The 5 Ways to Get Clients on LinkedIn

What each one costs you, what each one pays back, and which to run first based on what you have today.

ps - if you would rather we set this up on your account than do it yourself, grab a time here: book a 20 minute demo

Or start your own account here: sign up on Reachium

Across every Reachium account, 1,022 meetings were booked in the last 12 months. The numbers in this document come from those accounts, not from a blog post.

Most people run one of the five, give it four months, and decide LinkedIn is dead.

They did not test LinkedIn. They tested one fifth of it.

Here are the other four fifths.

Steal this first

Before you read anything else, do this. It takes four minutes and it is the fifth way, which almost nobody runs.

Open LinkedIn. Go to your connections, sorted by recently added. Look for people who accepted you and then never heard from you again.

There will be more than you think.

Send them this:

Hi [first name], we connected a while back and I never
followed up properly. That was on me.

I work with [one sentence, who you help and with what].

Is that something you are dealing with at [company]?

That is it. No pitch, no link, no calendar. One question they can answer with one word.

Those people already said yes to you once. That is the cheapest audience you will ever message, and it costs nothing but the four minutes.

The short version

If you read nothing else, read these five lines.

Outreach. Costs a Sales Navigator seat and 15 minutes a day. Pays about one meeting per 70 requests. Start here if you have no audience.

InMails. Costs a credit on closed profiles, nothing on open ones. Pays access, not volume. Save it for people who accept almost nobody.

Content. Costs 30 days of quiet. Pays by making the other four convert better. Never run it on its own.

Lead magnets. Costs one document. Pays four and a half times the reach of a plain post, but count customers, not comments.

Retargeting. Costs nothing. Pays out of people who already engaged and never heard back. Do this one today.

The rest of this document is each one in full, then a scorecard and a first week.

Way 1: Outreach

You pick a list and write first.

What it is. You build a list of people who fit, send connection requests with a short note, and answer the ones who reply.

What it costs. A Sales Navigator seat, and about 15 minutes a day. The hard cap is 25 connection requests a day per account. That number never goes higher. Anyone telling you to send more is gambling with your account.

What it pays. Across 34,056 connection requests sent from Reachium accounts: 12,415 accepted, which is 36.5%. Of those, 5,273 wrote something back. 487 turned into booked meetings.

That works out to roughly one meeting for every 70 requests sent, on an average account.

The best single campaign we have on record did far better than average. One customer sent a four line message to 1,295 people. 343 accepted, 185 wrote back, and 116 booked a meeting. That is one meeting per 11 people messaged.

Here is the message, word for word:

Hi [name], I am the CEO of an emerging investment bank.
We are currently searching for potential advisors to join
our board and I came across your profile and thought you
might be a good fit. Is this something that could
interest you?

Four lines. Say who you are, say why you picked them, ask one question they can answer with one word.

Bad: ten lines about your company, three bullet points of features, and a calendar link at the bottom.

Good: four lines and a question.

The long version feels safer. It gives the reader more reasons to say yes, and more reasons to stop reading. The second one wins.

When to run it. When you have no audience and you need pipeline this month. It is the slowest to set up and the most predictable once it runs.

Way 2: InMails

You pay to skip the connection request.

What it is. A message that lands in someone's inbox without them accepting you first.

What it costs. Credits, but only sometimes. Profiles set to Open are free to message. Closed profiles cost a credit from your Sales Navigator allowance. Most people burn their monthly credits in a week because they never check which is which.

What it pays. We are not going to give you a number here, because we do not publish an InMail benchmark we trust yet. What we can tell you is where it earns its keep: senior people who accept almost no connection requests, and named accounts where you only care about six people.

The question is never "should I send an InMail." It is "is this person worth a credit, or should this be a connection request."

Use this shape when you do send one:

Subject: quick question about [specific thing at their company]

[Name], I saw [specific, checkable detail].

We help [role] at [company type] with [one outcome].

Worth a short conversation, or is this not a priority
right now?

