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How to create message templates

Sergei Zhutkevich
Updated

 

In this article, we will take a look at "Message Template Editor PRO": the tool dedicated to creating appealing, deeply personalized messages. This feature is helpful for those sellers or marketers who are aiming at getting their target audience interested in a certain project or event, for example, it's essential to start the conversation in an engaging manner.

  1. Requirements
  2. Actions that support "Message Template Editor PRO"
  3. Variables
  4. Inserting images
  5. Character limits
  6. Adding links to your messages
  7. Message preview
  8. Saving message templates
  9. IF | THEN | ELSE operator

Requirements

Such features as IF THEN ELSE clauses, custom variables, and attached personalized images require corresponding plugins to be installed. You can do that in no time from the Plugin store:

  • Conditional IF-THEN-ELSE operator for Message template editor - add conditional IF clauses to modify message content depending on the absence/presence of variable content or for different sets of variables.
  • Custom template variables - extend message template editor with user-defined variables, for example {cs_my_tracking_url} or {cs_translated_firstname}.
  • Attach personalized images -send not only personalized text messages, but personalized images as well (Note: an image via event or group message can be send only in a follow-up after initial message request was accepted).

 

Actions that support "Message Template Editor PRO"

Message templates can be built for "Invite 2nd and 3rd level contacts", "InMail to 2nd & 3rd contacts", "Message to 1st connections", "Message to group members", "Message to event attendees" and "Like and comment posts and articles":

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Once one of them is added to the workflow of your campaign, navigate to the "Message" tab of the action (or "Comment template" in case of "Like and comment posts and articles") and click on the area highlighted on the screenshot below to open "Message Template Editor PRO":

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Variables

By default, you can add the following variables to your message template:

  • {lhid} - profile identifier in the internal Linked Helper CRM, it's unique only within the local database.
  • {firstName} - Andrew, Chloe, Alan, Elizabeth, etc., profile first name normalized by Linked Helper, i.e. names cleared from emojis, titles, etc.
  • {lastName} - Moore, Smith, Foster, Walker, etc., profile last name normalized by Linked Helper, i.e. names cleared from emojis, titles, etc.
  • {company} - Current company profile works for, i.e. Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc.
  • {position} - Current company position, i.e. Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Operating Officer (COO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO), etc.
  • {mutualFirstFullName} - full name of a mutual connection showed on a profile page.
  • {mutualSecondFullName} - full name of another mutual connection showed on a profile page if there are more than 2 mutual connections.
  • {mutualTotal} - total number of mutual connections. The value is 0 if there are no mutual connections, you need to check the message in the template if you use this variable.
  • {memberId} - LinkedIn profile member ID. This ID is unique across all LinkedIn users and never changes.
  • {publicId} - LinkedIn profile public ID that can be found in LinkedIn URL.
  • {industry} - an industry profile works in.

 

Please note that:

  • {industry} variable available for scraping in Sales Navigator only;
  • if there are no mutual connections at all, Linked Helper replaces {mutualTotal} variable with 0. In that cases, IF THEN ELSE statement will always be true, hence you need to use {mutualSecondFullName} variable to define whether there are more than 2 mutual connections, see example in the Examples of the more complex, composite templates section.

To avoid sending awkward sentences like "We have 0 mutual connections which is quite a big number", or "How things in ... going?" please, use IF THEN ELSE clauses in the last examples of the Examples of the more complex, composite templates section of this article:

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Furthermore, you can add any custom variable of your choice: Linked Helper 2: Custom Fields.

 

 

Inserting images

Message to 1st connections is not the only Action that supports image attachments. You can send attach personalized images via Message to group members or Message to event attendees Actions as well, but in these cases images can be send only in a follow-up after initial message request was accepted:

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This feature provides the following options:

  1. Attaching an image from a custom field;
  2. Attaching a personalized image from Hyperise;
  3. Attaching a personalized image from Uclic.

 

Character limits

When you create a message template don't forget about the following LinkedIn limitations:

Note: some of our clients reported that their character limit for invitation notes has been shrunk to 140. So, take the numbers above into account but test the limits yourself.

Characters include spaces, letters, numbers, symbols, and even emojis. The counter for the message body can be found at the top-right corner:

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Do not forget to allow for variables as they will differ in length once replaced by value: for example, {firstName} can be changed to Mary (4 characters), Gabriel (7 characters), Josephine (9 characters), or Bartholomew (11 characters) while the estimated length = 9. Therefore, we'd recommend keeping your message template 5-10 characters under the "Max allowed length". Otherwise, some of the contacts might be processed with the "Generated message is too long" error:

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Adding links to your messages.

