Influencer Outreach: A Complete & Actionable Guide [2024]

Well hello there business owners and marketers. 

A little bird (don’t ask who) told us you’ve been looking for a simple way to find influencers and reach out to them. 

They said the few times you decided to reach influencers on your own, they ghosted you. 

Now you’re thinking…perhaps influencer marketing isn’t for you. 

But, hear us out. 

Maybe it’s not the influencers but how you reached them. 

Because you see, influencers are kinda like celebrities. Their DMs are probably open on social media, but only a select few know how to book them. 

And as you see (*clears throat*), we’re part of those select few.

So in this guide, we’ll provide you with proven techniques on how to reach influencers and build solid relationships with them. 

Sounds good, right?

Alright, let’s start from the beginning.

What is Influencer Outreach?

Influencer outreach is the process of finding social media influencers who can promote your brand, and contacting them. 

Plus, it’s what allows you to leverage the influencers’ impact on their online community to your advantage. 

Influencer outreach involves sending DMs or emails to the influencers. Sometimes, it also involves calling them if you’ve got their digits. 

Essentially, the idea behind influencer outreach is this…

You’ve got a brand or product to advertise and need a voice, someone your ideal audience respects and can relate to, to be the ‘poster face’ of the campaign. 

So, how do you reach these influencers?

Let’s show you.

How to Create an Influencer Outreach Campaign

Ready to contact influencers for your marketing campaigns? 

Here are five steps you need to follow.

Step #1: Define your influencer outreach strategy

When we say ‘define’, we mean outlining how you intend to put influencers to work. 

To figure this out, you first need to have your marketing goals defined, which could mean:

• Raising brand awareness
• Getting engagements
• Increasing conversion rates on social media

Once your goals and objectives are defined, you then need to structure the path to get there. 

So if it’s brand awareness, how many influencers do you think you’ll need? 

Which social media platform would help you achieve that? What type of content would you want the influencers to produce?

Now, that’s how you define a strategy. 

It could be as simple as this…

Ask 25 Instagram influencers to record a video of themselves using your product or unboxing it.

You get the point, right? 

A defined strategy means you know what to look for and what metrics to track when you start finding influencers. 

Alright, with a strategy defined, you can now start searching for influencers.

Step #2: Find relevant influencers

People who have never tried to run an influencer marketing campaign will be thinking, “Hmm, it shouldn’t be that difficult.” 

You just find an influencer you like and contact them. Easy peasy.

If only that were true. 

Over 70% of marketers in a survey have said finding influencers is one of their biggest challenges in influencer marketing.

But here’s how you can find the right influencers for your campaign:

• Check your follower base: Some influencers will be familiar with your brand and product and following you on social media. You may not know because you’re yet to go through your follower base. So, take the time to do that and you might just discover a diamond. 😉
• Use hashtags: Let’s say you own a food brand. You can find micro-influencers in your niche on social media using hashtags like #bostonchefs or something similar. You just need to have a great proposal when you contact them. 
• Leverage influencer marketing platforms: If you don’t want to stress yourself so much when finding influencers, we highly recommend you use one of these platforms. 

Insense, for instance, makes the whole process as easy as finding croissants in Paris.

You can use our marketplace feature to find influencers, using different advanced filters like industry or engagement rate. 

You also get to look at the influencers’ profiles … portfolios, past projects, rates, and all that. And if you like what you see, then add them to the creator list and create a campaign. 

Alternatively, you could just use our creative brief feature. 

Here, you provide details about the campaign, the content type you want, the preferred influencer type, how you want the deliverables produced, and more.

Then, we find influencers who match your description and send them your way. 

Essentially, with Insense, you get to run influencer campaigns conveniently and efficiently. 🫰

But if you decide to use other options when finding influencers, you may have to draft proposals to convince them. That leads us to the next step.

Step #3: Come up with your proposal

After you’ve found influencers, you need to prepare a juicy offer to get them to work with you. 

You wanna clearly define what they’ll do for your brand and what you’ll do for them. 

