I’ve sent 26,643 messages on LinkedIn, dating back three years.
Those messages led to some of the best client projects. They led to year-long partnerships with clients.
I’ve also been blocked. And been told no.
All in all, I’ve learned how to write an outbound message that actually works by trying, iterating, studying, and figuring it out (plus, being a copywriter for 12+ years has helped).
And one thing I keep coming back to is: what makes a really, really, really, really good outbound message?
It’s how differentiated your message is to prospects, whether it’s on LinkedIn or a cold email.
AI Has Made Everyone the Same
You know why SDRs and BDRs and terrible outbound messages get ignored?
For three major reasons:
- The message isn’t relevant
- The message isn’t painful or valuable enough
- The message isn’t differentiated enough
Let’s explore the latter one.
Everyone in every cold email is saying the same thing.
- “Noticed you just got funding”
- “Saw you’re growing your SDR team”
These are the two most common and also the absolute worst.
The shape of your message matters just as much as the value and the identity you’re selling in those emails.
You could be selling something AMAZING. But if the beginning of your message sounds like everyone else, that prospect is just going to delete it.
It’s kinda like a great opener to a conversation. You’re trying to hook the reader with something that matters to them. Because the email is about them, their problems, their audience, and what they are trying to achieve.
What Does a Good Differentiated Message Look Like?
Differentiated messages are about not saying the exact same thing everyone else is saying. Undifferentiated messaging is lazy messaging.
Also, I’m not saying you have to be a word wizard and say the most clever thing on the planet. I’m saying the shape of your cold email shouldn’t look like 99% of other cold emails.
So start with the shape. Here’s what I mean.
Build Your Differentiated Message Without Sounding Like a Syntax Machine
In college, I had a professor who said that my papers had too much syntax.
Little did he know that he scarred me for the rest of my life (not really). But it did make sense. And this was back in 2014, before the internet came out. Just kidding. I know when the internet came out.
Here are a few examples.
- “The mouse that the cat that the dog chased bit ran away.”
vs
- The dog chased the cat. The cat bit the mouse. The mouse ran away.
In other words, you’re trying to stuff way too much into a sentence. Here’s another example.
Differentiated Messaging Aligns With a Prospect’s Pain
If your prospect desperately needs better HR and payroll automation because their team is growing, then having a solution around HR and payroll automation that sounds like everyone else isn’t necessarily going to help you stand out.
Sure, it will help.
But having a differentiated message (that should read, feel, sound, and be human) is most important.
Know the pain your prospect is in, and craft that differentiated message around what they need the most.
Not some generic nonsense.
Now go forth and start sending really really good differentiated outbound messages.
Ben Watkins