InMail messages are a premium LinkedIn feature that allows users to directly message members with whom they are not connected. Unlike standard messages that require a first-degree connection, InMails operate on a credit-based system included with premium subscriptions. This enables users to bypass connection requests and contact members outside their immediate network, with messages arriving in both their LinkedIn inbox and as an email notification.
Crafting an effective InMail requires a strategic approach that goes beyond a simple sales pitch. To increase your chances of getting a reply, focus on making your message concise, relevant, and personal. Following a few key best practices can significantly boost your response rates.
To make your InMails stand out, focus on creating a message that feels personal and respects the recipient's time. The goal is to start a conversation, not to close a deal in the first interaction. A well-crafted message is concise, relevant, and tailored specifically to the individual you're contacting.
Choosing between InMail and direct messages depends on your outreach goals and relationship with the recipient.
Even the most well-intentioned InMails can fail due to common mistakes. These errors often make your message feel impersonal and spammy, drastically reducing your reply rate. Avoiding these pitfalls is key to successful outreach.
To measure InMail success, track key performance indicators like open and response rates. High open rates suggest strong subject lines, while response rates indicate message effectiveness. LinkedIn also refunds credits for replies received within 90 days, providing a direct financial measure of engagement and campaign success.
Use LinkedIn’s built-in analytics to monitor these metrics for each campaign. This data helps you identify what works, from message content to the best send times. Analyzing performance allows you to refine your strategy, optimize personalization, and improve future outreach results.
Do InMail credits roll over?
Yes, unused InMail credits roll over each month, but they expire after 90 days. Your total accumulated credits cannot exceed the maximum limit set by your LinkedIn Premium plan, so it's best to use them regularly to maximize their value.
What happens if my InMail doesn't get a reply?
If your InMail message doesn't receive a response within 90 days, LinkedIn will refund the credit back to your account. This policy encourages sending high-quality, personalized messages that are more likely to elicit a reply from the recipient.
Can I send InMails on a free LinkedIn account?
No, InMail is a premium feature available only with paid LinkedIn subscriptions like Premium Career, Business, or Sales Navigator. Free accounts can only send direct messages to 1st-degree connections and cannot use InMail credits to contact others.
Sales intelligence is technology that gathers and analyzes data to help salespeople find and understand prospects and existing clients.
A sales forecast is a projection of future sales revenue. It's a crucial tool for businesses to make informed decisions and allocate resources.
Win/Loss Analysis is the process of systematically tracking and analyzing the reasons why you win or lose deals with prospective customers.
Sales compensation is the total pay a salesperson receives, including salary, commissions, and bonuses, structured to motivate performance.
Warm outbound is a sales strategy for contacting prospects who've shown interest in your brand through prior engagement, like website visits.
Learn about batch processing, including benefits of batch processing, best practices for implementation, & common use cases.
Email marketing is a digital strategy where businesses send targeted emails to prospects and customers to build relationships and drive sales.
Conversational intelligence (CI) is AI technology that analyzes customer conversations to find insights that help sales and support teams improve.
A Point of Contact (POC) is the designated individual or department that serves as the main hub for information and communication on a matter.
User-generated content (UGC) refers to any form of content, like images, videos, or text, created and shared by users on online platforms.
Data enrichment is the process of enhancing raw data by adding missing information from other sources, making it more complete and actionable.
Sales development is the process of identifying and qualifying potential customers to create a pipeline of sales-ready leads for closers.
An AI sales script generator is a tool that uses artificial intelligence to create personalized sales scripts for any outreach scenario.
Sales pipeline velocity is a metric that measures how quickly deals move through your sales funnel to generate revenue for your business.
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Product-Led Growth (PLG) is a business strategy where the product itself drives user acquisition, conversion, and expansion.
Git is a distributed version control system that tracks changes in code, allowing developers to collaborate and manage project history effectively.
Video selling uses personalized video messages to engage prospects, build rapport, and guide them through the sales funnel to close more deals.
