121: 28% Reply Rate From LinkedIn

Our LinkedIn outreach playbook

Read time: 3min

Welcome back to The Practical Prospecting Newsletter!

Before we jump in, I’ve been working with ZoomInfo for the past 6 months and have seen firsthand what they’re building with GTM Intelligence.

Real-time signals, AI-ready data, and dynamic prospect views all in one place — it’s wild.

Check it out here!

Agenda:

• Why LinkedIn Automation Works

• Our Approach

• Recap

---

Quick Heads Up

This is the final newsletter on Substack. I’ve moved to BeeHiiv to bring you better resources and content.

You won't lose any past posts, but you'll need to resubscribe when I send the migration email (with a thank you gift inside).

If you're not interested in continuing to receive this newsletter, feel free to unsubscribe now.

Otherwise, keep an eye out for a quick email from me next week to keep getting these insights delivered to your inbox!

---

Why LinkedIn Automation Works

For the longest time, I was anti-LinkedIn automation.

Mostly because 99% of it is trash.

You’ve seen it:

“Jed, I came across your profile and was impressed by your background...”

Sigh…

But recently, we decided to test HeyReach.io (not affiliated/sponsored) for a few of our clients—nothing aggressive, just light-touch outreach from our clients profiles.

Here are our results from the last two weeks:

These messages aren’t being sent from profiles with big brands. And they sell to a wide range of personas (not just sales and marketing folks).

HeyReach, unfortunately, doesn’t show reply sentiment, but we’ve booked a little over ~10 meetings out of those 56 replies.

---

Our Approach

The biggest issue I see with automated LinkedIn messages is they’re WAY. TOO. LONG.

And they read like an email.

And they don’t feel personal.

We’ve achieved a 28% reply rate by doing the opposite of that:

• Short messages (1 or 2 sentences)

• Casual writing (typos, lowercase, etc.)

• Custom fields for personalization

Here’s a breakdown of our LinkedIn outreach sequence:

Step 1: Blank connection request

This is personal preference. Over the years, I’ve noticed that no message in your connection request tends to get the highest acceptance rate.

Our goal here is to simply get connected so we can start sending messages. Otherwise, that channel is completely cut off.

Step 2: 1–2 sentence open-ended question

After the connect, we send a short, relevant question related to the pain point we solve.

Example:

“hey {{Name}} how do you track field equipment issues before they become a problem? I’ve been talking to a few other {{industry}] teams like yourself and wanted to get your feedback.”

No pitch. Just a real question that’s easy to respond to.

Step 3: Offer a helpful resource

Whether they reply or not, our next step is to send something useful related to that problem.

A short guide, template, checklist—whatever fits the problem from Step 2.

This makes it feel more like a conversation rather than a sales funnel.

Step 4: Short bump + CTA

Finally, we follow up with a soft nudge.

Something like:

“Wasn’t sure if this was relevant for you, but let me know if you want to chat in the coming weeks about how we help other {{niche_industry}} teams solve this. I sent you an email with more information too. {{their_email_address}}, right?”

---

Recap

Here’s why LinkedIn automation has been working for us:

• Blank connection request (no fake personalization or pitch)

• Short and conversational messaging

• Focusing on one problem > then offering value > then a soft nudge to connect if relevant.

People are already active on LinkedIn (even if they’re not posting), so reply rates are naturally higher when you’re not being annoying.

Give it a shot and let me know how it goes.

Thanks for reading,
Jed