LinkedIn Message Templates: Cold Messages and Follow Ups That Get Replies

Most LinkedIn cold messages fail in the first line. Not because the offer's bad, but because the first line could've been sent to anyone, and the person reading it can tell in about two seconds. The follow up fails for the opposite reason: it says "just checking in" and adds nothing the first message didn't already say.

This guide has twelve templates, six for the first message and six for the follow ups after it. Each one comes with a real draft next to it, written by the AI inside Ln2CRM from a few lines of notes, so you can see what the template turns into when there's an actual person on the other end. The people and companies in the drafts are made up. The drafts themselves weren't edited beyond swapping a hyphen or two for spaces.

What makes a LinkedIn cold message get a reply?

That's the whole method, honestly. The rest of this page is the detail: the limits LinkedIn puts on each kind of message, the templates, and how to keep track of who you owe a follow up to without a spreadsheet.

How long can a LinkedIn message be?

It depends on what you're sending. LinkedIn treats a connection note, a message to someone you're already connected with, and an InMail as three different things, and each has its own limit. Here's what LinkedIn Help says, and where it doesn't say anything.

Sources are LinkedIn's help pages on composing InMail in Sales Navigator and sending an InMail. Notice that none of the limits matter much in practice. A cold message that needs 1,900 characters won't get read anyway, and every draft further down sits between 137 and 299 characters.

The connection note is its own small art form, with stricter rules and a real question about whether to add one at all. We've covered it separately in connection request messages, limits and 30 examples. This page starts at the moment they've accepted.

What should a cold LinkedIn message include?

Four things, and the order matters. Start with why you're writing today, which is almost always a trigger: they accepted your invite, changed jobs, posted something, or their company made news. After that comes why it matters to them, in their terms. Add one fact that makes you credible, ideally a number, and finish with a question they can answer in one line.

What doesn't belong in a first message? Your company history, a list of features, a calendar link, and the word "synergy". A request for 30 minutes on a call also tends to sink it, because it asks for a lot before you've given anything. Offering to send something small works better, and you'll see the AI drafts below land on that move again and again.

LinkedIn cold message templates

Each template below has brackets for the parts you fill in. In Ln2CRM, [name] fills itself with the first name of the person in the conversation, and the other brackets are for you. Under each template is the draft the Ln2CRM AI wrote when we gave it a short set of notes on a fictional prospect and a two line description of the sender's company. We ran the same engine that sits behind the ✨ button in the LinkedIn message box, on November 2, 2026.

1. After they accept your connection request

The easiest cold message there is, because they've just said yes to something. Write the same day or the next one. Don't thank them for three sentences, once is plenty.

Notes given: Operations Director at an HVAC company with about 60 technicians, accepted an invite sent without a note. Sender: route planning software for field service teams.

2. After a job change

People in a new role spend the first ninety days finding out what's broken, and they're unusually open to hearing from someone who fixes one of those things. Lead with the congrats, then name what the role usually inherits.

Notes given: started as VP Finance at a B2B SaaS company three weeks ago, previously a controller. Sender: a bookkeeping and month end close service.

3. After they post about a problem you solve

This is the warmest cold message you can send, as long as you quote what they actually said. Comment on the post first, so your name isn't new when the message arrives.

Notes given: CTO at a US payments startup, posted that senior backend hiring is hard and they're open to Europe, sender liked and commented. Sender: a recruiting agency.

4. After company news

Funding, an acquisition, a new office, a big hire. Use the number from the announcement, because it shows you read past the headline, and then name the thing that usually breaks next.

Notes given: Head of Operations at a plumbing company that just acquired two local firms and runs 140 technicians in 3 cities. Sender: route planning software.

5. When a mutual connection suggested it

Use the full name of the person who sent you, and only if they actually agreed to it. A borrowed name that the prospect checks with a quick DM is the fastest way to burn two relationships at once.

Notes given: CEO at a B2B SaaS company, introduced by the CFO of an existing client. Sender: the same bookkeeping service as example 2.

6. After an event or webinar

"Saw you were at the webinar" is weak, because everyone was. The question they asked in the Q&A is strong, because only they asked it.

Notes given: VP Engineering, asked about contractor compliance in a webinar on hiring in Europe. Sender: the recruiting agency from example 3.

How do you follow up on LinkedIn after no response?

Most replies come after a follow up, not after the first message, so why would you skip it? But a follow up that only says "bumping this" teaches the reader that your messages are safe to ignore. Every follow up should carry one new thing. It can be the example you offered, a number, a piece of news about their company, or simply a smaller ask.

Here's the cadence we use ourselves. It's a habit, not a law, so stretch it if your buyers are slow.

Why stop at two? Because after the third unanswered message, people stop seeing you as a person who wrote and start seeing a sequence. You also lose the chance to come back in three months with real news, which works far better than a fourth nudge ever will. The task in your CRM is what makes coming back possible, and the LinkedIn prospecting routine walks through how those tasks fill a calendar.

LinkedIn follow up message templates

These drafts came from the reply side of the same engine. Here it gets the conversation itself, with dates on every message, plus the notes on the CRM record. That's why it knows when you're the one who wrote last, and how many days have passed since.

7. First follow up after no reply

Look at what the AI did here. It didn't repeat the question from the first message. It offered the example on its own, which turns "are you interested?" into "here's something, take it or leave it".

Thread given: the first message from example 1, sent three days earlier, no reply.

