You’re Not Trash — But Your Cold Email Outreach Is
Finding influencers for your brand isn’t as easy as you think.
You’ve created a product — congratulations! The work it’s taken to get you to this point has probably seemed insurmountable, but you pushed through. You have a great product, you’re ready for launch, your marketing plan is in place, and all that’s left is to find influencers to spread the word. But who fits with your brand?
There are countless influencers out there with a following. Five minutes of searching is enough to completely overwhelm a person so why not just cast a WIDE net across every email address you can get your hands on? Is it really that challenging to find people to take your product, spread it across the interwebs, and be boom, bam, done? Yes. It is.
It’s not as easy as you think.
Many brands are turning to social media to leverage those with a reputable following, or a known authority within their niche to help them raise awareness and interest for their products. They’re crowding the same inbox you’re fighting for space in, and they have better-known brands, with bigger budgets to spend. Effectively utilizing influencers isn’t impossible for small brands but it does necessitate a more meaningful strategy to give you the best chance of working with the right people. Our team has been there, these are the tips we know make a difference.
You Need to Explore More
You’ve found a few influencers and have so many tabs open, you can’t even see the name of the site. You want to use your time efficiently when finding the right influencer.
The current traditional process goes like this:
- Grab their name from the About page
- Find out what their Collaboration Policy is
- Get their Contact information
- Send a cold email, wait for a response
You’re not likely to get one.
Influencers receive multiple emails a day from brands within and outside of their niche, hoping for a collaboration. For many influencers, these emails arrive while attending to all their other responsibilities: work, school, friends, family, you name it. Some are getting paid for their influencer efforts, but most are creating content because they genuinely enjoy creating and sharing with their community. Even for the influencers who are getting paid, they’re most likely not making a living off of being an influencer and have a job outside to help pay the bills.
“So how do you catch an influencer’s attention without being banished into the void of the trash?” you ask.
Go beyond the About Me section.
Check out their most recent post and ask yourself these questions:
- Where do they create content?
- Do they excel in their writing or in their visuals?
- Are their posts entertaining, informative, or both?
- Are they continuing the conversation with their followers in the comments?
Behave as a Follower Would.
Because influencers have lives beyond creating, their about page may not have been updated lately. By several years in some cases. Content on platforms change and evolve as the influencer grows, and that’s where the updates are happening. Snooping out their latest posts is one of the best ways to gauge whether an influencer is right for your brand and product because it shows their:
- Personality and Voice: Are they a good representation, or would they end up embarrassing the brand?
- Approach: How do they go about creating their content?
- Frequency and Reliability: Are they reliable, or do they just off and disappear randomly with no activity anywhere at all?
- Engagement: Do they interact with their audience? How often do their followers interact? Are the comments from the influencer genuine? Are they active in the community itself and building connections?
Influencers take the time to research companies before accepting a collaboration. As a brand, showing the influencer that you’ve taken the time to do your research rather than mass emailing will be noticed and much appreciated. You’re likely to get a response, even if it is a possible “no.”
Get Social and Connect with them.
Go beyond creeping on their content. Support the content they create — follow them across social media and be a part of their community! Like their content and share their posts if they are relevant to your brand. Leave genuine comments on their content and start a conversation with them.
When you’re taking the step to connect and interact with them on their platforms, they’ll notice. And when you finally send the email proposing a collaboration, you can easily pull out content you’ve enjoyed and why you think their content is fantastic, and a good fit for your brand. If they recognize the sender of the email they’re going to open it.
Kudos to you if you’re following this strategy already. You’re exploring, you’re following, and you’re engaging — you probably have no issue crafting a fantastic proposal and getting a response.
And the best part? They’ll more likely to be responding with a YES.
However, it’s important to remember, despite your best efforts -
Influencers can still say no.
Bummer. Rejection is the worst feeling, but don’t let that be the end. Each influencer has their reasons for saying no to a brand, and it’s not likely to be a personal attack on you. There are many reasons an influencer may respond “no”: bad timing, no room in the content calendar, it’s on the heels of a similar product collaboration, or would void a previous exclusivity contract with another brand. Or they just know they aren’t excited about it and their audience won’t be either. In which case be grateful that they don’t want to waste your product or time on an inauthentic pairing. If you handle their “no” now, and graciously, you’ll always have the opportunity to turn it into a “yes” in the future.
Relationship building is never a waste of time.
Are you a brand struggling to connect with Influencers? Let’s talk about it in the comments! Are you an influencer who wants to tell us what would really turn the tide? Let’s chat!