An elevator pitch is a short, memorable summary of what you do, designed to be delivered in the time it takes to ride an elevator.
A persona is a semi-fictional profile of your ideal customer, based on market research and real data about your existing customers.
Process automation uses technology to execute recurring tasks or processes, replacing manual effort to cut costs and boost efficiency.
Buying intent is the collection of online cues and behaviors that signal a prospect is actively researching and moving toward a purchase decision.
A Content Delivery Network (CDN) is a system of distributed servers that deliver web content to users based on their geographic location.
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A Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) API is a web service that uses XML to exchange structured information between different applications.
A warm email is a message sent to a prospect with whom you have a pre-existing connection, like a mutual contact or a prior interaction.
A hard sell is an aggressive sales technique that uses high-pressure tactics to push a customer into making an immediate purchase decision.
A product champion is an internal evangelist who drives a product's adoption and success by ensuring it solves real problems for their team.
Digital advertising is the practice of delivering promotional content to users through various online and digital channels like social media or search engines.
Sales territory management is the process of grouping accounts into territories and assigning them to reps to maximize sales and market coverage.
Churn, also known as customer attrition, is the rate at which customers stop doing business with a company over a given period.
Video prospecting is the sales technique of sending personalized videos to potential customers to grab their attention and secure more meetings.
Contact discovery is the process of finding accurate contact details for potential leads, including names, emails, phone numbers, and job titles.
Sales enablement content refers to the materials and tools that empower your sales team to engage prospects and close deals more efficiently.
X-Sell, or cross-selling, is a sales strategy of selling additional, related products or services to an existing customer base.
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Lead nurturing is the process of developing and reinforcing relationships with buyers at every stage of the sales funnel.
An on-premise CRM is a system hosted on a company's own servers, offering complete control over data, security, and system maintenance.
A System of Record (SoR) is the authoritative data source for a specific type of data. It acts as the single source of truth for an organization.
MEDDICC is a sales qualification framework for complex B2B deals. It helps reps identify and validate key aspects of an opportunity to close more effectively.
Affiliate networks are platforms that act as intermediaries between publishers (affiliates) and merchant affiliate programs.
Sales Operations Management streamlines sales processes, tech, and data analysis to help sales teams sell more effectively and efficiently.
Real-time data is information processed and made available almost instantaneously, enabling immediate analysis and decision-making.
Sales Engineers blend deep technical knowledge with sales acumen, demonstrating a product's value and solving customer problems to drive revenue.
Customer segmentation is dividing customers into groups based on shared traits. This allows for more targeted and effective marketing efforts.
Guided selling simplifies complex sales by giving reps step-by-step instructions and data-driven recommendations to close deals faster.
Net new business is revenue from customers who have never purchased from your company before. It’s a crucial indicator of sustainable growth.
Customer Retention Cost (CRC) is the total amount a company spends to keep an existing customer over a certain period of time.
Lead enrichment tools are platforms that automatically add missing data to your leads, like contact info, firmographics, and buying signals.
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Competitive analysis means identifying your rivals and assessing their strategies to pinpoint your own business's strengths and weaknesses.
Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) is a business model where companies sell products directly to customers, bypassing traditional retail middlemen.
Contact data is the set of details, like names, emails, and phone numbers, used to get in touch with a person or business for outreach.
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Revenue intelligence is the process of collecting and analyzing customer data to provide insights that help sales teams make smarter decisions.
A closed question is a type of query that elicits a simple, often one-word answer like 'yes' or 'no,' or a specific, factual response.
Subscription models are a business strategy where customers pay a recurring fee at regular intervals for access to a product or service.
Clustering is the technique of grouping similar items. In sales, it means segmenting leads by shared traits to better personalize outreach.
Touches are the individual interactions you have with a prospect throughout the sales process, from emails and calls to social media messages.
