You've Reached Out And Only Hear Crickets
In theory, influencer marketing is a very simple marketing strategy. You find influencers, have them shout out your product or service, and boom! Just like that you’ve landed brand new sales, customers and brand recognition. Super easy, right? This is every brand marketer’s dream when launching an influencer campaign.
But it's not typically that easy. And it usually takes hours and hours worth of work to get a campaign to completion. In this blog, Hollywood Branded explores three reasons why influencers aren't responding to your inquiries for your brand campaign, and how to fix it.
So Why Is It So Hard?
Unfortunately, there are so many moving parts that must be completed prior to reaping the benefits of a successful campaign - one of which being getting influencers to actually want to work with your brand. Brand marketers that are new to influencer marketing often times find themselves receiving denial responses or no response at all from prospective influencers.
Below, we are going to share the top three reasons why we see brands having issues with influencer campaigns.
1. You Aren't Reaching Out To The Right Influencers
Reaching out to influencers that are relevant to your brand is the first thing that any brand marketer should look at. If an influencer sees a message from a brand that has absolutely nothing to do with their personal brand, especially those that have worked with several brands in the past, it’s likely that they will not respond.
Highly respectable influencers receive way too many inquiries a day to worry themselves with a brand that hasn’t even done their due diligence before reaching out. So, before anything, do your research and make sure that the influencers you are reaching out to make sense for the campaign at hand!
2. You Moved From Dating To Marriage Too Quickly
At the end of the day, influencers are still people. They’re not content creating machines that will do anything for a dollar. Just like anybody else in life, asking an influencer to do something for your brand right away will likely lead them to not doing anything for you at all.
If you want to get business from an influencer, we recommend that you first find common ground between their brand and your brand. If it’s a fashion influencer, maybe talk about how you loved their look in last week’s post. If it’s a beauty blogger, mention how great their highlighter tutorial was last week. Just be personable before asking for a favor!
Find a way to relate.
3. You're Not Providing Value
Building off of reason #2, one of the biggest misconceptions about influencers is that they are all willing to work as long as they’re getting paid. That belief is incorrect and is a sure way to guarantee that influencers never will want to work with your brand. By accepting money from any and every brand, they risk losing the authenticity that allowed them to build the following that they have in the first place.
Before approaching an influencer, brand marketers need to make sure that the campaign at hand provides some sort of value for the influencers -- something more than just money. Maybe the campaign will help them appeal to a new demographic. Maybe your brand will include some type of cross-promotional efforts that help grow the influencer’s follower base.
Whatever it is, make sure that it provides a level of value that makes it worth the influencer’s time.
But...
Now let’s be real, there isn’t a one time quick fix for how to always engage with influencers. The beauty behind influencer marketing is that you are dealing with real people, not an automated machine. However, because you are dealing with so many different personalities, it makes it nearly impossible to provide a framework that always leads to success.
By making sure that you take care to incorporate these three steps above, your brand will have a higher chance of getting responses back from your inquiries but there is never a guarantee. At the end of the day, people are people and sometimes people just don’t want to respond.
So find a new way to approach. Be authentic in your outreach. And paint the picture of why the brand and influencer are a great fit.
And sometimes it just takes coming to them from a different angle. After all - until you hear "no", it is still a maybe. Read our blog post to learn three tips to make your brand more appealing to top social influencers.
What Should You Do?
Brands of all sizes work with agencies to assist them. Why? Well because the brand point typically has a job to still do versus spending hours hunting down and then holding the hands of influencers.
Agencies that specialize in influencer marketing know all of the tips and tricks needed to implement a successful influencer campaign. In fact, take a look at our Influencer Infographic to get a better understanding of industry best practices for influencer marketing.
