Which is better for B2B Cold Outreach: LinkedIn or Email?

Which channel of communication do you spend most of your time using for work? Is it the same channel as you used most last year, or the year before? The options available to us continue to expand and change - although fortunately this change happens more slowly in the business world than the consumer world.

Business used to be done via phone and fax. And then via email. And now also by text, whatsapp, instant message platforms like Slack or Google Chats, and social media networks like Twitter and LinkedIn. So how can we make the most of this evolving toolset?

Each channel of communication has its own use cases

The first principle we all subconsiously abide by is that these new channels have different use cases, meaning we choose the channel to use on the basis of what we're looking to communicate, and with whom.

For example, we choose the following channels for the following scenarios:

Phone:

1. Something needs to be discussed that requires back and forth - to evolve an idea or to find a compromise between two perspectives
2. We already know this person well enough to call them
3. There's a need to build a relationship with this person for some reason

Email:

1. The information being communicated is formal
2. The recipient might be someone you haven't met before
3. Sending documents or any form of attachment
4. Confirming decisions and/or actions
5. Putting important things in writing for reference in the future
6. Checking in with someone after a long time

Text:

1. Really, this has been replaced by whatsapp, except in rare scenarios where someone doesn't have whatsapp (or the local equivalent)
2. Typically you know this person relatively well already

Whatsapp:

1. Semi-instant communication while on the go e.g. while travelling
2. Semi-instant communication with people external to your company - like customers/clients or suppliers/partners
3. Typically you know this person relatively well already

Instant Messengers:

1. Everyday 1:1 communication about daily work activities, generally while at your computer
2. Group communication about daily work activities, generally while at your computer
3. Generally this communication is with coworkers or teammates and not people external to your organisation unless part of a project team

Twitter

1. Day to day thoughts, quips or comments typically of a humorous nature - sometimes personal, sometimes work-related
2. Information typically should be broadcasted rather than sent 1:1 to an individual

LinkedIn:

1. Forming a longer-lasting connection with someone you just met at a networking event
2. Showcasing your professional skills and experience
3. Identifying who knows who, or through which people you might be connected to someone
4. Reaching out to someone you haven't met before

Is it always obvious which channel to use?

Generally at work we fall into routines and take cues from those we work with everyday about which channel to use for which type of communication. Most of the time we don't really have to decide - the decision is already made.

The hardest decision comes when reaching out to someone fresh, where there isn't already an established method of communication.

And at no time is this decision more pertinent than when reaching out to a cold prospect who you hope might become a customer in the future.

So which channel is best for cold outreach?

The channels available for cold outreach are typically email or LinkedIn - generally whatsapp or IM is used for people we're more familiar with already, and often phone numbers are less available, or can feel a little intrusive.

So what's the best channel to use when reaching out to someone you haven't met before: email or LinkedIn?

Here are 9 reasons we believe LinkedIn is the most superior channel for reaching out to cold prospects:

1. Similarly to cold calling someone, email can feel more intrusive. It is a more private space than LinkedIn, and emailing someone you don't know, especially someone very senior, can feel awkward. Many people are guarded about their email addresses because they don't want to receive unsolicited messages from people. But if you have a LinkedIn profile, it is intentionally public, even if only some information on it is available without being connected.

2. People generally check their emails when they're in formal work mode, often sitting at a desk, and often during the middle of a working day where all work pressures are highly present. Cold outreach messages that bear no relation to the work priorities for that day are not going to achieve the desired amount of attention while the recipient is in that formal work headspace. On the other hand, people check LinkedIn when they have a moment of downtime from work - and therefore a moment of headspace. That very crucial difference could be the reason the recipient has the mental processing power to understand your reason for reaching out, and be open to it.

3. People have a LinkedIn profile specifically for the purpose of professional networking. So using it for this primary use case is a no-brainer. And whilst different people have different policies on how open they are to connecting with people they've not met in real life, the chances are that someone will be more open to adding you to their professional network on LinkedIn purely for the reason that that is the purpose of the platform.

