LinkedIn InMail vs. Email for Recruiting and Staffing

Since we’ve been working with email marketing, especially in the recruiting and staffing space, we’ve heard a number of people say they use LinkedIn^Ⓡ InMail to find new candidates. And some of those that are recruiting/staffing companies also use LinkedIn^Ⓡ InMail to find new clients.

We also hear their complaints about LinkedIn^Ⓡ, and their lack of results. Frankly, it makes sense to us that they aren’t getting the results they want on LinkedIn^Ⓡ. And I say this as someone LinkedIn^Ⓡ has endorsed and who wrote a book on LinkedIn^Ⓡ for business development. I’ve tested LinkedIn^Ⓡ extensively against other platforms and strategies. More surprising to me are the people who sound happy with LinkedIn^Ⓡ, but their results are not that impressive.

What is LinkedIn InMail?

InMail is a service from LinkedIn^Ⓡ where you can directly contact other LinkedIn^Ⓡ members. If you have a free account, you can only contact those you are connected to. With a premium account, you can use InMail to contact any LinkedIn^Ⓡ member, as long as their preferences are set to receive InMail.

LinkedIn^Ⓡ InMail has some serious obstacles and deficiencies that make it hard for you to succeed.

The biggest problems with LinkedIn^Ⓡ are…

1. People don’t read InMail… because it is so spammed up by business development people. Most of the messages are low-quality cold messages with no personalization. If you are in certain job functions or are in leadership, you probably get a ton of this InMail spam. Because of that, your message doesn’t get seen by the people you’re sending to, and they feel no compunction to respond.
2. People who DO read InMail may not check it for days. And when they do check it, your message is buried in an avalanche of amateur cold spam InMails. So, InMail doesn’t result in quick responses, and possibly no response if people “turn off” to it because of all the spam.
3. People do read email, many times per day. Spam has less effect here, because it’s usually filtered automatically by the servers. But if you can get into their inbox with your cold email, your message is received and read.
4. InMail is one at a time, very slow and time-consuming. Email can be sent to thousands of potential clients and candidates at once, or in just a few days.
5. LinkedIn™ Recruiter Tools can be cheap, but you get what you pay for.
6. LinkedIn™ Recruiter doesn’t give you emails or phone numbers. You’re stuck in the limited LinkedIn ecosystem.
7. You need valid up-to-date contacts with emails and phone numbers to have a chance to be seen and get responses from more clients and candidates.

You can see why, done right, outgoing sales emails can have a greater impact on your results than LinkedIn^Ⓡ InMail. If you’re not doing it, I highly recommend you look into it!