Nowadays, influencer marketing is booming, and it’s one of the best ways to engage with your audience. In 2020, 57% of the total marketing in the world has been dominated by influencer marketing, so this marketing strategy is gaining popularity pretty fast. The reason behind this exponential growth is that influencers can connect with the audience as trusted peers.
However, finding a suitable influencer for your business’ influencer marketing campaign is not easy. Hence, we have created this comprehensive guide that will help you identify the right influencer for your business, outreach them, and make the collaboration happen.
What Is Influencer Outreaching?
Influencer outreach is a powerful alternative to the conventional advertisement system. It is a very popular and effective strategy to promote your brand and develop reliability among your audience.
An influencer is someone who can deliver your message and display your product/service to a large number of people. Influencers have enormous popularity nowadays and not only do people of all ages trust influencers but also become interested to purchase a product when the influencer recommends it.
When you are approaching your target audience through an influencer, it’s best to have someone on board who can positively impact your audience. That way your brand will be endorsed by someone who is already respected and trusted by your target consumer base.
Influencer outreach has different forms. The most general way is to send a message through social media or email and ask for an opportunity to collaborate. Amazon has an influencer program where interested influencers can sign up and drive more people to shop on the platform. Some other companies also follow this method because it removes the awkwardness of approaching the influencer that many people feel uncomfortable.
Here we will be discussing the appropriate ways to contact an influencer and ask for a chance to collaborate. You may think that not all the influencers will reply back to you, but no worries, this article contains tips that will help you to follow up with your preferred internet personality.
Finding Relevant Influencers For Campaign
Finding the right person for your brand’s promotion is a daunting task because you might get confused about who to collaborate with. But you need to understand that the audience is the main element of influencer marketing. So, you need to find the exact influencer that can inspire your targeted audience to buy your product. Unfortunately, many brands fail in this section and their whole campaign may become compromised.
To find the right personality for your brand’s social media promotion, you need to evaluate them first. It’s important because otherwise, you may end up with the wrong influencer. Here are some parameters that you must follow to do the task correctly:
Reach
The first thing that you need to check is the number of followers they have on their social media sites or blogs. They should have a respectable number of followers on the social channels where you wish to run the campaign. This is a key factor to consider when looking for an influencer who will be the best fit for your business promotion.
Engagement
Another significant aspect of finding an influencer is the engagement rate. Sometimes engagement is more important than reach because it signifies that their audience is willing to interact with them and take their words into consideration. The engagement rate is an indication of how many people are genuinely interested in the social media content of that influencer. So, check the likes, shares, and comments on their posts before making a choice.
Authenticity
The followers will only follow the influencer when their recommendation sounds authentic. So, it’s imperative to check their previous promotional work and its success. They shouldn’t be talking about a product only because they are being compensated for their work. Rather, they need to make sure that the product, for instance, smartphones, cameras, gadgets, etc. is well-reviewed and that all aspects, whether good or bad, are presented in a clear way so that the entire campaign does not seem fake to the audience.
Niche
While you are looking for an influencer for your brand’s next marketing campaign, you need to have affirmations regarding the similarity of your industry/brand/product with the influencer’s niche. For example, if you are a tech or gadgets manufacturing brand, then your influencer should be from the technology niche too. This relevance is highly important because the success of your campaign depends on this. Also, an influencer’s personality should be carrying your brand value. Such resonance will be helpful to make the promotion more appealing and relatable to your audience.
Budget
Budget is an important factor here because a social media promotional partnership with an influencer can cost you anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand depending on the influencer. Though there is no way you can guess how much you are going to be charged, you can look at their profile, effort required, engagement, campaign length, etc. to get an overall idea before you approach them.
Preparing The Pitch
Next up is preparing the pitch. The way you approach an influencer is the first crucial step in order to pull off an effective influencer marketing campaign. You have to prepare well by doing your research on the influencer, knowing how well your product/service fits their particular niche, what you expect the influencer to do for you, etc. Furthermore, you have to maintain professionalism while pitching your idea. So, before you approach an influencer, you need to have a clear idea about the marketing strategy. This understanding will help you to seek the right kind of help from your preferred influencer. Lastly, you need to be precise about the details because even the slightest portion of effort helps.
Pitching Tips
Preparing an invitation to collaborate is like applying for a job. But if you know the way to reach out to an influencer, this is won’t be an issue. Here are some tips that will help you:
- While writing a message or email to an influencer, avoid starting with “Dear influencer” or “To whom it may concern”. This type of approach has the most chance of being ignored. Try to be more personal, this works better.
- Tell them what they’ll get out of it. To put it another way, what are the benefits? There may be some space for flexibility and negotiation, but make it clear that they’ll be well compensated for their time and effort.
- Talk about the content and the way you would like it to be presented. This shows your interest and knowledge of the campaign and helps a lot to build harmony among the brand and the influencer. Is there anything about your brand that can personally connect with the influencer? Don’t forget to mention that too.
Outreaching An Influencer
Mastering the art of writing an outreach email is not too complicated. All you need to do is place yourself in their shoe and think about what you would like to hear as an offer. According to Backlinco, only 8.5% of outreach emails get responses. If you want to be in that percentage, start by showing interest in their social activities and content. This will help you to build a strong relationship.
Here are some other facts that might help you to get a response –
- Avoid using short subject lines. Long subject lines have a 24.6% better response rate.
- If you do not receive a response the first time, send another email. According to one study, mailing multiple times increases your odds of receiving a response 2x times.
- Sending emails to multiple contacts increases your response rate by 93%.
- Also, personalized email can boost the response rate by 30.5%.
Social Media
All social media sites have a feature to message any individual. In the case of Instagram, the best way is to DM. This allows the influencer or their manager to visit your profile quickly. For other social media platforms like Twitter and Snapchat, you can reach out to an influencer using the messaging system. However, for some platforms like LinkedIn, you might need to pay to directly message someone. This increases your visibility as well as the probability of getting a response.
Outside Social Media
If you want to work with bloggers or industry specialists with immense popularity, you can always send them an email. Your first step should be to look for an email that can be found on their personal website or social media platforms. Another useful place to find such information is Google. Depending on the off-network presence on the internet, you’ll be able to extract some sort of information.
There are some email-finding web-based applications that might help you to connect with your desired influencer. One of these is Apollo.io, it’s an email-finding service that is worth trying out. If you want to be more specific with your search, Respona is a blogger-oriented outreach tool with a bunch of significant automation features.
Build A Long-lasting Relationship
It is not wise to think that you will get a reply on the first try. Influencers receive thousands of emails and messages every day, not all of which can be read and replied to. If you don’t get a response the first time, then experts advise sending a follow-up mail. A follow-up mail shows that you are really interested in working with that influencer and this increases your chance of getting through to them. Here’s a tip, some influencers have a practice of answering after the second or third email/message, so sending multiple follow-ups are important.
Once you get a response, you have cracked the code of outreaching an influencer. Carefully negotiate the collaboration terms and you’ll enjoy the outcome of the hard work you did for this project. It’s requested to maintain a healthy relationship with the influencer. Just because the campaign is finished, doesn’t mean the relationship between your brand and the influencer should also end. Make them a part of your network, so you can collaborate with them again for future projects.
Ending Thoughts
Needless to say, the right influencer can make your campaign successful. Once you finish the project, focus on maintaining a long-term relationship with the influencer. Try to compensate them well, make them a part of your network, share freebies, and keep them within your reach. Such gestures will push them to put more effort into your next campaign which might bring more success!
