged
Contact manually set as a customer when the lead has paid
Doing so, you’ll be able to go much further than just reply rate, but :
Positive reply rate
Qualified call booked
Closing rate
Revenue generated
It’s up to you now!
We’ve shared with you the basics. Obviously, you can do more :
Work on your copywriting and segmentation
Use LaGrowthMachine to re-engage past prospects, not just new ones
Use LaGrowthMachine to funnel leads into your webinars