LinkedIn has lots of unique features, making it great for businesses looking to connect with others on the platform. One of these great tools is LinkedIn InMail, which we explain below.
LinkedIn advertising offers some fantastic opportunities for businesses who want to reach and interact with their audience and potential customers or clients. A business is not only about sales and profit, but also building relationships and creating connections in your industry, which LinkedIn is perfect for.
What is LinkedIn InMail?
LinkedIn InMail is one of the most useful features for businesses. InMail allows you to message other users on LinkedIn, without needing a prior connection. LinkedIn describes InMail as “private messages that allow you to contact anyone on LinkedIn without an introduction.” You can send an InMail from either a user’s profile or through LinkedIn Recruiter.
This is different than sending a regular message, as there’s no requirement to be connected with the person beforehand.
How Do I Get LinkedIn InMail?
InMail is a great tool to help businesses reach people through LinkedIn’s platform. However, it’s only available to companies and users who pay for it through LinkedIn Premium or LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
Linked Premium is a service provided by the social media site that opens lots of doors for users. It has a range of new and improved features to help achieve your goals. One of the top features is the ability to message anyone on LinkedIn. The tool is included in both the Premium Career and Business packages.
As HubSpot states, ‘InMail is a service available to LinkedIn users with a Premium account. InMail allows you to send messages directly to other LinkedIn members, even if you’re not connected.‘ It’s definitely one of the most valuable tools that LinkedIn has.
On the other hand, you can access InMail through LinkedIn Sales Navigator too, which is another handy service provided by the social media platform. LinkedIn Sales Navigator lets you do anything in the sales process, from prospecting to closing the deal altogether.
It’s packed with lots of different tools and features that ‘aid sales teams, organizations, and individuals to build and nurture customer relationships on the network.’ This, in turn, enables them to enhance their performance regarding sales, leading to boosted profits and more leads.
What are the benefits of LinkedIn InMail?
Firstly, you can connect with possible partners through LinkedIn. You can also look for potential LinkedIn influencers to help promote your business through their social channels. Finally, you can look for possible employees that you want to hire too. For Premium Business users, LinkedIn explains that, ‘InMail is 2.6x more effective than email or cold calls. Connect with a larger network so you can start conversations that matter to your business, sooner.’
It’s an asset to any business that wants to generate leads, and is an easy way to potentially sell products and services.
What’s the best practice for LinkedIn InMail?
The first thing you should do before you start sending messages is ensure the details on your profile are accurate.
With InMail, think of it as your first introduction to a stranger. You’ve got one chance to make a good impression. Every word should be written to make sure you don’t sound robotic. Aim to sound enthusiastic, and don’t go straight in with a sales pitch. Ask how their weekend was, or how their day is going. Include a personal detail about yourself too.
LinkedIn states that, ‘messages can have 200 characters in the subject line and 1900 characters in the body.‘
How Do I Send LinkedIn InMails?
You should also make every message count as some subscriptions may limit the amount of InMails you can send out a month. Linked continue, ‘You’re allotted a specific number of InMail credits based on your subscription type. You can find the number of InMail credits you have from your Premium subscription page.’ LinkedIn provides a comparison chart on the website, listing how many InMails are in each package. For example, Premium Business has 15 monthly messages, Sales Navigator Professional has a total of 20, Sales Navigator Team has 30, and Sales Navigator Enterprise has 50 – the bigger the business and team, the more InMails you have to work with.
After you’ve upgraded your LinkedIn profile and are happy with your package, it’s time to get sending!
Hubspot list the basic steps of sending an InMail: firstly, ‘find the LinkedIn user you want to contact and go to their profile; click the “Message” button underneath their headshot/profile photo and headline, write your InMail message (or copy and paste what you’ve already planned to say) and finally, customise the InMail message before you send.
Customisation could simply be changing the name to theirs in your template, or including a personal detail from their profile in the message. For example, if you can see they are a content writer, ask them a personalised question, greeting them with their name – ‘Hey Olivia, how’s the content writing going?’ Then you can proceed with your sales pitch.
We can help!
As social media specialists, we help businesses all around the world reach their digital marketing objectives. If your business needs help with LinkedIn advertising and InMails, please get in touch today.
Editor’s Note: Article published on April 22 2020 and updated on September 15 2022.