When to run it. Small, high value target lists. Never as your main channel, because the cost per message does not scale.

Way 3: Content

You post, and people come to you.

What it is. Regular posts from your personal profile, on two or three topics, held long enough for the algorithm to learn what you are about.

What it costs. Time, and about 30 days of silence before anything moves. That silence is the real price, and it is why most people quit at week three.

What it pays. On our own account, the median plain post passed 364 views. That is not a business on its own.

What content actually does is make the other four ways work better. People check your profile before they accept you. They check it again before they reply. A profile with nothing on it makes every other channel harder.

Content is the multiplier, not the machine.

Use this shape when you do not know what to write. It works because it teaches one thing instead of announcing one thing:

[One sentence someone could disagree with]

[One sentence that raises the stakes]

What most people do:
[the common approach, one line]

What it costs them:
[the specific, boring consequence]

What to do instead:
-> [step]
-> [step]
-> [step]

[One line naming exactly who this is for]

When to run it. Always, in the background, at 2 to 5 posts a week. Never as your only channel if you need meetings this quarter.

Way 4: Lead magnets

You give something away, and the people who want it raise their hand in public.

What it is. A post that offers one specific resource. People comment a keyword. The resource gets sent by DM automatically. Every commenter becomes a warm connection.

What it costs. One document, which is a day of work the first time and a couple of hours after that. Plus the post.

What it pays. On our account, the median lead magnet post passed 1,632 views against 364 for a plain post. Same writer, same week. Four and a half times the reach, because there is no link in the post and the comments tell LinkedIn the post is worth showing.

Now the honest half. We tracked 37 posts through to revenue. They brought in 81 paying customers. The biggest post pulled 507 leads and made 3 customers. A smaller one pulled 207 leads and made 8.

The resource decides who raises their hand. Promise a generic template and you get people who collect templates. Promise something that only makes sense to someone already doing the work, and fewer hands go up, but they belong to buyers.

The CTA shape that works:

[The post, which teaches one thing properly]

What is inside:
1. [specific]
2. [specific]
3. [specific]

Comment "KEYWORD" and I will send it over.

Two rules that quietly kill this if you get them wrong. Never say "DM me", because there is nothing to trigger on. And never pick a keyword that hides inside a normal word, because every comment containing it will fire.

When to run it. Once you have any audience at all. It is the fastest way to turn reach into a list of names.

Way 5: Retargeting

You go back to everyone who already engaged.

What it is. The people who liked a post, commented on one, accepted your connection, or replied once and went quiet. You already have them. Nobody wrote back.

What it costs. Nothing. No credits, no new list, no ad spend.

What it pays. Look at the outreach numbers again. 5,273 people wrote back. 487 booked a meeting.

The gap between those two numbers is 4,786 conversations that started and stopped. That pool sits on almost every account we look at, and it is the single cheapest thing in this document.

Two things make it work.

Speed. We read 5,615 replies. Half came back within 17.7 hours of the person accepting the connection. That is your window. Someone accepts Monday morning, and the reply is often in before Tuesday morning. Answer three days later and you are a stranger again.

A reason to come back. Not "just following up." Give them the thing you made since you last spoke.

Hi [first name], you [liked / commented on] the post about
[topic] a while back.

I put the whole thing into one page since then. Want me
to send it over?

Here is the click path for the free version of this. Open one of your posts. Click the number next to the reactions. That list is a lead list of people who already raised a hand at your topic, and it is sitting there right now.

When to run it. Immediately, and forever. If you only do one thing from this document, do this one.

What each one costs you

Outreach. A Sales Navigator seat, about 15 minutes a day, capped at 25 requests per account per day.

InMails. Credits, on closed profiles only. Open profiles are free.

Content. Time, plus roughly 30 days before anything moves.

Lead magnets. One document, a day the first time. Plus the post.

Retargeting. Nothing.

What each one pays back

Outreach. 36.5% acceptance across 34,056 requests. Roughly one meeting per 70 requests on an average account, and one per 11 on the best campaign we have on record.

