The Best Demand Generation Channel for B2B Sales

Ever noticed how many sales professionals pit LinkedIn against email as if you must choose one over the other?

They'll debate endlessly about which channel delivers "better" results.

The truth is far simpler than that.

Your prospects are in completely different mental states when engaging with each channel.

Using only one, or worse, using both incorrectly, isn't just inefficient. It's actively harmful to your sales efforts.

LinkedIn and email aren't competing platforms.

They're complementary tools that excel in different phases of prospect engagement.

So let’s discuss how to use both in tandem.

Using Linkedin correctly

LinkedIn excels at what email struggles with: establishing credibility and trust early in the relationship.

Before reading a single word of your message, prospects can (and will):

• View your profile

• View mutual connections

• Gauge your industry credibility through content

This built-in trust accelerator creates the foundation that your email outreach can later build upon.

It can be a hindrance; if your profile isn’t up-to-snuff and you don’t post any content.

Or a massive advantage; if you’re super active, engaged, and posting regularly.

What LinkedIn provides isn't a replacement for email, but rather the ability to sweat social credibility in the right way.

All that's required is to do a little more than the next guy and you immediately stand out from the crowd. I mean, you’re reading this article, right?

Using Cold Email correctly

While LinkedIn builds credibility, email excels at converting that goodwill into concrete business actions:

• Scale capabilities are unmatched (think upwards of 300 cold emails per day)

• Prospects are in "work mode" when checking email, primed for business decisions

• That means Leads typically have higher intent to buy

Consider it the closing specialist to LinkedIn's relationship building approach.

That said, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows.

It often takes a lot of testing to find your “killer” offer.

And the technical requirements for effective email outreach aren’t trivial.

You will absolutely need:

• Proper domain configuration

• DNS records setup (SPF, DKIM, DMARC)

• Warming protocols

• Deliverability monitoring

All of which need to be set up exactly to avoid deliverability issues or domain damage.

These technical barriers are worth overcoming though, because email's conversion capabilities are quite massive.

In fact, after setting up email demand engines for over 30+ clients, following a specific strategy, we’ve yet to damage a single domain and experience record low bounce-rates.

Definitely worth having as an addition to your sales arsenal.

The Mental State Mismatch

The biggest mistake in channel selection is ignoring your prospect's mindset.

They’re not just different delivery methods, they’re different audience’s too.

LinkedIn users are typically:

• Browsing professionally but casually

• Open to new connections

• Not necessarily in "buying mode"

• Receptive to relationship-building, not sales.

Email readers are:

• Task-oriented

• Sorting through competing priorities

• Protective of their time

• Evaluating immediate relevance

This explains why the hard-selling fails on Linkedin but using the Don’t Sell approach works wonders.

It’s all about context, and sweating each channels strengths effectively.

Implementation Timeline

For those looking to implement a coordinated strategy:

Week 1-2:

• LinkedIn engine setup

• LinkedIn profile optimisation

• Launch of relationship-focussed campaigns on Linkedin

Week 3:

• Complete email engine setup

• Create 2-3 gateway offerings

• A/B several scripts for each gateway to find the winner

Week 4:

• Monitor live campaigns and collect analytics

• Collect insights from responders

• Ideate next set of campaigns

Orchestrate, Don't Separate

The most successful sales organisations don't choose between LinkedIn or email.

They strategically combine both, using LinkedIn to build trust and email to convert interest into action.