Email Etiquette for Influencer Marketers Approaching Influencers
This blogpost has been written by one of our Co-Founders, Viv.
I have had the pleasure of working with all sorts of influencers from varying sizes - all who work in their wonderfully unique and different ways. From managing top influencers' inboxes at Gleam Futures, to working at an influencer marketing agency and reaching out to hundreds of influencers who are self-managed. Here's my top tips on how an influencer marketer should approach an influencer who's self managed. If you're interested in hearing how to approach talent management agencies next, let me know.
Enough of the 'Hey [insert name]' email templates.
When I used to manage influencer's inboxes, a typical email that goes something like... "Hey honey, we love your content! We would love to work with you! Please get in touch. xx" will be skim read and most likely, deleted. Yours won't be the only email sitting in their inbox. It's an obvious 'cmd & c and cmd & v' job. (Copy and paste to those who aren't so in love with keyboard shortcuts - but who isn't? Amiright?) Show you've done your research by adding in some personalisation, whether it's about their latest piece of content, or the reason why you're getting in touch i.e. "I love the collaboration you did with Adidas recently and I'd love to pick up working with you on a similar level." Also, find our their name rather than their influencer handle. I'm sure @SuperFitnessInfluencer wasn't born with that name. I hope.
Slide in their DMs. (Something I didn't think I'd say on LinkedIn but hey it's nearly 2019).
Influencers are busy people. They're on the go at events, shooting, travelling. They don't tend have the typical 9-5pm office job where their inbox is necessarily their main source of communication. Like I said, they will be contacted by hundreds of brands weekly wanting to work with them. If you find that you're not getting a response on email, just give them a friendly, gentle nudge into their Instagram direct message. From my experience, I direct message them from my personal account, and you usually get a response back pretty quickly when the influencer can see that an ACTUAL human being has got in touch. (And that they may well have seen the vast amount of food photos and shameless selfies on your own personal feed...)
Keep in profesh.Shunal...Keep it professional.
Just because an influencer talks to their audience like they're their friends, it doesn't mean that they are your mate. When introducing yourself, of course keep it friendly, but maintain professionalism. They are not just influencers, they are business owners and like in any industry, need to be treated with respect. Less of the 'babes', 'huns' and 'xx', unless you feel like you've developed a relationship to the point where it is reciprocal. Okay, huns?
Get to the point.
If you haven't got my point, influencers are sent emails from loads of brands desperate to work with them. What makes your brand so special? Get to the point and write a short elevator pitch on why they should be interested in getting back to you.
Like all marketers, we love a good call to action.
End the email with a call to action, whether it's requesting their initial interest, media card, rates, demographics, or all of these, be specific and most importantly, provide a deadline. Nothing like a 'buy now or regret it later' to help with quick responses. But in all seriousness, this helps manages an influencer's content plan, knowing what deadlines are in place could help spur some creative thinking around their content. Your content deadline is 14th February? Ah, the perfect time for an influencer to create Valentine's Day related content for your brand.
Hopefully I haven't taught you anything remarkably new. This isn't groundbreaking influencer marketing. If it is then it must be an extremely slow news day. But it's something I've found working in both managing influencers, and now reaching out to influencers from an agency perspective, I've seen both sides of the coin.