InMails. No published benchmark from us. Its value is access, not volume.

Content. Median 364 views on a plain post. It makes the other four convert better rather than converting on its own.

Lead magnets. Median 1,632 views against 364. But 507 leads made 3 customers and 207 leads made 8, so count customers, not hands.

Retargeting. 4,786 conversations already started and stopped on our own numbers. Free to restart.

All of it adds to 1,022 meetings booked across Reachium accounts in the last 12 months.

Your turn. Use the average acceptance numbers above and your own target.

Meetings I want this quarter:      ______
x 70 requests per meeting        = ______ requests
/ 25 requests a day              = ______ sending days
/ 5 days a week                  = ______ weeks

If that comes out longer than a quarter, the fix is
never "send more than 25 a day". It is a tighter list,
a shorter message, or answering faster.

Which to run first based on what you have today

Find the line that matches you.

No audience, no budget, need meetings this month. Start with outreach. Build one list, send 25 a day, answer inside 17 hours. Add retargeting in week two, because by then you will have people to go back to.

No audience, some budget, selling to senior people. Outreach as the base, InMails for the 20 or 30 names who never accept anyone.

An audience, but no time. Start with retargeting. Everyone who ever engaged with a post is a list you already paid for. Then add one lead magnet post a week.

An audience and a bit of time. Lead magnets. You have the reach already, so turn it into names.

Posting for months with nothing to show for it. You are running content alone. Add outreach this week. Content was never going to book meetings by itself.

Score yourself

Tick every line that is true today.

I have a lead list built and I am sending requests most days

I check which profiles are Open before spending an InMail credit

I have posted at least twice a week for the last month

At least one of my posts offers a resource with a comment keyword

I have messaged someone this month purely because they engaged with a post

I answer new replies inside 24 hours, not on Fridays

Five or six ticks. You are running the machine. The gains left are in the copy and the list, not the channels.

Three or four ticks. You have a working half. Add the cheapest missing channel first, which is almost always retargeting.

One or two ticks. You are doing what most people do, which is one fifth of LinkedIn. Pick the line in the section above that matches your situation and run that one for 30 days before adding anything.

Your first 48 hours

Open your last post, click the reactions count, and write down 20 names

Send those 20 the reactivation message from the top of this document

Build one list with a real filter set, not just a job title and a country

Write your four lines. Who you are, why them, one question

Send 25 requests. Not 100

Put two 10 minute inbox checks in your calendar, morning and end of day

The four week ramp

These are targets from what average accounts do, not promises.

Week 1. 125 requests out. Expect roughly 45 to accept. Your job is answering, not sending.

Week 2. First replies turn into conversations. Add the retargeting pass on old connections.

Week 3. 375 requests in total. On average acceptance that is around 135 new connections. Publish your first lead magnet post to the audience you just built.

Week 4. First meetings land. On average numbers, 500 requests is around 7 meetings. A good list and a short message beats that by a lot. A bad list beats nothing.

What we will not promise

We will not tell you this replaces a salesperson. It replaces the part of the job that is admin.

We will not tell you every channel works for every business. InMails are wasted on a market that accepts connection requests. Content is wasted if you quit at day 20.

We will not give you a number we cannot show you. That is why the InMail section above has no benchmark in it.

And we will not tell you 25 a day is a limitation to work around. It is the thing keeping your account alive.

Two things we will promise. Nothing leaves your account that you have not approved. And the cap of 25 a day does not move, on any plan, for any price.

If you would rather not do this yourself

Everything in this document works by hand. You can run all five channels with a Sales Navigator seat and a calendar reminder, and plenty of people do.

What we sell is the part where it stops depending on you remembering. Lists, sequences, one inbox across every account, the lead magnet delivery, and the retargeting that fires off likes and comments without you opening a tab.

If that sounds better than doing it manually: book a 20 minute demo

Or start it yourself: sign up on Reachium

Either way, go do the four minute thing at the top of this document first. It is free and it works.

Jordan Kwan, founder of Reachium