Ever found an influencer you were excited to work with… Only to reach out and get radio silence?
We’ve been there. Many times. It’s not fun.
So in this article, we’re going to break down all the strategies you can use to reach out to influencers…
… And we’ll let you know where each of these methods gets tripped up along the way.
If you’re tired of sending countless messages and getting zero responses, keep reading to the end, where we’ll show you a better way to do influencer outreach.
Ready? Let’s get started.
The 3 influencer outreach strategies being practiced in 2024
There are three main strategies brands use to reach out to influencers– and there are ways to do them that work. We’ll show you how to *actually* reach influencers using each format, but we’ll also talk about a few things you need to be aware of before you start.
Our old friend– the email
Surprised? 🤭
Probably not. It’s no secret that email is how most companies, including big ones (I know, right?) reach influencers and try to close deals with them.
Email is, by far, the most popular way to contact influencers, but it’s not without challenges– as you’ve probably realized. Let’s talk about those challenges so you know what’s normal to expect.
It can be expensive
You might think using email for influencer outreach is cheap. After all, Gmail is free, right?
Not quite.
If you need to reach out to a lot of influencers, you won’t be doing that manually. You’ll need email marketing software like PersistIQ or Brevo. And those tools get super expensive when you start reaching out to a lot of influencers.
Now, you might read all of that and think, “Why spend money? I don’t need to reach out to tons of influencers, I only need to work with a few.” Fair enough– but there’s a catch.
Let’s investigate that next.
You are going to need to contact a lot of influencers. Like really a lot.
If you assume you’ll send 10 emails to influencers and one of them will respond, you’re wrong. It’s much, much lower than that.
On average, the response rate when you contact an influencer is below 1%. And even when you do get a response, it doesn’t necessarily lead to a collaboration. The influencers who do respond may refuse you– or you’ll refuse them because they’re too expensive.
Bottom line– you will need to contact a lot of influencers. Like hundreds or potentially thousands of them to work with just a few.
With odds like that, you don’t want to email them one by one using Gmail unless you’re willing to get old in front of your computer. You’ll need software, which is the main reason contacting influencers via email is so expensive.
Add influencer fees on top of that, and software that helps you discover influencers, and you can easily spend thousands of dollars per month just to reach a few influencers.
The response rate is super small
We’ve already talked about this in the other sections, but it’s worth repeating. From our outreach efforts, the best response we’ve had was around 1%.
Now, you may hear of some brands that get to 2% or even 3%, which is great. But even then, it’s a numbers game that requires volume to get enough responses.
Despite the drawbacks, email is super popular. So while we don’t think it’s the best way to reach influencers, it’s worth learning how to use it, just in case. In the next section, we’ll give you some influencer outreach email templates you can use to increase your chances of getting a response.
Influencer outreach email templates/examples
If you’re determined to use emails as your influencer outreach tool (or if the particular influencers you want to work with give you no other choice), this section is for you!
Whenever you’re sending cold emails, keep your email super simple, and get straight to business.
You’re a stranger whose message is landing in their inbox– do you think they’re going to read miles of text? No sir.
So while you might be tempted to add extra text to these examples, don’t– and you’ll see a better response rate as a result!
These templates can be used for whatever influencer you’re trying to reach– there’s no real difference in what you say for TikTok influencer outreach vs. Instagram influencer outreach. Just make sure you mention the correct platform when you do reach out!
⭐ Influencer outreach template 1 - first contact
In these templates, I (Stefan) am reaching out to an influencer named Kyree on behalf of Social Cat. In this first email, I’m letting them know that we’re interested in doing a paid partnership with them.
Hi Kyree,
I am Stefan from Social Cat.
Our team follows you on TikTok and loves the content you’ve created lately. Would you be interested in a paid partnership with us?
I think our audiences align perfectly, and this would be a great fit. What do you think?
⭐ Influencer outreach template 2 - first follow up
In this one, I’ll reach back out and let them know that I have a paid partnership available right now.
Hi Kyree,
Stefan from Social Cat here.
I previously reached out to see if you would be interested in a paid partnership with us, Social Cat. We are looking mostly for TikTok posts regularly and you get paid per post plus get free products.
Want to chat more about this?
⭐ Influencer email outreach template 3 - second follow-up
In this one, I’ll remind them of the fact that I reached out about a regular, paid campaign and see if they’re interested in chatting.
Hi Kyree, Hope all is well - I am Stefan from Social Cat.
Did you get a chance to see our previous emails? We would love to partner together for this new campaign we are running. This is a paid partnership.
How can we chat more about this?
