How to communicate with influencers

Communication is a crucial aspect of influencer marketing. The goal is to persuade as many influencers as possible to collaborate with your brand.

We recommend using email for outreach. Our platform enables you to easily set up an outreach flow similar to Klaviyo or Mailchimp but specifically for reaching out to influencers. With just a click, you can contact hundreds or even thousands of influencers. Combined with our CRM platform, you can streamline and automate most aspects of your communication.

1). Outreach: Create an effective outreach template. Our platform provides access to A/B tested and reply rate-optimized templates. When setting up your outreach email, keep the following in mind:

Introduction
Personalize your email using data tags, e.g., first name or Instagram handle (available in our database)
Include a link to the product you would like to have advertised and include a one-sentence pitch on what makes the product and your brand unique
Mention what is in it for the influencer: Keep in mind that every human being mainly cares about themselves. Highlight what you offer the influencer and what they will gain from the partnership. Listing all the benefits will make the offer more attractive to the influencer, such as the product's retail value, an affiliate commission, and a discount for their followers.
Exclude fixed payments from the initial outreach: Some influencers may only work for fixed payments, while others may be open to working with you on a product exchange basis. To reduce overall ad spend and increase ROAS, we recommend starting with a combination of the product offer, affiliate commission, and discount code in the outreach.

Follow-ups: We recommend around 2-3 follow-ups to further increase your reply rates. With 2-3 follow-ups, you can usually get your reply rates up to around 30 - 40%, depending on the attractiveness of your offer and brand/product.

2). Negotiation: The Influencer Hero platform allows you to reach many people and select the best deals. If an influencer mentions that they only work for fixed payments, you will enter the negotiation stage. We recommend having 1 or 2 negotiation email templates to close the deal with mutually beneficial terms. During this stage, you may decide to offer a fixed fee, increase your product offering, or the affiliate commission. The advantage of product offering is that the retail value is perceived as much more than the cash equivalent in payment. Use this to your advantage to increase your closing rate.

Since performance is the main focus during this stage, we recommend negotiating terms for a single post or a smaller package. Emphasize that this initial post is "only to gain a better understanding of the match towards the brand" and that larger fixed payments, packages, and ambassador programs are available for long-term collaborations.

3). Awaiting post: After sending the product to the influencer, you will wait for them to post—schedule follow-ups with reminders to post without being pushy. We recommend waiting for at least 1-2 weeks from when the product has been delivered. If you are not offering a fixed fee, a small percentage of influencers may not post. Reduce this number by using follow-ups and personalizing the package, and making sure that the experience with your product by the influencer is the best possible.

4). Post campaign: Once the influencers have posted, you analyze the results—more on tracking and success measuring here. The influencers performing well and showing good KPIs can be welcomed to your ambassador program, which you want to work with long-term. Our platform has its own dashboard where you can effectively maintain and manage these relationships. Make sure to thank all influencers for the post. We recommend thanking all influencers despite their performance to leave a positive impression. Despite their low performance, you could still invite these influencers during peak season campaigns. A lot of our clients, for example, invite these lower-performing influencers during Black Friday when many people are looking for gifts. During these times, even lower-performing influencers can show a good ROI.