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An expected ring of your doorbell typically leads to existential dread. Who is it? What exactly do they want? And why are they showing up unannounced?
This is the last way you want your future influencer partners to feel about your outreach; a campaign opportunity with undue expectations, a lack of personalization, or a cold, unread message sent to a flooded inbox. You want to build a strong influencer community of brand fans and ambassadors, but where should the line of communication start?
Before we get in to the outreach tips, let's remember that this is a relationship-oriented business, and your top priority is establishing a relationship rather than entering with expectations.
Ultimately, an influencer will be more open to doing something for free for a brand if they might turn into a long-term paying client—but not for someone just looking to get a post out of them in the short term. Long-term brand/influencer relationships are proven as more valuable to brands than one-off campaigns. Similarly, influencers prefer having selective long-term brand partnerships over multiple one-off campaigns. Brands should aim to nurture their influencer relationships and champion their partners.
An influencer gifting campaign is a valuable opportunity for several reasons: to start building a long-term partnership and ambassador community, to get your product into influencers’ hands for feedback and honest testimonials, and to test the waters before unlocking a marketing budget.
Read on for four tips on how to spark a lasting connection through cold outreach to influencers for a gifting activation.
Instilling a ‘no-pressure’ sentiment in your email will be received more respect, and you’ll get more respect back. Use non-binding, casual, and positive language along the lines of:
‘We’re launching a new product at [your brand], and after seeing your feed and [insert reasoning here,] we think you’d love it! We would love to get [the product] in your hands, and if you love it like we think you will, we would appreciate any feedback and any additional coverage you see fit. [OPTIONAL] While we don’t have the marketing budget now and realize you would typically charge for a post, we still wanted to have you try out [the product] to see how you feel about it.’
We're all incredibly busy, and time is a precious commodity. How can you cut through all of the noise?
If at first you don't succeed, dust yourself off and try again. If you haven’t spoken to the influencer and you're reaching out cold, we suggest 3-5 emails spread over a month before giving up. Sometimes it’s about catching them at the right time when they're open to new opportunities.
A detailed and personalized email about why you want to work with this influencer, in particular, can go a long way. Why is it this exact influencer you want to work with? Give them specific and thoughtful reasoning. Tell them why you love their feed or link to specific posts to show you took the time to do your research. Flattery is key.
Nobody wants to be the very first to do something. Show specific examples of other influencers who have talked about your brand to make this feel like a valuable opportunity that their peers are already in on. You can find those organic examples using our Fohr Discovery platform.
To save extra time, you can use Fohr’s tools such as Content Search and Bulletin to see if influencers are open to gifting and are already talking about your brand and using your products.
