How to Reach Out to Influencers for Your Brand (A 2024 Guide with Strategy, Tools, and Templates)

Imagine running an influencer marketing campaign with a celebrity on Instagram.

The content gets thousands of views and likes. Everything seems to be on the right track. But there’s a problem. You’re not selling anything. 

“What’s going on?” The most common reason is you’re running an influencer campaign with the wrong influencer! It probably started with a poor engagement strategy.

In this post, you’ll find everything you need to successfully engage influencers, including strategies, tactical steps, and tools and templates.

Strategies for Effective Influencer Engagement

First and foremost, it needs to align with your influencer marketing strategy.

Your Influencer Marketing Strategy

Influencer marketing is predicted to reach $15 billion in value by 2024. According to a recent survey by Tomoson, 59 % of digital marketers are planning to increase their influencer marketing budgets.

It is one of the fastest-growing marketing channels for a reason – when selected well, your potential influencers are highly effective in delivering your marketing messages to your target audience with authentic content that resonates well.

Your influencer strategy should include target customers, budget, campaign message, guidelines for user-generated content, and a list of social channels. Refer to these highly effective influencer campaigns for inspiration. 

You can then formulate your strategy based on your target customers and the products or services you are promoting.

1. Select the Type of Social Influencers

Here are the four influencer types based on follower counts:

• Mega Influencers are celebrities and other very famous individuals followed by over 1 million subscribers. They can reach millions in one post and make a brand look exclusive. However, it comes with a hefty price. They are best for quickly raising awareness of a new product or service, particularly for luxury brands. They have been historically used extensively by fashion and beauty brands.
• Macro Influencers have between 50,000 and 999,000 followers. Typically, these are individuals interested in a specific subject, so their content is perceived as more authentic. They usually have a large loyal fan base and are often interested in cooperating with brands. They are best for reaching a certain audience for a relatively low budget.
• Micro-Influencers have between 5,000 and 50,000 followers. They are the source of growth in this marketing channel. They cost less, are more trustworthy, and generate higher engagement compared to the previous types. The downside is it is very hard to find someone legit. You have to watch out for fake followers and bots. It is best to utilize the tools or agencies we mention below to help verify audience quality.
• Nano Influencers are those with less than 5,000 followers. They boast a high conversion rate and are perfect for local promotions at a cheaper cost. However, they are often poorly experienced with driving conversions and creating content. Not to mention the time-consuming process to identify, verify and connect with them.

2. Ensure that the Influencer’s Values Align with Your Brand.

This could include personality, style, tone of voice, etc. This is done by researching:

• The content they create, share, and promote
• Brand collaborations they have previously participated in
• Engagement level (do they engage with followers? What kind of responses do they write? etc.).

3. Check an Influencer’s Image and Reputation.

Would you be willing to work with an influencer whose every third post on social media is sponsored? Of course not. Even though this suggests that the person is popular among brands, a high ratio of sponsored content also means lower trust.

Check what kind of comments the influencer’s followers write about them. For a broader search, use a social media listening tool.

Dive Deeper: 6 Social Media Listening Tools

Tips on Connecting with Influencers and Building Relationships

1. Ensure your strategy is solid – once you have done some hard work and clearly defined your goals, you can start by standing out to influencers.
2. Start fostering a relationship with your influencers as soon as possible – it’s never too early to start getting to know them. Relationships and real connections are at the core of outreach marketing, so this is always a good place to start.
3. Start small – begin by engaging with them on their social media posts, showing them a genuine interest in who they are and what they do. Start by showing your respect for them. Then when it comes to offering them a formal partnership, it will be a lot easier and will come from an existing connection.
4. Use message templates – these are always helpful and will make messaging a whole lot easier. Just make sure you personalize the templates as much as possible for each influencer and include something specific that you pulled off one of their posts.
5. Then follow up – if you haven’t heard from them within 5 – 7 days, it will be worthwhile to follow up with them. Here are some more pointers to keep in mind:

• • Let them know what you both have in common.
  • Tell them why they stood out to you and why you would value working with them.
  • Present them with your partnership idea, but leave it open-ended, allowing them to also share their ideas with you.
  • Send one or two follow-up messages, but rather leave it if you don’t hear back from them. It will start to seem desperate if you follow up too much.
  • See it as a networking opportunity. If they are not interested now, they may be in the future, so keep that in mind.

