Most influencers work with multiple brands at a time. They often sign up for deals with brands, but when it comes to delivering, they tend to go silent, leaving the brand in a fix.

Here are some ways you can deal with such a situation and reconnect with an unresponsive influencer:

Follow up politely with Unresponsive Influencers

When trying to connect with an unresponsive influencer, all you can really do is be polite, yet consistent with following up. Being rude or harsh will only encourage them to further ignore you. Structure up a reminder email, assuming positive intent, like maybe they forgot, they haven’t had the time, or your previous email had gone in the junk folder.

Offer them an incentive

If the influencer you have struck a deal with is unresponsive to your emails, consider offering an incentive to encourage them to post. You can provide some store credit that they or a loved one can use. Providing store credit is much cheaper than paying an influencer an additional sum upfront.

Secondly, you can offer an affiliate link, this way, the more sales generated from their link, the more money they can make. Affiliate links are known to be the most popular way to encourage influencers to post. It also gets them to post more often to remind their followers about your products or services.

Paid campaign reminders

If you are following up on paid or sponsored collaborations with unresponsive influencers, you hold more power. As a brand, you can decide the timeline and pay them once the content has been created. The timeline for the campaign is also decided by the brand and so influencers know that if they don’t comply, they won’t make any money.

If your influencers are yet to take things seriously, and still remain unresponsive, you can try the following:

• Send calendar invites to remind them of the agreed timelines.
• Send an email that states clearly you need a response within a certain time period, beyond which the deal will no longer be on. This way your brand can move on to find another, more suitable influencer to do the job.

Get in touch with the top social influencers via our platform. Brands can sign up on our platform and post their influencer programs to attract top influencers for their brand. You can also promote your affiliate programs with the help of our platform.

Get in touch with us at (916) 480-8425 for more information about our platform.

The post Unresponsive Influencer? Here’s How to Reconnect With Them appeared first on AFLUENCER.

How are brand ambassadors and influencers different?

The two terms are often used interchangeably. The end goal of working with either is the same: promoting your product or service in a positive light. While there can be a significant overlap between the two, the biggest difference is the business relationship each has with a brand.

We’re all familiar with the modus operandi of influencers. They are individuals who have a personal brand and a large following. A following who are invested in that brand and trust their opinions and recommendations. Influencers often seek out business collaborations that fit their niche in order to further expand their audience and influence.

On the other hand, brand ambassadors oftentimes post and promote unpaid content related to your brand because they are enthusiastic about it or they have had a positive experience with your products and services. A brand ambassador doesn’t reach out for a relationship with a brand; however, they may still receive benefits for their promotion such as discount codes or financial compensation.

These two groups overlap and it’s possible for an influencer to become a brand ambassador and vice versa. The publicity their content can bring is a great benefit since their audience trusts their recommendations. This is why it’s important to take care when forming a relationship with a brand ambassador.

Check out → this article ← if you’ve ever wondered about the differences between influencers and bloggers.

So, what are the 3 things you should avoid when contacting brand ambassadors?

Don’t Do This When Contacting Brand Ambassadors

1. A Bad Attitude

The quickest way to chase away a potential brand ambassador is to approach them with a bad and condescending attitude. This won’t help you make a good first impression. Even individuals who like your brand will likely be turned off by this approach. Messages that imply the ambassador should be grateful you’ve decided to contact them, and that they should feel lucky a brand as important as yours wants to work with them won’t win you any fans. Approach potential brand ambassadors respectfully, they should be a partner in your collaboration. This means using an appropriate tone in your communication as well as respecting the decision you have made together.

2. Not Staying in Touch

Leaving your brand ambassadors and influencers unable to contact you is a surefire way to create frustration. Once you begin working with them there should always be a rep on your end who the influencers can contact. Staying in touch lets them know that they’re valued by your brand. Disappearing without an explanation and ignoring messages can lead to bad feelings and they’re sure to let their network know.

3. Leaving All the Work to Them

The collaboration allows your brand and the brand ambassador or influencer to work together for the purpose of creating a successful campaign. Since they already have an established personal brand and style they will likely be creating their own content that is authentic to their image and that their audience can recognize.

However, this doesn’t mean that you should leave all the work in their hands. A successful partnership means that you both come up and agree to a plan together and that both parties fulfill their parts of the agreement.

The post 3 Things To Avoid When Contacting Brand Ambassadors appeared first on AFLUENCER.

What Do Influencer Marketing Agencies Do?

An influencer marketing agency can help a brand reach its goals by assisting with tasks. Such as planning and executing an influencer marketing campaign as well as analyzing the results. These agencies help guide brands through the complicated world of influencer marketing. And help them establish and nurture new relationships through collaborating with successful influencers and creating exciting and effective campaigns.

Finding and Creating Partnerships

The world of influencers is a vast and diverse one. There are many options to choose from. Starting with the different levels of influencers. These range from celebrities and social media stars with a huge audience (and price tag) to micro-influencers who have a smaller but engaged audience and a much more cost-effective price. Further, all influencers have their own unique style, niche, and way of connecting to their followers. All of this means it can be tough to find the perfect partner for an influencer marketing campaign. One that will fit your goals, target audience, and budget.

