Cold email outreach or LinkedIn DMs? Had a conversation that flipped my thinking

I used to swear by cold email for b2b, sent like 500 a week and got maybe a 2% response rate. Then I got a reply from a guy who said my email was 'fine but forgettable' and that really hit me. He suggested I focus on LinkedIn DMs instead, since people actually see your face and profile. I tried it last month with 50 personalized DMs and got 8 replies, way better than my emails ever did. But now I'm wondering if I was just lucky or if this is actually the better play long term. Has anyone else switched from email to DMs and seen real results?

2 comments

2 Comments

oliver5231mo ago

That line about "fine but forgettable" really stuck with me too. It's such a perfect way to describe the problem with cold email. I had a very similar experience when I switched to DMs about six months ago. My email response rate was around 1-2% as well, and it felt like I was just shouting into the void. I swapped to LinkedIn DMs, kept them short and personal, and my reply rate jumped to about 10-12% right away. It wasn't just luck in your case, I've seen it hold up over time because people actually take a moment to look at who you are before hitting delete.

joseph_hart1mo ago

Curious how you're handling the connection request part before the DM. Are you sending a request first and waiting for them to accept before you message, or are you including the pitch right in the request note? In my experience, that little step makes or breaks it. If you send a note they can see before accepting, you're basically doing cold email in a smaller box. But if you wait for them to accept first, the follow-up message usually gets a lot more eyeballs. Just wondering if there's a sweet spot you found there.