miles_garcia•29d agoTop Commenter

Switched from cold email blasts to direct messages 3 months ago

I used to send out these big email campaigns to like 500 people at once. Open rates were around 12% and I got maybe 1 reply per 100 sends. Then a guy at a networking meetup in Austin told me to try LinkedIn DMs instead. I now send 20 personalized messages a day and my response rate jumped to 35%. Has anyone else seen better results with direct outreach over email?

3 comments

3 Comments

carter.casey29d ago

Dude that "35% response rate" number is wild. I had a similar thing happen but it was with Instagram DMs instead of LinkedIn. I used to do these huge cold emails to like 200 people a week and got nothing. Then I just started sliding into DMs of people who actually followed similar pages or commented on stuff I posted. My response rate went up to like 40% honestly. The key is they already know who you are a little bit instead of just some random email address. Plus on DMs you can see if they read it or not which is nice. I swear email is dying for this kind of stuff.

dianaanderson29d agoMost Upvoted

Hmm, I'm gonna push back a little on that. In my experience, email is far from dead for this kind of outreach, it just takes way more effort to get right. Instagram DMs feel more intrusive to me and people are way quicker to block you there, while a thoughtful email at least gives the person time to respond on their own terms. Your mileage may vary, but I've seen better long-term results from a well-timed email than from sliding into someone's DMs, especially if you're trying to build a professional connection.

susan_wright3429d ago

40% response rate on Instagram DMs? man I need to know what you're actually saying because every time I try that I just get left on read for days. maybe it's just me but email feels like shouting into the void while DMs feel like knocking on someone's front door and hoping they don't call the cops.