The majority of business owners and marketers who utilize LinkedIn as a lead generation platform, are very clear when they say, InMail, to be successful, you have to use it. InMail is the fastest way to build relationships, attract new leads, and to generate qualified leads who will be interested in your business. The problem is, with InMail, you need to be consistent with your message and be able to write compelling, effective messages that are targeted to what your target audience is looking for. Most InMails are not focused on the consumers who are looking for your business.
If you have a business page on LinkedIn, you have likely seen the InMail feature in action. Using this tool, you can send an email to people in your network, underneath their existing profile information, including the new job title or company. This is a great way to reach out to people who are looking for a new job or career, or those who might be interested in your company. If you have never used InMail before, you might be wondering how effective it is.
LinkedIn is a powerful tool for growing your business, but it’s not perfect. Sure, you can sign up for an account and play at networking using the various tools — but the real benefit of LinkedIn are the recommendations you get from colleagues. These recommendations are what help provide you with new clients who are most likely to be interested in your services. However, some marketers would have you believe that LinkedIn InMail is the only way to go when it comes to lead generation.
Is LinkedIn InMail effective in generating leads?
The simple answer is that it is debatable.
LinkedIn has a reputation for strong sales involvement and expensive marketing costs. And many B2B companies already make extensive use of LinkedIn’s premium services. That’s why the most crucial issue isn’t whether LinkedIn InMail works, but if it will grow and fit within your budget.
But first, let’s define LinkedIn Mail, how it works, and how much it costs.
What Is LinkedIn InMail and How Does It Work?
LinkedIn InMail is a premium messaging service on LinkedIn that enables you to send messages to individuals with whom you are not linked. While you can’t send direct messages to individuals outside of your network, if you have a premium LinkedIn account, you can use InMail to do so.
You may send a customized message without initially submitting a connection request, which saves you time while looking for contact information. It may be used to reach out to particular decision-makers, job applicants, or industry experts in your area. An InMail’s subject line is limited to 200 characters, while the body may be up to 1,900 characters long.
Because your cold messages should be as brief as possible, the character limitations for either Messages or InMail should not be a problem.
InMail messages have a better open rate than cold email (after all, there’s no trash bin on LinkedIn). However, they are considerably more expensive than launching a successful cold email campaign.
Instead of instructing you to choose one or the other, I’ll provide you with the knowledge you need to make your own decision. We’ll go through a few of the choices accessible when it comes to utilizing LinkedIn for outreach:
What Is the Difference Between LinkedIn InMail and Message?
Despite the fact that they both utilize the same platform and have similar interfaces, there are some distinctions between LinkedIn InMail and Messages to be aware of. Messages are unrestricted and unrestricted.
Messages may only be sent to direct connections, not second or third degree relationships, on the one hand.
LinkedIn InMail, on the other hand, is a premium service that lets you send messages to individuals in your network who aren’t already linked to you. You receive a specific amount of InMail credits each month depending on your premium account plan.
Costs and Credits for LinkedIn InMail
For most people who want to utilize LinkedIn to expand their reach, InMail is a valuable resource. You receive between 5 and 150 InMail credits depending on your strategy to reach out to non-Connections.
For each kind of account, here’s how many InMail credits you can receive each month:
InMail is a fantastic method to get your most promising prospects’ inboxes, particularly if you’re on a roll with account-based marketing. It avoids the mountain of connection requests your lead is surely avoiding in favor of landing where your message is most likely to be seen. Open rates of over 85% and clickthrough rates of over 5% have been reported by some.
When you’re attempting to contact a small number of high-touch prospects, LinkedIn InMail shines brightly, but when you’re trying to optimize your impact by reaching many leads at once, it rapidly fades.
Only 5 InMail credits are available each month with a LinkedIn Premium account. These credits are increased to 20 if you have a Sales Navigator account. Before being limited, credits may be carried over for up to three months.
You may buy additional InMail credits at a price if you need more than these basic credits. Additional credits are $10 apiece if you spend at least $100. To put it another way, utilizing InMail for anything other than your best leads rapidly adds cost.
Simply comparing the monthly plan costs to the InMail credits, the Premium Business and Sales Navigator plans provide the greatest value for money at $4 per InMail credit, far under $10 for any overages or free accounts.
