How we're getting over 50% response rate with LinkedIn cold outreach: Idea validation

For the last few days, we've been doing customer validation through Linkedin cold outreach with over 50% response rates. While we can't disclose much about the service at this stage, thought it would be useful to share the scripts with fellow IHers.

Initially, I felt these scripts might be a bit too long and could turn off the receiver, but the results mostly suggest otherwise (these are top-level management folks; usually hard to get hold of.) Also, we're not automating this and only around 50 folks have been contacted till the time of writing, but it's good enough considering this is a relatively niche and limited audience.

Subject: <First Name>, <topic> is a huge problem

<First Name>, we just launched an exclusive service for X which does Y. No more passively waiting for recruiters to come up with job offers.

This is spearheaded by <individual team credentials>. Over a 30-minute free one-on-one session, we'd love to provide you with some ideas you’re free to steal.

Even if you're aren't actively job searching, it'd also be great to have your opinion on how we can improve the service so it could be beneficial to the larger X community. Would you like to know more?

Subject: Who cold messages on a damn Sunday 🤔

<First Name>, unfortunately, that's us. But please pardon since this is from the sheer excitement of launching a free one-on-one session next week for X's like you 😃

This has sessions by <individual team credentials>. We'd love to provide you with some ideas you’re free to steal👍

It'd also be great to have your opinion on how we can improve the service so it could be beneficial to the larger X community. Would you like to see a link? I await your grumpy response😃

Presuming these are things that worked:

1. A subject line they could clearly relate to/ catches their attention

2. Clearly mentioning the service/offer at the beginning of the message.

3. Including a larger-than-oneself angle (community ). But we are genuinely passionate about this and mean it :0

4. Also not dropping a link in the initial message is helping to find folks who're genuinely interested to chat with us.

5. I don't usually use emojis in cold outreach, but felt like it made the lump of text more engaging.

Of course, the message can be tweaked and improved further but happy to stick to 'good enough' results for now. For example, messaging like "X that does Y." could be changed to" X that solves Y problem".

Ideally, I'd also prefer to include a line personalized to the receiver in the future.

Hope this helps!