The Complete Guide To Writing A Flawless Influencer Partnership Pitch

Influencer marketing is one of the hottest marketing trends of 2019.

With thousands of influencers sharing useful content for hundreds and thousands of followers, influencer marketing becomes an ocean of marketing opportunities for all kinds of businesses.

No wonder, the world invested nearly $6 billion in influencer marketing in 2018 alone.

But the budget is only a consideration after you have successfully convinced an influencer for partnering with you.

What if you are still in the ‘outreach’ phase?

You’d need a killer pitch to breakthrough. Something that stands out from hundreds of others trying to convince the same influencer as you. Something that the influencer just can’t say no to. Thankfully, we know what that something can be.

Here’s a complete guide to writing a flawless Influencer partnership pitch that the influencers just can’t resist.

Do Your Homework

Before you approach an influencer, the first thing you need to do is research about them.

This will help you build a better outreach message that can really connect to them. Plus, you’ll be able to communicate with them, how this partnership will be useful to their audience.

Be in sync with their latest updates. Stay updated with whatever new techniques, ideas, products they talk about. Go through their work as much as you can and note the content that you could best connect/relate to.

This will give you the right stuff to talk about in your partnership pitch.

One fine example of using this intel is the following outreach template.

Personalisation

Almost, 95 percent of the companies say that personalization of outreach emails is crucial for their Present and future success.

But are they doing it right?

And also 60 percent of the marketers agree that they struggle at making the perfect email copies for their clients. Clearly, there is a need for understanding it better.

Here’s what you need to know about personalizing your outreach emails.

• Address with the name: This one can simply be explained with the case that Daniel Scocco of Daily Blog Tips mentions in one of his articles.

Do you get the point?

It’s simple. Addressing people by their name makes them feel that you are actually talking to them.
Plus, it would let them know that you actually made an effort to know their name (in case you are reaching out to an influential website, and not an influential person).

• Be relevant: Before we talk about this, you need to know that approaching influencers away from your business’ niche will make no sense at all. For the worse, it’ll be a waste of your efforts and the influencer’s time.

So, be as relevant as you can be. Don’t drop the ball by being too lazy to be relevant.

For example, in the outreach template mentioned in the previous section, the sentence “Your recent post [blog post] really resonated with me.” indicates relevance. The influencer’s own post would always be relevant for this conversation, right?

Well, that’s just one way to start. The best way to find more is to research about the influencer and dig into details that matter.

It’s important to note that you don’t particularly need to talk about their blog/post for relevance. You can also use elements in their content that you relate to. For example, a useful tip that you could really connect to or something that they usually talk about on Twitter.

Ego-stroke

While coming off as someone who’s easily impressed isn’t recommendable, giving the influencer mild ego-strokes can get you to the promised land.

Have a look at this outreach copy for reference.

Hi,

I’m [YOUR NAME] of [YOUR BUSINESS]. Today morning, while researching about [A RELEVANT TOPIC], I came across your post [A RELATED POST BY THE INFLUENCER]. Totally impressed by your ideas and approach. Also enjoyed reading your take on the [ANOTHER TOPIC/SUBTOPIC FROM THE INFLUENCER’s CHANNEL].

And, then going through your blog, I realized my brand [BRAND NAME]’s products can be useful for your audience.

Here’s a video [LINK TO VIDEO OR POST IF VIDEO ISN’t AVAILABLE] for your understanding.

Hope to hear from you soon!

Apart from being simple, sweet, and short, this outreach copy praises the blogger. While it didn’t beat around the bush at all, it made sure the blogger knows that the sender really likes and appreciates their work.

A pinch of flattery always works. But make sure you don’t go overboard with the praises. That can make you sound too sales already.

Important Things to Keep in Mind While Writing

Apart from researching the influencer, being relevant to them, personalizing your emails, and using ego-strokes, here’s a number of important things to keep in mind while writing the mail.

1. Use subject lines that are somewhat vague to peak interest, but still address the person by name, so, it still stays personal.
2. Pay your greetings to show you are friendly. Keep ’em short and sweet.
3. Establish your identity at the starting of the mail. For example,
   
   Hi,
   
   I am [YOUR NAME], [DESIGNATION] of [YOUR BUSINESS] …..
   
4. Don’t copy and send a generic template email to everyone. These influencers are experts and would clearly know when you’ll be saving yourself efforts.
5. Don’t talk too much about your company’s philosophy, history or anything that’s not really required. Get to the point and click shoot!
6. Make sure you offer them what they want. This can only be achieved if you have done your homework (i.e., the first section of this post). If you succeed in pulling this off, chances are any marketer or influencer you outreach will understand the value of being associated with a brand that believes in in-depth research.

