Reaching out to people you don’t know and asking them to do something for your brand sounds frightening. But it doesn’t have to be!
If you’re polite, natural, communicate transparently, and don’t use too much salesy language, you’ll get more responses than most.
So, hop on to learn how to create effective influencer outreach emails and DMs and find ready-made templates!
Photo by Diana Light
7 components of an effective message
Before you jump to the email and direct message templates, there are a few steps you need to do so your messages are effective and get responses. Those steps include:
Identifying the matching influencers
First, learn which social media your target audience uses and look for influencers there. You’ll find nano influencers (1-10k followers), micro (10-100k followers), macro (100k-1 million followers), and mega influencers (1 million+ followers).
Which type of influencer will suit your brand depends on your preferences, budget, type of product you want to promote, etc. While identifying the right influencers, you’ll need to check their:
- Relevance
Make sure that the influencer you want to collaborate with shares your brand’s values and that they are relevant to your niche. That way, besides reaching people who are interested in your niche and are likely to become your customers, you’ll foster your credibility.
For example, if you sell eco-friendly products without or with minimal packaging, you will couple up with someone who is environmentally aware. You’ll need to thoroughly check the influencer’s social media pages, blog, and website to see if they’re a good and natural fit for your brand. If the influencer doesn’t share your values, your customers can start doubting your products and eventually, you can lose customers.
Among other benefits it provides, you’ll also find it quite useful to utilize membership software in order to gain insights into your customers’ preferences and engagement patterns, which will help you identify relevant influencers that resonate with your customer base.
- Reach
Check the influencers’ metrics, like the number of followers on their Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok (or some other social network, depending on your business niche). That’s not the exact number of people you’ll reach, because social media algorithms don’t work that way, but you’ll get a general idea of how many people will see your products.
- Engagement
Besides reach, even more important is engagement. You’re probably aware that it is possible to “buy” followers, so checking how many people really interact with the influencer’s content will help you paint the picture of how exactly is the influencer influential.
Calculate the percentage of followers who regularly like, comment, and share influencer’s content and you’ll quickly see the real measure of their influence. You’ll soon realize that some influencers have many followers, but aren’t actually popular, while others have a few thousands or 10k+ followers with whom they interact daily.
Research from the University of the Sunshine Coast and Griffith Business School has shown that micro-influencers have more impact on purchasing intentions than macro-influencers, so keep that in mind, too.
If you don’t know where to start looking for influencers, there are influencer discovery platforms you can use to filter results by hashtags, keywords, follower count, language, and social channels.
Researching their work
You’ll already have an overview of influencers’ work once you identify the matching ones, but researching their work a bit deeper will considerably narrow down your list of potential collaborators.
Check out their social media pages, captions, reels, stories, website, blog posts, YouTube channel… While researching influencer’s work, you’ll learn their values, aesthetics, style, language, humor, and interests. And you’ll be able to see if they truly share your brand’s values.
Besides that, once you get to know the influencer, you’ll be able to send them personalized messages that they’ll have a hard time not answering.
Personalizing your messages
You have been doing all that prior research only to be able to personalize the messages you’re about to send. That’s because personalized messages are hard to avoid and forget.
Besides addressing the influencer by their name, you should also complement their work by mentioning something specific that you like. This shows that:
- You’ve done your research
- You appreciate their work and efforts
- You are genuinely interested in collaborating
That means you highlight some of the messages or insights they’ve provided in a certain post, like: “I browsed your Instagram profile and really enjoyed the [post XY], especially [insight X]. I’ve been working in the field and think you did a bang-up job mentioning all the important information.”
With those kinds of messages, the influencers you reach out to will feel more valued and they’ll more likely answer.
Personalization starts at the subject line already! Here are tips to nail your influencer pitch email subject line.
Making a value proposition
When you figure out which influencers would be a good fit for your brand, try to focus on the benefits of the collaboration for the influencers. Make a value proposition by explaining why you would be a good fit to work together.
Also, highlight the value you can provide to the influencers AND their audience. Great influencers always think about their audience when they’re making content, so make sure to focus on the real people consuming their content.
