LinkedIn and Email... a LETHAL combination

1. Search & connect with targetted contacts Click image to enlarge Figure 1 2. Send personalised LinkedIn messages Click image to enlarge Figure 2 3. Drip email them articles & insights Click image to enlarge Figure 3 4. Score them based on engagement Click image to enlarge Figure 4

I spend my days analysing data from companies who combine LinkedIn with Email. I look at invitation acceptance rates, LinkedIn message responses, profile activity, email open rates, click through rates, etc. I put all this information into a graph that resembles a pot of cooking gnocchi – the hotter the contact engagement, the higher to the surface they rise. Top companies generate half their new business simply by combining LinkedIn and Email effectively.

LinkedIn is the number one tool for creating business contacts. Alas, it is terrible for building long term relationships. Awful in fact. When it comes to nurturing and building relationships, McKinsey research confirms that email beats all social media combined. However, if your contact doesn’t recognize you, they will delete your mail and flag you as spam. How do you get email addresses who are willing to talk to you? And how do you write your messages correctly? The answer lies in combining LinkedIn with email. Here’s how you do it:

1. Choose your target audience such as “Property Developers London” or “Online Retail Cape Town”
2. Search LinkedIn and connect with 10 – 50 targeted people per day (we can do this for you if you don’t have time).
3. If your profile has been set-up correctly, 20-50% will accept your invitation. As soon as they accept:
1. send them a personal LinkedIn message coming from you; and
2. transfer them into your email system in real time
4. Send your new contact a series of personal emails to build your credibility. Be original and come up with interesting, useful content. Ideally let us interview you and write an article on your behalf. (see sample articles below) This positions you as a credible industry expert.
5. Each week your email database receives a section of that article, drip feeding them with pertinent insights (see Figure 3).
6. Score your contacts based on engagement (see Figure 4): Did they open an email? Did they click to the view the full article, or to read a case study or to watch a video? Did they view your LinkedIn profile? Did they like or comment on an article? They more they interact, the higher their score will be.
7. When they reach a certain score, they are then considered qualified leads. Place them into your CRM or sales cycle for calling and closure.

Our recent projects yielded 100-300 confirmed targeted connections added to your database per month.

Contact: patrick@majestic3.com