How To Present An Offer On LinkedIn - And Not Get Accused Of Spam

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Let’s dive in….

Timing and presentation.

Repeat those two words over and over again if you want to create more leads on LinkedIn: timing and presentation.

Get either of them wrong and it’s likely you’ll get called out for spam – or at least being a real nuisance and shedding followers like wildfire…

Get them right and all your efforts in optimising your profile, building your network, growing your following, and taking consistent action on LinkedIn will start to bear fruit with sales.

The bottom line is this: do you want to be seen as a purveyor of this:

Or this?

Timing and earning the right to sell

That probably takes at least 30 to 90 days of connecting with someone. There are other factors including how active you are on LinkedIn, but never rushing is key. Earn it by giving value through relevant content and thought leadership on your specific niche.

Next I share a few presentation secrets so that when you share your offer, it receives more of the types of responses you’re looking for.

Think more gourmet cheese and wine - and less of the cheap tinned ham!

How NOT to do it

We’ve all waded through sales pages that contain as much information as a short book, are very repetitive, and are extremely insistent that you buy something by clicking the numerous call to action buttons scattered throughout the text:

Let’s be clear here. There is a time and place for landing pages like this – and LinkedIn is not it.

The last thing you want the recipient of your message to think is: “Groan – NOW what’s he trying to sell me?”.

This can undo all the good work you’ve done till now – so beware. It’s never the time to start selling like that on LinkedIn.

People on social networks engage quickly, respond quickly, and need to see quickly how a subject relates to them – or they simply move on.

So if your message causes eyes to glaze over or appears to be an intrusion, you’re on the brink of losing your prospect.

You’ll never please all of the people all of the time but you can increase the odds. And that’s what to remember here: it’s a numbers game we’re playing.

Presentation: The art of short-form messages

So you’ve wowed your following with great content over a period of weeks and months and engaged with them consistently, liking and commenting, contributing to discussions, highlighting articles and videos, and so on.

It’s time to introduce an offer into the mix. But how do you shape this offer for the most widespread appeal?

You know your target audience better than me. I can’t tell you what they need – but I can show you how to present the offer.

And that’s in short form. Because people consume content differently when on social media, we need to respect that and use it to our advantage.

Put simply, we must condense an offer into something that is palatable and likely to produce a good proportion of YES responses.

We’ve tested a wide array of messages out with our audience and we find the following format works best:

●       2-4 sentences long

●       50-100 words

●       No scrolling required

●       Highly personalised

●       Conversational/informal in tone

We believe that messages like this work especially well because they do not seem like general, broadcast messages and do not take time to read; the recipient feels like it is directed at them personally and it’s quick and easy to digest.

Here’s an example of a format that we often use.

**************************************************************************

Hi Peter,

I hope this finds you well.

As a LinkedIn profile builder, I checked your profile and noticed that your profile is optimised around the keywords of <Word 1>, <Word 2> and <Word 3>. Is that what you want to be found for?

For the next month, I’m going to be offering a free 7-point Profile Tune-Up to my 1st tier connections only.

If you’d be interested to know more about this or perhaps take me up on the offer, please let me know and I’d be happy to assist.

Kind Regards

Andrew

**************************************************************************

The beauty of this approach is that people don’t even interpret it as a sales message, so you avoid the clamming up process that some people go through when being sold to.

By the time they read it, the sales message has already been delivered – without even appearing as such.

Of course, you’ll need to tailor this message to suit your business. The offer might be anything along the lines of:

●    Receiving some further information

●    Allowing you to run a ‘health check’ on their business

●    Taking part in a survey

The idea is to present value and make it easy to accept or decline.

Remember: it’s all part of the sales funnel

The above message is non-threatening and has a relatively low ‘barrier of entry’. You are not asking them to invest their life savings or anything.. You make it easy for them to say YES.

Keep in mind that all we’re doing here is moving the prospect a step along in the sales funnel. Too many business owners try to squeeze leads through to the end of the funnel too quickly.

Although we know we are selling, the idea here is not to close the deal and get the cash registers ringing. That comes later. Right now, your prospects are probably not ready to buy – and if they are, they’ll tell you.

So many people on LinkedIn are tired of receiving sales pitches. Take the time to get to know your followers and then deliver something of value to them via a short-form message and you will stand out from the crowd. 

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