5 Tips to Approach and Reach Out to Influencers So They Can’t Say NO
My first influencer pitch was terrible. Over the years, I’ve crystalized these simple tips on writing an outreach email that piques interest.
You might be sure that investing in producing great content will definitely show up. And it will. However, your content sometimes needs a boost and endorsement to get noticed and start appearing at the top of searches. Influencer marketing is an effective practice that can help your brand find its audience much faster.
Hundreds of brands spend a lot of effort, time, and money to collaborate with influencers. But only a few succeed in this. A significant percentage of companies are not even answered when reaching out to creators. There are multiple reasons why, from an irrelevant offer to a poorly presented brand value proposition, or insufficient influencer content research. You can raise your chances of not only getting a response but also establishing a partnership by following these several simple tips on influencer outreach.
Find relevant influencers with “real” impact
Explore your target audience and whom it is following
Before reaching out to influencers, do your research. Explore a target audience to define what kind of people your consumers are, what social media platforms they use the most often, and what type of content they usually consume (format, topic, and tone). Pay also attention to their demographics. Investigate what influencers, experts, and creators your customers follow on social media. It will help you find the right person whose content matches this set of requirements and resonates with your audience.
Make sure you deal with a real influencer, not fake
When you have a list of candidates for collaboration, research everyone’s quality of content, how they engage with followers, and whether their community is real or fake. Unfortunately, the hard truth is that the number of followers on the influencer’s profile is no longer a trustworthy indicator of their actual social impact. You must also check whether these followers are real users, not bots.
Looking at the comments under posts can help you detect it. Fake, irrelevant comments left by bots or their full absence might mean that the influencer’s followership was gathered artificially by using special “black marketing” tools and can’t result in any benefits for your brand. You can also manually check the random followers’ profiles. It’s pretty easy to recognize the bot’s profile, as it most often doesn’t have a bio, has no posts, or just a few of them, and these are mainly randomly chosen photos.
Check the influencer’s engagement rate and community feedback
To avoid so-called “fake” influencers, it’s recommended to use influencer marketing automation platforms that allow you to conduct more profound research, see the creator’s real engagement rate, the average number of views over a certain period, community feedback, and so on.
Do your homework and get to know an influencer
One of the key essentials of successful influencer outreach is researching their content and background. You must learn more about the person you would like to collaborate with. An understanding of their audience and content will help you make a relevant offer and come up with great ideas for content co-creation. Always start by appreciating their work before making a pitch. Figure out what value influencers are delivering in their content and how your brand can contribute to this process. Make your suggestions based on this thinking to get a positive influencer’s response.
It’s usually a good practice to reference a video, post, or podcast that you liked the most and that led you to a decision to reach out to a creator. From this point, keep your email pitch straightforward and disclose the desired outcome for your brand.
Talk respectfully and straight to the point
Time has tremendous value in the business world. Particularly, when you are dealing with influencers whose inbox is always overflowed with hundreds of emails. So, it’s important to be respectful of their time and get to the point in your outreach email. Mention everything relevant, briefly introduce yourself and your brand value proposition, but don’t make your message too long. Don’t be pushy or intrusive during the interaction with the influencer, leave some space for further negotiation and discussion.
Give them creative freedom and let them know that your brand is not going to take full control over the process of content creation. These people do know what resonates with their followers and can suggest ideas that will work better.
Highlight what you’re offering in return for their effort
It’s time to think of how your company is going to handle compensating influencers. You must be ready that most creators prefer monetary compensation. However, some of them can also ask for the next types of compensation.
Product discount or giveaway. This tactic usually works for micro-influencers. Offering a discount on your products/services or suggesting to make a giveaway can help your brand get further exposure in the future.
Commission. If your collaboration with a particular influencer acquires the form of a continuous partnership that drives big sales, then you can consider suggesting a commission to the influencer.
Shout out. If your company’s expertise and advice have an important place in the industry, the influencer can be interested in a shout-out or using your content in their effort.
Follow up if they do not reply to your first message
Don’t forget to follow up with influencers if your first email hasn’t been answered. There are two primary reasons why you haven’t received a response: a creator is not interested in the collaboration or… your email has been simply missed. It might get to a spam box or go unnoticed among dozens of other emails. Anyway, it’s worth following up and initiating a conversation once again. You might be surprised but this person might appear to be very interested in a partnership with your brand. You can send one or two follow-up emails.
Communication is art, and mastering it is crucial for business owners and managers at different levels of a career ladder. It also has paramount importance for marketers who are struggling to establish partnerships with influencers. I hope that these tips will help you create a truly engaging outreach email that will pique the influencer’s interest and lead to a successful collaboration.
