Want to master your direct messages? Learning LinkedIn DM best practices is crucial for anyone trying to connect with prospects.
Your prospects aren’t responding to DMs because you’re panicking. That’s the root cause of most poor DM etiquette. Not sure what DM etiquette is? Check out this newsletter from the Growth Titans LinkedIn page. It explains the common mistakes people make when sending out LinkedIn DMs and how to sharpen your digital manners.
Unless your spamming prospects inboxes with multiple messages a day (and if you are, surely you don’t need us to tell you what you’re doing wrong), you might not feel like you’re panicking. But, this panic can show up in a few different ways.
Messaging before connecting
Of course, you can’t message someone before you’ve connected with them on LinkedIn. This isn’t what I mean. I mean that you’re trying to have a conversation with them about your offer before you’ve actually gotten to know them. You build any successful relationship on trust and familiarity, sales relationships are no exception.
Sending a connection request does not build familiarity. There needs to be more touchpoints for you to become a welcome face. But you’re panicking. You’re worried that if you don’t pitch them immediately after they’ve accepted your connection request, you’ll miss your chance.
Sending a pitch as the first message after connecting (or worse, as the connection message!) is actually ruining any chance you could have had. This is a critical point when it comes to LinkedIn DM best practices, you need to build rapport before you try to sell.
Your prospects don’t want to be sold to but they do want a solution that will alleviate their pain. Your job is to guide them to that solution and decision to buy. You’ll only be able to do this by getting to know them first.
Avoiding Spam: A Key LinkedIn DM Best Practice
There’s nothing wrong with double messaging your prospects. In fact, it’s actually a great strategy to increase curiosity! Understanding this distinction is one of the most important LinkedIn DM best practices to master. But that looks like this:
“Hi, saw your post this morning…”
“How does Thursday work for you?”
It doesn’t look like:
“Hi, my name is [X] from [X] and I help people…”
“Can we schedule a call?”
“Did you see my previous messages?”
“When would be the best time for a call?”
“Let me tell you again how I can help…”
The silence is causing you to panic. You’re wondering if your message got lost in your prospect’s inbox so you keep messaging to stay top of the pile. Sure, your prospects are noticing you…but every time they do, they’re getting more annoyed.
Don’t Criticise: Another Key LinkedIn DM Best Practice
There is a fine line between demonstrating you understand someone’s pain and insulting them. Saying to someone, “I noticed you liked a post that shared some steps for overcoming burnout” reads very differently to “From your LinkedIn activity, it seems like you’re struggling to cope in your current role.” The difference being whether that prospect responds to you or not.
You’re panicking about wasting time and trying to cut right to their pain. I get it. Seems like an efficient strategy but all you’re actually doing is pushing your prospects further away. A core LinkedIn DM best practice is to help people identify where they are currently going wrong, rather than directly telling them.
Helping people identify where they are currently going wrong gets a better response than directly telling people what they are doing wrong. Why? People don’t like to admit they are wrong, as simple as that.
This doesn’t mean you can’t be direct in your approach but it will never work as a first message. You need to build that familiarity, that rapport that puts you in a position to make these kinds of bold claims. And then, even when you do, it always needs to be framed as helpful to your prospects rather than calling them out.
Increase your DM response rates and win more clients on LinkedIn
Stop messaging your prospects in a panic and join us for one of our future WYNCOL events. WYNCOL (Win Your Next Client on LinkedIn) takes you through your whole LinkedIn journey from building your brand to influencing decision makers and closing sales. Including the best outreach approach to increase your DM response rates. Find your nearest event here.