We need to help with crafting a Linkedin message sequence and outreach campaign

You know when you get that moment and you read something and it's so far behind in the past, that you don't actually believe somebody is saying it.

It's like seeing vintage film footage of the 1960s were you hear hippies speaking and you wonder "did people really talk like that?"

In the past we didn't have electric ignition on cars

When cars were first invented to start them, you had to hand crank the engine. A person would walk to the front of the car with a handle, fix it to the engine and turn the crank. A bit like motorbikes when you had to kick start them.

Of course, nobody does this anymore we have electronic ignition and nobody gives starting a car a second thought. The same with motorbikes, they have a button to press.

In the past we had all kinds of gadgets

There are other products in history where they are items that were once mainstream are now placed on a historical heap. Fax machines, Blackberries, Sony Walkmans, Ipods all of these were once must have items, now they are no longer mainstream.

(Whenever I mention these types of products, there is always somebody who says they use a fax, or a Blackberry as if somehow I am wrong.)

Anyway I got this piece of inbound today.

"Hi Timothy (Tim), we are looking for a marketing firm to help us with lead generation on LinkedIn. Specifically, we need to help with crafting a message sequence and setting up an outreach campaign. Is this something you might be interested in?"

Let's unpack that ..

1. The first thing is, because they have called me Timothy (Tim) this means they have used automation, which illegal under LinkedIn terms and conditions, clause 8.2 to precise. Anybody who uses automation, must be a spammer, I'm not sure what else they can be, but it's the rest of the message that interests me.

2. The person is looking for a message sequence for outreach.

I can imagine that you as the reader of this, are like me, we are all pissed off with people reaching out to us on Linkedin and pitching to us. What people fail to understand is that social; is social.

With cold calling, advertising and email, you interrupt a person and broadcast your message, often called pitching. That's fine, but cold calling, email and advertising is not social, so you cannot take these techniques and bring them to social and expect them to work.

This has limited use on social, because it's ....... social.

What on earth am I talking about?

Let's think about another social setting, a networking event.

What do you do? You arrive at the networking event, grab a drink and go up to somebody and have a conversation.

Conversations go like "have you travelled far?", "that's near where mum lives", "did you see the game last night?"

You note it does not mean you walk up to somebody and say "Hi, I'm Tim for Dropit and See glass company, are you looking for any windows?"

Why not ..... because it's social and you don't do that.

Why don't you do that?

1. People will just walk away

2. People will call security

3. It's rude

4. You won't be asked back

We've all been corned by that "pension salesperson" at a party and we all know the trick, drink your drink quick and say "I need to get a refill" and make a run for it.

It's the same in other social environments, like social media.

What's a crafting a message sequence?

This is where a business will send you a string of pre-built messages. Why? Because in the old days, there was this view that you needed to "touch" a prospect six times or is it ten times now? The idea being that this warms you up to the point you go "I must buy this product".

This just doesn't happen in the world today, the fact that somehow there is a business out there that thinks this works is scary. Well it's scary for the directors and the people that work there.

This is 1990s selling in a 2022 digital world.

In fact, it's so sad it's funny.

It's like somebody company to me and asking to quote on a fax machine.

So who's social selling?

In case you missed it, the Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch have banned cold calling and have moved all their people to social selling. This isn't some trendy tech company that might have decided to do this on a whim, this is a very conservative financial services company that has made a decision based on data.

But surely cold calling has a better ROI than social selling? Not according to Merrill Lynch.

"They will also be encouraged to contact prospects over LinkedIn, which has a higher hit rate than cold calling"

The CRO (chief revenue officer), Richard Eltham of Namos Solutions, of one of clients posted a comment on LinkedIn about social selling. See here.

“Social selling is not an option now it is the way of the world and you either learn and execute it or fear getting left behind”

Kevin Murray who is the Head of Sales at MacArtney Underwater Technology recently posted about his success with social selling here and wrote an article about the transformation that has happened in sales here.

I don't believe you Tim!

If you check out this video of Chris Mason CEO at Oracle reseller Namos, fast forward to 19 minutes 55 seconds. Chris talks about a $2.6 million win from being on social, after completing the DLA Ignite social selling and influence course.

Here at DLA Ignite we don't do "hints and tips sessions" we don't want you to waste your money. Our social selling and influence methodology will provide your sales team with the stable platform for growth. It is also the only social selling program based on 70:20:10 change management principles which gives your business the mindset change and habit change they need in this digital world.

Other articles you might be interested in ....

Would you buy social selling training course from somebody that doesn't use social selling?

How to create budget and build a business case for your social selling project