How to contact Instagram influencers to endorse your brand

All the PR mavens, who’ve had a huge standing in the world of marketing learned that the right way to establish your brand is through pitching, a formal press release and keep a follow-up. Fast forward to 10 years later, the way that branding now works has completely changed (Speranza, 2017). This is owing to social media influencers in general and Instagram influencers in particular.

With this new trend, the line between PR and marketing definitely blurred if not vanished completely (Speranza, 2017). Instagram is one of the biggest platforms for endorsing your brand nowadays. If you get Instagram influencers to endorse your brand, then you have already established your company in the market.

The social media influencers have the power to make or break your brands. They can charge you for a single post or even recommendation. The way advertisement in the last decade worked was that you just had to pay. However, now, you have to pray for the PR campaign to work.

Social media has a huge impact on marketing and PR, so you need to make each move carefully. Nowadays, almost everyone is a celebrity in their own right because of the social media. However, Instagram influencers have the most impact on viewers. General public looks up to them and considers their opinion before investing in any brand (Keating, 2017).

They will go the extent of even boycotting a certain brand because the social media influencer they follow had a specific opinion about them. So in a world where these influencers can bring down your sales, you need to approach them with the right attitude and in the right way.

Why Contact Instagram Influencers

Before we get into how to contact Instagram influencers, let’s first discuss why it is important actually to contact them.

• Real Fan Following

If you want to market your product and you reach out to celebrities, you should know that you need a big budget. These celebrities aren’t cheap. This is where these influencers come in. These people have a fan following. They upload reviews about products. Above all, they are real people just like us.

In simpler words, the reviews or the verdict that these influencers give out is equal to free publicity (Keating, 2017). Now, remember, not all influencers do paid promotions, some like to keep things real and give an honest opinion.

• Promotion of product to the target audience

Moving on, you might ask ‘what exactly can they do for you’. Having Instagram influencers at your back can be beneficial for both the parties. Once you’ve established a good relationship with an influencer, they will help you in promoting your brand within their community as well as outside. Furthermore, if the influencer is passionate about your brand, they won’t hesitate from defending it. So make sure they truly enjoy your services.

However, you cannot ask an influencer straight on to endorse your product. Remember, most of them don’t do paid promotions and often get offended when someone says that (Contributor, 2016). You need to create certain circumstances that push the influencer into endorsing the brand themselves rather than you saying it.

Lastly, this is a relationship that you must keep professional. Also, make sure that both the parties are getting benefits from it. If the influencer feels that they are not getting enough rewards for their loyalty or vice versa, then you need to look into someone else.

• High traffic platform

People spend a lot of time on social media. It has been proven that the easiest way to reach your target audience is through social media apps. However, paying for ads on Facebook or other apps won’t help as most consumers are skeptical about them. People trust an influencer 90% of the times when he/she recommends a certain product or casually mentions that it’s amazing.

People trust an influencer 90% of the times when he/she recommends a certain product or casually mentions that it’s amazing. Click To Tweet

It is as simple as a celebrity, e.g. Gigi Hadid captioning her photo with ‘in love with my new Maybelline lipstick’ rather than coming on a TV commercial and saying ‘because you’re worth it’. You see there’s a clear difference between the two. As a potential buyer you might ask yourself, but does Gigi uses this lipstick? However, if she casually mentions that she loves this new range you might think; if Gigi likes it, it must be good. This is how opinions can be changed and molded.

The Right Ways To Get Your Brand Endorsed on Instagram

If you are looking into Instagram influencers for endorsing your brand, then this is the right way to do it. Here are eight ways that will get an influencer of your choice to endorse your product:

1. Get your groove on and do some research

Well, people might call it stalking, but you need to know what you are getting yourself into. Not all influencers are polite and nice. And certainly, not all will enjoy the product you might want them to endorse. So get ahead of the game and start by researching. Start off with your target audience. Look at your current clients and see if they fit the profile of your desired clients.

Now head to their social media platforms and look what kind of influencers they follow. Which tweets are they re-tweeting, the pages they have like and even what they talk about on their social media accounts. Once you have that down, head to the influencers profile and see if they have a large following.

Do you think this influencer will be able to market your product the right way? Would this influencer even like your product?

2. Narrow it down

It is also smart to start your list with a bigger number. Then narrow it down to those, who will prove to be essential when it comes to promoting your brand (9 ways to get a marketing influencer to endorse your brand). We would suggest that you start with at least 20 influencers and research about them. Just because you are looking at Instagram influencers doesn’t mean that you forget about other social media platforms.

