How to find and contact influencers

Once you have identified your influencers, it’s time to contact them.

How to start the conversation

Usually, the first contact happens via email. It’s recommended that you do this at least two months ahead of your campaign goes live.

Starting the conversation, negotiating and arranging the deliverables is likely to take more time than expected.

Your email needs to contain these basic components:

• A brief explanation of the campaign concept
• Social platforms and formats you will use
• Why this partnership makes sense for your brand and the influencer
• Timelines for delivery and publishing
• Compensation terms

Keep messages concise and to the point

Keep these messages concise and to the point. The influencer doesn’t need to know the backstory of your company or the wider context of this campaign.

All they need at this stage is an understanding of whether what you are requesting is something they feel comfortable doing, and that the compensation you’re offering is appropriate.

To get the influencer’s attention, try to highlight the existence of two-way benefits coming from their participation in the campaign.

Be genuine and human

Avoid using templates for the emails you send, aim instead to be perceived as genuine and human. Whilst you can reuse certain sections and paragraphs of your messages, remember that this is the first impression you give.

The campaign’s outcome can be a success or a failure based on how you conduct this phase. While it might be tempting to use a pre-written template, it’s worth investing time in writing something personal.

It is important that your email refers to the reasons you would like to work with that specific influencer. Mention why you enjoy their content and what you would like them to do in your campaign. What unique side of their online persona could they bring to your brand?

Reelio

Reelio, (now acquired by Fullscreen) found in their research that the average outreach email was opened by 90% of recipients, whilst 64% of them replied and 28% clicked a link in that email.

You can use a CRM tool such as Hubspot or Yesware to track whether or not your emails have been opened, clicked, or had the attachments opened.

When following up, you could send a further email to check if they received the first, however, a more effective tactic is to follow up directly on social media through a message on their most active platform.

If you think your brand is one they will know and want to work with, send this from the brand account, otherwise, you may experience better response rates from your personal account.

The second option will come across as more human. This can be a winning factor, particularly for smaller or new brands looking to introduce themselves to a new audience of influencers.

If you’d like to learn more about running a social media campaign, check out the full online course from the Institute of Data & Marketing, below.