What you should (and shouldn’t) expect from a LinkedIn automation trial. Plus trial strategy and troubleshooting tips.

With so many LinkedIn automation tools offering a ‘try before you buy’ approach, what functionality should we look for, what should we expect to achieve, and how do we judge the return on investment potential of a LinkedIn automation tool in a short space of time?

‍

‍

Here at Dux-Soup, we see first-hand both the euphoria and frustration that users can go through when either trying a LinkedIn automation tool for the first time or switching from another tool to ours. Every user has a unique story to tell.

‍

Let’s explore the reality of LinkedIn automation free trials, the potential pitfalls and the investment required before you even get to the point of parting with your money. What success you get from your free trial depends partly on your expectations and partly on your experience. 

‍

So let’s dive in.

‍

What is LinkedIn automation?

Let’s start with the basics of what LinkedIn automation is. Put simply, it’s a software program that can execute LinkedIn activities on your behalf. You set an action (for example to send a connection invitation), define the copy for your connection invitation, personalize it to add e.g. a first name into the copy, and the automation tool under your control runs that action for you.

‍

But automation is all about scale, so instead of doing this process manually for every prospect, you create it once and set an automation tool to run your action against a list of profiles - whether this is 100 or 1000 profiles.

‍

More sophisticated LinkedIn automation tools offer more advanced functionality. Multiple-step drip campaigns can automate a number of sequential actions, integrate with your email, connect to your CRM system, and offer collaborative sales team outreach…… you get the picture.

‍

A sophisticated LinkedIn automation tool can be tied into your other automation tools to achieve workflows like the following:

How do LinkedIn automation tools help?

If you were to run the above workflow manually, think of the time it would take to action all these steps against even just a single prospect. And how do you ensure you execute all the actions at the right time? Let alone scale this process across multiple prospects in a consistent manner.

‍

The go-to for multi-prospect LinkedIn outreach is often a copy-and-paste exercise, which inevitably leads to error. Who hasn’t sent a message to someone with the wrong name on it? Although we’re doing it the hard, manual way, it’s easy for such mistakes to damage our brand or reputation.

‍

Automation tools allow you to schedule and scale, with accuracy. It’s about consistent activity, to produce consistent results. Which is why they are so popular. 

‍

LinkedIn automation trial periods

If you scour the market, most LinkedIn automation tools offer a trial period that lasts between 7 and 14 days. 

‍

Dux-Soup’s trial length is 14 days, providing instant access to the software without the need to enter any credit card details. For us, it’s important that a free trial is just that - a free trial, without worrying about automatic charges applying if you forget to cancel at the end of your free trial. 

‍

And because LinkedIn outreach is a skill in itself, you need at least 14 days to have a good test of the tool. Unless you’re really dedicated, you’ll struggle to understand their potential in just 7 days’ use.

‍

Trial features

At Dux-Soup we believe that during a trial, you should experience all of the features that a tool is capable of. After all, how can you decide on a product when you’ve only scratched the surface of the full extent of what it can do?

‍

Trial expectations

How you set your expectations will determine how you judge the results of your trial experience. 

‍

When it comes to quantifiable results, your LinkedIn outreach expertise will largely determine this. If you’re experienced at running successful LinkedIn outreach programs, then you’ll have a head start. Substituting successful manual workflows with the same automated approach should deliver the same conversion rates. But you can then measure how automating the process allows you to scale results and improve time efficiency. 

‍

For example, statistics of 75% time saving and a 3000% increase in results aren’t uncommon among those with expertise. 

‍

‍

But those new to LinkedIn, and still at the stage of understanding which messaging best resonates with your ideal customer, can still get great results from a LinkedIn automation trial. 

‍

Do you want to discover what approach works best with your target audience, or which audience is most suited to your product or service? It’s all possible.

‍

It’s undisputed that there’s plenty to gain from LinkedIn automation, but you won’t achieve everything in 14 days so it’s important to set your expectations accordingly.

‍

Our Head of Sales, Scott Wright, regularly has conversations with Dux-Soup users during, and at the end of their trial to evaluate their findings. We reveal his take on post-trial evaluations:

‍

1. A trial is often all about trial and error. Its purpose is to test the boundaries, see what the tool is capable of, and explore its potential and whether that fits with your requirements. It’s not about generating ROI. If you take this view on a trial, you’ll limit yourself to pre-existing outreach strategies that have already been proven to work, and not expose the full capability of the tool. When evaluating a LinkedIn automation tool like Dux-Soup, remember that a tool promises to automate your activity on LinkedIn. In addition, some can provide data and analytics to help you understand where, how, and who you should target.

2. It’s not down to your LinkedIn automation tool to come up with your approach for you. This is your job. A LinkedIn automation tool will only execute the actions that you tell it to perform.  

3. If you can complete a trial having gained a good understanding of the tool, its capabilities and its potential then you can decide whether it is right to automate your processes and save you a lot of time. Time-saving alone should be your justification for the ROI. If you can save 80% of your time, how much is that worth to you every month?

‍

So, now let’s cover how your strategy can help you to get ahead.

‍

LinkedIn strategy 

Your LinkedIn strategy should always be evolving. With the power of analytics that some tools offer, you can use data to steer your strategy and enjoy continual improvement.

