Influencer marketing is on the rise, and it’s definitely one of the marketing trends that is not going away.

Currently, influencer marketing has generated awareness and grown into a $10 billion industry. According to BigCommerce, this number is expected to double in the foreseeable future.

Many businesses say they have a budget set up for influencer marketing as a part of their upcoming marketing campaigns. According to BigCommerce, 65% of companies are increasing their budgets for influencer marketing in 2020, compared to only 39% in 2018.

Yet, 35% of companies remain skeptical about working with influencers. The domain of influencer marketing offers them a lot of benefits – unique content, fresh perspective, and, most importantly, access to a niche audience, who trust the influencer.

Why Do Companies Have Issues Collaborating with Influencers?

When hiring a third party to promote your product, there is always an issue of trust. Budget is not always the problem, but lack of trust is what often pushes companies away from collaborating with influencers.

The most dominant issue, however, is poor communication with influencers. And it’s not just about misunderstandings.

Cristine Rotenberg, a Canadian YouTube personality and influencer, shared in one of her videos, that the main issue she has with brands is that they treat her like someone who would agree on any kind of deal just to earn money.

This is the common problem many influencers see happen. Jenna Marbles, a YouTube celebrity and influencer, said the same thing when asked about why she doesn’t take sponsorships.

Many companies don’t take influencers seriously. Even if they attempt to contact an influencer, they don’t treat influencers like potential business partners. That’s why, says Cristine, their sponsorship emails sound so unprofessional.

So, if you’re ready to hire an influencer, you need to approach them the right way. Here’s how to write the perfect influencer outreach email.

1. Approach Influencers with a Smart Subject Line

“Make your audience happy!”

“A new partnership this year?”

“Collaboration offer”

“Hi!”

These are examples of the email subject lines that Cristine Rotenberg shared in her video, mentioned above. It’s evident why she declined all these offers.

These subject lines indicate that these emails are mass sent to many influencers, with the only thing changed being the influencer’s name.

One of the primary reasons why companies use influencer marketing is to build trust. Before you achieve this, however, you need to earn the trust of the influencer. And you already fail at this if an influencer can tell that you’re not genuine by just reading your subject line.

As such, a good influencer outreach email template should start with a smart subject line.

A smart subject line should:

• Indicate that you know who you’re contacting.
  [Your interior designer opinion – how should we promote our new product?]
• Show that you care about their audience.
  [Faux fur coats or faux leather jackets – what would your audience prefer?]
• Show that you care about their opinion.
  [Hi, Jenna! Looking for your opinion about our new product]

The email subject line should directly reflect what you are going to offer in the email, and it should show that the outreach email is, in fact, tailored to a certain influencer.

For this, you need to do influencer research – study the influencer’s primary subject focus, their main audience, and content. You can hire online services like TrustMyPaper or WritingJudge to do the research for you, or carefully study the influencer’s social channels and past collaborations with other brands.

 

2. Show Personalised Approach

Take a look at this email.

What’s wrong with it?

First of all, you can see that the company didn’t do their research about the influencer they are contacting.

The message looks too generic, and the mix up of names (Stephen vs. Peter) in the email isn’t the only indication of it. This message is clearly a mail-out, so don’t expect it to land anywhere besides the spam folder.

There is no research on the influencer’s traffic rank, their niche audience, or the volume of their outreach.

As with email subject lines, it is essential to put effort into the body of the email and research the influencer you’re contacting. To create the perfect influencer outreach email, your goal is to make your message as personalised as possible.

Here’s how you can do it.

Emphasise on Their Interests

Go through the influencer’s social media content. What are they posting most frequently about? What are their main interests? You can also study their previous collaborations to get a clear picture of which companies and products a certain influencer works most frequently with.

The picture above, Valeria Lipovetsky, Instagram influencer and YouTube personality, posts about her partnership with fashion brand Joe Fresh. Valeria is a mother of three, so the majority of her partnerships (apart from fashion and beauty) are connected to family and children.

So, how would you create a personalised email to an influencer such as Valeria Lipovetsky, if you have products from the same category?

[Dear Valeria,

I’ve enjoyed reading your recent post from your partnership with Joe Fresh. I truly agree that the high quality and accessibility are the two main qualities of baby products that mothers value most. And style, of course 😉

At the company I work for, we put these principles together to create high-quality organic baby care products that are sold at accessible prices. And we believe that the best marketing for our product comes not from fake advertisements, but from people who have actually tried the product and loved it. Like you!

Would you be interested in considering a partnership with us?]

This is an example of a brief influencer outreach template, which already shows that the brand’s values align with the values of the influencer, which is a crucial point to focus on.

Influencers won’t create quality content if they don’t feel aligned with the brand’s values. So, creating a more personalised approach in your influencer outreach email can catch their attention and show that your brand has a lot in common with them.

Speak Their Language

Here, we will talk about message localisation.

Let’s say your brand is about to enter a foreign market. You are looking for an influencer to hire to represent your brand on the local market to immediately get yourself a niche audience in a foreign country. What language will you write your email in? English?

Wrong.

For instance, Maiah Ocando, an Instagram influencer, speaks English well, but her content is primarily in Spanish and caters primarily to a Spanish-speaking audience.

Remember that working with influencers is a marketing strategy as well. “Every strategy aimed at a foreign market, including communication with the influencer, should be localised to their native language,” says Martin Davis, a marketing specialist at BestEssay Education.

It is necessary to translate the whole email. You don’t want to mislead the influencer with a localised subject line, and then go on giving your offer in English. Remember that influencers will always prefer a native company, who speaks their language.

 

3. Structure Your Text

Lastly, make sure that you consistently structure your influencer outreach email to deliver the correct message.
The email shouldn’t be too long, so try to put all the points of your message briefly under each of the following sections:

Influencer Outreach Email Introduction:

Introduce yourself and your company, briefly talk about your product and your target audience.

Influencer Outreach Email Body:

Connect the values of your brand to the values of the influencer. Mention why you’re interested in reaching the influencer’s audiences and talk about the content that the influencer has already shared that would work for your partnership.

Think from the perspective of the influencer. What brands would they want to collaborate with? What values do they represent? What would the influencer want the experience with the product to be like?

Influencer Outreach Email Conclusion:

End your email by thanking them for their attention, the invitation to send follow-up emails. Share your contact information including your name and job position. At the footer of the influencer outreach email, you should also put the logo of your company and its physical address.

Note: just as with business communication overall, influencer outreach emails should be proofread and mistake-free. Make sure you thoroughly edit your messages and use tools like Studicus, Grammarly, or Hemingway App for additional proofreading and to avoid lengthy sentences and grammatical mistakes.

In the structure of your email, avoid emojis and too interrogative sentences or exclamation marks. Again, remember that this is a business deal – you are communicating to make an initial partnership offering. Make it brief, concise, and straightforward.

 

Final Takeaway

Influencers are your business partners, and this should be kept in mind when writing influencer outreach emails.

With our tips at hand, you will be able to create the perfect influencer outreach email template to craft personalised, engaging messages that will establish a strong foundation for all your future collaborations with influencers.