Practical advice for cold email outreach
Here are some things to keep in mind as you’re reaching out to influencers via email:
- Keep it short and to the point. Again, this is cold outreach– no one’s going to read a long email from a stranger. Save the details about your brand and why it’s great for later, and let them know what’s in it for them.
- Get into details later. Once the readers engage, that’s the time to let them know more details– this helps you keep your initial outreach short.
- Follow up (a lot). In the examples above, we only have 2 follow-up emails included, but you should send at least 5.
- Be consistent, but not spammy. We recommend sending a maximum of 1-2 emails per week to each influencer you’re trying to contact.
- Get creative. Brainstorm how to make your initial offer as enticing as possible, to grab their attention. There’s no wrong way to do this– just experiment and see what works for your brand!
- Avoid formal language. While you’ll want to pay attention to basic grammar, spelling, and punctuation rules, don’t make your email sound formal. Phrases like, “Dear sir,” “Kind regards,” or corporate-sounding language like “increase your ROI” can turn people off. The more formal and hard-to-understand your language is, the less fun you sound to work with. Keep your language clear, direct, and informal.
A more recent friend– social media direct messages
This one’s probably not a surprise, either.
Another popular method of reaching influencers is sending direct messages to them on social media. There’s one big limitation with this, though…
It is not scalable
Email might be expensive, but it is at least scalable if you’re willing to invest in the tools. Sending DMs on social media, however, is limited.
Even though DMing is still a numbers game, most social media networks cap the number of cold DMs you can send. Usually, this is something like 50 DMs per 24 hours, although it depends on the platform.
There are tools available to help you send cold DMs, but they also obey the rules of social media platforms– there’s no way around message caps. In other words, you can use tools to send your allotted number of messages faster, but you’ll always be limited by how many messages the platform allows you to send.
You might argue that even email is limited, but honestly– it’s not limited nearly as much as direct messages are. DMs have much more stringent limitations.
Another issue- privacy
Another challenge with cold direct messages is that privacy settings make even public profiles hard to reach.
Your message might get stuck in message requests forever, and you’ll never know if the influencer you’re trying to reach will even see it.
Tips for cold direct messaging outreach
Usually, you’ll want to mix in DMs with email– we’ve never seen this personally work by itself. Or, if it does, the amount of operational work behind it is way too high.
If you’re thinking of direct messaging influencers, make your messages as short as possible. You can use the email templates we’ve included above, as Instagram influencer outreach templates or TikTok influencer outreach templates– just make sure to shorten them.
Social Cat
Is this one a surprise?
We don’t think it should be– we’re biased, obviously, but we believe Social Cat is the best way to do influencer outreach.
Why?
It’s simple, really: we have more than 20,000 active influencers on our platform, and we’ve built a messaging system to communicate with them. We’ve made it easy for you to reach out directly and get quick responses from influencers.
Plus, all of the influencers on Social Cat are verified by our team, and you can check their metrics and portfolios before working with them.
With Social Cat, you also don’t need to pay for outreach software on top of discovery software, and you don’t need to DM them on social media, either. You have to do minimal influencer outreach– influencers will come to you, and you can either accept or reject their collaboration requests. All of that functionality is included in our monthly price.
And, because influencers opt-in to our platform (meaning, they’ve signed up to be here), their reply rates are much higher than any other outreach method.
That’s not all! You can also draft contracts with Social Cat (saving you a lot of legal time and hassle), and search and filter our database to find the perfect influencers for your brand.
If you’re ready for a better way to do influencer outreach, try Social Cat today.
What no one tells you about influencer outreach tools
If you’ve looked up influencer outreach tips on other websites, you’ve probably noticed that no one tells you why email and DM outreach are hard. They’ll make you believe that you just need to follow the right process to get influencers knocking on your door.
The truth is that the standard systems brands use to find influencers are broken, but companies won’t tell you why email and DMs are so hard.
That’s because 90%+ of the influencer products on the market rely on emails and DMs. Their products can’t solve the problem because they’re using the same broken system.
The point of what we’re saying is simple– yes, you can email and DM as much as you’d like. But it’s better to do outreach on platforms influencers choose to be part of– like Social Cat!
This is because influencers are more likely to respond on platforms they’ve opted into, they’re more affordable, and you won’t need to buy extra software to help you with your outreach.
Using an influencer platform is an especially good idea if you’re starting– otherwise, you could end up spending thousands of dollars and getting zero results.
If you’re ready for a different, better way to connect with influencers, start a free Social Cat trial today.
We’d love to hear your thoughts– how do you do influencer outreach?
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