3. Define your target audience
An influencer partnership is only powerful if the influencer resonates with your engaged audience. An influencer with 12,000 followers can have a substantial impact on your social media if they are tuned into your customer base or followers, much more than an irrelevant influencer with 120,000 followers. It’s important to identify where your audience is located geographically, their age range, and specific interests. These will all help you make sure the influencers you reach out to are a good fit for your brand.
4. Find your campaign influencer
This will likely be the step that takes you the longest, and that’s okay, as it’s super important to select a good fit. Research influencers by using relevant hashtag searches, see who your followers interact with, do searches for your brand to see who is interacting with it, etc. Once you find 3-5 good fits, bring them to your client for approval so you can start working on the partnership details with the influencer.
5. Reach out to potential influencers
Contact the preferred influencer and pitch the partnership you’re interested in with some of the deliverables from both sides. The most common way to go about this is by sending a DM via Instagram or the platform you will be using. If they are interested and agree to move forward, that’s great! If not, reach out to the next on your list until you find someone that’s a great fit.
6. Create gameplan for campaign
Once you have your influencer in place, it’s time to hash out the campaign details. Here is where you list out what you will provide, what you expect to receive in return, and when. This process can have some negotiating, so there may be some back and forth until both parties are happy. Once the deliverables are agreed upon, create an influencer contract. This is where you state what the partnership will include, what accounts to tag on social media, what hashtags to use, the dates, any compensation, etc. Make sure both parties sign this agreement so you have it on file.