Influencer marketing doesn’t sound like a joke anymore. Online occupations are a real deal now, making some of the largest revenues.

Having a person with a large trusting audience by your side will do wonders for your marketing campaign.

Even more so when most businesses strive to establish their online presence.

New approaches may sound confusing, especially if you’re a newcomer to the world of online promotion.

If you think nothing works nowadays, think again. According to SocialPubil’s 2019 report, around 93% of marketing specialists cooperate with influencers for their campaigns.

Step 1: A Brief Guide on Finding the Perfect Influencers

“Influencer” is a broad term. A thought leader working for Google or a girl who has a small beauty salon can both be great targets.

This is important for your next steps. So, first of all, educate yourself on “all things influential” and find out what influencer to look for:

• A blog owner with a source close to your niche with a considerable active following;
• A social media influencer without a clear agenda or specialty;
• A specialist in your or close to your niche;
• A reviewer or journalist who has a column on a credible source;
• Photographer or traveler who reviews and recommends places, tech, you name it.

If you don’t see one specific group that would suit your purpose, no worries. Any of the above may be your best shot.

The main points are the number and quality of followers and an intention to cooperate with brands. You can use blogger outreach service to find more opportunities. 

Influencers range from a couple thousand to millions of subscribers, so choose a scale properly. 

Let’s make this your step one to a successful marketing campaign proposition.

Step 2: Develop a Presence and a Relationship

To get attention from an influencer, you need to build the presence of your brand online. You need to drive your brand reputation. This implies:

• Building an easy-to-use, responsive website with sufficient information about your company;
• SEO optimization of the content you post, plus other approaches to making it popular among your target audience;
• Targeting the right people to get some credibility for your brand;
• Focusing on social media presence on the most commonly used SNS: Instagram, Facebook, etc.

Pay close attention to the social media part. Your brand needs aesthetic accounts with the same colors throughout the profiles. Make sure you have a color palette that can be associated with the brand.

The content has to be useful and slightly promotional. Don’t choose the path of aggressive marketing. 

Before approval, the influencer’s team will look at your online presence. And style is as important here as the content.

A relationship with your audience and every blogger/SNS influencer you work with also makes a difference. Being friendly, polite, and having your distinguished style will help a lot.

Step 3: Get to the Actual Influencer Marketing Campaign Proposal

Here are the best recommendations released yet for approaching an influencer with a marketing campaign proposal:

• Be clear.
  Don’t start from afar; let them know you want fruitful cooperation from the start. If the person isn’t interested in such collaborations, there’s no need to waste your and their time.
• Use smart attention hooks.
  This about the purpose of your product or service. What problems does it solve? Use that as an attention hook, but don’t be too aggressive with your approach.
• Provide the best examples.
  Find the best results of your methods and use them to prove that you’re worth cooperating with.
• Establish the connection between your brand and the influencer.
  Show them that you’re on the same page by researching their pages and finding clear correlations with your service.

There are many great tips for writing an influencer campaign proposal. Below, we’ll review the most crucial things to remember and consider when contacting an influencer with a pitch.

1. Choose How You Will Contact the Person

If it’s social media, you can either:

• Contact the person directly.
  This often works with micro-influencers who don’t have a huge following. They go through DMs every day and will definitely see your proposal. However, if there is a PR account mentioned in the bio, choose the next way. Your message may still get lost in Requests.
• Contact their PR manager.
  Usually, most influencers have a separate PR account where their assistant answers questions on mutual advertising, representation, etc. Instead, there may be an email address, which is even better. Email marketing is still on the rise, with around 4 billion email users in 2020. So, although social media becomes a huge deal in marketing, the good-old email can get you farther.

You can make the main offer using a working email and remind about it in DMs of the blog or social media. But evaluate the situation first and see if such an approach will fit.

2. Mind the Subject Line of Your Email

Imagine you’re a person or an assistant of one with thousands of followers and hundreds of promotional campaign offers. Would you read an email with the subject “Hi there”? Maybe not.

Your pitch and the relationship with the influencer must start in the subject line of the email.

Let’s walk through the steps of creating a great subject line:

• Do your research. Learn about the person’s main topics of discussion, favorite products, even writing style. Most individuals will collaborate with brands that reflect their philosophy and worldview. You have to become that brand;
• Be clear about the purpose of your email. Make an offer and include the niche or industry you’re working in;
• Show them you’re interested in their opinion. This will flatter the person and inspire them to open the email;
• Cater to their professional side. Write in a tone that will show that you know they are an authority.

This may seem like a lot of words, but even a brief “Name, let’s give a free 1-month trial of Product for your audience?”, “Name, your eco-friendly allies will enjoy Product”, or “Name, your professional opinion on all-green interior design is crucial for us” will work.

Be friendly, confident that you’re on the same page, and prove it in the email.

3. Mind the Way to Pitch Yourself and Make an Offer

You have to make the person interested in your brand and assured of its quality and credibility. But the line between showcase and bragging is thin. Don’t cross it.

Cater to the person’s worldview and feelings. You can find out all about it in their publications.

Say the same words and state how glad you are that such popular people are making the right influence. Write that you want to be a part of the party!

With proper research, you’ll be able to capture their attention.

All in all, approach the following factors:

• Their feelings;
• Your common features and agenda;
• The quality of your brand;
• The kind of people buying from you;
• The benefits they will get from your cooperation, whether it’s free stuff or a good cause.

Find Proper Influencers for Every Campaign

We all remember the times when bloggers and influencers first appeared. Many people were laughing in their faces, saying nobody will just blindly listen to someone’s opinion.

Yet, look at the industry now. It’s a whole business because people rarely trust brands anymore.

Every company will talk about how good they are. But after several mistakes, customers get into deeper research of every purchase they have to make. This starts with reviews on Trustpilot and finishes with asking friends.

An influencer is that friend who builds a relationship with the audience and motivates listening to them. They show results, highlight both pros and cons of companies they cooperate with.

Which brings us to the essential factor of your success: a credible, high-quality brand. But this is a topic for another article.