Warm calling is contacting prospects with a prior connection, like a referral or social media interaction, to make your outreach more relevant.
Account-Based Sales Development (ABSD) is a focused strategy where SDRs target key stakeholders within specific, high-value accounts.
The Dark Funnel describes customer buying activities that are untrackable by companies, such as private chats and word-of-mouth referrals.
A drip campaign is a series of automated messages sent to prospects or customers over time to nurture leads and drive engagement.
Webhooks are automated messages sent by an app when a specific event occurs. They push real-time data to another app's unique URL.
User Experience (UX) refers to a person's overall feelings and perceptions while interacting with a product, system, or service.
Personalization is the practice of using data to tailor products, services, or content to an individual's specific needs and preferences.
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A Sales Manager leads a sales team, setting goals, analyzing performance, and developing strategies to drive revenue and meet targets.
SPIN selling is a sales technique using a sequence of questions—Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-Payoff—to uncover a buyer's needs.
Inbound leads are potential customers who proactively reach out after finding your business through content, social media, or search.
Sales pipeline reporting is the process of analyzing sales data to track progress, identify bottlenecks, and forecast future revenue.
Lead generation is the process of identifying and cultivating potential customers for a business's products or services.
Content Rights Management involves controlling the use and distribution of copyrighted digital media to protect intellectual property.
An account is a company or organization that you're targeting for sales. It can be a prospective, current, or even a past customer.
Solution selling is a sales approach focused on understanding a customer's pain points to offer a comprehensive solution, not just a product.
Mobile optimization adapts your website to ensure visitors on smartphones and tablets have a seamless, user-friendly experience.
Intent-based leads are potential customers whose online actions—like searches or content engagement—signal a clear interest in buying a solution.
Data-driven lead generation is the process of using data insights to identify, attract, and convert high-quality leads into customers.
CRM data is the information businesses use to manage customer relationships. It covers contact details, purchase history, and communication logs.
Account View-Through Rate (AVTR) is the percentage of target accounts that see an ad and later visit your website without clicking on it.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a system of integrated software that businesses use to manage and automate their core day-to-day processes.
Sales prospecting techniques are methods used by sales teams to identify, contact, and qualify potential customers, also known as prospects.
A Request for Proposal (RFP) is a formal document that outlines a project's needs and invites qualified vendors to submit bids to complete it.
Network monitoring is the continuous process of tracking a computer network's performance and health to detect and resolve issues proactively.
Internal signals are data points from your own systems, like website visits or product usage, that indicate a customer's buying intent.
Hadoop is an open-source framework designed for the distributed storage and processing of extremely large data sets across clusters of computers.
ClickFunnels is a popular online tool that lets entrepreneurs easily build sales funnels to guide potential customers through the buying process.
“No Spam” is a commitment to sending only relevant, solicited messages. It means avoiding bulk, unwanted emails to respect the recipient's inbox.
A value chain is the series of business activities required to create and deliver a product or service, from conception to the final customer.
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Data cleansing, or data scrubbing, is the process of detecting and correcting inaccurate records from a dataset to improve data quality.
A Single Page Application (SPA) is a web app that interacts with the user by dynamically rewriting the current page rather than loading new pages.
A Salesforce Administrator is a certified professional who manages and customizes the Salesforce platform to meet a company's specific business needs.
Incident response is an organization's systematic approach to managing and mitigating the aftermath of a security breach or cyberattack.
The buying cycle is the journey a customer takes from first realizing they have a need to making the final purchase decision.
The buyer journey maps the path a potential customer takes, from first learning about a product to the final decision to buy.
Average Selling Price (ASP) is the average price at which a particular product or service is sold across different markets and channels.
Channel partners are third-party firms that help market and sell a company's products or services, acting as an indirect sales force.
A Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) is a prospect who has shown interest based on marketing efforts but isn't yet ready for a sales conversation.
Precision targeting is a marketing strategy that uses data to identify and reach a highly specific audience most likely to convert.