8. Second and last follow up

Short, and it puts the decision with them. If this one gets no answer, move them to a task and go quiet.

Thread given: the first message and one nudge, twelve days apart, no reply.

9. After a call

The follow up after a call is where details from your notes earn their keep. Send what you promised, in the numbers they gave you, before they've had time to forget the call.

Thread given: a short exchange ending with "Good talking today. Send over what you mentioned." Notes on the CRM record: the close takes 15 working days, revenue recognition lives in spreadsheets, the sender promised a close calendar and a proposal.

10. After they said "not now"

"Ping me later" is an invitation, if you come back with a reason. Here the reason was a funding round announced two months after the "no".

Thread given: "Timing is off, we froze hiring until Q4, ping me later in the year", sent in August. Note on the CRM record: a $25M Series B in October.

11. After months of silence

Six months later, the old thread is still sitting there. Acknowledge the gap in a few words and lead with what's changed on their side, not yours.

Thread given: a polite "we're fine for now" from May. Note on the CRM record: the company hired a VP Sales and is moving to annual contracts.

12. When they reply with a question

A reply like "how does pricing work?" is the best thing that can happen, and it's surprisingly easy to fumble with a wall of text. Answer in their numbers, then offer one next step.

Thread given: "Dispatch is exactly what's on fire. How does pricing work and how long does setup take?", two days old. Note on the CRM record: the price per technician and the usual setup time.

The AI opened that last one with an apology because the question had sat for two days. Small thing, but it's the kind of detail a template can't know and a person usually forgets.

Why do LinkedIn cold messages get ignored?

• The first line is about you. "I'm the founder of" is the most common opener in cold messages and the least read. Start with them.
• It's a paragraph. On a phone, five sentences look like a chore. Two to four short ones look like a message from a person.
• The ask is too big. Thirty minutes with a stranger is a lot. "Want me to send it?" costs them one word.
• The follow up adds nothing. "Just bumping this" is a reminder that they didn't answer. Bring something they didn't have before.
• The template shows. A wrong name, a bracket left in, or "I came across your profile" gives the game away. Read every message once before you hit send.
• Nobody remembers the context. Three weeks later you've forgotten what they said on the call, and the follow up comes out generic. That's a note in the CRM, not a memory problem.

How to save and insert LinkedIn message templates with Ln2CRM

LinkedIn Recruiter has its own message templates. Regular LinkedIn and Sales Navigator messaging don't give you a place to keep saved texts, which is why so many people keep a notes file open and copy and paste from it. Ln2CRM puts a Templates button straight into the LinkedIn message box: on the Messaging page, in the small chat windows at the bottom of the screen, and in the Sales Navigator composer.

1. Install Ln2CRM and connect your CRM. Add the extension from the Chrome Web Store and sign in. Templates work on every plan, Free included.
2. Open any LinkedIn conversation. You'll see a round document icon in the message box toolbar, next to the attachment buttons.
3. Create a template. Click the icon, choose New template, give it a name and paste the text. Put [name] where the first name should go.
4. Sort templates into groups. Make groups such as "First message" and "Follow ups", then drag templates to reorder them or move them between groups.
5. Insert and edit. Click a template and it lands in the message box with [name] already filled in. Fill the other brackets, read it once, and send it yourself.

How Ln2CRM's AI writes cold messages and follow ups

Next to the Templates button there's a second one, a small pen with sparkles. Click it and Ln2CRM writes the message for you and puts it in the box. It doesn't send anything. You read it, change what you'd say differently, and press Send yourself. What does it actually look at? That depends on whether there's a conversation yet.

A few rules are built in, and you can see them at work in the twelve drafts above. With no conversation, it writes two to four sentences ending in one easy question, and it won't pretend you've spoken before. When you wrote last and they haven't answered, it writes a nudge instead of replying to your own message. When weeks have passed, it acknowledges the gap instead of acting as if the chat is live. It answers in the language of the latest messages, and it mirrors their tone unless you've picked a tone of your own in Settings. It also never uses long dashes, the punctuation people have learned to spot in AI text.

The CRM part is what makes it different from pasting a profile into ChatGPT. Say a note on the record reads "prefers Bob, not Robert" or "no calls before 10". The draft follows it. And when the last call ended with a promise, the follow up keeps it. Ln2CRM finds the record by the person's LinkedIn link first and by name second, checking the deal before the contact, and it works the same way with Pipedrive, HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho and Capsule.

On Free you get 5 AI drafts a month. Base gives you 30 for $13 a user a month on a yearly plan, or $16 if you'd rather pay monthly, and Pro raises it to 500 for $18 yearly or $23 monthly. The details are on Ln2CRM pricing.

Where should LinkedIn follow ups live?

Not in your head, and not in LinkedIn's inbox, which sorts by the latest message and buries the people who didn't reply. A follow up is a task with a date on it. In Ln2CRM, the Manage tab on a LinkedIn profile has a Next task field, a name plus a date, that lands in your CRM as a real task. The same tab shows the open tasks and history for that person, so when the date comes you open the profile and see what you promised.

Once a conversation starts, sync it into the CRM so the next person on your team (or you, in three months) can read it. Syncing LinkedIn messages to your CRM covers how that works for each CRM, and it's also where the AI gets the history it needs to write a good follow up later.

Frequently asked questions

Limits checked against LinkedIn Help on November 2, 2026. Example drafts generated with Ln2CRM's AI on the same day.