How to Reach Out to Influencers for Collaboration? 8 Effective Methods

Considering that 69% of consumers trust influencer recommendations, reaching out to influencers can be a game-changer for your brand. However, doing it effectively requires a thoughtful approach.

Whether your goal is to boost brand awareness, drive sales, or create engaging content, partnering with the right influencers can help achieve your marketing objectives.

So, how to reach out to influencers? Establishing a partnership is not as simple as sliding into their DMs with a proposal; It requires a strategic approach that ensures you benefit both parties.

Let’s dive into 8 proven methods to ensure that your influencer outreach strategy is successful:

1. Start by Defining Key Outreach Elements
2. Find the Right Influencers for Your Brand
3. Interact with Influencers First
4. Reach Out to Them via Email
5. Write a Compelling Pitch
6. Talk About Compensation
7. Think Outside the Box
8. Build a Relationship with Influencers

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1. Start by Defining Key Outreach Elements

Influencer outreach campaigns take time. Before starting to make a list of the influencers you want to work with, researching and setting a solid foundation is key to ensuring the success of your outreach efforts.

One of the reasons is that not all influencers will bring the same results. You might think that the bigger the influencer, the more sales they’ll bring. However, in some cases, this is not entirely true.

Due to their specific audience, micro-influencers can often be a great option for promoting a niche product. Macro-influencers, on the other hand, can be a great ally for increasing brand awareness, given their massive audiences.

When you have your goals in mind, it’s easier to know who to target.

Outreach Elements to Consider

• Define Your Goals and Objectives: Are you aiming to increase brand awareness, drive product sales, promote an event, or create engaging content?
• Identify Your Target Audience: Who are you targeting? What are their demographics and interests?
• Brand Messaging and Values: What core messages and values do you want influencers to convey?
• Set Your Budget: How much are you allocating for influencer collaborations? How do you determine the value of these partnerships?
• Define Your Tools: Will you reach out manually or use an influencer outreach platform?
• Establish Other Campaign Details: What are the specific deliverables, timeline, and guidelines to maintain brand consistency?

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2. Find the Right Influencers for Your Brand

In other words, identify who you want to work with. Based on your campaign goals, it’s easier to set specific criteria to see what influencers make sense for your campaign.

For example, if you have a vegan make up brand, your criteria could be:

• Niche Alignment: Look for influencers who focus on veganism, cruelty-free beauty, or sustainable living. This ensures their audience is already interested in vegan products.

Example: An influencer who regularly posts about vegan lifestyle choices and cruelty-free beauty products.

• Engagement Rate: Prioritize influencers with high engagement rates over those with large but less active followings. Engaged followers are more likely to trust and act on recommendations. You can use a free engagement calculator tool to analyze this.

‍Example: An influencer with 10,000 followers but an average of 500 likes and 50 comments per post is more valuable than one with 50,000 followers and minimal engagement.

• Audience Demographics: Ensure the influencer's audience matches your target demographic. For instance, if your brand targets young adults, choose influencers with a similar audience.

Example: An influencer whose followers are primarily women aged 18-34 who are interested in vegan beauty and sustainable living.

• Content Quality: Assess the quality of their content. High-quality, visually appealing posts that match your brand’s aesthetic are crucial for maintaining your brand image.

Example: An influencer who creates professional-looking videos and photos that align with the clean, modern look of your vegan makeup brand.

• Values and Authenticity: Ensure the influencer shares and promotes values similar to your brand’s, such as ethical consumerism and animal welfare. Authenticity helps in building trust with their audience.

‍Example: An influencer who actively advocates for animal rights and ethical consumerism, consistently sharing content that reflects these values.

• Previous Partnerships: Check their history of brand collaborations. Influencers who have successfully promoted similar products can bring valuable experience and insights to your campaign.

Overall, you want to collaborate with influencers who share your brand's values. This alignment makes it easier to connect authentically and organically with your target audience.

In this case, working with a beauty influencer who occasionally shares vegan makeup products is different from partnering with a vegan influencer who has a dedicated, tight-knit community and regularly shares her latest vegan beauty discoveries. The vegan influencer's recommendations will likely resonate more deeply and drive more meaningful engagement.

Find influencers the right way:

There are two ways to go:

1) Manual Search

With a spreadsheet, you can start researching in different platforms for influencers that match your campaign.

Following the previous example, you can look for specific keywords like “vegan influencer,” “vegan makeup review,” “vegan beauty,” etc. Based on that and your criteria, you can define the type of influencer that makes sense and add it to your list.

2) Using AI

71% of marketers believe that using AI is the best way to find influencers for their brand.  With platforms like Influencer Hero, through its Influencer Finder feature, you can easily find the right influencers using detailed filters that include location, audience demographics, lookalikes, engagement rate and much more.