We would suggest that you look into other things such as their blogs, Twitter following, Facebook fan following and YouTube followers. Check if they have been invited by other parties to give their expert opinion. Also, see if they were recently featured in an authentic, niche-related magazine. What this does is that it gives the influencer more credibility and they are worth investing in.

Now if you are familiar with the beauty community you’d definitely know about Huda Kattan from Huda Beauty. Now she is a huge Instagram blogger/reviewer, and people believe every word that comes out of her mouth. Because she has now built an empire off of her name, has a blog and she occasionally speaks at different platforms and gets interviewed, people naturally go with her recommendations.

So it is ideal if you know about a potential influencer in detail. Also, make sure that they update their Instagram account often and keep the audience engaged. Knowing them well will only allow you to pitch your brand in a better way.

3. Email Them

Who would have thought it could be this easy? Yes, it is, in fact, this easy. If you want to contact Instagram influencers, simply email them to the provided email address or use one email finding tool for perfect results. Draft a professional email explaining in detail about you, your product, aims and your vision. Also mention the reasons that will attract them, such as why they’d love the product or why they need your product in their life.

Be as straightforward as you can in the proposal but make sure it doesn’t come off as a demand. Remember you are still asking for a favor and you want them to endorse your product.

We would suggest leaving the big shots alone and going for those, who have a decent following but aren’t huge celebrities. These influencers are probably the best option because they aren’t just there yet, but they do have an impact on people.

Also, note that not all influencers work for free, so some might even send you a rate list. If you think that a certain influencer is crucial for the marketing of your brand, then consider paying them otherwise look for other options as there are unlimited.

4. Mention Them

You probably didn’t even know this, but there are professional Instagram influencers, who make money off of promotions. They even get paid for an all-inclusive trip so that they can go to a certain place endorse the product/place and then come back.

While that might not be in your budget exactly, you can mention them in comments or tag them in your images. The number of following that they have is insane and so are their charges.

So we would suggest that you mention them whenever you feel a connection, whether it is your latest post or something they posted. Re-tweet their tweets mention them on different media platforms to establish a healthy relationship with them.

5. Invite them

Many Instagram influencers enjoy being guest speakers, they love talking to huge audiences, and people enjoy listening to them as well. It is great to have content on the blog that curated by you but remember when you invite other to your platform they bring in several followers with them.

Simply draft an email or DM an influencer on Instagram and ask them to join you on your page as a guest speaker. This will give the influencer a sense of accomplishment, and you will get more people talking about your brand without actually investing financially.

Also, a flattery can go a long way. Make sure you pick the right topic, picture, and words to convince this influencer to become a part of the brand image building. Explain in then email how passionate you are about your brand and how you feel about the influencer using it and giving it an honest opinion. We believe half of the influencers might appreciate you for contacting them personally and giving them a free hand with honestly.

6. Schedule an Interview

By asking a potential influencer for an interview, you are taking off their workload and making it easier for them to talk about the product. Most influencers love talking about themselves, so we doubt they would have an issue with that.

The influencer would not have to draft a review about your brand, they can just talk over the phone, and you can simply jot it down. You can put it together yourself, and they can talk about it in their own time. They don’t necessarily have to make time for your product from their busy schedules.

7. Instagram Takeover

This one in specific has been popular over the last year. People ask Instagram influencers to take over their brand Instagram page and talk about their experience with the product, maybe give a review with possible pros.

This way the influencer brings along a plethora of followers that build your brand image. This strategy, however, is tricky, so you need to plan it on both ends. The influencer should be well familiar with your brand and product.

Set the takeover in advance and make sure to tease your audience with snippets of, who might be the surprise guest. Make sure you walk the influencer through everything in advance, and nothing is left to the last minute.

8. Send Samples

This is by far the best way to contact an influencer from Instagram. Simply pack your product in a presentable manner accompanied by a customized note, handwritten preferably. These influencers love it when you send personalized notes because that way they believe that you think their opinion is important.

Make sure that you give them a background of your company, mention all the right social media handles and product details. People don’t usually consider putting effort into the mails, so it is always nice to see well-crafted things in the mail. You feel a sense of connection with the brand, so you are naturally drawn to at least try the product. Who knows, the influencer might even genuinely like the product and rave about it to their followers.