Here are some useful tips for inserting links into your template:

  1. It's not possible to send a hyperlink like Wikipedia (this is a LinkedIn restriction), but if you add a URL, e.g. https://www.wikipedia.org, it will be converted by LinkedIn into a clickable link like this one - https://www.wikipedia.org.
  2. It is possible to add URLs into invitation messages as well and they will be converted into clickable links later when an invitation is accepted, but we do not recommend doing that as it may be considered by LinkedIn as spamming. It's better to add a link into a follow-up once the invitation is accepted.
  3. You can check the link preview via this LinkedIn tool: LinkedIn post inspector.
  4. You can customize your link preview by using services like Hyperize or Uclic.co, check What can you use Uclic for? paragraph of the What is Uclic and how it will help you increase reply rate article.
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  5. If your message looks huge and includes several links to websites or videos, then it will be better to split your message and create separate little messages that include one link/video/picture, because LinkedIn doesn’t always show previews for all the media content in your message – How to attach images to LinkedIn messages? This will help you to solve 2 problems:
    • Your message will be more human-like. It will look like you wrote one thought and sent it, after that you thought about another thing and added another couple of paragraphs to the initial message.
    • Links and media files will be fully seen with a preview showing the content and they won’t look like ordinary links. It definitely increases the chances for them to be opened and viewed.

 

Message preview

Once you've built the message template, you can edit test variables on the right or remove them completely to check how the message would differ and click "Save & Close" button when done:

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After that, in the workflow of your campaign you can navigate to the "Queue" of the respective action by clicking on the area highlighted on the screenshot below:

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Here you can preview the messages that are going to be sent:

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Saving message templates

In Linked Helper, it is possible to save message templates in order to use them later in other campaigns.

For that, you need to:

  • create a message;
  • go to the Template gallery tab on the right;
  • click 'Save template to gallery' button;
  • choose a name for the template and click Save:

 

Later you will be able to choose a template from a list when creating a new campaign:

 

 

IF | THEN | ELSE operator

 

 

Information for {company}, {position}, {industry}, {mutualFirstFullName}, {mutualSecondFullName},{mutualTotal} isn't always available on a profile page, that is why you should use logical operator IF | THEN | ELSE to build a truly flexible message template. This option is accessible only with Conditional IF-THEN-ELSE operator for Message template editor plugin installed:

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Note: IF | THEN | ELSE can be used both with standard variables and the custom ones. 

IF string should contain one variable the presence of which Linked Helper should check after information from a profile page is scraped during the execution of a messaging action.

If the information for this variable is found, text from THEN string will be used. If not, Linked Helper  proceeds with the backup plan (i.e. ELSE string). 

Here is an example:

1) A company is available on a profile page:

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2) A company isn't available on a profile page:

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Please keep in mind:

  1. One operator - one variable in the IF string. No text, symbols or mathematical operations (for example, {mutualTotal} = 10, {company} != Microsoft, or {cs_age} > 30 — expressions are not supported). Linked Helper checks only the presence of information, not its content.
  2. The vertical order of strings in "Message Template Editor" doesn't start new lines, as well as their separation between different text boxes, doesn't add spaces - they need to be inserted manually.

 

Examples of the more complex, composite templates

There can be several IF | THEN | ELSE operators within one message template. In addition, variables can be either dependant on each other or completely autonomous. Let's take {company} and {position} as an example.

  • Condition: you want to mention both the company a person works for and their position.
  • Solution: split the sentence into two separate parts, each part inside its own "IF | THEN | ELSE" operator:

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Result: as you can see from the screenshots below, the sentence always looks good, no matter what variable is absent.

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  • Condition: you want to mention both the company a person works for and their position, but unlike the example above, there should be a different text depending on what variable is absent.
  • Solution: make the two variables dependant on each other. Use extra IF | THEN | ELSE conditions for both THEN and ELSE strings of the initial operator - you will make the sentence look natural regardless of the absence of any variable:

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Result:

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  • Condition: if you have two or more mutual connections with a person, you want to mention the number, and if there is only one shared connection, then you want to bring up the name of that contact.
  • Solution: add two consecutive IF | THEN | ELSE operators to check:
  1. The presence of mutual connections;
  2. Whether the number of mutual connections is greater than 1.

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Result:

1. You have two or more shared connections:

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2. There is only one common connection:

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3. There are no mutual connections:

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  • Condition: You would like to send different messages to profiles depending on the number of mutual connections.
  • Solution:  create a workflow shown in the screenshot below.
  1. If there are two or more mutual connections and {mutualTotal} variable can be scraped, then Linked Helper sends a message under #1
  2. If there are two or more mutual connections BUT {mutualTotal} variable is not found for some reason, then Linked Helper sends a message under line #2 (and {mutualSecondFullName} variable is definitely scraped as we checked that in IF state)
  3. If there is only one mutual connection then Linked Helper sends a message under line #3
  4. If there  are no mutual connections at all then Linked Helper sends a message under line #4

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Thank you very much for your attention. We hope that these tips helped you! Here are some more useful articles from our blog:

 

You can try the software for free during 14 days - download it and activate a free trial.

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