What LinkedIn Profile Types Can Valley Target and How?
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Can Valley send messages to LinkedIn profiles that aren't in my network?
Yes. Valley specializes in second and third-degree connections; people you're not yet connected with. Valley operates through two primary message types: connection requests with follow-ups for closed profiles, and InMails through Sales Navigator for open profiles. First-degree outreach (messaging existing connections) is on Valley's short-term roadmap but currently not available.
The focus on second and third-degree connections reflects Valley's positioning as a prospecting tool rather than a relationship management platform. Second-degree connections are people connected to your connections—you have mutual contacts that could facilitate warm introductions. Third-degree connections are further removed but still within LinkedIn's professional network. Valley helps you reach these prospects with personalized messages that initiate relationships before they enter your direct network.
The limitation on first-degree outreach is temporary. Valley customers consistently request the ability to message existing connections—for example, to re-engage old contacts, announce new product launches to your network, or nurture relationships with prospects who connected but never replied. Valley's product team is developing first-degree messaging features expected in Q1 2025, which will enable complete coverage of your entire LinkedIn universe.
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What are open profiles versus closed profiles in Valley's context?
Open profiles belong to LinkedIn users with Sales Navigator, LinkedIn Premium, or LinkedIn Recruiter subscriptions. These profiles accept InMails without requiring credits; you can send up to 800 free InMails monthly to open profiles through Sales Navigator Advanced. Closed profiles require either connection requests or InMail credits (typically 50-100 per month depending on your Sales Navigator plan).
The open/closed distinction creates a two-tier outreach economy on LinkedIn. Approximately 40-50% of LinkedIn users in typical B2B target markets have premium subscriptions, making them "open" for free InMail outreach.
The remaining 50-60% have basic LinkedIn accounts, requiring either connection requests (with the risk of rejection) or paid InMail credits to reach them.
Understanding this distinction transforms outreach strategy. Traditional approaches treat all prospects identically—send connection requests to everyone and hope for acceptance. Valley's intelligent approach identifies the 40-50% you can InMail for free, maximizing reach without burning through your 50-100 monthly credits.
This effectively doubles your outreach capacity: 800 free InMails to open profiles PLUS 600 connection requests to closed profiles = 1,400 prospects contacted monthly per LinkedIn account.
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How does Valley identify which prospects have open versus closed profiles?
Valley automatically detects profile status during campaign creation. When you upload a prospect list or create campaigns from post engagers, Valley identifies open profiles and routes them to InMail campaigns while sending closed profiles to connection request campaigns. This intelligent routing maximizes your outreach capacity without wasting InMail credits.
The detection happens during the prospect import process. Valley checks each LinkedIn profile's subscription status through signals visible in the Sales Navigator interface—open profiles display certain indicators that Valley's system recognizes. This check happens automatically and invisibly; you simply see prospects routed to appropriate campaigns without manual sorting.
The automation eliminates hours of manual work. Without Valley, you'd need to individually check each prospect's profile for premium subscription indicators, create separate lists for open versus closed profiles, and manage two parallel campaigns manually. Valley completes this segmentation in seconds, ensuring optimal outreach strategy execution without the operational overhead.
Can Valley reach out to people who've viewed my LinkedIn profile?
Yes. Valley's profile viewers feature automatically tracks people who view your profile daily, scores them for ICP fit, and can create campaigns that reach out to high-fit viewers automatically. This is one of Valley's most successful warm outreach features, with customers seeing 64% acceptance rates and 47% reply rates on profile viewer campaigns—significantly higher than cold outreach performance.
Profile viewers represent explicit interest signals—these prospects took action to research you or your company. They might have encountered your name in a LinkedIn post, searched for solutions in your category and found your profile, or been researching after a referral from mutual connections. Regardless of source, their profile view indicates awareness and curiosity worth capitalizing on immediately.
The performance differential between profile viewer outreach and cold outreach is dramatic. Cold connection requests see 25-35% acceptance rates on average; profile viewer requests see 60-70% acceptance. Cold follow-up messages receive 15-20% reply rates; profile viewer follow-ups receive 40-50% replies. This performance difference reflects the warm introduction effect; you're not interrupting strangers, you're following up with people who already showed interest.