For a better understanding of how these tips can be put to use, here’s an email that earned Nadya Khoja a response from Guy Kawasaki.

Speaking of the response that she got, here you go

Tip: You can also consider adding your product’s video link to your influencer pitch. This will let the influencer have a look at your product before they consider reverting back.

After You’ve Mailed, Be Ready for Rejection and Improvisation

Even after writing the best email of your life, you may still not receive a positive response. Reason?

The influencers you are targeting are popular. They receive hundreds of emails from marketers, business owners, and fans trying to get them to do one thing or the other. While one reason for not getting a response from them can be a weak pitch, another one can be your email being lost in their inbox.

The best thing you can do here is not get disheartened and go on with a follow-up.

Write them another email or social media post/message to reach back to them. Nadya Khoja of Venngage used Twitter.

Source

Sweet, right? The same can work for you as well. Twitter is indeed a great way of reminding someone that you are waiting for a response. Plus, this gets more words going around for the influencer.

For example, if you tag an influencer in a tweet like this, their audience would know that they are up to something new. This will create a kind of buzz and can work in both of your favors.

But, then, does it always pay well?

Well, not in all cases. Like this one when Nadya tried reaching Neil Patel. Twice through email, once through Twitter and none of it worked. But, right as it should be, she didn’t give up.

She took the unconventional route this time.

She sent him a message using his contact form on Quicksprout.

And at last, she received a reply.

The way Nadya accepted rejections and approached them is commendable and gives us all much to learn.

Bottom line: Don’t give up after rejection. Persistence is the key to winning over them.

Speaking of when to stop seeking a response, it’s important to know that almost 80% of prospects say ‘no’ four times before ultimately saying ‘yes’. And 92% of people give up after getting a ‘no’ four times.

Turns out, only 8% make the cut to get a ‘yes’.

This gives a rough idea about how many times you can try reaching out to an influencer.

Apart from this, remember that sending too many follow-up emails can be a plain turn-off. Studies show that open rates after 9 emails fall down to only 7% at the most.

Still not Working? Make Sure You’re not Landing in the Spam Box

One of the worst things about outreach is ending up in the spam box. And whether you know it or not, this happens more often than you’d expect.

But, then, it’s nothing unnatural. Even the big players fall prey to the spam filter. The question is, how to rise above it?

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How to get rid of Spam Emails?

Aiding to the same, here are the mistakes that you must avoid.

• Using a Misleading Subject Line: The CAN-SPAM act of the US says that it is actually against the law to mislead someone with your subject line to make them see your message.
  In a Litmus and Fluent survey, nearly 50% of participants said that they have felt cheated, tricked or deceived into opening outreach or a promotional email by its subject line at least once.
  
  Some examples of such misleading subject lines:
  
  – Did I leave my jacket at your place? Subject lines like these may trick you into assuming that the sender knows you.
  
  – Thanks for your order! Using transactional subject lines when no transactions are actually involved will most probably land you in the spam-box.
  
  – RE: CURRENTLY IN OFFICE: Do you get what the sender is trying to do? Well, it’s a lot about creating an urgency, making you feel like it’s a mail from your workplace.
  
  – Urgent – Update your information: And then you click-through to see someone selling you hair-oil (totally not urgent).
  Hope you get the point. While it’s crucial to use intriguing subject lines, you should make sure you are not spamming.
• Incorrect Information: Another reason why your emails may land in the spam-box is that you included false facts or baseless information in your email.
  This one also simply goes against the CAN-SPAM act. So, make sure you don’t include anything that is way too promising or can’t be backed or cited.
• Fake ‘From’ Information: Well, as simple as it comes, it’s totally illegal to fake your identity. And this one can even go beyond just the CAN-SPAM rules.
  So, never ever pretend to be someone you are not.
• Spam Trigger Words: While not every spam filter in the world is too critical, some of them run with strict functions that are programmed to trigger filter against various words.
  Some of the most commonly used words that may trigger the spam filter are:
  – amazing
  – cancel at any time
  – check or money order
  – click here
  – congratulations
  – dear friend
  – for only ($)
  – free or toll-free
  – great offer
  – guarantee
  – increase sales
  – order not
  – promise you
  – risk-free
  – special promotion
  – this is not spam
  – winner
  
  So, you know what not to do? Avoid using these words/phrases as much as you can.

Final words

The primary objective behind writing an influencer partnership pitch is to convince an influencer to collaborate with you. Considering that influencers are famous individuals receiving hundreds of similar emails every day, it becomes crucial for you to stand out with your pitch.

In this post, we tried to talk about how you can achieve that.

Hopefully, this was useful.

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