4 minute read
How to reach Influencers
How to reach out to
Influencers
By Gordon Glenister Influencer Marketing Expert
Influencer marketing is one of the fastest growing industries at the moment. Everyone wants to be an influencer.
More and more people are buying and discovering products from online content creators but if you are growing brand that wants to work with influencers how do you contact them.
A recent survey from leading influencer platform Hype Auditor found out that 43% of influencers never or rarely received person-
How do you prefer to be contacted by brands interested in collaborating with you?
alised messages from their platform so a cut and paste style mass marketing is simply not yielding results.
3.9%
1.7%
1.6%
Social media/ Direct Message Phone
Social media Comment
40.3% 52.1%
Talent agency Industry standards suggest a 15% response rate to mass outreach 42% of those surveyed said one of the reasons why they would not work with a brand is that they were not happy with the budget and 38% said that the brand gave them little or no creative freedom. And 51% said they simply didn’t like or value the brand.
Influencers want to be well briefed before they embark on a campaign and that would include understanding what the required deliverables were. More than half of influencers commented they want clear descriptions of the products and information relating to the company they would be aligning with. This is not unusual to hear, as you wouldn’t expect to have a sales professional sell or promote your product or service without a proper brief.
Surprisingly although they’re has been a rise in social media talent agencies only 15% of influencers work with them opting to work on their own. Influencers overwhelming like to contacted directly from the brand.
Of those surveyed emails was the preferred method to be contacted. Influencers with as smaller audience of up to 1000 followers on Instagram decided to work with a talent agent.
Agents typically charge a 20% fee on all brand partnerships and whilst some have been very successful for creators a lot haven’t, and lack the professional standards that appear in other creative industries.
When approaching a talent agent, be mindful that the manager wants to facilitate a substantial contribution for the creator, its worth mentioning what other opportunities you maybe able to offer in your proposal as well for example exclusive access to an event or content.
On average most content creators get about 1-3 messages with many of them in relation to gifting, sponsored posts and proposals for brand ambassador partnerships. Free product tasting was the highest requested with over a third of requests, followed by a sponsored post or story.
A great way to engage with influencers is to try and build up a relationship first, in other words comment, like or share their content so when you do make the outreach you can make some reference to their content – they want to feel valued for the work they do.
A personalised email with a friendly tone or voice is important as is putting their name in the salutation. Make sure there are clear contact details and what the influencer has to do next. You might want to create a video presentation adding some excitement to the proposition, and that this is a campaign to a limited number if key influencers.
What motivates an influencer most is anything that will add value to their audience, something exclusive (ie not available to all) and financial compensation for the content created and access to their community.
The very best content creators act like mini creative agencies that have considerable wide ranging digital skills from photography, community building, copywriting, hashtag sourcing, videography, graphic design and so much more.
In relation to the licensing opportunities, its very important to indicate in the brief how long the brand can use the content creators content, ie for the campaign or for upto a year. For more information and guidance on influencer marketing best practice visit The Branded Content Marketing Association https:// www.thebcma.info/landing-pages/bcma-influencer-marketing-guidelines.html
Which from the following list do you receive enquiries for most often?
33.1%
18.2% 30.9%
2.0%
4.9% 10.9%
Free product testing i.e. review samples
Collaborate on a sponsored post and/or story
Become a Brand Ambassador
Participate in an affiliate program Host a giveaway
Other