The value proposition will be the hook that makes your offer unique. If you’re a famous brand in your niche, that’s usually a good enough hook for influencers to reply to you quickly and positively.
But if you’re still a somewhat “smaller” brand, you can use some of these hooks:
- You share a value/cause with your potential influencers and want to highlight it
- You’re recommended by a mutual connection
- Your product has a specific unique feature that customers swear by
- Social proof: celebrities using your product/research showing your product is great/experts say your product is better than others’/number of people using your products
- Larger marketing budget
Providing a clear CTA
To avoid misunderstandings, let the influencer know what to do next.
For example, if you’re communicating via social media direct messages, and you want to transfer the communication to email, the next step for the influencer would be to provide their email address.
“If you’re interested in collaborating with us, please send me your email address so we can provide more details”.
You should make it easy for the influencer to respond, meaning let them know if they simply need to reply, fill out some form, send you some specific details, etc. You should:
- Highlight your expectations
- Clearly state how you expect the influencer to respond
- Don’t burn bridges – don’t set ultimatums (“If you’re interested, respond by the end of the month”)
With a clear CTA in emails, you’ll navigate the communication towards what you want. Also, the onboarding process will pass quickly and smoothly.
Usually, if a person is interested in working with you, the next email/DM you send needs to contain all the specific details of your collaboration, like:
- Scope of work
- Deadlines
- Responsibilities on both sides
- Budget
Building relationships
Build relationships with influencers through polite, upfront, transparent, no-nonsense, and timely communication.
Content creators probably get a ton of “here’s an offer you can’t refuse” messages, so don’t try to impress them with marketing or sales jargon. Write a clear, human-sounding message with a genuine wish to work with someone. To achieve that, you should:
- Avoid spammy-sounding phrases
- Write your message in 75-100 words
- Since you’re going to work with the influencer, imagine they’re already a part of the team, so be natural and polite
- Ask for feedback and listen to their ideas
- Answer any questions they might have
- If there are any changes in your deal, communicate that in a timely manner
- Consider sending a customized PR box based on the influencer’s tastes
Following up
When you send your email/DM and don’t hear back in a few days, don’t despair. Influencers might be busy, they might be on vacation, or they simply missed your mail among many others they receive.
That’s why you’ll increase your chances of getting a response by following up.
The best time to send the first follow-up message is 3-7 days after your first contact. Then, wait again for 3-7 days to send the second follow-up message. If you still don’t get a response after that, call it a day.
Templates for effective influencer outreach: email & social media
Writing effective cold emails can be hard, but luckily there are tools that can help you out. A free cold email tool can help you craft compelling emails and messages you can use not only for influencer outreach. Make sure to adjust the crafted messages a tool gives you to your specific needs and according to the research you’ve done to get to know the recipient.
Also, if you’re in a hurry, here are 7 templates you can copy-paste and use right away!
General collaboration templates
Subject line: [influencer’s name], we share your passion for [product name]
Hey [influencer’s name],
We’ve been following your [social media] account for some time and we’re truly impressed by your posts about [specific topic]. Your content reflects a genuine passion and creativity that we admire.
I’m [your name] and I serve as [your position] at [brand’s name]. We specialize in [brief description of your product/service], and what sets us apart is [unique selling proposition].
Since you’re passionate about [specific common topic], I wanted to see if you’d be open to doing a collaboration together. It would be splendid if you’d test our [product] and share your thoughts.
Reply to this email if you are interested and I’ll send more details!
Cheers!
[your name]
DM
Hey [influencer’s name],
My team is obsessed with your post about [topic] because [description of the post]! Here at [brand’s name], we’re dedicated to [summary sentence of your product/service] and take pride in our [unique selling proposition].
We would like to send over some of our [product] for you to test them and share your thoughts.
Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll send some more details.
Cheers!
[your name]
Brand ambassador templates
Subject line: [influencer’s name] — want to be a part of [brand’s name] family?
Hey [influencer’s name],
I’m [your name], part of the [brand’s name] team. We’ve been following your Instagram and learned a lot from your posts on [specific topic].
That’s why I wanted to personally invite you to be a brand ambassador for our new [product] campaign! We believe your insights in [their area of expertise] perfectly align with our brand’s mission, which is to [sentence about your brand’s purpose].