A good way to create your proposal is to come up with a brief about the campaign for each influencer. 

Let them know the content format you want them to produce, the number of videos, hashtags to use, how your brand should be mentioned, etc. 

Oh, and remember payments too. That’s very important. 

How much do you wanna pay them? Give them a budget or range. 

If you wanna go the product-seeding route, ensure you give reasons why they should choose receiving free products over getting paid with cash. 

Then finally, keep the dos and don’ts to a minimal level. Give them enough creative freedom to work. Remember that they’re professional creatives too.

Step #4: Write your outreach email

At this point, you’ve got influencers you wanna reach out to and you have a good idea of what to offer. 

Your next step is to make contact by writing an outreach email. 

Of course, if you’re using Insense, you won’t have to go through all this. 

But if you’re not, how do you create an outreach email?

Here are a couple of influencer outreach examples you can follow.

Influencer outreach email templates

Template #1: Friendly/casual introduction

Email subject: (Influencer name), open to becoming the voice of (brand name)?

Hi (Influencer name),

I’m (insert your name) from (brand name).

I’ve been following your Instagram account for a while now and found your post on (topic) particularly fascinating. Really liked how you (insert compliment about the content).

Over here at (brand name), we have a similar approach to how you described (reiterate what resonates with your brand).

Considering it’s something you’re passionate about, would you be open to a long-term collaboration with us? We’d love for you to take our product for a test drive and share your thoughts. 

Let me know if that’s something you’re interested in and I’ll share more details. 

Thanks

(Insert name)

Template #2: General collaboration

Hi (Influencer name),

I’m (insert your name) from (brand name).

We’re on the lookout for top influencers to collaborate with on a paid project. After going through your profile, we’re confident you’re a great fit for us. 

What we need is just (insert what you need briefly).

Think it’s something you’d be interested in?

Let me know and I’ll send more details. 

Really looking forward to hearing from you so we can work together. 

Best, 

(insert your name)

As you can see from both templates, we went with personalized and simple. 

Emails like these soften the recipients up and make it very easy for them to respond. You can follow our template or create yours using a similar format.

Step #5: Follow up if you get no response

If you send the email and are yet to get a reply, ensure you send a follow-up email. 

Sometimes, it’s easy for messages in an inbox to get all cluttered and the recipient ends up not seeing your email. 

Other times, they do see it, decide to attend to it in a couple of minutes, and forget. 

Sending a follow-up email gets your proposal to the top of their inbox again. You’ll be improving the chances of them responding to you. 

Here’s a template you can use to follow up:

Hi (Influencer name),

(Insert your name) from (brand name) here again. 

Just wanted to follow up to see if you got my previous email.

I’m looking forward to hearing from you. 

Regards, 

(Insert your name)

Now that’s how to run an influencer outreach campaign. 

So, what’s next? 

There’s a whole lot we’re about to unpack regarding influencer outreach. Just sit back and relax as you dive into them.

How To Do Influencer Outreach For Content Repurposing

Your campaign is in full swing now and the influencer’s content has even gone live.

In fact, it’s doing so well you think, “What if I boost this on other marketing channels?”

That’s a great idea. But to do that, you need to have the influencer’s permission. 

The arrangement wasn’t done on Insense after all.

Anyway, here’s a template on how to reach influencers when you want to repurpose their content.  

Hi (Influencer name),

We saw your content and loved it immediately. Thank you so much. 

However, we were wondering if you’d be okay with us boosting it as a Facebook ad for the next few weeks. 

Let me know what you think.  

Thank you and hope we can continue our collaboration. 

Regards, 

(Insert your name)

Tip: Remember to send a follow-up message if you don’t get a response soon.‍

How To Write an Influencer Outreach Email

Now, we’ve already provided templates for influencer outreach.

But, in case you’d like to create your own templates (or modify ours), here are some tips for writing effective influencer outreach emails.

