Defining your campaign goal is a vital first step in making this type of campaign – do this for any other marketing strategy for that matter. If you’re not quite sure how to begin, here are a few goals that are common among marketing experts:

• Increase brand visibility: You’re naturally receiving a jump in popularity by placing your business in the spotlight the influencer has created. To measure the performance of your campaign, track the number of social media impressions gained, growth in followers, or the click-through rate to your website.
• Generate conversions: Design your campaign to drive more sales for a particular service, item, or product range. Then, measure the number of sales generated. You can’t measure directly on social media. It requires an extra step or two to track conversions accurately, but you have multiple ways of doing this. One of the most common methods for monitoring social media conversions is adding a tracking pixel to a link that appears in a social post. Whenever a user who has seen the sponsored post from the influencer clicks on the link appearing within that post, a pixel will register that the source of that click was from that specific post. You can do this on all social media platforms to help you work out which platform generates the most engagement, thus informing you which social platform you should use with your influencer. Tracking this way is far more accurate than simply following the total number of website views over a given time, as it’s more specific and will let you know for sure if your campaign has been a success or not. To learn more about creating pixels, specifically for Facebook, check out this resource to help you get started.

You may decide a combination of goals is the best approach to take with your influencer outreach campaign. You might not want to settle on one specific goal. However, a clear, defined – and singular – campaign goal gives you a greater understanding of which influencer will fit your needs.

Step 2: Find potential influencers

Defining your goal should provide a clearer picture for finding potential influencers. Other elements that will play a role include your budget, the current stature of your brand, and the type of product/service you want to advertise.

When choosing an individual to advertise your business, you must consider the four main influencer types available. These are:

1. Celebrity influencers

If you have the necessary budget and ambition, a celebrity influencer could be the right choice for your business. Celebrities are the likes of TV personalities, actors, and athletes. They possess massive followings both on social media and away from the internet.

A famous name in the celebrity sphere would usually expect a significant financial package to promote any business. Still, if you’re searching for a way to bring your brand to the masses, few tactics offer the level of impact provided by a celebrity influencer.

An example of a celebrity influencer would be Serena Williams. Serena has amassed millions of followers across her social media channels, being a global icon for her exploits on the tennis court. Plus, as her Instagram account demonstrates, she’s fine with advertising brands that match up to the image she has built up.

With celebrities under greater scrutiny than most, they will be much more selective with the brands they choose to represent. If they make a false move and promote something they shouldn’t, it could result in significant damage to their name and brand value.

2. Macro-influencers/top influencers

Macro-influencers are top-level influencers that have several million followers on social media.

They typically won’t boast the same popularity away from the internet as standard celebrities. The number of active users online means that’s less of a factor than just a few years ago. Working with a top influencer in your niche is recommended if your goal is to maximize your profile across the digital landscape, and they should be more affordable than partnering with a celebrity.

An example of a top influencer is YouTube makeup artist Michelle Phan. Through YouTube or other social media platforms, Michelle gives brands exposure to her millions of online followers. Advertisers don’t have to be exclusively in the makeup sector, either, with other creative avenues being a fair game as this promotion for Clip Studio Paint shows.

3. Power middle influencers

Powerful middle influencers are the most popular option. First, they tend to be much more affordable than the previous two choices, making power middle influencers a suitable pick for small and medium businesses with restricted marketing budgets. Secondly, these influencers mainly focus on a specific niche in which they are specialists.

Class power middle influencers as those with anywhere between around 10,000 to 250,000 followers in total. However, don’t be entirely fixated on just the follower numbers, as these influencers usually feature the perfect balance of engagement and reach.

For instance, if someone is following a power middle influencer, it’s because they have a keen interest in the specialized niche they’re covering. In comparison, people following celebrities and top influencers could be doing so for general reasons. Not everyone following Serena Williams is a fan of tennis, for example. This means if a power middle promotes your brand, you’re receiving a super-concentrated audience that will fully engage with what they have to say.

Power middles vary. You’ll find them covering every niche you can think of, whether it’s beauty and makeup, gaming and technology, food and dining, or health and fitness. One specific example is fashion blogger Venetia La Manna, a fair fashion campaigner who promotes brands that match her life ethos. Partnering with an influencer like this, who is eco-conscious and has a following of likeminded people, can be an excellent idea for businesses who want to portray themselves as a responsible business, as Venetia’s authority around this specific issue will give any partnering business a boost in reputation and will make them appear more trustworthy. As generation-z slowly becomes active consumers, companies need to be aware of their interests and desires. With climate change being a significant area of concern for this target demographic, it makes sense to start looking for influencers fighting various societal issues to improve your brand image.

4. Micro-influencer

Micro-influencers have an audience that’s in the ballpark of between 1,000 and 10,000 followers. Although smaller than the rest, the value of this audience is dependent on your overall goals. When working with a micro-influencer, you won’t gain much visibility for your business, but you can place your brand in front of an audience with a high engagement rate. Followers view these influencers as authentic and trustworthy, which means your business is instantly trusted if it receives any promotion from them.