4. When you receive a message on LinkedIn, you receive much more information than just the contents of the message, if you want it. In contrast to email, where the sender's email address is really the only additional cue you may have, a message on LinkedIn comes from the profile of a person which has information on that person's career, their published thought leadership, their comments, recommendations of their work, their groups/interests, and their connections. As a recipient of a cold outreach message on LinkedIn, if you're unsure as to whether you want to do anything with it, you have all of the contextual information you might want readily accessible to help understand the motivations of the outreach and the potential benefits for you in moving forwards with it, or at least responding to it to ask further questions.

5. Whether or not this is a good thing, as a society, we are growing more and more accustomed to evaluating people based on their social media presence. If a LinkedIn profile has a large following, or a lot of credible reference points, then it conveys a sense of importance, or expertise, or seniority, that is not possible to convey similarly by email. This can be used to your advantage in a cold outreach campaign.

6. There is a sense of permanence with LinkedIn that is not possible with email. Modern working patterns are experiencing an acceleration of job-switching, with people moving jobs much more frequently than in the past. When cold outreach is sent from your work email (which is much more appropriate than using your personal email), there is no guaranteed longevitiy - because either you or your prospect will likely have a new work email at some point in the not too distant future. Your LinkedIn profile on the other hand will stay with you, through any job you or your prospect moves into. So you take any connections you form with you, regardless of job changes.

7. Whilst email is a very direct, targeted form of communication, LinkedIn is much more multi-faceted. LinkedIn offers many more touchpoints with prospects than just direct messaging. You can typically stay much more connected to prospects on LinkedIn because you can interact in multiple ways - like commenting or liking their posts, like tagging them in articles, like appearing in their newsfeed, like participating in the same group discussions - and this means that you can both stay top of mind with your prospects and also demonstrate more aspects of the value you might bring to them. They can learn about you and stay updated on your activities without even engaging directly with you - which might mean at some point you catch them when they are ready to buy. If you had reached them by direct email instead, none of the engagement or information-sharing above would have happened since your initial outreach, and you may never re-appear in their thoughts.

8. Technology continues to advance at an accelerating rate - and in the email space, the automation tools available are driving an increasing amount of spam. Every email provider has a spam filtering system as standard. Spam also exists in the LinkedIn space, but to a lesser extent. The difference with LinkedIn is that the message is coming from a profile which can be assessed for credibility. If the LinkedIn profile is highly credible, the outreach message carries more weight and feels more personal, even if an automation system has created and/or sent it. On LinkedIn, it's much harder to be just a bot - the barrier to entry is much greater than with email.

9. Engaging directly with someone on LinkedIn is 1:1 by design. In order to connect with someone for the first time, you have to request to connect your two specific profiles together - optionally customising that 1:1 connection request. With email, the first email you ever send to a prospect may bcc other prospects too. In any very initial email interaction, there is always already the possibility that the authenticity of the interaction is compromised. Whilst there are plenty of automation tools in the LinkedIn space that speed up the process of sending 1:1 connection requests to high volumes of people, each request sent is still a 1:1 event (see our blog post here for an overview of this LinkedIn automation landscape).

Conclusion and Introducing a Solution

LinkedIn stands out for cold outreach because of its professional context, the richness of information available, and the multifaceted ways of engaging with prospects.

And every connection on LinkedIn starts with an intitial outreach request to connect... which if you have a high volume of prospects to reach out to, can be very time-consuming, especially if you want to send an authentic message with each request.

This is where a tool like Koneksi can make a significant difference. Koneksi isn't just another automated message generator; it's designed with the understanding that every professional interaction counts.

Our tool helps you create personalized, engaging, and professional connection request and follow-up messages that reflect the uniqueness of each potential connection. With Koneksi, you can maintain the human touch in your LinkedIn outreach, while leveraging the efficiency of automation. If you're going to be sending outreach messages on LinkedIn, they need to be crafted thoughtfully - in a way that resonates with the recipient, is respectful of their time, and is tailored to their professional interests and needs.

In a world where first impressions are often made online, Koneksi equips you with the right tools to make each interaction count. Whether you are looking to expand your network, find new prospects, or simply make more meaningful professional connections, Koneksi can help you navigate the LinkedIn landscape more effectively.

We help you make the most of the very best cold outreach platform available.