As a brand ambassador, you’d partner with us to accomplish [summary of your program’s goal].
If you’re open to this idea, I’d be more than happy to discuss this further and provide insights into how our program operates.
Cheers!
[your name]
DM
Dear [influencer’s name],
I’m [your name], part of the [brand’s name] team. We’ve noticed how great your posts about [specific topic] are!
We would like to invite you to be our brand ambassador because we believe your insights in [their area of expertise] perfectly align with our brand’s mission, which is to [sentence about your brand’s purpose].
If you’re interested in talking more in-depth about our mission and how we see you being a part of it, send us your email and we’ll provide more details.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Best,
[your name]
Giveaway collaboration templates
Subject line: [influencer’s name] x [brand’s name] giveaway – yeah? ????
Hi [influencer’s name],
I’m [your name] and I work for [brand’s name]. I recently came across your post on [topic], and I was truly impressed by the content you’ve been sharing.
We share your values, so we believe your followers would be excited to win our [product name]. We’d like to send you a set of our products to try, and a few additional sets for a giveaway to your followers. The rules to win would be straightforward, [giveaway rules].
If you’re interested, let me know. I’d love to discuss more details with you!
Cheers!
[your name]
DM
Hey [influencer’s name],
We love your [specific topic] content and think you’d find our [brand’s name and products] a great problem-solver for your followers.
We want to send you a bundle of our products – a first set for you to try out and see if it fits your standards, and a few more to host a giveaway for your followers.
Let me know if you’re interested so we can go over the details!
Thanks!
[your name]
Product review request templates
Email and DM
Subject line: [influencer’s name], we would love to hear your thoughts on [product]
Hi [influencer’s name],
My name is [your name], [position] at [brand’s name]. I came across your reviews of [product] and loved how thorough and insightful they were!
I was wondering if you’ve had the chance to try out our [similar product from your brand]?
If you’re interested, we would love to send you a free [product] you can test. And, if you find it valuable to your followers, you can share your thoughts with them.
Looking forward to your reply.
Thanks!
[your name]
Event invitation templates
Subject line: [influencer’s name], enjoy the [benefit of the event] at [event name]
Hey [influencer’s name],
I’m [your name], part of the [brand’s name] team. We enjoy every new post on your [social media] profile because you share valuable insights on [specific topic/niche] with such a fun twist!
We’re organizing a [event name] on [date] and we believe it would be a great opportunity for [explain benefits; i.e., networking, trying out new products/services, having conversations with inspiring people, etc.]. We’ve lined up some fantastic speakers, fun activities, and delicious food.
Let me know if you’re interested by replying to this mail and I’ll send you all the details.
Cheers,
[your name]
DM
Hey [influencer’s name],
Would you like to come to [event name] on [date]? We at [brand’s name] have lined up some fantastic speakers on [topic of the event], fun activities, and delicious food.
We’ve reached out to you because of your captivating content on [specific topic/niche] and believe this event would be a great opportunity for [explain benefits].
Send me your email if you’re interested and I’ll send you all the details.
Cheers,
[your name]
First follow-up after no response template
Email and DM
Hey there, [influencer’s name]!
I just wanted to check in and see if you had a chance to go through my last email. If you’re keen on the idea, we’ve got some exciting projects on the horizon, and I’d love to have a chat about them with you.
Let me know if you have any questions.
Best,
[your name]
Second follow-up template
Email and DM
Hi [influencer’s name],
Sorry for the follow-up, I’m just checking if you’ve had time to read my [email/DM]. We at [brand’s name] would really like to get you on this project.
Would you like to discuss it a bit more? I’ve attached the project documentation so you can have more details about it.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Cheers,
[your name]
Final Thoughts on Templates for Effective Influencer Outreach
So, there you go – this is an awesome overview on how to start crafting effective outreach messages to influencers!
You know what to do – start researching them, find common values, personalize the messages, provide a clear CTA, copy the template that fits your needs, and follow up!
Don’t be discouraged if you don’t get the responses right away. While you’re waiting, you can use the time to find some more influencers in your niche.