5. Influencer Outreach

Influencer marketing is all about relationships, so communications should feel real and personal. Your influencer outreach message should get influencers excited to work with you and let them get to know your brand.

What makes an influencer want to work with you? Your first impression could be a make or break moment in your relationship with that influencer. Instead of focusing on free products or post requirements, devote your first message to establishing a connection to the influencer.

An influencer is also more likely to work with you if they already know about your brand. Choosing influencers who are already subscribed to your emails or have purchased your products can help you get the best impact out of your influencer marketing campaigns.

Influencer marketing platforms provide templates to help you get started reaching out to influencers, but you should always personalize this message to reflect your brand’s positioning.

In each message, you should include:

• Your name and your job title
• Your Brand’s name and its mission (Refer to your Influencer Marketing Campaign Brainstorm worksheet for your 1-2 sentence brand statement)
• Why you are interested in partnering with this influencer (flattery never hurt)
• Any key requirements for the partnership

You can choose the best channel for communications. The most popular methods for influencer outreach messages are through email or Instagram’s direct messages. The following messages can be easily customized, then cut and paste into your preferred method of communication.

1-Click Invites with Carro

To really streamline your influencer communications, you can use Carro’s Quick Invites feature. Carro provides a default message that is based on several successful influencer outreach messages.

Carro even asked a group of successful influencers what their favorite outreach messages were. Their favorites were then combined into the default message.

Without any modifications, this message got an average 43% open rate, which is a 113% improvement over typical cold emails!

With just 1-click, you can send outreach messages to your favorite influencers from the Carro Dashboard so that you can start collaborating. These influencers also have a connection to your brand, making them more likely to accept the collaboration and more effective in sharing your brand’s message.

Tips for Outreach Emails:

• If you don’t know their first name, stick to a more generic greeting. Use their name if it is available, but don’t use their username. Influencers want to know that you put in the effort to get to know their profile before reaching out. Nothing says “form letter” like saying “Hi @Username.” Better to use a generic greeting like “Hi there” than to risk them tuning out because you used an auto-filled username in your email.
• If you want to personalize, but don’t know their first name, then you can include details from their profile, or mention a particular image that you liked. This will shows that it’s not just a form letter.
• Keep your general email template customizable with dynamic fields. This will save a huge amount of work as you send out emails to your influencers. Design each email with quick customization in mind.

Sample Templates:

Default Message from Carro App:

Hey there,

I hope you’re doing well, I handle influencer relations for <BRAND NAME>. Great to meet you!

I stumbled across your account and thought your content would be perfect for us. If you feel we’d make a good fit, I’d love to move forward and have you request products from our store.

Use this link to visit, and request something at no charge that catches your eye. <CARRO BRAND LINK>

During the request, leave a note before confirming your shipping address to let us know your plans for the product (content creation, story post, article, etc.).

If you have any questions, just reply to this email.

Sincerely,

<FROM NAME>

Here’s an example of how this message was customized with a brand’s unique messaging:

Subject line: @InstagramHandle, could you send me your rate sheet?

Hi <FIRST NAME>,

My name is Cade and I handle influencer relationships for Rose Botanicals — we’re looking to work with influencers interested in the health, yoga, and beauty spaces.

Our signature blend of rose essential oils has begun to pick up a lot of attention recently and we’d like your help carrying the momentum.

Since you’re new to our brand (and probably haven’t heard about us), we’d love to send you some of our signature bland on the house (people love diffusing it!).

Let me know if you’re interested.

To health and high vibrations,

<FROM NAME>

You can also improve your chances of a response by sending a followup message:

Hi,

I know you’re really busy, but I just wanted to send one last note in case you might want to work with us.

Let me know if you’re interested

To health and high vibrations,

<FROM NAME>

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