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If you’re an influencer, then you’ve probably learned that waiting for brands to reach out first isn’t a sustainable business model at most levels; you’ve got to be a bit proactive. With so many people trying to be influencers across even the most obscure niches, there’s no time to be idle. Even when you do reach out, it can’t just be to one or two of your favorite brands. So how do you get brand attention at scale without taking time out of your content schedule?
Cold email outreach is a tried-and-true way to take the initiative with brands and businesses to get your name and appeal out there. In this article, we help you skip the trial-and-error phase by outlining the five best cold email software tools to market your influencer brand to the right people with ease.
What Features do Influencers Need?
Knowing which cold email software tools are right for influencers, first requires understanding what they need. The goal of cold outreach for influencer marketing isn’t selling a one-and-done product; it’s about creating and fostering relationships with brands in your niche long term, making it vital to have the following features handy:
- Beginner-friendly UI/UX: As an influencer, cold email outreach to bag more brand partnerships will probably be your first real marketing experience, and so having a software tool that’s easy to understand, navigate, and use is important.
- Automation: Being an influencer is already a full-time job, and so is marketing. In light of that, you’ll need a cold email software tool that minimizes that hassle as much as possible, so you can remain focused primarily on your actual job and the important bits that require your input.
- Personalization: Despite the name, cold outreach doesn’t really give a return on investment if it comes across as cold. This is true even if your targets are big brands or major companies in your niche. Built-in personalization features are essential to ensuring you actually get responses and eventually land a partnership.
- Deliverability: Keeping on the topic of getting responses, your personalization and other factors don’t actually matter if your emails aren’t getting to the right inboxes. Dodging spam filters and ensuring data accuracy are just as essential as compelling email copy.
- Scalability: No matter where you are in your influencer journey, there’s always room to grow, and you should be aiming for that. This makes it important that you pick a cold email software tool that can grow with you, offering easy scaling with relevant features and price scaling.
We took all five of these features into consideration when selecting the tools featured, and the article will cover their performance across these metrics in a natural, unobtrusive way.
1. Instantly
Instantly is the talk of the town whenever cold email outreach comes up, and it’s still just as impressive for influencers as it is for anyone else. This software tool offers the complete package with features for finding your leads, getting personalized outreach, and generating analytics for pretty much everything while you’re at it. When it comes to effective outreach at any scale, Instantly is a real winner.
Despite that impressive catalogue, Instantly works perfectly for small-scale, first-time users too. It has a great, easy-to-understand user interface and an inexhaustible list of AI-powered features, automations, and optimizations. Thanks to all this, even the most chronically overbooked influencers can run a successful cold email outreach campaign at scale without collapsing from all that work.
Feature Highlights
- Deliverability network: Leverage a vast network of real email accounts for effective, fully-automated email warming and inbox placement tests.
- Lead enrichment & personalization: Enrich leads with accurate, actionable data that feeds into AI-powered personalization.
- AI email writer: Outsource writing effective email copy to Instantly’s specially-trained AI email writer to save time for actual influencer tasks.
- AI copilot & LLM integration: Use Copilot, Instantly’s proprietary AI assistant for all things outreach, or work with your preferred major LLM right from the Instantly interface.
- AI inbox manager: Automate inbox management effortlessly, only spending time on the most essential parts of your campaign.
Pricing
- 14-day free trial available.
- Growth: $37/month.
- Hypergrowth: $97/month.
- Light speed: $358/month.
Pros
- A massive B2B database with more than 450 million verified leads that cover every niche.
- One-click outreach for a quick, effortless start.
- Competitive pricing and a great feature spread across multiple tiers to ensure easy scaling.
- Has a built-in CRM that’s great for managing brand relationships and communication as you scale.
Cons
- Because of Instantly’s quick-start approach, users will have to take time out later to learn advanced features as they scale.
2. Mailshake
LinkedIn has many great features that make it valuable for any influencer looking to get started with a cold outreach campaign, but where it really excels is for users trying to reach key decision-makers and professionals across multiple channels. Thanks to its flagship LinkedIn automation, anyone can run a cold email campaign while enriching, personalizing, and following up on leads using LinkedIn’s massive collection of profiles.
