Influencer outreach is an indispensable way for marketers to grow their brand presence and connect with their target audience on a deeper level.
Influencer outreach requires some finesse, strategy, and a good understanding of the dynamics at play. Let’s go over some tips and tactics for successful influencer outreach campaigns that will elevate your brand to new heights.
Influencer Outreach Definition
Influencer Outreach
The strategic process of identifying, engaging, and collaborating with individuals who have a significant online presence and sway over a targeted audience to promote products, services, or brands.
Types Of Influencers
There are many types of influencers you should be aware of before starting your influencer outreach. Here’s a list of some to get you started:
1.) Celebrity Influencers
These are traditional celebrities from fields such as entertainment, sports, or politics who have a large following on social media platforms. Their fame and popularity make them influential figures for brand endorsements and promotions.
Kim Kardashian is a great example of a celebrity influencer because she has built her brand, and promotes it on all of her social media channels. She has over 364 million followers on Instagram, and she has fans all across the world.
2.) Macro-Influencers
These influencers have a substantial following typically ranging from tens of thousands to millions of followers. They often specialize in a particular niche such as fashion, beauty, fitness, lifestyle, travel, or gaming.
PewDiePie (Felix Kjellberg) is a great example of a macro influencer because of his large following on social media platforms, specifically YouTube. His fanbase is over 111 million subscribers on YouTube.
3.) Micro-Influencers
Micro-influencers have smaller but highly engaged followings, typically ranging from a few thousand to around 100,000 followers. They have a niche focus and are perceived as more relatable and authentic by their audience.
Ashtyn Kingsbury is a great example of a micro-influencer because she has around 110k followers, and her niche is photography/content creation. Her followers love her authenticity and look forward to her life updates and posts.
4.) Industry Experts
These influencers are recognized authorities or thought leaders in their respective fields. They often share valuable insights, tips, and knowledge within their industry or area of expertise.
Ann Handley is known as an industry expert in digital marketing, and she is an inspiration to a generation of marketers. She is also a Wall Street Journal best-selling author, and her books reach audiences worldwide.
5.) Brand Ambassadors
Brand ambassadors are individuals who favor a specific brand and regularly promote its products or services. They may or may not have a large following but are valued for their loyalty and authentic representation of the brand.
A great example of a brand ambassador is Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson. He’s known for his significant following across multiple social media platforms and his influence on fitness, entertainment, and lifestyle brands.
Benefits Of Partnering With Influencers
Partnering with influencers can be a game-changer for your business. Think about it like this: influencers have hundreds of thousands of dedicated followers who hang on to their every word. When an influencer gives your brand a thumbs-up, it’s like getting a golden ticket to their community.
And when you compare it to traditional advertising, it’s often more affordable and brings in better results.
So, whether you’re aiming to boost sales, raise brand awareness, or simply connect with your audience on a deeper level, partnering with influencers can be the secret sauce you’ve been looking for to spice up your marketing strategy!
Key Factors To Consider Before Starting
When it comes to starting your influencer outreach, there are a few things you’ll need to get in order before you begin.
Here are some main factors to consider:
- Brand alignment: Identify influencers whose brand values and audience align with your mission and product offerings.
- Audience insights: Analyze the influencer’s audience demographics and interests to make sure they match your target market.
- Engagement rate: Evaluate the influencer’s engagement metrics to gauge their audience’s interaction and potential reach for your message.
- Content quality: Assess the quality and consistency of the influencer’s content to make sure it meets your standards for professionalism and innovation.
- Budget considerations: Determine a budget for the influencer collaboration that aligns with your financial plan.
- Collaborative potential: Look for influencers open to creative and mutually beneficial partnerships that can amplify your innovative solutions.
- Legal and ethical compliance: Make sure that all influencer agreements comply with legal standards and ethical marketing practices.
- Performance tracking: Plan for measurable outcomes and set up tracking mechanisms to evaluate the success of the influencer campaigns.
Step 1: Define Your Goals
The first step in trying to launch any successful campaign is to define your goals. Are you hoping to grow your following? Increase sales? Collaborate with influencers and hope to become an influencer yourself? The possibilities are endless, so start by defining what you want out of your influencer outreach campaign.