In one of our recent articles on InMail, we did the (rough) arithmetic and found that the best-case scenario for reaching 100 LinkedIn prospects is to accumulate 60 InMail credits over three months (as you pay for Sales Navigator) and add $10 for each extra InMail credit you’ll need (40). To achieve 100 leads, you’ll have to spend the equivalent of $600 over three months.
Advertisements with Messages
Message Ads (formerly known as sponsored InMail) are separate from InMail messages and are only available on the LinkedIn platform. They’re a sponsored version of InMail that’s a lot simpler to grow.
You may establish a target audience and send out sponsored messages by the hundreds instead of contacting individual prospects using LinkedIn InMail (or thousands).
Message Ads, on the other hand, have a few restrictions due to their size.
Message Ads do not allow your leads to react. Instead, you’ll need to include a clear call to action in your letter. There aren’t any fast answers here.
A tag is attached to Message Ads. Your leads will notice a sponsored tag in the subject line, no matter how natural your message seems to be.
Message Ads, on the other hand, offer certain advantages. They’re less costly than organic InMail, and they’re only sent when your prospects are on LinkedIn.
Message Ads, unlike other types of advertising, are paid based on the number of messages delivered rather than impressions or clicks. The cost-per-send varies depending on the audience you’re targeting, but it’s typically about $0.20 each send. Expect to pay at least $5 each click.
Message Ads have a high level of visibility. Although users have reported an open percentage closer to 50%, LinkedIn claims a 70% open rate on average.
Using LinkedIn to Send Email
There is a third alternative if you don’t want to spend thousands of dollars on Message Ads or hundreds of hours on manual LinkedIn InMail marketing. You may discover leads on LinkedIn and then contact them directly through email.
This method is both simple to scale and very inexpensive when compared to paid alternatives.
You have a number of choices when it comes to this strategy.
Juliana Crispo published an excellent tutorial on how to use LinkedIn to contact Fortune 500 companies late last year. Instead of beginning with InMail or email, she used LinkedIn to create customized advertisements (display ads are cheaper than both InMail and Message Ads). She sent the advertisements to a lead magnet, then utilized the addresses obtained for outreach and email follow-up.
Another alternative is to start with Sales Navigator for lead creation, then obtain lead emails using your preferred email finding service, and then connect with your CRM to begin direct outreach.
You’ll only pay for confirmed emails if you use this method. These serve as the basis for a cold email campaign that gets more opens and responses. You might even utilize our new sales email templates to increase the number of people who open and respond to your emails.
Decide what is best for you.
The best lead generation strategy for you will be determined by your requirements, budget, target audience, and personal preferences. So I won’t tell you that you must do this or that in order to be successful. Finally, you must determine which strategy is best for you and your company.
Here are some things to consider.
- InMail ($10/credit) and Message Ads ($0.20/send or $5/click) are LinkedIn’s two outreach alternatives.
- LinkedIn InMail has a high level of engagement, but scaling it may be challenging.
- Message Ads can grow, but they don’t provide much more value than a well-designed cold email campaign in terms of analytics.
- You may always use LinkedIn to locate leads and then contact them directly via email.
It’s now time to go out there and make some connections. Good luck with your sales!
LinkedIn has built a lot of its success on its “InMail” feature. This has been touted as a great way for companies to generate leads and convert them into sales. The theory is that sending an InMail will get the recipient to take action, and your message will pop up in their inbox, which they will then see and respond to. However, earlier this year LinkedIn changed the way to generate leads via InMail, and it now looks like the practice is not as effective as it used to be. So, does InMail still work as a lead generation strategy for you? If so, should you give it a try?. Read more about what is the difference between inmail and message on linkedin and let us know what you think.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How effective is LinkedIn InMail?
LinkedIn InMail is a way to send messages to people you dont know on LinkedIn. It is not an effective way of contacting someone, but it can be used as a way to get their attention and make them more likely to respond.
Is it OK to send InMail on LinkedIn?
Yes, it is OK to send InMail on LinkedIn.
How does InMail work on LinkedIn?
InMail is a feature on LinkedIn that allows users to send messages to people they are not connected with.
Related Tags
This article broadly covered the following related topics:
- linkedin inmail vs message
- linkedin inmail cost per send
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- linkedin inmail best practices
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