LinkedIn Outreach Not Working? Here’s How to Fix It.

If you're running LinkedIn outreach and not getting the response rate you want, something's off.

I say this as someone whose team regularly hits a 40% to 50% reply rate on LinkedIn. 

So, if your numbers aren’t looking like that, let's get into what might be going wrong, and more importantly, how you can fix it.

I’m going to keep things simple for those of you who just want the list of tips, and we’ll break down each one in more detail for anyone who keeps reading.

How to Get Higher Reply Rates on LinkedIn?

Here’s a quick list of what we’ll be covering in this article:

• Engage a More Relevant Audience
• Skip the Connection Request Notes
• Start Conversations, Don’t Pitch
• Offer Real Value
• Focus on Warm Leads

Now, let’s get into the details.

1) Engage a More Relevant Audience

Most people running LinkedIn outreach don’t realize that the audience you’re targeting has the biggest impact on your reply rates. It’s easy to scrape a big list of leads based on broad criteria and assume they all fit your target. But that’s where things go wrong.

If you want better results, you need to manually review your contacts before reaching out. Quality over quantity matters here, especially since LinkedIn limits you to 20 connection requests a day. Each connection needs to count. Narrow down your audience and only engage those who are the best fit for your offer. This simple change will make a huge difference.

2) Don’t Use Connection Request Notes

Next on the list, ditch the connection request notes.

A lot of salespeople swear by personalized connection notes, but from our testing, we’ve found that not using connection notes leads to nearly double the connections accepted. 

It may sound counterintuitive, but blank connection requests give you more opportunities to start conversations. That’s key if you want to increase your chances of booking a meeting later.

Skip the connection note, send a blank request, and see how much easier it becomes to start engaging with potential leads.

3) Don’t Pitch, Start Conversations

One of the most common mistakes in LinkedIn outreach is connecting with someone and immediately dropping a long pitch with a calendar link attached. It feels spammy, and while it might work occasionally, it’s really not the best way to get consistent results.

Instead, focus on starting a conversation. This doesn’t have to be overly personal, but it should be relevant. For example, if someone recently became the VP of Sales at their company, you could simply ask, “How’s the new role treating you?” or “What are the biggest challenges you’re facing right now?”

The point is to ask questions and listen to their responses. Once they open up, you can then guide the conversation towards a potential solution, your product or service. And if it makes sense, you can smoothly transition to offering more value, which brings us to the next tip.

4) Offer Value

In a world full of cold outreach, you need to stand out. The best way to do this? Offer something of value.

Now, offering value doesn’t literally mean giving them a gift. Sometimes, it can be as simple as sharing insights or offering helpful tips related to their business. 

For example, we might say, “We’re getting a 48% reply rate on LinkedIn, would you be interested in learning how we do it?” This approach feels helpful and positions you as someone offering knowledge, not just looking to close a deal.

Remember, value first outreach is what sets you apart from all the other messages flooding their inbox.

If you want to learn more about value and why it works better than personalization, we covered it in depth here. 

5) Engage Warm Leads

If cold outreach isn’t cutting it, it’s time to shift gears and focus on warm leads. Warm leads are people who’ve already engaged with your brand in some way, maybe they signed up for your newsletter, visited your website, or interacted with your content.

Warm leads are much more likely to respond because they’re already familiar with you. So, if you’re not seeing success with cold outreach, make sure you’re also nurturing those who have shown interest in the past. 

Keep an eye on who’s engaging with your content, and reach out to them directly on LinkedIn. You’ll be surprised how much better these conversations go.

Wrapping Up

LinkedIn outreach doesn’t have to be difficult or frustrating. It’s all about avoiding the mistakes that most people are making and focusing on strategies that actually work.

Follow the steps we’ve laid out here, target a more relevant audience, stop using connection notes, start real conversations, offer value, and engage warm leads, and you’ll start seeing a major boost in your reply rates.

And hey, if you need help setting up LinkedIn automation or building out a system like the one we use, feel free to book a time with our team. We’re happy to share our process and get you on the path to better results.