Add in the fact they are naturally less expensive than the options mentioned above, and micro-influencers can be an ideal path for start-ups and small companies that are dipping their toes into influencer marketing. For instance, Twitch streamer Fangetta only possesses a modest following, but her content receives relatively high engagement levels despite this aspect.

Now it’s all about finding people to start promoting your brand. Use a few tools to help you compile a list of relevant influencers who could be helpful. For example, a publisher looking to promote a new book could use these platforms to find a list of individuals within the book and literary sector.

A couple of those tools include:

• BuzzSumo: Their influencer marketing tool allows you to filter through millions of accounts that occupy every niche on social media to help you pinpoint the right influencer for you. They use metrics such as account activity and engagement to ensure that you’re not targeting weak links. This tool allows you to search multiple different platforms simultaneously so that you can build a multi-channel influencer marketing campaign efficiently. Also, the ability to obtain a quick analysis of the influencers you’re interested in so that you can explore their likes and interests to ensure that they’re a good fit for your brand proves helpful.

Plus, the software can help you identify and get in touch with relevant journalists, who could provide greater authority towards your business and provide useful PR pieces. Their pricing varies depending on the tier you sign up for, with the pro version starting at $99 a month, with the large membership capping off at $299 a month, making it an affordable tool for even small to medium-sized businesses. Alternatively, opt for a limited free trial version so that you can test it out.

• Traackr: This software is used by many recognizable brands across the United States as it has one of the largest databases of influencers on the web. Quickly scan bios and previous captions to judge if an influencer would be the right fit for you. Find influencers based in 50 countries – crucial if your business plans to expand and tap into a foreign market.

A brilliant thing that Traackr allows you to do is that you can filter by audience and influencer criteria, making it far easier to find users that are vigorously active within your specific niche. Also, it allows you to discover the top-performing influencers, making it ideal if you’re a large business looking to partner with a well-established social media personality. The software displays potential costs so that you can find influencers within your budget, making the process far more streamlined.

You don’t have to use these tools. It is possible to take a more direct approach to find potential influencers. Go on Twitter, type the hashtag “#ad” along with any relevant keywords, and find influencers that have a history of promoting brands within your related business niche. This is a useful tactic when discovering micro-influencers, as these are less likely to appear on websites that track influencers.

Step 3: Compensation

Compensation is a crucial element in ensuring you get influencers on board and open to promoting your brand. Select a compensation model that works best for your business. Compensation models include:

Cost-per-engagement: Pay an influencer based on the level of engagement gained from their posts about your brand. This engagement can be determined based on numerous statistics, from likes, shares, media engagements, and overall engagement. By paying for results, there’s less risk involved than with other compensation models. While you could decide to go with a cost-per-impression model, this is a riskier approach to take as these numbers are easier to inflate artificially.

• Cost-per-click: Calculate the financial package to an influencer on the number of clicks they produce that go to your landing page. As an example, you may agree beforehand to pay an influencer $10 for every 100 clicks they generate. If their social media posts result in 2,000 clicks overall, they would be in line to receive $200 in total. However, be aware that cost-per-click payment isn’t the most secure, as people can manipulate the payment model to make you pay more for a less successful campaign. A practice known as Click Fraud is running rampant as it the process of someone maliciously clicking your link repeatedly. With no intention to ever make a conversion, this dirty tactic can drive up the costs of your campaign.

Furthermore, it can be hard to identify when this practice is happening to your influencer social posts before it is too late, as the only indication that it’s happening is an increase in website traffic – which is a metric that you’re expecting to increase as the result of a successful campaign. To help protect your influencer marketing campaign from being a victim of Click Fraud, protect your post with software from Click Cease. This software can identify malicious behavior and block the IP address it’s coming from, allowing only genuine leads.

• Cost-per-acquisition: A cost-per-acquisition model is usually the industry standard. This method is where influencers are paid based on their capability to convert their followers into customers. Provide compensation in different ways, from a fixed sum based on the number of sales generated to a percentage for each sale made. Track these stats by supplying influencers with a unique discount code or landing page with a pixel.
• Pay-per-post: Certain influencers may only want a flat rate for any sponsored posts they make. Whether they’re producing a YouTube video, Instagram picture, blog post, or Tweet, the influencer will generally determine the price they charge for each piece of content. Costs can vary drastically based on the influencer you work with on your campaign. Celebrities could be looking at five-figure sums for a single post, while micro-influencers might accept compensation that’s less than $100.
• Free products/services: You don’t have to exchange any money with influencers to get them to advertise your brand. If you have a product or experience with significant value, your business could offer this for free in exchange for publicity from an influencer. While this tactic is usually most effective with micro-influencers, you can convince bigger influencers if you provide them with something like an all-expenses-paid trip or exclusive product access.

These compensation types have positives and negatives, so you need to think about your goal and budget type to determine the best one for your business.

Step 4: Find the contact information of influencers

Next, it’s time to get in touch with your chosen influencers to see if they’d be prepared to work with your business and determine the type of compensation they’d expect from the experience.

Find their contact information. The good news is this shouldn’t be too difficult. Fire a quick Direct Message via the likes of Twitter and Instagram if their inbox is open. Alternatively, utilize email outreach when hashing out the necessary details, as this is more professional.