You can select the criteria that matter most to you, and within seconds, you can browse through thousands of influencers who might be ideal for your campaign.

This way, you can easily start managing your outreach campaign by sending personalized bulk emails to many influencers, increasing your chances of establishing the right partnership.

‍Pro tip: Make sure to thoroughly evaluate an influencer’s followers and engagement rate to ensure their account isn't inflated with fake followers. Authentic engagement is key to a successful partnership.

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3. Interact with Influencers First

Once you have defined the type of influencers you’re looking to work with, it’s time to introduce them to your brand.

Before pitching directly, it's useful to establish a relationship with them by following and engaging with their content. Interact through likes and thoughtful comments, especially on posts that align with your brand's values and aesthetics.

This strategy works best when targeting a select few influencers you're keen on partnering with. However, if you're aiming to collaborate with many influencers, it can be too time-consuming.

Pro tip: Check your brand’s social media following list. Some influencers might already be following you, indicating a potential interest in partnering with your brand.

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4. Reach Out to Them via Email

While you can reach out to influencers through DM, your message will likely get lost in the sea of their inbox. Macro influencers, in particular, receive thousands of DMs per day, making it challenging for your message to stand out.

Emails, on the other hand, offer a more professional and scalable approach. Here are some of the main benefits of conducting an email outreach:

• It’s more professional - Emails are viewed as more formal and professional compared to DMs.
• Everything is more organized - Managing and tracking email conversations is easier, as you can use folders, tags and CRM tools.
• Detailed communication - Emails allow for more detailed and structured communication.
• It’s scalable -  You can send personalized messages to a large number of influencers, follow up efficiently and keep records of all interactions.
• It has higher visibility - emails are less likely to be overlooked compared to DMs, which can be buried quickly.

Reaching Out to Micro and Macro Influencers

Is reaching out to micro and macro influencers the same? No. Given their different volumes of followers, the outreach approach can vary significantly.

Micro influencers typically have a highly engaged and niche audience, so outreach methods often involve crafting personalized messages that acknowledge their specific content and community. Offering products, experiences, or smaller monetary compensations can be more appealing to them.

Macro influencers, on the other hand, have a broader reach but may engage with a less targeted audience. Your outreach methods should include a clear value proposition that highlights the benefits of the collaboration, often involving substantial monetary compensation. Additionally, due to their volume of work, macro influencers prefer streamlined processes with clear, actionable steps and deadlines.

Reaching Out to IG Influencers

Sometimes, finding Instagram influencers is not the problem, but knowing how to reach out to them is. While email is usually the preferred method of communication, for influencers with smaller followings, you can use Instagram’s features like DMs and story replies for initial contact.

The key is to avoid sending generic outreach messages. For this, you can reference specific posts and explain why you believe they are a great fit for your campaign. Clearly outline the benefits of the collaboration, whether it’s monetary compensation, free products, or exclusive experiences.

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5. Write a Compelling Pitch

One of the most important aspects of learning how to reach out to influencers is personalization. Research shows that personalization boosts response rate by 32.7%.

You want to show that you’re deeply interested in collaborating with that influencer and why.  Additionally, in this first interaction, it’s best to write a clear and straightforward message of what you’re looking for.  Nothing frustrates influencers more than receiving proposals that don’t really say anything about the partnership.

A well-structured outreach email has seven key components:

1. Subject line - These few words will determine how many influencers open your email (Including their first name increases the average open rate by 30%)
2. Personalization - Make sure the email feels like it was custom made for them.
3. Introduction - Introduce yourself and your brand.
4. Purpose - Mention why your emailing them and what you want to achieve with this collab.
5. Offer - What you’re willing to provide in exchange (product, payment, affiliate partnership, etc).
6. CTA - State the steps the influencer should take if interested.

So, what does this actually look like? Here’s an influencer outreach template:

SUBJECT: {{ firstname|default(influencer_handle) }} – ENTER YOUR BRAND NAME Partnership

Hi {{ firstname|default(influencer_handle) }},

{{personalized_sentence}}

My name is ENTER YOUR NAME and I’m from ENTER YOUR COMPANY NAME. We are ADD ONE SENTENCE DESCRIPTION ABOUT YOUR BRAND.

We are looking for potential partnerships and we love the content on your account {{influencer_handle}}!`

It would be awesome if you could test our ENTER YOUR PRODUCT.

‍HIGHLIGHT YOUR USP AND YOUR PRODUCT IN ONE SENTENCE.

I’m happy to send you one ENTER YOUR PRODUCT for you to test. We also offer a 20% commission or a discount code to give out to your followers. Please get back to me if you are interested in this opportunity.