‍

Your approach will consist of different variables that all need tweaking to get your desired outcome PER campaign. So each campaign should offer a unique approach depending on what you're trying to accomplish: 

‍

LinkedIn outreach variables

1. Your goal. Sales and marketing activity begins with a goal. When it comes to LinkedIn this may be to grow your network, set discovery meetings, promote attendance to an event, drive website traffic, etc.
2. Target audience. With LinkedIn automation tools, you can test multiple target audiences to see which one your messaging resonates best with. Whether it’s CEOs, engineers, executives, or building maintenance personnel - you can whittle your audience down as much as possible to accurately test. The more targeted your audience, the more meaningful your results
3. Personal branding.  It’s a topic that not many people think about, but your personal branding is an important part of how your target audience perceives you. Peer-to-peer outreach works well, so if you’re the CEO of a business, you’re probably not the right person to target trainers. Within each campaign, you should consider how to promote yourself in your role to best appeal to the prospect that you’re targeting
4. Empathy. Leverage audience insights to engage with your target prospect on a more personal level. Understand their pain points, business challenges, market trends, and news to find something in common to break the ice. Use common character traits to adapt your messaging, for example, engineers are shy and likely not to engage easily, sales are much more conversational, and executives are busy people so leveraging external alliances or factors can help to build your story 
5. Advanced list filters.  LinkedIn list filters can provide variables to test different curated messages. For example, a message acknowledging those who have posted on LinkedIn recently can be tested against a message congratulating those who have changed Jobs in the last 90 days
6. LinkedIn automation campaign workflow.  The number of messages, frequency, and actions 
7. Campaign messaging. Creating messaging that provokes a reply rather than a sale will elicit more replies but this approach might take longer to set meetings. More direct sales messaging can cause you to strike out more but when you hit someone with an interest it will create high-quality leads
8. Progressing the conversation.  How you respond to someone who replies can impact the next steps in the sales process. Get this right and you can build a successful funnel that can be scaled once the automation is out of the picture.
9. The close.  Are you asking for a meeting after having a conversation? How are you asking for it, and which is the most successful method?

When you combine all of these variables, you define your approach. And, as you can imagine, the options are endless. There is no ‘perfect’ approach, but during your trial period, you can start to test some of these out and use A/B testing to carry the most successful ones forward.

‍

Because the many variables above can be rather daunting, a simpler way to think about it is: 

• Personal brand + Target audience (list) + Dux-Soup campaign messaging + Conversation + Call to action = Your approach 

If this doesn’t work for you, a different way to think about your LinkedIn automation approach is as a series of steps: 

• Get the connection acceptance --> Get a response--> Have a conversation --> Execute your call to action 

‍

Our LinkedIn automation playbook gives you a ready-made LinkedIn outreach strategy to get you going if you’re new to the process.

‍

‍

Troubleshooting your LinkedIn automation strategy

As you progress through your free trial period, keeping a close eye on your results at every stage of your workflow will help you to identify areas that are working well and areas that could benefit from improvements.

‍

Here we cover some common campaign scenarios, with suggestions on how to fix them:

1. People aren’t accepting my connection requests. This could mean either your audience is not receptive to your connection messaging or they are not receptive to your overall persona. Try changing your connection invitation message, and if this doesn’t fix the problem, review your LinkedIn profile. Review variables 2,3,4 & 5 above.
2. No one is replying to me. If prospects accept your connection invitation, it means that they are receptive to you. If, however, they are not responding to your follow-up message, it is either not resonating, not engaging, is too direct and salesy, or your messaging is off and not targeting the right person. Usually, an approach that is too direct and salesy is the main problem to fix, so try changing your message content.  An example of targeting the wrong person would be a Recruiter targeting someone who has just changed jobs in the last 90 days, and asking if they are open to new roles. These prospects are unlikely to be receptive.  Review variables 6,5,3 & 2.
3. I get my connection accepted and a reply but I don't know how to progress the conversation.  Ask yourself 2 questions here: What are they usually replying with? Where are they replying in the campaign? If they are saying "Yeah Great to be connected as well!" this means they are likely responding to your initial connection message and your connection message could be changed to entice a more engaging conversation. In this case, you could manually reply with your 1st follow-up message, and tweak it a little. See variables 6 & 7.  If they are replying "I am not interested" then you could be too direct with your message. Try taking a step back and lead with something more conversational to get the ball rolling. An engaging, provocative, open-ended question that is relatively easy to pivot to talk about your product/offering/service could work here. Review variables 6,7 & 8.
4. I don’t get many people accepting my connections but I am getting some replies:  This means your connection message is off and not resonating with your audience. Changing this and reviewing the acceptance rate will give you overall better campaign results. You should aim for your connection acceptance rate to be above 40%. Review variables 6,5,2,3 & 4. The good news is that your follow-up message is working well, so you don’t need to change that.
5. I get replies --> have conversations but I am not getting meetings. This is likely because you are not asking for the meeting. You are hitting all the nails and variables correctly but if you are not asking for the meeting, then you’re missing a trick. Maybe it’s because you don’t know how or don’t feel comfortable. To combat this, try thinking of different ways to ask. For example, you could try asking for feedback instead of a sales meeting. Review variable 8.

‍

Our LinkedIn automation best practices article offers more advice on how to get the best results from your LinkedIn outreach.

‍

Summary

Although you shouldn’t expect to perfect your LinkedIn automation strategy during a  2-week trial period, you should be able to decide on whether a LinkedIn automation tool is worth investing in further. What’s important to remember is that during your trial period you’re looking to:

1. Become familiar with how the tool works
2. Check whether it offers the features you’re looking for
3. Reduce your time spent on manual LinkedIn tasks
4. Weigh up the potential cost benefits

‍

What you’re NOT looking to do is prove an ROI within 2 weeks. LinkedIn lead generation is a mid to long-term strategy. 

‍

Think of it like a marketing function; you’d expect to test different campaigns, offerings, messaging, approaches, target markets etc before deciding on what’s working for you. This is exactly how you should approach your LinkedIn lead generation strategy.

‍

So now you’re prepared, we’d love you to try Dux-Soup’s free 14-day trial. We hope it meets all of your expectations - and more!

‍