If you want more B2B sales then you need to GO ALL IN AND LEAVE NOTHING ON THE TABLE!!!
I know this is going to sound a bit passive aggressive at the start (or maybe just aggressive). Every other person on Linedin seems to be a lead generation expert at the minute and whilst their Linkedin presence is solid and certainly better than mine, with consistent content and firing Canva and Chat GPT on all cylinders; they all seem to be specialist at only one thing. Either Linkedin cold messages, cold emails, etc. I started in business 20 years ago and I get it as much as anyone; we have awesome tools and softwares now that we didn't have before but you can't just be a master of one tool and expect to get the best conversion rate. It takes more than just a chisel to be a carpenter.
If you have a list of 1000 prospects, the aim is to get a yes or a no from everyone of them, assuming the contact information is correct. Not just run an automation on Linkedin or Email and once your sequence has ended, count what's in your keep net and call that your conversion rate.
Step 1:
Make sure your list is actually comprised on prospects who could and would use your product/service given the right circumstances. I personally get messages from marketers and lead gen folk regularly. Clearly automations and I guess they've just loosely scrapped Linkedin for "Director" without really seeing my profile. It's not hard to add NOT "Marketing" in the search. Though personally I'd suggest manually checking every profile on your list before signing it off. It doesn't take that long but it makes a big difference.
Step 2:
Don't just send inmail. Try to connect first. That will give them a chance to take a look at your profile, see what you do, and who knows, maybe they'll want to talk to you before you even get a chance to message them. Remember, you're not trying to trick anyone into buying anything. Either they'll be interested now, might be interested later or just want's you to go away. That's fine, you're doing nothing wrong by reaching out to people with a product or service that could help them; and they're doing nothing wrong by politely telling you to do one. Remember when I said about getting a yes or a no? We'll that's a no. That's good. Tick them off and keep moving.
Step 3
Move to emails. Whoever hasn't accepted your connection request or hasn't replied to your messages (None of which start with "I hope this messages finds you well" by the way) will get an email with some valuable information about the fantastic service that you offer so that they can take a look in their own time and learn more about what you do and how it can help them. Remember, your first job is simply to let them know what you do. either they want it, they may want it later or they don't want it. Either is fine.
Step 4
Now anyone who has read your messages on Linkedin, not replied, then received emails from you has had plenty of opportunity to say "Thank you for the information but I think we'll pass. Have a wonderful day". If they haven't said that, that means that either they didn't see your email or they are still a bit on the fence. So give them a call. Once you have them on the phone, it's the perfect opportunity for them to say "No thank you" if that's where they are with it. But for those few who really were on the fence, they now know who you are, what you do, how it can benefit them and what's more, for 90% of the calls you make, they won't be cold calls because they know who you are and what you do.
That's not the end...
Step 5
Now, for anyone, who over this entire process, you haven't managed to get a hold of and for anyone who hasn't confirmed that they are or aren't interested, send them something tangible in the post. A gift, something useful, branded and that will stay in the office, along with an A4 brochure covering the service you are trying to pitch and services you think would also be useful to them. Like the PDF from step 4 but more detailed and glossy. Then keep on reaching out until you get an answer.
The key take home here is that the goal is to speak to the prospect. Not to run a campaign. The automations and other tools we have available today are supposed to allow you to optimise your performance, not just increase quantity and the expense of quality. The old way or going though the yellow pages (That's right baby. That's how long I've been doing this) was slow but direct and whilst reaching out to 1000 prospects took a hell of a lot longer than today, the conversion rate was a hell of a lot higher. Imagine that work ethic combined with todays tools!
The steps above are a short and general overview of how your lead gen strategies should look and there's an awful lot of detail missing from how we do this for you at EMS, like landing pages, how messages are structured, how we source prospects for you and how we work with you on how to close deals but you should get the picture. If you're going to go out hunting, bring back the animal. Don't just fire off a couple of shots and say that it got away.