Introduction
Given the
popularity of influencer marketing in India,
more and more brands are now moving towards collaboration with social media
influencers online for their business promotion. However, not all brands manage
to crack the right deal with the influencers they want. While one may think money is the only factor
for a successful collaboration, then, we being in the industry for years
believe that there are other important factors too that influencers consider
when you talk about collaborating with them. If your business wants to be ahead
of the game and ensure that you manage to crack the collaboration deal before
your competitors, then here are a few tips to consider on how you should
approach and contact a social media influencer online. The influencer marketing
outreach process involves finding the right social media influencers in India and contacting them to work with you. It is
important for you to nail the outreach strategy and convince them in one go if you
plan to collaborate with specific influencers
in India. The outreach should be clear specific, professional, and
definitely something that sparks interest in the influencer to work with you.
So here are a few steps for you to consider in this process of influencer
marketing outreach.
Steps to Contact Social Media Influencers
Step 1 Define the
Campaign Goals
The first step before contacting any influencer is to first define your
brand's campaign goals. Based on the objective of what your business plans to
achieve can you move forward with your search for a digital influencer in
India. Your marketing campaign goals
could be anything from creating brand awareness to boosting sales or expanding
your business. Without defining the marketing campaign goals, it is difficult
to determine the type of influencers you should collaborate with for your
project. You will need to connect with an influencer who can understand your
goals and help you achieve them through the campaign. Understanding your
goals will help them deliver a strong brand message to your potential audience with
their sponsored posts.
Step 2 Search for
Relevant Influencers
Research is the key to finding the right influencer. Before you reach out
to an influencer you need to do thorough research to understand the kind of
influencer you will need onboard. This would include determining the type of
campaign you want to run (shout-out posts, videos, blogs, etc), budget for the
campaign, and type of influencer you wish to hire. All of this is important for
reaching out to relevant influencers for your business. Ideally, it’s best
to partner with influencers from your industry or niche. This way they will
have the connection with the audience you wish to target and also know what it
takes to grab the attention of your audience. Besides they will be involved in
the promotion of products or services that they are already interested in and
have good knowledge about. This way connecting with relevant influencers will
increase your chances of running a successful campaign and good ROI. Moreover
connecting with relevant influencers and their followers your brand will be in
a better position to resonate with the audience through the digital influencer.
If in case you wish to partner up with an influencer who is not from your niche
then you may have to convince them for being a part of this campaign and how
they can possibly contribute. This can be challenging and often influencers may
not be willing to take the risk of such collaborations.
Step 3: Engage with Influencers
on Social Media
Once you have shortlisted digital influencers in India you must
proceed to connect with them online by following them and engaging with them on
social media platforms. After 2-3 weeks of engagement and observation, you can
begin by reaching out to them. So if you have been engaging with them they may
most probably remember you and connect with you immediately. This can ease the
process of reaching out to the influencers you want to collaborate with.
Step 4: Select the
Right Medium to Reach Out
Reaching out to
Influencers may not always be easy. You may have to find out the right medium
to reach out to them. While there are several ways to approach them, the most
common methods include the Instagram direct message, Facebook messenger
LinkedIn messaging, or emails. Social
media platforms for messaging your influencer are a casual, informal way to
reach out to influencers. Such communication should be short, concise, and
precise. These messages are most likely to be read by influencers on mobile
phones and so a short and crisp pitch will make it easier for influencers to go
through and revert. On the other hand, emails are a formal way of communication
wherein you will have the liberty to introduce your brand and share information
about your business with some collateral attached along with the mail for their
reference. However, here you have to think of a smart and catchy subject line
to stand out in the clutter of emails. Get creative with your pitch so it
sparks interest and curiosity in the influencer
Step 5 Send a Good
Pitch
Popular social media Influencers in India, on a
daily basis, receive dozens of collaboration offers. So, your brand pitch
should stand out in that clutter for the influencer to take interest in your
brand. Your pitch should be clear, precise, and personalized, while also drafted
in a way that grabs their attention and makes an impactful first impression.
Avoid using generic mail or message templates and make it more personalized
greeting the influencer with their name, explaining why their content resonates
with you, and introducing your brand in a way that they believe the
collaboration will be a great fit for them. That said we also suggest you keep
the message brief and clear ensuring that it does not get too boring for them. Last but not least do not forget to add the
call-to-action button for making it easy for them to reach out to you.
Step 6: Sending Follow
up
In case you do not
receive any revert from your first mail or message from the influencer, you can
probably send another gentle reminder within the next 4-5 days. While recommend
not to bombard multiple follow-up messages on daily basis, but sending the
first follow-up mail in a gap of 3-4 days is essential and crucial. This is
because there is always a possibility of the influencer not having seen your
messages because of their full inbox or because the influencer does not follow
you on Instagram, and so they may need to first accept the DM request to see
your messages. The follow-up messages should be kept short, but they should be
of value to influencers in India
in a way they are convinced to work with you.
Conclusion