Mailshake Feature Highlights
- SHAKEspeare: Allow Mailshake’s custom AI email writer to automate email copy for your campaigns.
- Lead status tracker: Use a single, easy-to-understand UI element to get updates on all your leads and activities.
- Hybrid scheduling: Schedule outreach tasks and your influencer engagements together in one interface so nothing ever falls through the cracks.
Pricing
- Starter: $29/month
- Email outreach: $49/month
- Sales engagement: $99/month
Pros
- Uses AI to prioritize tasks effectively, so you always know what to do next.
- Has great built-in integrations with LinkedIn and other sites you might want to reach out on.
Cons
- No trial or evaluation plan for users looking to test it.
- Has some features that influencers won’t need, like a built-in VOIP dialer.
3.Apollo
Apollo is an AI-heavy cold email platform that really goes all in on automation and AI-powered features, helping you save a ton of time while delivering great results across the board. It’s also a go-to-market platform that covers the entire process, from finding leads to setting up meetings and closing contracts.
Feature Highlights
- Automated email sequences: Automate outreach, responses, and even follow-ups with Apollo’s fine-tuned AI systems.
- End-to-End sales execution: Create a custom pipeline to handle new brand deals and partnerships effectively.
- Advanced analytics: Get in-depth breakdowns of your outreach progress and actionable insights to help improve it.
Pricing
- Free plan
- Basic: $59/month
- Professional: $99/month
- Organization: $149/month
Pros
- Comes with a functional free tier for influencers just starting out with cold outreach.
- Great user interface layout for quick feature selection.
Cons
- Requires extensive setup before you launch, frontloading a lot of the learning curve in the process.
- Doesn’t offer an automation tracker for users to recall previous automated actions.
4. Uplead
Uplead isn’t for timid influencers who are hesitant about cold outreach; it’s for hardcore influencers looking to partner with the biggest brands in tech and related niches ASAP. As a data-first platform specifically designed with zero unnecessary features, it can be the perfect choice for influencers who know exactly what they’re looking for.
Feature Highlights
- Zero-waste downloads: Get final approval on all lead lists so you don’t pay for any leads that don’t fit your bill.
- Technographics: Findtech features and products that your prospective leads are using to select outreach targets better.
- Competitor intelligence: Track how different players in your niche are moving to better position yourself for one or more partnerships.
Pricing
- Free Trial
- Essential: $99/month
- Plus: $199/month
- Professional: On demand
Pros
- 24/7 support for all users to help outreach beginners.
- Top-notch data accuracy.
Cons
- Might require secondary tools to scale outreach due to data focus.
- Some users will require an enterprise plan if they need to scale fast.
5. Hunter
Hunter is well-known as a great platform for any first-time cold outreach enthusiasts, and it lives up to that reputation. With a simple, easy-to-navigate user interface and tons of intuitive features to help walk users through the process, it still packs some pretty powerful features that make it competitive at scale.
Feature Highlights
- Data collection & verification: Power effective lead enrichment with Hunter’s proprietary verification and data point collection techniques.
- Social media integrations: Connect with more than 5,000 different platforms from Hunter, including your preferred social media platforms.
- Website email extraction: Glean contact information from prospect websites with Hunter’s built-in tool.
Pricing
- Free plan
- Starter: $49/month
- Growth: $149/month
- Scale: $299/month
Pros
- Offers a functional free plan for small-scale outreach.
- Integrates easily with any other platform you might want to use in tandem.
Cons
- Price and feature scaling are a bit out of lockstep.
- The beginner-friendly approach becomes less useful as you scale.
Final Thoughts
Each of these tools checks all the boxes, but only one of them really gives users the best in every category. Instantly checks all the boxes for the perfect influencer cold email software tool. It offers deep personalization and deliverability tools, along with sweeping automations, to save you time and effort, all while maintaining a comfortable, neat user interface.
Thanks to its impressive features and affordable pricing structure, Instantly also scales effortlessly alongside your own growth. If you’re ready to create new brand relationships with minimal effort, get started with Instantly today and see results fast.
