The most time consuming part of working in-house with influencers is outreach. In other words communication with influencers. Apart from that it’s important to have an efficient outreach strategy where the end goal is high response rate. The primary communication tools is Email and Instagram DM. Either channel you choose there are some guidelines worth knowing.

Stalk influencer

Get to know the influencer by following, liking and commenting. And not to an extent that it feels spammy. A good start is to follow with your own private account. When you think it’s a potential match you can start interacting with the brand’s Instagram account. Usually this step is more common for mid and macro profiles. When it comes to smaller profiles it’s enough to know what she/he likes by checking what they post.

Be personal

When you’re done stalking, you know how to be personal when reaching out. A great advice is to check your own inbox and try to understand why you haven’t answered certain emails. Automated, long and selling emails won’t work. Our attention span is much lower today when we have an overload of information to consume. You need to get their attention with the first sentence.

The number one rule is to use their real name and not the ig username. Secondly, the first sentence is super important. If the influencer has been to the Bahamas, you can write “Hope you had a great time in Bahamas…”. Furthermore, make it short and don’t write an essay. Same here, smaller profiles it’s okay to write a more “general” first sentence like; “Love your content…”.

Follow up

Influencers get many emails and DMs everyday, both from brands and fans. There’s a chance that just your message got missed and will never be picked up. Unless you send a kindly follow up. This will increase your response rate.

A simple draft: “I don’t know if you got my email…” then add your message.

Right type of collaboration

If your goal is to collaborate with bigger profiles gifting is not the right way to go. Similarly to smaller influencers you shouldn’t pay them high rates. However, the key is to get an understanding if the influencer genuinely like your product or just want money.

Be transparent with your goals

When you’ve established the right type of collaboration you must communicate what your goals are. An “experienced” profile will give you different suggestions and explain what worked before. If you’re skilled you probably already know what works, then you should optimize for that when negotiating.

As an example, if your goal is conversion/traffic to your site you should work with micro influencers (10k+). The focus should be stories which is the best format to drive traffic, particularly because you can add a link in the swipe up (only available for profiles over 10k followers). An advice is to ask for at least 2 stories where the second story will be posted 3 days after the first one as a reminder.

Long term

In your communication you should show that your desire is to work long term. The experts in the field don’t rely on one-off collaborations. The one-offs are the ones that probably didn’t go well...long term relationships is both good for the brand and the influencer.

Sebastian, co-founder at Scope summarize it; “Work with micros, grow with micros. Influencers that have been with a brand for years live its culture and stand for its products. These influencers attract their circles to follow their decisions. The more loyal your influencers are, the more frequently they will mention you. Finding people like this is invaluable for any business. You should not work with anyone that won’t want to work with you in the long haul.”

Meet in person!

If it’s a bigger profile that will be a part of a big launch, yes. Otherwise it isn’t worth it. Influencers that deliver and love what you’re doing can be invited to events or trips.

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