Pitch-Perfect: 5 Tips To Reach Out and Engage With Influencers
To maximize influencer outreach efforts, it is essential to know how to find and engage with influencers. This stage in your influencer marketing strategy is vital to your campaign’s success.
Did you know that the ROI on influencer marketing is $6.85 to every dollar invested?
You certainly want to identify the right influencers, with a healthy following, and high engagement rate. From bloggers to social media sensations, these relevant influencers will impact your brand awareness and social visibility.
This could be why 50 percent of marketers are using influencer marketing to generate sales and leads, according to Tomoson.
Let’s examine five best practices to reach out and engage with influencers to maximize brand success.
1. Reach Out to Relevant Influencers
Did you know that 71 percent of consumers are far more likely to purchase something with a social media reference attached? This emphasizes the need for influencers, and they absolutely need to be relevant to your brand’s niche and message.
There are a lot of factors to finding the right, relevant influencers. For instance, if brand awareness is your focus, than influencers with a large following is best. But if you really want to boost brand engagement, maybe connecting with micro-influencers is better.
Here are a few social media marketing tools to help you hunt down relevant influencers for your upcoming campaign . . .
- BuzzSumo: You just need to conduct a search using a relevant keyword and that will turn up results for some of the top influencers in that niche.
- Traackr: Traackr is another useful influencer marketing platform for research. This tool lets you use multiple keywords to conduct a search on influencers and gives you a list of influencers based on their rank.
2. Steer Clear of Cold Calling Type Outreach
There is a subtle touch you need to put on your influencer outreach and engagement strategy. Unlike B2C email marketing, you are selling your brand and partnership qualities, rather than your products or services.
It is essential to have a few touch points with influencers prior to sending them your pitch email. The best strategy, become a fan!
“Spend some time building rapport to find out who they are and what motivates them. Surprisingly, money isn’t always the top motivator for influencers,” says Tom Ward of Forbes. “Authenticity, brand fit, and good press often matter more than getting paid.”
You should start following your potential influencers on social media. Comment, repost, and share their content. At the end of the day, influencers are more likely to open and read an email from someone they recognize.
3. Your Pitch Email Subject Line Needs to be Compelling
If you want to get your pitch email opened, you absolutely need a concise and compelling subject line. This is the first thing an influencer sees when sifting through hundreds of emails daily.
You want to get straight to the point when it comes to your influencer marketing pitch email subject line. Something along the lines of, “Let’s Discuss Influencer Partnership?” or “Let’s Talk Partnership, My Audience Loves You?”
4. Build Rapport and Credibility
Why should any influencer care about you and your brand? When you reach out and engage with influencers, you want them to feel your credibility and trust you immediately.
The influencer/brand relationship is a two way street. Influencers want to know what’s in it for them and their audience, other than money or free products. Most influencers will not risk losing their following by promoting a brand they don’t trust or find to be credible.
5. Craft the Perfect Pitch
Those new to influencer marketing and influencer outreach may still need a bit of a boost in crafting the perfect pitch. Below is an example pitch email you can use as a template for your future outreach and engagement with relevant influencers.
Hello (First Name of Influencer),
My name is (Your Name) from XYZ Business. We are excited to be launching our latest product, the (Product Name). This product lets you (Benefit of Product).
As a follower, I saw your fantastic product recommendations and reviews in the past, and you may want to check out our product. It will certainly be beneficial for your audience. In fact, the (Product) was given a powerful review by (Website, Publication) and ranked high for (Target Audience).
If you’re interested in checking it out, I will provide you with a free one ASAP.
Let’s set up a meeting and discuss details, I am readily available.
Yours sincerely,
(Your Name, Contact Info, Website, etc.)
These are simply a few pitch perfect tips to reach out and engage with influencers. There are a variety of stages involved in influencer outreach to ensure your influencer marketing strategy and future campaigns are a success.
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