Study: Effect of LinkedIn Activity on Outbound Response Rate

Given that our average response rate on LinkedIn increased by ~15% across the board once we started posting to LinkedIn as a company, we wanted to investigate the impact of LinkedIn activity on other companies' outbound.

Following this study, we found that several respondents reported response rate for LinkedIn outreach as high as 30%.

We were curious about what folks are seeing from their efforts on LinkedIn today so that you can benchmark yourself against them.

Methodology

We conducted a survey targeting sales teams across industries and received 92 responses total.

Of those responses:

• 61% were in B2B SaaS
• 44% were BDRs
• 40% have between 2,000 —5,000 LinkedIn followers

Keeping in mind that this data may in no way represent the larger scale B2B SaaS community as a whole, here were our findings.

Effect of LinkedIn Activity on Outbound Response Rate

Unsurprising — LinkedIn Is Used Primarily for Prospecting

It’s no surprise that, given the opportunity to select multiple options regarding their LinkedIn activity, 100% of respondents indicated they use LinkedIn to connect with prospects and 92% reported sending DMs.

It's noteworthy that 61% selected "engaging with prospects posts and comments" or indicated that they actively try to warm up leads before making an ask.

It's highly likely that these respondents will get higher response rates as a result.

39% of Respondents Post A Few Times a Week to LinkedIn

‎

This is closely followed by 27.8% of respondents who post at least once a month.

60% of Those Posts are Personal Success Stories

Respondents were presented with the following multi-select options in reference to what content they share to LinkedIn:

• Industry insights and news
• Advice from personal customer interactions
• Personal success stories
• Company updates
• Marketing content
• Case studies

"Personal success stories" was selected by 60% of respondents.

Marketing content (such as webinars, articles, and guides) was selected by 44%.

Folks who share helpful content versus just personal milestones are more likely to see higher response rates (see the next section.)

Teams should probably consider combining the two approaches: sharing resources that they themselves have found helpful to help their prospects succeed.

Interesting Outlier: 15% of Respondents Indicate 30% Response Rate on LinkedIn

‎

As far as cold outreach goes, a response rate of 30% is very high. The average email response rate is reported between 3-5%.

The folks with higher success rate are likely to have warmed up prospects before reaching out — we know that our own sales rep's 21.6% reply rate is owed to this.

After engaging with their content for several days (and surrounding the prospect with team-wide social selling), Ryan reaches out with a personalized voice note that identifies triggers. He also uses the OPPs framework.

Corresponding to this, a whopping 66% of respondents perceive a moderate improvement to their reply rates when they're active on LinkedIn.

This is contrasted against the folks who get low response rates and are most likely using bad sequences.

‎

The Biggest Challenge to Posting on LinkedIn is Making Time for Ideation

When presented with multi-select options, the most selected challenges to posting on LinkedIn were "difficulty coming up with ideas" and that posting to LinkedIn "competes with activity goals."

‎

It's important that teams consider tools that will automate the LinkedIn "grunt work" that seems to be stalling or altogether stopping folks from posting to LinkedIn more often.

A Consistent Presence on LinkedIn Builds Trust and Pipeline

Given the moderately high reply rates attributed to even a weekly presence on LinkedIn, it seems clear from this study that sales teams should be using LinkedIn to social sell and do outbound.

In an increasingly oversaturated market, people want to hear from and buy from people. If you're not social selling, you're missing out on a huge percentage of your buyers.

There are tools out there today that can help teams automate and attribute LinkedIn presence to remove any obstacles to building pipeline. Reach out to us if you're interested in learning more.