Sometimes you may want to read a message you receive, but not immediately respond to it. To do this, you may want to enable a feature that will help you remove the visibility of the read status from the sender. Although by default users see when their message has been read, you can change this feature in the settings. Also, the recipient won’t see an indicator when you’re typing a reply, which can be a good privacy setting for you.
Also, if you want to quickly set up the sending of bulk messages and use deep personalization, you can automate your messages through Linked Helper. This is a free tool that will help you write to thousands of target leads as if you are typing each message manually. Moreover, if you want to disable read reports for inbound messages, this can be done in your LinkedIn profile settings. But according to a post from LinkedIn support, this feature is being introduced gradually and therefore may not be available to some users. However, below you will find the steps to set it up.
You will also learn how using Linked Helper you can view all received messages (that came in response to your bulk messages) at once in one place. This can be more convenient if you want to contact a thousand people and not lose the replies in the dialog box.
How do read receipts work on LinkedIn?
A quick guide to managing read reports and message set status:
- Open your account on the main page
- In the upper right corner you will see a menu with settings in the Me tab. Click on this line and select the Settings & Privacy menu item.
- You have now opened the Settings menu. On the left side of the menu, select the Communications → “Read receipts and typing indicators” section.
- Click on the line and you will see a page with a toggle button. Set it to off if you don’t want other users to know that you have read their message or are typing text.
If the person to whom you write a message has also this setting off, then you will not be able to know whether your message was read by them or not.
Are there any types of messages for which the invisible read setting will not work? Indeed, in LinkedIn there are not only personal messages to contacts, but also requests for correspondence, messages from common members of the same group, paid messages as part of an advertising campaign, or InMails (messages to everyone who is not included in the list of your connections). Read the Enormous guide to LinkedIn InMail messages and credits.
In these cases listed above, the setting will not work. But in all other cases, this privacy setting will work.
If the recipient has this privacy setting enabled, then you will not be able to find out whether he read the message or not. Therefore, if you are sending messages to important leads, it is important to pause between sending the first message and following up. The digital etiquette that you should follow when building a business correspondence on this social network is that you should pause for at least 7 days.
In order to remember to contact leads after they read the first message (even if they didn’t reply to it), we advise you to use automatic follow-ups in Linked Helper. You can set up a custom pause before the person receives a second message after you don’t get a reply to the first one.
Read our article about setting up a drip campaign in Linked Helper – a simple and effective method to increase sales, search for employees, and expand your network without monotonous work.
Why might it be impossible to send a message to a lead?
- If a user has blocked you on LinkedIn, they will no longer see messages from you. Such an action can have a very negative impact on your trust. Therefore, when sending messages, in no case use aggressive selling techniques that might work in cold emails.
- If you sent an InMail but didn’t receive a response. In this case, LinkedIn also cares about the comfort of its users and does not support persistent outreach to those who did not respond to your message. Thus, if you send InMail to those who are not in your contact list, the text of the message should be as relevant as possible to the lead in order to receive an answer and be able to continue the correspondence.
Automation for keeping your default privacy settings
If you use automation, then your privacy settings will be saved and used when sending messages. That is, despite the fact that the robot will type and deliver messages from your account, the settings for the message viewing status will still be active.
Setting up automatic messages via Linked Helper:
- You can try the trial version for free for 14 days and also connect a paid LinkedIn solution (Recruiter or Navigator) at no cost. This is possible due to the fact that you can test the paid version of LinkedIn for a month and connect a payment card on which there are no funds for payment.
- You can set up narrow targeting for bulk emails. Linked Helper suggests that you transfer leads from LinkedIn search pages, using narrow filters, to a drip campaign. If you activate one of the paid plans, then you will have more filtering options. You can create a custom list in Sales Navigator to transfer leads from it to the campaign. Explore more in the blog post How Linked Helper 2 automates basic LinkedIn and Sales Navigator: The comparison.
- Personalize every message. According to the latest trends in LinkedIn lead generation 2022, you should highlight the connection between you and the lead in the text of the message. It could be a school, event, place of work, or some other clue that makes the lead realize that you’re not just using generic bulk messages. In Linked Helper, it is possible to import custom variables for this (for example, the name of the event where you met) and set up logical operators to determine which variables to use in the text.
- Conveniently manage correspondence in the CRM. This means that by sending bulk messages through the software you can open all the responses in one section. As a result, you can see all the reply texts displayed without opening each message (as you would have to do working manually through LinkedIn). In addition, when you receive a response from a person as part of an auto-campaign, they will be stored in the memory of the CRM. This is an important plus because if you use a paid package, then when your subscription expires, LinkedIn will not allow you to view past messages sent through it. This can be very inconvenient because the messaging history may contain important business data that you cannot afford to lose. Therefore, by communicating through Linked Helper, you can be sure that the history will remain in your memory even after the trial version or paid subscription expires. You can also download an Excel file that includes the history of communication with leads. This feature may be relevant if you want to further process the lead database in Excel.
Wrapping up: tips to get more responses
When you’re doing lead generation on LinkedIn, you need to make sure you’ve done everything you can to get your message read and responded to. The best way to identify a formula for a pitch is to build hypotheses and test different approaches (which is easy to do by setting up a parallel campaign in Linked Helper for A/B tests and comparing the results).
Do a research on the target audience before the campaign
Sometimes, in order to make a successful pitch, you need to read the descriptions on the pages of the leads and study their experience. Sometimes you will notice how leads in the same group can indicate a particular pain point directly in the text of the summary. Therefore, having studied the pages, you can work out the texts more thoroughly. You can do this in 20 minutes, simply through the “Visit and Extract” action in the software. After visiting the profiles, you will receive all the data from their pages, including emails. You can use them to enhance the effect of your campaign by mailing through an additional channel.
Make your profile inspiring to get more replies
When a person receives a message from you, they will often open your profile to make sure it’s not a spam message. Therefore, all sections of your profile must be completed in detail. Use high-quality graphics and texts that highlight your USP (starting right from the headline). Read how you can encourage users to follow you on LinkedIn automatically.
Be attentive before reaching out
Such signs of attention as likes and comments are always pleasant for users. It makes them feel they are important and their content is useful. Therefore, if you want them to read your texts with attention, make yourself visible in their notifications before they receive the message. You can add this action to your Drip Campaign and you won’t have to visit the leads’ pages manually.