Influencer marketing agencies are already familiar with and involved with the world of influencers. So they are accustomed to doing the leg work of finding a suitable influencer for each brand’s needs. This means choosing influencers with a particular audience demographics, location, engagement metrics as well as social, political, and environmental stances that fit the brand.

Making a Connection

While finding the right influencer for your campaign is tough, it can be even harder to connect with them. Influencers who have an engaged following receive many messages and collaboration requests from brands. So it can be tough for a newcomer to stand out from the crowd.

An influencer marketing agency has already established a good relationship with a variety of influencers in different industries. Making the task of getting that first connection much, much easier. Getting through the noise to reach an influencer is certainly quicker and easier when you’re paired with an agency. As they may have previously worked with them and knows what they’re looking for.

Measuring Success with Data-Driven Insights

The real work of an influencer marketing campaign begins after the partnership has been established. Deliverables created and posted on the influencers’ social media accounts. For a brand, the most important aspect is the metrics that will help them measure the success of the campaign.

When working on a campaign, especially one with multiple influencers, you need a way to measure which influencers bring the best results. The ones with the greatest impact with regards to engagement rates, sales numbers, and website hits. Planning a follow-up campaign is much easier if you already know what works best for your company. And already know which influencers have worked best with your message and products.

It’s time-consuming and tough to keep track of all the different metrics and insights related to your campaign. And more so while having to manage sales and the increase in interest resulting from the campaign.

An influencer marketing agency can keep track of all the metrics. Help a brand measure the success of its campaign based on these data-driven insights. They can also advise the brand on the best way to run any future campaigns.

The post The Benefits of Working With an Influencer Marketing Agency appeared first on AFLUENCER.

So, what’s the first step? One tip we always like recommending is thinking about the kind of e-mails you like receiving from your clients and who you enjoy working together with, and thinking of this collaboration as a marketing proposal. As you come across so many businesses and clients a day, so do influencers, so creating a connection is essential. Detailed but straightforward, polite and respectful, open and confident are all aspects that can instantly make a good impression… and you can easily channel all of these in the first e-mail.

Our Tips on Drafting the Perfect Influencer Outreach E-mail:

1. Before starting your influencer outreach strategy

Take your time to find the best influencer outreach method. Whether that’s via e-mail, a management contact or DMs. Try to avoid messaging them through their personal Facebook profile or e-mail address if they have a dedicated one for business inquiries. You can also follow the influencer on their social accounts, so they are already familiar with your brand name before they receive your first e-mail.

2. Represent your brand proudly

Making the influencer truly interested in your brand guarantees that they enjoy the partnership and care about your product instead of seeing it as a sole financial contract. Showcase any relevant information that connects with the influencer’s brand and mentions why your product is different. Instead of a general overview, include aspects that they can relate to. The ethical production process, how it benefits other people, and style inspirations are all good elements to talk about, especially alongside campaign images.

3. Keep the outreach personalized to each influencer

After a quick brand representation, tell the influencer why they’d be a great fit for this project. Besides the usual “we believe your aesthetic would be a good match”. Go into detail. Refer to specific images. Blog posts that relate to your products. And explain why you’d like to work with them. This will help make the whole partnership more organic. Showing the influencer that you did your research. And aren’t just looking to get anyone to give a shout-out about what you sell.

4. Be straightforward

Giving a brief overview of what’s your initial idea for the influencer partnership can make the process faster and more efficient. Especially if you’re looking to work on a gifting basis. This can help save time for both of you. It also shows that you’re ready to work on this and take the project seriously. Add a polite last line like, “if you have any questions or ideas, please feel free to get in touch”. It’s a good way to show that you’re open to discussing details. Regardless of having your own, specific ideas.

5. Read over & edit each outreach email

Before pressing send, make sure to read over the e-mail and scan through any possible mistakes. When using a prewritten template, double-check the personalized details (just in case you’ve accidentally left someone else’s blog name somewhere), and feel free to shorten it if you feel like you’re going into the details too much.

6. Think of alternative outreach methods

Depending on the brand and strategy, there can be various other ways to introduce your products to an influencer. If you’re planning a bigger outreach targeting 50-100 influencers at a time, look into using Mail Merge apps that let you personalize and manage bulk e-mails easily. Another great way to initiate contact is sending an invite to one of your upcoming events, allowing you to meet in person and also discuss a possible collab.

Using a Template E-mail for Influencer Outreach?

Of course, writing up an outreach e-mail for 20-30 different influencers seems like a lengthy process. What about using a general outreach template. If you decide to draft a template, only add general information that you can send to any of the influencers. Remember to mark the sections that need personalizing. For example, why do you think the influencer would be a great fit for your brand. Besides cutting down on time, these templates can also be a great idea to give some general structure to the initial e-mail and help you oversee the process more.

Just Received the First Influencer Response… Now What?

Amazing news! After receiving the first reply from your influencer outreach mission, feel free to go into more detail, and ask for the influencer’s ideas, and thoughts on the project and your product in general. You can also organize a call or quick coffee meet-up if you are planning on a longer partnership.

The post 6 Influencer Outreach Techniques for the Perfect Collaboration appeared first on AFLUENCER.