• Get to the point quickly: A brief greeting, a short introduction, and then go straight to why you’re reaching out. You can throw in a compliment too. 
• Explain why you’re reaching out to the influencer: Be clear and direct. You want them to collaborate with you or you want to send them a product to review. 
• Personalize it: Consider adding some personal information about the influencer to the email that will make them smile. 
• Emphasize simplicity: In our examples, we provided them with a simple choice. Are they open to collaboration? So all they had to answer was either a yes or no. Your email should be convincing and tailored to a simple request. 

As mentioned earlier, reaching out to influencers can be challenging. 

You need all the help you can get. So in the next section, we’ll be sharing some tips to follow during your influencer outreach campaign.

Influencer Outreach Best Practices

If you want to have a successful influencer outreach campaign, here are some practices to live by.

1. Get influencers involved in your strategy

Remember the strategy we mentioned earlier? About how you go about your influencer marketing campaign?

Alright, if you want a more impactful campaign, you need to get influencers involved in that process. 

Of course, this is after you’ve interacted with them for a while and have even hired them. 

You wanna ask them what they think about how you’re going about the campaign. 

Why? Two reasons.

1. They know what their followers like. 
2. Research shows that 82% of consumers would follow a micro-influencer’s recommendation. 

So, if you ask influencers and they say “Oh, I think the script you provided isn’t necessary. My audience loves it when I just use a product and share my reaction.”

You have to trust they’re speaking from experience, even if it’s different from your initial strategy, and that it’ll work.

2. Focus on building relationships with the influencers

If you’re going to get the best from your influencers, your goal should be developing long-term relationships with them.

You’ll notice that’s the approach we used in one of the outreach templates shared earlier. 

When your focus is on building influencer relationships, it makes them open and committed to your brand. 

They get to be part of something phenomenal. Like seeing your brand grow to another level because of their input. 

How do you do this?

• Keep your conversations casual. Be clear about what you want and how they fit in but avoid the transactional tone. 
• Ask for their input and feedback. There’s just something about asking people for their take that makes them feel super important. And if they do feel like a star when working with you, be sure they’re gonna be your brand ambassador in your absence. 
• Check on them regularly. Hold up, we don’t mean asking for updates on them. We mean asking genuinely how they’re doing, even when there’s no active collaboration. 
• Pay them on time. If you’ve got a good thing going on with your influencers, always ensure they're paid on time. It’s how they know you mean business.‍

3. Be honest with your needs

As much as we want you to build relationships with potential influencers, you have to let them know what you want ASAP. 

The template is: send a proposal and if they’re open to a collab, build a relationship. 

In most instances, influencers have lots of brands lining up to hire them. So if your approach is just to say that your brand likes their work, all you’ll probably get is a thank-you. 

Essentially, be clear about what your end goal is. But, be friendly and use a conversational tone. 

4. Do your research

Ah yes, this is a very practical tip to follow if you’re going to have a successful campaign. 

You wanna be sure that the influencer you reach out to is the right fit for your brand. 

So do a deep dive into their profiles. 

• Are they in the same industry as you?
• Does their audience match your target audience? Do they have experience working with brands? What are their results like?
• What are their conversion and engagement rates like?

These are questions you need to answer when doing your research. 

5. Evaluate the campaign’s results

Last but certainly not least, keep track of your campaign's performance so you can optimize. 

How do you do that?

Monitor important metrics like:

• The engagement or response rate for your campaign. 
• The amount of sales from each influencer. 
• The click-through rate on your links since the campaign started.
• The number of website visits you’ve gotten.
• The number of new followers you’ve gotten since the campaign began. 
• The return on ad spend (ROAS) of your marketing campaign. 

Clearly outline everything so you know if the campaign has been successful or not. 

This way, you know if you need to restrategize or scale your campaign. We’ll talk more about what metrics to track in a short while. 

Now on your influencer marketing journey, success isn’t only measured by what you do. It’s also measured by how many potholes you avoid. 

So very quickly, let’s highlight those ‘potholes’ you need to stay clear of.

Influencer Outreach Mistakes to Avoid

Wanna ensure your outreach campaign goes smoothly and without glitches? 

