Influencer marketing offers all types of benefits to brands. You can increase brand awareness, get new followers, boost web traffic, and drive sales. But of course, a successful campaign is dependent on collaborating with the right influencers.
And, collaborations hinge on whether or not you can find the right TikTok influencers, get in touch with them, and negotiate to close a deal that both parties are happy with.
Influencer outreach and negotiation can be frustrating, so we’ve brought you some tips for getting in touch and negotiating with TikTok influencers.
Tip 1: Reach out to more influencers than you need
You should reach out to about twice as many influencers as you really want to work with. Want to contract 5 influencers to your campaign? Reach out to at least ten.
Why? Because not everyone will be able or want to collaborate with your brand. And not everyone will answer you. Some influencers won’t even open your emails.
Based on our experience, we see these open rates:
- 70-80% of emails get opened
- 50% of emails will get clicks on a link
- 30-40% will get a reply
These rates depend on a few factors. First, it depends what type of influencer you’re reaching out to. If it’s a top influencer, you’ll most always get a response. But it will be the influencer’s manager, responding with their fees for different types of content creation services.
Micro influencers on the other hand might not reply. These influencers, who have under 50K followers, are probably not full-time influencers, and are juggling other jobs with their social media duties. Response rates from micro influencers will be higher depending on how closely your product fits with their content niche.
Tip 2: Create a highly personalized and friendly pitch
If you want to get noticed, you can’t send influencers a boilerplate template. You have to personalize your pitch as much as possible, so that influencers see that you took the time to review their profile and explain why they’re a good fit for your brand.
You can still do this with automation. Use a mail merge tool that lets you add custom fields, so you can change the name, description, or compliment for each email you send to influencers.
If you’re trying to get in touch with a KOL (key opinion leader), you might want to go even further. KOLs are extremely busy and in high demand, so it’s best if you craft a unique email by hand if you want to get a chance to collaborate with them.
However you go about sending out your pitch emails, make sure to maintain a friendly and open tone. Influencer marketing is a business, but it should be fun. You want influencers to feel comfortable enough with you to express their creativity and ideas.
Tip 3: Contact influencers by TikTok direct message when you can’t find their email
No email? Not a problem! First up, for your best chance at finding influencer emails, use an influencer marketing platform. This type of software lets you search and analyze influencers, and also usually provides contact info.
Anyway, if you can’t find an influencer’s email address, but you really want to try to collaborate with them, reach out on TikTok directly. Send them a message and let them know you want to connect, and if you then want to move the conversation to a different venue, ask them for contact details.
Contacting influencers directly on TikTok can also sometimes help you skirt around managers. While managers are there to aid in brand collaborations, it can be frustrating if you’d prefer to go straight to the influencer. DMs on TikTok may help you get past the manager and in front of the TikToker themself.
Tip 4: Provide info and answer questions during negotiations
Negotiation is the time to lay everything out on the table. Now is when you pin down the most important details of the collaboration, like incentive, content creation, and deadlines. Make sure both parties are clear about what the brand is paying, what the influencer is providing, and when everything needs to be done.
Further, go through more specific details of your campaign. Think about things like:
- Do you want the influencer to include any specific hashtag in their content?
- Is there anything in particular that you would like the influencer to emphasize about your product?
- Is there any music you want them to play, or any other general aesthetic guideline to follow?
Finally, make sure you work out how you will disclose the collaboration. The Federal Trade Commission and other regulatory agencies are more on top of unfair advertising than ever before. And it’s not all the influencer’s responsibility, they’re cracking down on brands, too.
So discuss if you’ll disclose the ad in the video, with hashtags, both, or in some other way, and make sure it meets the standards set by the regulatory body that has jurisdiction over your campaign.
Tip 5: Don’t assume you must have a contract
A contract isn’t necessary in 100% of influencer collaborations, contrary to what you might think. A general rule of thumb is to use a contract when you pay influencers in money. If you’re only paying them with free products, it’s not necessary, except if the product is very valuable.
In fact, contracts can sometimes be conversion killers, especially with less experienced influencers. Nano and micro influencers aren’t used to constant collaborations and the bureaucracy that comes with them. So a contract might overwhelm or intimidate them, and you might lose a deal.
In the event you do need a contract, you can get an influencer contract template online and edit it to describe the terms of your collaboration. And if you don’t need a contract, you can firm up the details instead via email. This way, if there’s any confusion down the line, both parties can refer to what was agreed to.
Conclusion
I hope that with these 5 tips, reaching out to and negotiating with influencers just became easier.
As a final comment, don’t get discouraged if you reach out to influencers and no one gets back to you. Follow up, because they might have missed your email. Or, go back to the drawing board, find different influencers and try again.