Sometime in the last decade, consumers everywhere collectively decided they would never purchase anything without the stamp of approval of someone they knew.
Poring over reviews, watching try-on hauls and product tear-downs, and stalking sellers’ social media accounts became a prerequisite to buying everything — from breakfast cereal to business administration software.
The shift unsurprisingly coincided with the meteoric rise of influencer marketing, which has grown from being a $1.7 billion industry in 2016 to a $21.1 billion behemoth in 2023.
It’s a big pie, and every business wants a piece of it. But finding the right influencer and getting them to collaborate with you takes more than cookie-cutter templates and cold email blasts.
So we put together something better: a cheat sheet on cracking the influencer outreach code. From setting pre-qualifying criteria to writing and then sending the perfect pitch, we’ve got you covered. Ready to dive in?
For brands looking to connect with their audience in a more authentic and engaging manner, no other marketing tactic can drive engagement and conversions as instantaneously as influencer marketing.
Most social media marketers understand that, and that’s why we’re seeing a sustained interest (and investment) in influencer marketing over social media ads.
Influencer outreach is not just about finding a face to promote your brand. It's about cultivating strategic partnerships that can
By building and maintaining relationships with influencers, you’ll ensure that your campaigns are not just transactions but genuine collaborations that harness the full potential of influencer marketing and benefit both parties.
Before you start influencer outreach, it's important to know the answers to these questions:
If your priority is awareness, partner with influencers with large followings.
If it’s sales, influencers with fewer but highly engaged followers are your best bet.
Every influencer has a skill set and signature style. If you’re trying to build viral reel content for your brand, don’t team up with influencers whose best-performing content is static images.
Laying down goals will help you decide the type and number of influencers to reach out to as well as the KPIs for measuring campaign performance.
There are hundreds of thousands of influencers on every social media platform, and picking the perfect influencer can be overwhelming.
First narrow down your choices using tangible factors like:
After compiling a tentative list, assess the quality of the content they create, how they interact with their followers, and whether they seem authentic and likable in sponsored posts to make your final choice.
Check if their public image aligns with the brand’s identity and values.
Influencers with large followings will show up easily on Google searches, and in-app searches on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter when you put in industry-specific keywords and hashtags.
You can find nano and micro-influencers from your own customers by tracking UGC and brand mentions. That way you can uncover potential partnership opportunities with influencers that are already familiar with your brand.
Alternatively, reach out to influencers who have previously worked with your competitors. Just ensure they are no longer associated with them.
Influencers get multiple collaboration requests every day and can sniff a template from a mile away.
Using the same draft for every influencer on your list with minor tweaks for their name and account is not going to cut it.
If you're conducting mass outreach and can't personalize too much, work on the authenticity of your messaging.
The more sincere and “real” you sound, the higher your chances of getting a response.
Your offer might be perfect, but it can still fail if you disregard these aspects of the pitch:
The first option is to contact influencers over the social media channel they create content on. But because influencers get so many message requests, yours could get lost in the noise.
That is why most professional influencers list their work emails in their bio. If they haven’t, you can find their email address using an email lookup tool, as long as you have a name or a company name to go by.
If that doesn’t work for you, here are seven other ways to reach out to influencers.
Treat influencers just as you would any potential customer in your sales funnel. Don’t rush them, don’t be too pushy, and have at least 3-4 points of contact before making the actual pitch.
By follow-ups, we don’t mean badger influencers to read your proposal and/or agree to the collaboration. Keep follow-up emails spaced two to three days apart, and move on if there’s no response after several tries.
The best thing about follow-ups is the ability to automate this process without losing your emails' personalized touch and context. Cold email software enables you to automate all email sequences and track the performance. It is crucial to track performance as it gives you insights into what works, so you can double down on that.
Influencers are inundated with requests from people trying to ride on their coattails. So when you show genuine interest in and appreciation for their work, it’s bound to make an impact.
They might have missed your message the first time around, but when your name keeps popping up in their comments or mentions, they’re more likely to respond.
You can leave encouraging comments (containing words, not heart and fire emojis) on their latest content, or create round-ups of the best creators in the industry and feature them extensively.
As your relationship grows, so will the influencer’s chances of returning the favor.
But if engaging with multiple influencers manually is leading to unreasonable demands on your time, you can offload the bulk of your work to an automated tool like Brandbassador.
That’s what phone accessories brand Casely did, and the results were fantastic: higher engagement and an 85% decrease in employee hours spent on outreach.
An influencer’s job isn’t just making one-minute reels and TikToks. They spend countless hours brainstorming, researching, producing, and editing their content, not to mention interacting with followers.
They’re full-fledged media empires, and they expect to be compensated accordingly.
In your collaboration email, clearly outline what you’re offering.
are also options worth exploring.
If you can’t offer any of these, highlight other benefits like increased visibility, more followers, or a high-authority backlink.
Discuss the kind of content you’d like them to produce and your expectations from the partnership (number of impressions, views, sign-ups, sales, etc.).
You can cite a previous collab they’ve done, or refer to a (non-competing) influencer’s work. But stifling their creativity is an influencer marketing mistake that will result in lacklustre content or even unravel the entire campaign.
No marketing process is complete without a thorough analysis of the results.
Conduct a two-part assessment consisting of outreach and actual campaign metrics.
First, measure influencer outreach success.
Compile and study data relating to:
You can also carry out surveys to understand the effectiveness of your outreach message, offer, and nurturing technique.
Next, assess influencer campaign success. Keep track of the number of
Use this information to decide which influencers to continue collaborating with, how to motivate them, what kind of content to produce, etc.
There's definite allure in the boost in visibility and rankings that follow a successful influencer collaboration. But to make a purchase, modern consumers need more assurance than a one-off endorsement from a famous face.
Instead of spending your entire budget on hiring the biggest influencer possible, focus on building long-term partnerships with influencers that might have fewer followers, but that agree to feature your product in multiple posts over a longer duration.
A continued brand relationship will instill trust in the audience about the usefulness of the product and the authenticity of the influencer’s recommendation.
You can supplement these campaigns with an ambassador marketing program. It identifies the most loyal of your customers and incentivizes them to promote your product.
Brand ambassadors tread into territory influencers can't. They don’t just generate awareness for your brand, they embody it.
Because they’re not professional influencers, they enjoy more credibility among audiences. They’re also more cost-effective and have high returns.
Case in point is IDEAL OF SWEDEN, a fashion accessory brand, that uses Brandbassador’s platform to manage over 50,000 ambassadors and generated nearly $3m in social buzz value.
Teaming up with influencers who have a devoted following and reflect your brand values can send your popularity soaring. You get to leverage their established reach, bank on the support of their loyal followers, and share the credibility they've built over years of content creation.
So set campaign goals, find influencers that fit the bill, create an irresistible offer, and pitch it to them, but not before warming them up to you with continuous interactions. Discuss expectations openly, and keep measuring the results to build long-lasting, mutually beneficial partnerships.