Remember the beginning of Instagram when people posted fun pictures of their food or their cat? Well, it’s grown over the years into a hub for online marketing and sales. Regular users can now become influencers whose job it is to use their large following to benefit brands and businesses everywhere.
Getting Influencers to endorse your brand gives your business access to an available market where you can get feedback on the content of your brand and have a more personalized connection with customers. Don’t know how to get those influencers on your side? One method to get started is with cold emailing.
What Is Cold Email Marketing?
A cold email is an initial email sent to a potential business partner or customer to gain benefits (like sales, an opportunity, or a dual-sided gain). Like cold calling, these emails are not prompted or expected by the receiver. So, sending out a cold email to an influencer must be done right so it’s not regarded as spam mail. When sending a cold email to an influencer, you have to personalize the message with the aim of starting a business conversation with them.
The ability to get an influencer to read and respond to your mail gives you the opportunity to:
- encourage an Influencer to promote your content
- draw potential customers to your product
- reach out to your potential customers directly
Keep reading to discover some ways you can get the most popular Instagram influencers to promote your brand and engage with your target audience.
How Do You Attract the Right Kind of Influencer?
Tracking down the right kind of influencers to endorse your brand can be difficult. The key to attracting the right influencers is, first of all, knowing your target audience. You probably won’t be successful selling Flat Tummy Tea to an audience that’s made mostly of 35+ men. That’s why it’s crucial finding influencers whose audience is made up of your target demographic.
You can find Influencers by using sites like Forbes’ top influencer list, SocialBakers Suite, Hypr, and Buzzsumo.
Influencers are divided into two main categories, which are micro and macro-influencers.
- Macro influencers have a large amount of followers, typically ranging from tens of thousands to millions. Businesses use these influencers mainly because of the sheer volume of their following. They’re often well-known personalities around the web.
- Micro-Influencers do not have as many followers. The follower count typically falls between the range of a few hundred or thousand. Businesses work with these influencers because they cater to a particular niche.
Building your strategy
Before reaching out to an influencer, you need to have a concrete plan. You should be able to answer questions like:
- What is your cold emailing strategy?
- What are your expectations?
- What are the goals behind the campaign you want them to support?
When you present a strategic plan before an influencer, it makes it easier to get feedback on what he or she has to offer. It also helps you engage actively with the influencer to work with your brand and promote your business. Provide the influencer with an overview of what you expect and help them with creating content for your brand.
If you’re working with influencers from foreign countries, come up with strategies to localize your brand’s product or services. You can use localization services such as The Word Point to help adapt your business website content to Instagram’s platform.
How Do You Approach Influencers?
Once you’ve found your perfect list of influencers, the next obvious step will be to contact them either via DM or email.
Instagram Direct Messages (DMs)
Sending your selected influencer Direct Messages is a quick way of connecting with them. It’s informal and easy to send. A few things to keep in mind if you are using the DM approach are:
- You must be already following the influencer.
- Warm-up to them by Liking and commenting on their posts.
- Create messages that are short and to the point. It should be professionally worded and clearly state why you want to work with the Influencer.
If the influencer has a high number of followers, the chances are that a DM might get lost. This is where cold email marketing comes in handy.
Cold Email Marketing
Most professional influencers’ Instagram accounts contain business emails in their bios. If not, you can use an email finding service to search for them. For you to get a response to your cold email, you need to stand out from the crowd. There should be something unique about your content that will pique the influencer’s interest and get you a response.
Use these tips to draft the perfect cold email:
- Introduce yourself, your skills, and your field of expertise. This gives the Influencer an idea of who they are dealing with. Ensure that you put your best foot forward.
- Compliment the influencer on his or her achievements and accomplishments. This is likely to get their attention because everyone loves a good compliment, especially when you are appreciative of their work and you recognize their contributions in society.
- Add referrals and mutual connections to gain the influencers’ trust. References are a way to let them know that someone that knows him or her referred you to the influencer and that there is a link between both of you.
- Your message should be straight to the point and very clear on what your purpose is. Ensure that the goal is attainable. Also, refrain from making bogus and unrealistic assumptions in your email. An influencer will quickly detect if you are lying or making unrealistic assumptions.
- Personalize your cold email directly to the influencer, so you have a higher chance of your cold email getting a response.
You might be met with instances where you send a cold email to an influencer, and then days, weeks, or months go by without a response. If you are faced with a situation like this, don’t worry—the next step is to follow-up. Being active on an influencer’s page is also an excellent tactic to gain the influencer’s attention; this will significantly help you in getting a response from them.
What’s in It for the Influencer?
Most influencers are in it for business, so you must let them know the benefits they stand to gain if they endorse and promote your brand and products. Benefits could be in the form of:
- Monetary compensation at an agreed fee
- Shout-out by receiving recognition for their work
- Discount or giveaways on your products and services
- A commission rate on every sold service/product.
Digital Marketing Is Evolving
If you’re looking to get your brand’s name out there and break into the Instagram market, influencer marketing is the way to go. It’s already proven to improve return on investment and showcase the authenticity of your brand, among other benefits. With proper research, you, too, could have an Instagram influencer marketing your brand and building direct customer relationships for increased sales of products and services.
This guest post was written by William Rodgers, a freelance writer and blogger. As he speaks several foreign languages, William’s main focus is writing SEO articles for businesses that want to drive their brand in the international market. His goal is to continually help more marketers fill Google search results with content that really matters. Find him on Twitter.