In anticipation of receiving advertising opportunities from brands, many influencers and bloggers already have their email addresses in full view for people to find. You’ll find them on their website without any trouble or in their social media bios. In this case, the job is an easy one.

However, some influencers will decide not to have their email address displayed publicly. In this situation, you’ll have to put in some extra effort to acquire their all-important email address. Ask an influencer for their email through a social media message. Alternatively, there are tools available to unearth every email address associated with a particular website domain. One of these tools is Hunter.

This tool works very well if the influencer you want to connect with owns or manages a unique website such as a blog, as it will track all the email addresses associated with a particular domain. Using the emails generated from this tool will allow you a direct link to the potential influencer. It could help you avoid the long wait times associated with generic ‘contact me’ email addresses. This software has over 100 million emails indexed, meaning there’s a high chance it’ll have the email addresses you want. Also, it can score the deliverability of the email address, allow you to figure out how likely it is that your pitch will go through, and let you know how likely it will be that someone will get back to you.

Step 5: Connect with influencers

You can start your influencer outreach campaign now that you have your influencers lined up and their contact details.

However, for success, there are various approaches to take before you fire over that first email. If they’re a top influencer, they likely receive dozens of emails each day from brands hoping they’ll get exposure from their social media presence. As a result, they are unlikely to respond to messages with a generic title or from an unknown source.

Learn how to create the ultimate pitching email so that your correspondence is both professional and enticing. Thankfully, countless pieces of email software provide brilliant templates to help you structure a fantastic pitching email. These pieces of software can also improve your email outreach as they can help you send emails quickly and manage follow-up emails. Some of the best email software for pitching includes:

• PitchBox
• Mailshake
• Ninja Outreach

Naturally, all of these tools, designed specifically for marketers and brands, streamline the outreach process. With PitchBox, you can find influencers in record time, and if you start a link building campaign, find opportunities here. Likewise, Ninja Outreach enables you to seek out influencers, find link building, guest posting, and marketing opportunities. Don’t worry about having a cold, generic email with these tools. Customize your emails, using the templates as a guide for the most success. Each tool requires a monthly or yearly payment.

If you choose not to use these tools, in an attempt to cut back on the budget, follow these steps:

1. Make it personal. Show off how you are as a brand and as a business owner.
2. Write a catchy subject line. Funny subject lines work well. Avoid long subject lines.
3. Keep the pitch short and sweet. Don’t write more than 80 words. If you can’t write concisely, the reader loses interest. Keep only the essential details, summarizing your points.
4. Include your call to action. In this case, you want the influencer to work with you.

Take a look at templates online and use these as inspiration. Try this method first and then turn to the tools to fully understand the process.

Step 6: Grow your relationship

With the influencer open to promoting your brand, now it’s all about working together to achieve your goals. Ultimately, you base a successful influencer outreach campaign on a solid relationship between a brand and the influencer.

While you might have your ideas about what type of content to produce, always be open to the idea of listening to what the influencer has to say in that regard. They have cultivated a following for a reason – they know what content works for their audience. Utilizing their expertise is always a wise approach to take.

As for what content you produce, this is dependent on the influencer and the path you want to take. You may wish to have your brand featured in a blog post, be interviewed via their podcast, or demonstrate your products in a YouTube video. You might find a combination works. Chat with the influencer and gather their thoughts.

It can be tough to let an influencer control your marketing strategy, but you need to remember that this is their platform and their domain where they have authority. By allowing your influencer to participate and dictate your influencer outreach strategy, you’re opening the door to tremendous success.

Step 7: Evaluate the process

As with any marketing strategy, you don’t put together a plan, execute it, and then move on. You constantly analyze the results to see what went right and wrong to improve this marketing tactic again in the future.

First, you’ll evaluate the level of success achieved with each influencer. It’s fair to assume some influencers will supply you with the results you expected, whereas others won’t quite meet the targets you set. Decide to work with the more successful influencers again in the future with these metrics.

Measure various metrics to see the impact caused by influencer outreach campaigns. You can track your website traffic to the domain page you asked the influencer to promote. You can measure the number of additions to your email list. You can monitor the shares and likes a social media page generated.

It’s not only the influencers you worked with that you can evaluate, either. Also, look at why you were unable to establish relationships with influencers that didn’t bother engaging with your brand in the first place.

If an approach has gone wrong, try to put together the pieces to see why this was the case. Perhaps they disliked the method you took when contacting them initially? Maybe they don’t like your particular industry area or believe their followers won’t be interested. Perhaps they had a better offer from another company. By figuring out the issue, you have a better chance of being more successful in the future. This saves time and effort in reaching out.

Final thoughts

Few types of marketing can match the effectiveness of influencer outreach. By leveraging the audiences built up by influencers within your niche, there’s the potential for your brand to grow exponentially within a relatively short period.

However, you need to take the correct approach with your influencer outreach campaigns for this to happen. Don’t struggle by yourself with this. Instead, make the most of the expert help available. By utilizing this guide and following the steps listed above, this can become a reality, and you can become one of the success stories with influencer marketing. Being a success story only opens up more doors to you, so get started today and see what a difference it can make to your brand.