6. Provide your influencer with creative freedom – this will show that you trust their vision and creativity and will help foster an authentic and lasting partnership. An influencer might also come up with some other ideas that you may not have come up with yourself.
7. Build long-term relationships – it will be beneficial to keep in touch with your influencers even once the partnership after to an end. This will make it easier for you to contact them in the future if you want to work with them again and will continue to strengthen an authentic relationship.

Best Outreach Agencies

1.Acceleration Partners

2.Ubiquitous

3.The Influencer Marketing Factory

Best Outreach Platforms

1.Afluencer

Afluencer is an all-in-one platform that specializes in connecting brands and influencers. The platform is designed to make reaching out to influencers as simple and efficient as possible.

You can create a collab, set out your requirements, and then use the Influencer Directory of 15 000+ influencers to filter, sort, and invite your ideal influencer(s) to apply to your Collab directly.

Using Afluencer’s ‘save and subscribe’ feature, you can save your criteria and get notifications of new influencers who match your needs. This means you don’t need to repeat searches to find new influencers that have joined since your last search! The same feature notifies well-matched influencers of your offers, so they can come to you too.

You can use Afluencer to handle all your influencer campaigns from one place and keep track of invitations, relationships, and more in a single platform.

It integrates with all the top social media platforms – Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook – and accurately verifies every social media influencer’s data directly from their platform.

You can post multiple collabs for multiple brands and work with many influencers at the same time. It is an excellent choice for a platform that connects you to thousands of authentic, verified influencers that meet your specific criteria and are actively looking for collaborations like yours.

Afluencer’s Pricing

• Free Version: Lifetime
• VIP: $49/month
• Concierge: $99/month
• Boss: $199/month

Website: afluencer.com

2. Heepsy

Heepsy is an easy-to-use influencer search engine for brands and agencies. With Heepsy, you can access 11 million real influencers on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and Twitch. It also provides a lot of useful data to help you choose the right influencers to work with.

One of Heepsy’s strengths is its advanced reports on each influencer’s audience and authenticity. The reports contain the authenticity score calculated based on an influencer’s profile data, which includes audience growth rate, engagement rate distribution, and follower evolution.

This means you can find influencers who are a great fit for your campaign and who can drive real results for your brand, as they have a legitimate and verified audience.

Heepsy is a great platform, but remember that you will need to use a different platform to manage your influencer marketing campaigns. Heepsy functions solely as a platform for finding, verifying, and connecting with influencers.

Heepsy’s Pricing

• Free Trial: Up to 500 results and 3 influencer reports
• Starter: $49/m
• Business: $169/m
• Gold: From $269/m

Website: heepsy.com

Outstanding Direct Message Templates

When it comes to approaching an influencer, it all comes down to making a personal connection with them, and often sending them a direct message (DM) is the best first point of contact.

Here are some helpful DM templates to get you going, and remember to make them as unique as possible for each of your influencers.

Generic Collab DM Template

Hey [insert influencer name], My team and I loved your recent post regarding [insert description of related post]. We at [insert company name here] sell or provide [insert what you do/sell]. We would love to send some of our products your way so you can give them a try and share them with your audience!

If you’re interested, let me know! We’d love to hear from you.

-[insert your name here]

Brand Ambassador DM Template

Hey [insert name here], We’re getting ready to launch a new marketing campaign for our [insert product here] and would love for you to become a brand ambassador for our company, [insert company name here]! We really loved your post on [insert a reference to a topic they post about], and would like to talk more in depth with you about our brand and how you could partner with us.

If you’re interested, please send me an email at [insert email here].

We’re looking forward to you joining our team!

[insert your name here]

Giveaway Collab Pitch DM Template

Hey [insert name here], We really liked your [insert topic] content and thought you would enjoy our [insert company name and products]. We would love to send you a package of our products for you to try out. If you’re interested, we would love for you to host a giveaway for your followers! Let me know and I’d be happy to chat with you about the details!