Does Valley work with LinkedIn company pages or only personal profiles?
Currently, Valley only works with personal LinkedIn profiles because companies can't send messages only individuals can.
However, Valley is developing the ability to track new followers of company pages you subscribe to. When available, this will allow you to reach out to people who newly follow your company page or competitors' pages, capturing high-intent prospects showing interest.
The company page limitation reflects LinkedIn's platform architecture. Company pages can post content and gather followers, but all messaging happens person-to-person. This means your Valley campaigns must run from individual LinkedIn accounts (yours, your team members', etc.) rather than from your company page directly.
The upcoming company page follower tracking feature will bridge this gap strategically. You'll subscribe to your company page within Valley, and when prospects follow it, Valley scores them for ICP fit and adds high-fit followers to outreach campaigns from your personal account. The message might reference "I noticed you recently followed [Company Name]" to acknowledge the connection between your personal outreach and their company page interest.
Can Valley target people who engage with specific LinkedIn posts?
Yes. Valley's post engagement scraper is a core feature. You can subscribe to LinkedIn profiles (yours, competitors, or industry influencers) within Valley, and the platform automatically identifies everyone who reacts to or comments on their posts. Valley scores these engagers for ICP fit and creates campaigns that reach out to high-fit prospects who've demonstrated interest in relevant topics.
Post engagement targeting represents one of the most powerful prospecting strategies available. Instead of cold outreach to random prospects, you're contacting people who actively engaged with content adjacent to your solution. Someone who liked a post about "The future of sales automation" is demonstrably interested in your category—they're not a cold prospect, they're a warm lead showing intent through their engagement behavior.
The strategy works especially well when targeting competitor audiences. Find your top three competitors' founders or thought leaders on LinkedIn. Subscribe to them in Valley. When they post content about industry trends, product updates, or thought leadership, their audience engages and that audience is your ICP. Valley automatically identifies these engagers, scores them, and reaches out with messages like "I saw you engaged with [Competitor's] post about sales automation challenges—we've developed an approach that addresses the limitations they mentioned."
What's the process for targeting competitors' LinkedIn post engagers with Valley?
Find a competitor founder or thought leader whose audience matches your ICP. Load their profile into Valley through the subscription feature. Valley populates everyone who reacts or comments on that person's posts, scores them for ICP fit, and allows you to create campaigns targeting high and medium fits.
This approach captures prospects already engaging with content adjacent to your solution.
The implementation process takes about 10 minutes to set up but generates ongoing prospect flow indefinitely.
Start by identifying 5-10 competitor thought leaders or industry influencers whose audiences match your ICP; people posting regularly about topics relevant to your solution.
Add each profile to Valley's subscription list. Valley begins monitoring their content automatically.
Every time these profiles post, Valley captures all engagement within 24-48 hours. A competitor founder posting about industry trends might receive 500 reactions and 50 comments.
Valley scores all 550 engagers for ICP fit, identifies maybe 200 high-fit prospects, and adds them to your campaign queue. This happens automatically for every post from every subscribed profile; you're continuously building prospect lists from engaged, interested audiences without manual work.
Can Valley identify and reach out to prospects with purple badges indicating they're hiring?
Valley can score for hiring signals as part of your ICP criteria. If you specify that prospects showing hiring indicators should be ranked higher, Valley incorporates this into scoring. However, Valley doesn't have automated filtering specifically for purple badges—you'd need to include hiring as a qualification criterion in your ICP definition, and Valley will research and score based on hiring signals available in their profile and company data.
Hiring signals appear in multiple forms Valley can detect: job postings on the company careers page, LinkedIn posts from team members announcing "We're hiring," recent additions to the team visible in company updates, and increased employee count on the company profile.
Valley's research agents scan these sources and flag hiring activity as an ICP scoring factor when you've indicated it matters.
The scoring adjustment for hiring signals varies based on how critical growth is to your value proposition.
If you sell tools that specifically help scaling teams (recruiting software, onboarding platforms, HR systems), hiring signals might increase ICP scores by 20-30 points. If hiring is merely a positive indicator but not central to your pitch, the boost might be 5-10 points. You control this weighting by how prominently you feature hiring in your ICP criteria description.
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