Can I send you one of the ENTER YOUR PRODUCT

Thanks!

Best,

‍ENTER YOUR NAME

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Customizing emails when you’re working with hundreds of influencers is time-consuming. However, with tools like Influencer Hero, you can create drip campaigns with automated follow-ups, ensuring each email is personalized to maximize your reply rates. Our AI looks at the 3 last posts on social media to generate a personalized message.

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6. Talk About Compensation

When you start your influencer outreach campaigns, don’t be afraid to talk about compensation. In order to consider your proposal, influencers want to know what’s in it for them.

Here’s where you need to be clear about what you’re offering (ex: a product) and what you expect from them (ex: an Instagram story post).

It’s common for influencers to request a flat fee or a paid partnership. However, we recommend - even if you are interested in a paid partnership - to ask for a “test” post first. The main reason is that sometimes influencers don’t bring the results you expect (even those with millions of followers).

As you don’t have any data to base your negotiation on, you can’t know for sure how the influencer will perform. But with a test post you can identify high performers and then establish a long-term partnership that includes paid collaborations.

Keep in mind that a test post doesn’t mean you’re asking for free work. You can offer them benefits like free products and/or affiliate commission.

Check out our negotiation email templates that will help you build successful brand collaborations.

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7. Think Outside the Box

Influencer marketing is about getting creative. If you’re starting out to manage influencer campaigns, you’ll soon identify one of your main challenges: Agencies and managers.

Often, they’ll directly decline your proposal without possibility of negotiation when you don’t accept their fees.

In this case, it’s where you need to think of other alternatives, especially when you’re looking forward to collaborating with a specific influencer.

Strategies to Consider (h3)

• Personalized Outreach: Go beyond the usual email or DM. Handwritten notes, personalized video messages or unique gifts can create a memorable impression and show influencers that you value them beyond their follower count.
• Mutual Connections: Use your network to find mutual connections who can introduce you to the influencer. A warm introduction from someone they trust can significantly increase your chances of collaboration.
• Showcase Shared Values: Highlight any shared values or missions between your brand and the influencer. If both your brand and the influencer are passionate about sustainability, for example, emphasize this alignment in your outreach.
• Engage Publicly: Actively engage with their content publicly by commenting on their posts or sharing their content. This can increase your visibility and familiarity before you approach them with a proposal.

Example: How a Postcard Resulted in $64K Influencer Marketing Sales (Case Study) (h3)

At Influencer Hero, we managed a brand in the home and lifestyle sector that wanted to collaborate with influencers to increase its ROI and brand awareness.

We offered them a product plus a discount code and affiliate commission in return for an Instagram story. Through this, we were able to identify one high performer that, within one story, generated $5-6K in sales.

We saw this as a potential long-term collaboration, but when we wanted to continue the negotiation, she had hired a management team that wouldn’t let us contact the influencer directly.

The solution? We opted to send her a simple, personalized handwritten postcard explaining our wishes to continue collaborating with her. Without any message from her, the influencer decided to share our offer with her audience, showing the postcard and sharing how she valued brands that go the extra distance. She posted in total 3 times which led to total sales of $64K.

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8. Build a Relationship with Influencers

Recognizing and nurturing high-performing influencers is crucial for long-term success in influencer marketing. Once you identify influencers who have worked exceptionally well, demonstrated professionalism and driven impressive sales, it’s key to continue building a strong relationship with them.

Here are some ways you can do this:

Acknowledge Their Efforts

Show your gratitude for their hard work and dedication by sending them thank-you notes, gifts, or personalized messages.

Exclusive Giveaways

Collaborate with high-performing influencers on exclusive giveaways. These events not only increase engagement and brand visibility but also strengthen the influencer’s connection with your brand and their audience.

Brand Ambassadorships

Consider turning successful influencers into brand ambassadors. This long-term partnership can include exclusive deals, early access to new products, and a deeper involvement in your brand’s campaigns.

Paid Partnerships

Invest in paid partnerships with influencers who consistently deliver results. Compensating them fairly for their efforts ensures a professional relationship and motivates them to continue producing high-quality content for your brand.

Co-Created Content

Collaborate on content creation, allowing influencers to bring their creativity and unique perspective to your campaigns. This approach not only diversifies your content but also makes influencers feel more invested in your brand’s success.

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Build Successful Outreach Campaigns

The key to reaching out to influencers is having a strategic and well-thought-out approach. By implementing methods like personalized outreach and using specialized influencer marketing software, you can enhance your chances of forming successful collaborations.

By maintaining a focus on mutual values and continuing to engage with influencers who demonstrate professionalism and drive results, you can cultivate a network of advocates who genuinely support your brand’s mission and goals.