Create A Collaboration Strategy
Develop a detailed plan for how you will collaborate with influencers. Define the type of content they will create, the messaging you want to convey, and the timeline for the collaboration.
Step 2: Identify The Right Influencers
You’ll want to identify what influencer you’ll want based on the type of product or service you have.
Let’s go over how you can identify the right influencers for your brand.
Define Your Target Audience
From one marketer to another, this is the most important step in anything involving marketing. So a good rule of thumb is always to define your target audience before you start a new marketing campaign, strategy, etc.
By defining your target audience, you can pick the right influencer that will relate to your audience and can draw in traffic naturally from your followers.
Research Potential Influencers
The first step in influencer outreach is to utilize social media influencer marketing tools to create a list of potential influencers. Look for alignment in values, audience demographics, and engagement levels to ensure a perfect fit for your brand.
You’ll also want to check if the influencer knows your product or service. The more knowledge they have of your company, the better!
Analyze Influencer Metrics And Engagement
A sure-fire way to see how your influencer’s posts are performing is to calculate the engagement rate. You can do this by dividing the total number of likes, comments, and shares by the influencer’s total number of followers, and then multiplying by 100 to get a percentage.
If math isn’t quite your forte, you can also keep track of how many likes, comments and shares your specific post has. And if you randomly see an influx in sales, that could mean it’s reaching the right audience as well.
Step 3: Build Relationships With Influencers
Craft The Perfect Outreach Message
When wanting to collaborate with an influencer, there are a few different approaches you can take. You can reach out via direct messaging through whatever social media platform you’d like to use, or you can take a more professional approach and email.
When it comes to crafting an email to send to an influencer, there are a few things to consider:
- Understand your influencer: You’ll want to research the influencer’s content, audience, and values beforehand. Align your message with their interests to ensure a mutual fit.
- Introduce yourself and your brand: Briefly introduce yourself, your brand, and the products you sell. Specifically, what products or services you want them to promote.
- Personalize your message: Personalize your message with the influencer’s name and reference specific work they’ve done that aligns with your mission to organize and optimize your marketing strategies.
- Highlight mutual benefits: Explain the benefits of collaborating with you, focusing on the efficient and collaborative opportunities we provide.
- Provide clear next steps: End your message with a clear call to action, inviting the influencer to discuss the collaboration further.
- Keep it concise: Make sure to keep your message direct and to the point.
- Follow-up: If you don’t receive a response, it’s appropriate to send a polite follow-up message after a reasonable amount of time.
Approach Influencers Professionally
Even though it’s fun to message them like you would a friend, remember this is still business even though it’s on social media. Being unprofessional could send the wrong message to the influencer, and they may not take your brand seriously enough to want to collaborate with you.
Build Authentic Connections
Even though you’re reaching out for potential collaboration and business efforts, you still want to have an authentic connection with them.
Instead of viewing influencers as a one-off marketing asset, aim to create a long-term partnership. Invest time in getting to know them, understanding their audience, and finding ways to collaborate on multiple campaigns over time.
Another important thing to remember is to allow influencers creative freedom when it comes to content creation. Trust their expertise in connecting with their audience, and give them the space to authentically integrate your brand into their content.
Step 4: Define Your Offer
Okay, so you’ve defined your goals, identified the right influencer, and tried to reach out or build some type of relationship with them. Now is the best part: define your offer.
Your offer should include:
- Product/Service Overview: Clearly explain what your product or service is, its unique selling points, and how it benefits the audience.
- Compensation: Figure out how you will be paying your influencer, whether that is in free products, monetary payment, discounts for their followers, or a combination.
- Expectations: Clearly outline what you expect from the influencer, such as how often you want them to post, content guidelines, and any specific calls to action.
- Timeline: Give them a timeline for the collaboration, including deadlines for deliverables and the length of the partnership.
Step 5: Track & Measure Results
You’ll need to measure and track your results to make sure things are running smoothly, as scheduled. Whether that’s monitoring your sales or followers, keep a close eye on how things are looking on your social media channels.
Fine-Tune Your Strategy
Use the data and insights you gather to keep improving your influencer outreach strategy. If things didn’t quite go how you expected them to, you can switch up your strategy a bit and try things out with a different influencer. It might take a few times to get something that works well, so don’t get discouraged.