Here are some mistakes to avoid:

❌Choosing the wrong influencer: Influencers are the main recipe in this marketing dish you’re preparing. If you get it wrong, then the whole thing would be one big fail. Ensure you find and partner with the best influencers who understand your industry and have a good engagement record. 

❌Sending excessive emails: Sure, we said to follow up with the influencers if you don’t get a response. But that doesn’t mean spamming them. That’s gonna make them add you to their blacklist. You can follow up a maximum of three times after a three-day interval. Anything more and you’ll become a nuisance. 

❌Not personalizing your message: Have you ever received a generic message before? If you have then you know how off-putting it can be. You don’t wanna do the same to your influencers. Add personality, throw in humor, let your message show a human connection, and you stand a chance. 

❌Not taking the influencer’s style into account: Before reaching out to an influencer, research what their previous content has been like. What’s their usual tone and style? Then tailor your approach to match that. You’ll likely be doing yourself a disservice if you think they’ll change to suit your style.

❌Choosing influencers based on follower count: Sure, follower count is a good consideration in influencer marketing. But in the grand scheme of things (trying to sound philosophical), it’s not that important. 

What you should look out for instead is the influencer’s authenticity, portfolio, industry experience, and engagement rate. Those help you more in achieving your objective. 

***

Another thing that can contribute to the success of your outreach campaign is setting metrics you can track. 

Let’s talk about that.

Influencer Outreach KPIs and Metrics to Track

Influencer outreach KPIs are performance indicators that give insight into whether or not the influencers you contacted will respond. 

How does that happen?

By tracking metrics like:

• Open rate: Percentage of influencers who’ve opened your email for a specific campaign. 
• Response rate: Percentage of responses you’ve received for a content marketing campaign. 

Now a high open rate tells you the influencers or content creators have seen your email. It also shows they’re attracted to it, curious about your brand, and that the email subject line was engaging enough. 

A high response rate shows that your call-to-action was a hit, and the offer was attractive and relevant to them.

Influencer Outreach Tools

Influencer outreach tools are platforms that can help you find and connect with different types of influencers so you won’t have to do everything manually.

Here are a few of them:

• Insense: It’s a digital platform that streamlines how you find and run influencer marketing campaigns from start to finish. And it’s all thanks to features like Creative Brief and Marketplace.  

Not to sound proud or anything, but Insense is a trusted platform. 

Brands like Any Age Activewear have used Insense to find micro-influencers for their product-seeding campaigns. The result? A 4x increase in ROAS and a 20% increase in average order value (AOV). 

• Klear: This is a discovery platform you can use to find influencers across social media platforms like TikTok, IG, and YouTube. You just need to indicate who your target audience is and they’ll provide a list of micro- and macro-influencers you can collaborate with. 
• Grin: Grin is influencer marketing software that can help you identify and recruit influencers who understand your brand. They’ve got a social listening feature that identifies people who’re talking about your brand on social media. ‍

And with that ladies and gentlemen, we’ve come to the end of our journey into influencer outreach.

But like they say, the end of one is the beginning of another. So…

It’s Your Turn

You’re about to begin another journey. This time, you’ll be in the driver’s seat finding your way around recruiting influencers. 

This guide will come in handy, no doubt. 

But, we want you to have a smooth experience when you begin. 

For that to happen, here’s what you need to do first… 

Book a demo with Insense and a team member will reach out with a step-by-step map on how to proceed on this journey.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Have questions that weren’t mentioned in the main article? That’s why we added this section. 

Here, you’ll find likely questions people ask. 

How much does influencer outreach cost?

For Instagram, the price of influencer collaboration for a post can be between $50 and $10,000.

For TikTok, it can cost between $25 and $2,500+. 

How do you find influencers?

You can find influencers through any of these options: 

• Hashtags e.g. #beautyinfluencers.
• Asking for recommendations from colleagues and even customers. 
• Using influencer marketing tools.

What is a good way to outreach influencers?

You can reach influencers by contacting them through:

• An email
• Direct message on social media (DM)
• A tool like Insense

Influencers usually have a contact email address for bookings on their profile.