Thanks!

[insert your name]

Outstanding Email Templates

Alternatively, cold email is another effective approach. You can either go straight to your target influencer’s social media channels or website and find their email addresses under “about” or “profile” or utilize an influencer marketplace or management platform to generate an email list based on your criteria.

Email Template I: Let’s Connect and Start a Relationship

Notice how the title says a “relationship,” not something like “business partnership”?

With most influencers ready to endorse brands and products they’ve tried personally, you need to be cautious about the language and tone of the email.

Businesses typically use writing tools like Grammarly BestEssayEducation TrustMyPaper GrabMyEssay to create multiple templates and respect these requirements. They also help clarify and focus the email.

Here’s how to word the first influencer collaboration email:

Subject line: (Influencer Name), Let’s Work Together!

Hi (Influencer Name), My name is (name), I work for [name of the brand].

I’ve been following your profile at (social media name) for quite a while now, and I’m impressed. Your content is great, and your ability to provide value is simply amazing.

Is there any way we could start a relationship and work together?

We have a product that we think your followers will love. Would you be willing to test and review (product name)?

Please reply if interested.

Warmest regards.

Why this template is good: 

• It’s friendly
• It gets straight to the point

Be sure to know what you’re talking about in your email. If you say you have been following the influencer’s profile for some time, it is best to be honest.

Email Template II: Someone Introduced You

Send this template to influencers who were recommended to you by someone you know.

Hey (Influencer Name), My name is (name), and I’m a friend of (mutual connection’s name).

He/she mentioned you recently when I talked with him about (marketing, promotion, social media, etc.). I became interested in your experience as an influencer because I think we can collaborate. (Mutual connection’ name) told me to get in touch with you and ask if you’re interested.

Would you be willing to consider this opportunity?

Regards, Why this template is good:

• It has a friendly and open tone
• It grabs the attention of the reader by mentioning the mutual connection right away. 

Email Template III: We Share a Passion/Interest

This is a great technique to use for influencers interested in a specific topic.

Hey (Influencer Name), I’m (name),from (brand name).

We’ve been following your (blog, social media profile, etc.) for 6 months now, and we’re thankful.

We share the same passion for sustainable living (or any other topic).

At (brand name), we’re on a mission to encourage more people to live sustainably, so we thought that your followers would like our (product). We have package-free shampoo bars, reusable food wraps, and environmentally-friendly deodorants (relevant characteristics of your products).

Would you like to test some? We’ll be happy to send them to you for free in exchange for a mention on your (blog, social media profile, etc.).

Please let me know what you think.

Regards, Why this template is good: 

• It has a friendly tone and conversational language style
• It focuses on a mutual interest to attract attention

Please keep in mind these are recommendations. Be sure to add more details to personalize every influencer collaboration email.

If you decide to go with cold emailing, you should check the following tools:

Important! Follow up after a few days if you don’t get a response. Influencers are busy people, so there’s always a chance they simply missed your email.

Putting it All Together

Putting it All Together

Now, you know enough to engage the right influencers to make your next campaign a success. Be careful, though. It’s important to remember that finding the right influencer will take time, so it is best not to rush the process.

With proper preparation and patience, you’ll find an awesome partner to tell the world about your brand in a way your customers like.

About the Author: Kristin Savage nourishes, sparks and empowers using the magic of words. Along with pursuing her degree in Creative Writing, Kristin is gaining experience in the publishing industry, with expertise in marketing strategy for publishers and authors. Now she works as a freelance writer at Wowgrade. Kristin runs her own FlyWriting blog.  

References

Insider: An Instagram Star with 2 million Followers Couldn’t Sell 36 T-shirts, and a Marketing Expert Says Her Case Isn’t Rare 

Business2Community: Influencer Marketing: 2020 Trends & Stats 

Tomoson: Influencer Marketing Study  

Forbes: Can We Trust Social Media Influencers?

YESMarketing. Data: Personalized Email Subject Lines Boost Open Rates by 50 Percent