As you consider your 2023 LinkedIn outreach strategy, resonant copy should be top of mind.
The spray-and-pray approach has long been dead. But with the shift to remote working increasing the amount of platform spam, companies looking to generate leads on LinkedIn need to focus on the quality, value and persuasiveness of their messaging for results.
You likely know the basics of creating high-converting copy. It should be as short and direct as possible, easy to read and speak accurately to an individual or persona. Beyond this, what’s the difference between copy that evokes a response and copy that’s ignored?
This 5-step checklist will guide you through creating high-converting copy to generate leads on LinkedIn.
1) Give your prospects value
The key to Linkedin lead generation is realising prospects don’t care if your solution has the best features. They care about how and why those features will help them.
Struggling to see the difference? Consider how you’d respond to “our car has the best airbags” vs. “our car decreases your risk of injury and death by 30% more than any other on the market”.
Your LinkedIn outreach strategy should always centre your prospect’s point of view. Always aim to centre their pain, desires and experience: think like a potential consumer rather than a salesperson if you want to generate sales.
A good rule of thumb? Check a greater percentage of your copy speaks to your prospect than about your product. You can also add value by drip-feeding useful content, tips and solutions to your prospects (i.e., through social selling).
2) Know your target audience
Before you can add value you need to understand your target market. Does your 2023 lead generation plan include an ICP? What are their frustrations and pain points? How does your solution solve these problems or advance their desires? And why is that better than the alternative?
High-converting copy requires personalisation, and personalisation requires customer insights. If your company lacks insight into their target market or persona, see if you can interview a handful of your existing clients as product market research. You can glean a lot from existing data sources like prior outreach or CRM records for past deals that will transform your LinkedIn outreach strategy.
Cold outreach interrupts a prospect’s day: by its very nature, it’s fighting against a prospect’s inherent inertia towards change. Meaningfully speak to a prospect’s pain and you’ve got a hook. This hook can propel your prospect past initial uncertainty and generate sales and allow you to actually generate leads on LinkedIn.
3) Appeal to both pain and desire
High-converting copy strikes a balance between push and pull. Your 2023 lead generation strategy should show your prospect you understand their current challenges but also dangle the possibility of innovations they could focus on instead if they adopted your solution.
Need an example? If we take our car salesperson, they’d want to lead by drawing attention to a current problem (e.g., insufficient trunk space for a growing family) and then highlight how a new car could further improve things that the customer might aspire to (e.g., seat warmers that would ease the discomfort of driving in a cold climate or waiting for hours to pick up said growing family from a long football game).
The trick here is to find the right market for your unique offering. Look for prospects whose problems your solution is uniquely poised to solve to hone your ICP and improve your LinkedIn outreach strategy.
4) Use powerful language and syntax, but back it up with facts and social proof
Great copy makes prospects feel the urgency of their need. Viscerally. It propels prospects to act immediately to correct their problem as a result of your LinkedIn marketing.
Impactful, emotive language ensures that prospects don’t take action someday — they take action now.
To improve the effectiveness of your copy, use powerful verbs. Keep sentences short, sharp and clear and show empathy by correctly identifying frustration and stress.
At the same time, you want your company to appear legitimate, your product to actually meet an uncovered need, and your prospect to actually show up for a booked meeting (and ultimately convert). So your copy must include proof that convinces your now-attentive prospect.
Have you achieved impressive results for a similar company, or do you know the average ROI for your offering? Any relevant facts or social proof you can bring in here builds trust in you and your business and will help you generate leads on LinkedIn. It’s also a strategy you can use in your wider LinkedIn marketing efforts.
5) End with a killer CTA
Your CTA will make or break your outreach. You want a prospect to take action immediately upon reading your message to generate sales.
A CTA shouldn’t introduce any extra friction for the prospect. It should be clear exactly what they should do as a next step, and it shouldn’t feel like a big investment on their part.
Ideally, your LinkedIn outreach strategy leads them to book a call with you ASAP. However, you need to weigh up your choice of CTA against the trust a prospect has in you and your offering. If they’re a busy executive, they won’t want to waste 15 precious minutes meeting with someone they know nothing about, who only has a cursory knowledge of their needs.
This is where you can use social selling and LinkedIn marketing to warm up your connection. If you’re communicating via direct message, engage your prospect by asking about their circumstances or pain points first. This type of CTA shows you respect your prospect’s time and are looking for a genuine fit between your offering and this person’s needs. Tools like Salesflow’s AI inbox can filter conversations based on positive replies and allow you to prioritise conversations with receptive leads.
If your CTA is to book a meeting, make the process as easy as possible for the best 2023 lead generation results. Consider a meeting booking tool to reduce friction and keep slots to 15 minutes max. Respect your prospect and their time, and they’re more likely to respond.
In either case, follow up several times if you don’t get a response. People are busy, and LinkedIn lead generation often requires multiple touchpoints.
The next step
Check off the five steps above each time you create copy to improve your 2023 lead generation and generate sales.
Want to create high-converting copy at scale and smash your LinkedIn lead generation? Salesflow’s LinkedIn automation toolbox now includes an AI copywriting feature you can use to craft powerful messaging every time.