LinkedIn cold message template: the shape, three examples, what to leave out
Last updated 28 September 2026
A cold message on LinkedIn earns a reply when its first line is about the reader and its last line is a question they can answer in a sentence. Four lines, no pitch deck. This page gives the shape, three examples and what to leave out, then how a HeyLead campaign writes the opening message from the person's profile and your own posts.
The shape
- Why them, why now. The post, the hire, the launch, the change. One sentence.
- What you noticed. The problem you think they have, said as a guess, not a diagnosis.
- What you did about it. One line, one proof point, no adjectives.
- One question. Answerable in writing. Not "can we hop on a call".
Three examples
After a signal
Hi Maria, you wrote last week that retries were failing silently after the settlement migration. We hit the same thing and built a debugger that replays every failed webhook with the original payload. Is that still an open problem for the team, or did you solve it in-house?
After they accepted a request
Thanks for connecting, Tom. I build a webhook debugger for Stripe that payments teams use to replay silent failures. Northwind runs on Stripe, as far as I can tell. Is retry visibility something your team handles by hand today?
To a buyer, as the buyer
Hi Lena, we are a 12-person UK company choosing a payroll provider that also pays contractors in Poland, Portugal and Canada, live by January. Do you cover all three, and what does onboarding take?
Leave out
- A paragraph about your company. They will read one line about them and one about you.
- "I hope this message finds you well." It finds nobody well.
- A calendar link in the first message. The call comes from the answer to the question.
- Two asks. One question, one reply.
How a HeyLead campaign writes it
A HeyLead campaign writes the opening message from the person's full profile, the signal that started the outreach, your brief and the voice of your own LinkedIn posts. Opening messages wait for your approval until you switch the campaign to autopilot. Replies are read and answered from the campaign's facts; anything ambiguous is held for you.
Set up HeyLead using https://heylead.dev/llms.txtHeyLead sends from your own LinkedIn account at a human pace: at most 20 invitations a day and 100 a week on a free LinkedIn account (more on Premium or Sales Navigator), Monday to Friday 08:00 to 22:00 in your time zone, minutes apart. It backs off when LinkedIn pushes back and resumes on its own. You can pause any campaign at any time. HeyLead is not affiliated with LinkedIn. It reaches LinkedIn through Unipile, which is also not affiliated.
Questions people ask
What is a good LinkedIn cold message template?
Four lines: why them and why now, what you noticed, what you did about it in one proof point, and one question they can answer in writing. Under 80 words, no calendar link, no paragraph about your company.
How long should a cold LinkedIn message be?
Under 80 words. If it needs scrolling on a phone, the reader stops before the question.
How does HeyLead write cold messages?
From the person's profile, the signal that started the outreach, your brief and the voice of your own LinkedIn posts. Opening messages wait for your approval until you switch a campaign to autopilot.