Influencer marketing is a powerful marketing strategy. Tapping in to the fans and followers of popular creators on social media can yield great results for your business. But in order to make these partnerships happen, you have to be able to get in contact with influencers.
How do you do it?
The short answer is email. When you want to get in touch with an influencer for a campaign, big or small, you should always do it through email. There is more nuance to it than that but if you want a simple answer, that’s it.
Why email?
Email is more professional, people are in a business/work mindset when they are in their email.
You also have the ability to reach out through direct messages but this isn’t alway the most effective method. Depending on the size of the creator, they may get thousands of direct messages a day — a majority of which are from fans. While fans do still have the ability to email their favourite creators, they often stick to DMs so if you are looking for a partnership, you’re better off emailing the influencer.
Finding the Email
Finding an influencer’s email is fairly straightforward.
The easiest way to find someone’s email is on their Instagram. Almost all creators and influencers will make the email button available specifically for the purpose of collaborating with brands.
One thing to keep in mind is if a creator has a manager, you’ll want to email them as opposed to the creator. You won’t need to worry about finding their email as the creator will have it listed on their page (in their bio). You can use platforms like ours to find influencers and their email easily. On SocialRank, start with over 1 billion profiles on Instagram or Twitter and find influencers relevant to you by using filters like keywords in bio (ex. “gmail.com”), location, and follower count.
If for some reason you can’t find an influencer’s email on their Instagram, you can look on an influencer’s YouTube channel and/or the contact page on their website.
The message
Once you find the email, what should you say?
First off, be concise as much as you can and get to the point.
Start off the email with a little bit about you, your product and why you are reaching out to partner with the influencer. A lot of influencers are purpose driven and prefer to work with products and brands that they trust, like and are consistent with their pages values. We recommend keeping this to 2–3 sentences.
In the second half of the email make your ask. Make sure that you clearly define what you are giving them and what you would like in return to ensure that there is no confusion.
One important thing to note with your ask is that if you are looking to pay for posts you’ll need to ask for a rate card. Stories are often available for a lower cost than a post in the feed.
Finish your email with a call to action asking them to respond and let you know if they are open to the campaign.
That’s it! Below are two sample emails so you can get a better idea. The first is offering products in exchange for Instagram Stories while the second is inquiring about a post in the feed.
Sample Email #1
Hey Creator,
My name is Jacob and I am reaching out to you on behalf of Trufan. Trufan is a social analytics platform that allows you to sort through your followers by size of following, engagement rate, location and more allowing you to active and reward your top fans.
We would like to offer you three months access to our platform for free in exchange for three posts in your Instagram Stories (one per month).
Please let me know if you’d be interested and I can get you set up with an account.
Regards,
Jacob
Sample Email #2
Hey Creator,
My name is Jacob and I am reaching out to you on behalf of Trufan. Trufan is a social analytics platform that allows you to sort through your followers by size of following, engagement rate, location and more allowing you to active and reward your top fans.
We would like to offer you three months access for free and are interested in paying for a sponsored feed post. If you are open to collaborating please let us know what your rates are.
Happy to answer any questions that you have.
Regards,
Jacob
