No one wants to be in a one-sided partnership. Team-ups work best when both sides are on the same page and feel motivated to hit their goals—especially if you’re a brand collaborating with several influencers.
Influencer marketing offers dynamic ways to reach your ideal audience through collabs with talented creators—sharing their established audience trust and engagement. But the secret lies in sharing your goals and communicating effectively with your creator partners. A reported 8 out of 10 creators say brands must be clear about their performance expectations. The more you can support your creative partners from start to finish, the better.
Key takeaways from this blog
- Engage influencers with shared goals, clear expectations, and timelines. Then offer resources and support to help them reach your goals.
- Getting ghosted by influencers? Make sure you’re not relying on generic, outdated messaging and neglecting strong candidates.
- Encourage influencers to do what they do best. Emphasize creative freedom and make the most of your partner’s experience and skills.
- Treating influencers as equal partners helps them align with your key performance indicators (KPIs) and brand goals.
- It’s easy to fall behind with manual communication and reminders. Keep influencers in the loop with powerful influencer-focused management platforms.
How effective communication boosted HelloFresh’s revenue by a hearty $1m+
Thriving meal-kit delivery service HelloFresh shows us how to do it right. The brand teamed up with influencers across a wide range of tiers:
Nano-influencer @just_chy shows off HelloFresh’s convenient meals and offers an affiliate code to her followers.
Celebrity influencer and actress Keke Palmer (@keke) teamed up with HelloFresh for an ongoing campaign with endorsements and exclusive affiliate codes.
HelloFresh’s partnership program ensures that influencers are well-informed and consistently supported by the desired campaign targets. This strategy helps each post gain the biggest impact possible. Since expanding its partnership program, HelloFresh’s influencer media value (IMV) jumped from nearly $3 million to more than $4 million from Q4 of 2022 into Q1 2023.
Scaling up your influencer partnership program like HelloFresh requires solid communication and ongoing outreach. Each partner needs to know your clear goals, expectations, timelines, and available resources—especially if you want to maximize your budget and avoid being ghosted by potential partners.
This isn’t just about having a good conversation upfront. Ending strong is just as important as starting strong. So, once you’ve kicked off initial conversations, nurture your partnerships with the right tools and strategies. Keep reading to find out more.
3 proven ways to avoid getting ghosted by influencers
It’s tempting to solely focus on initial outreach. You want to make a good impression, wow candidates with potential rewards, and grow your program. However, that’s only one part of the picture. There’s a real opportunity for lasting growth after connecting with influencers for the first time—and you don’t want to miss out.
Based on research from impact.com and Adweek, influencers want to partner with brands offering great products, high compensation, creative freedom, and transparent communication. Clarity is crucial. Unfortunately, many brands leave details fuzzy and don’t keep the conversation going after initial contact—which leads to influencers ghosting them.
Never underestimate the power of being open and easy to work with. That’s the best way to keep top influencers engaged and excited about long-term collabs and campaigns. So, here are three key ways to stand out as a potential brand partner and set the right tone:
1. Customize your messaging
Diverse partnerships can enrich your influencer program, yet every creator has unique priorities and expertise. Tailor your communication to each influencer, showcasing why they’re an ideal match for your campaign. Generic messages and offers fade into obscurity when influencers choose brand collaborations.
2. Support your partners proactively
Think long-term when getting influencers invested in your products and goals. After onboarding, update your partners with new rewards, regular check-ins with recent customer data, and ongoing creative support.
3. Outline clear expectations from the get-go
Influencers (44%) cite unrealistic content due dates as the top reason for breaking off partnerships. So, immediately be transparent about expectations, delivery dates, and timelines. Gather feedback from partners on what’s realistic—and how you can help them hit their deadlines.
Ghosted no more: The secrets to thriving brand-creator partnerships
Ghosting isn’t new, but our research report with Adweek is. Learn what creators want from their partnerships.
Download5 ways to build and maintain influencer relationships
Let’s dig into the best ways to maximize your influencer outreach and ongoing communication. While no default strategy works for everyone, these actionable steps will help you stand out and maintain great creative partnerships.
1. Provide clear messaging and actionable goals
Influencers want clear direction from the start. Spell out your performance expectations during the initial discussions and share real-world content examples to help them hit the mark. Misunderstandings can quickly lead creators to provide inaccurate quotes and estimated timelines, which leaves room for ghosting.
Being transparent about the project scope also saves you time, money, and headaches—skipping unnecessary revisions and feedback.
For example, eco-friendly footwear brand, Vivaia teamed up with influencers and provided them with two goals: boost brand awareness and increase website traffic. With the help of impact.com’s influencer-managed services team, Vivaia tasked the influencers with a clear scope of deliverables. The campaign resulted in an outstanding four million impressions and 100k+ YouTube views.
Micro-influencer Selena Trevino was the top performer for the campaign, reaching 31k+ views for her YouTube video.
Brand tip:
You’re setting clear expectations and goals by offering examples of what your brand is looking for. Plus, clearly communicating performance expectations enhances the influencer’s sense of being a genuine brand partner.
How impact.com can help:
Our Social Monitoring tool helps you align your brand standards to your campaign. Monitor influencers in your campaign and ensure they’re executing brand promotion in line with your standards, adding post disclosures (such as #Ad) and using functional tracking links.
2. Emphasize creative freedom and empower partners as expert content creators
When mapping out timelines and deliverables, lean on each influencer’s expertise. Ask for realistic timelines to avoid overloading them. Leverage their audience insights and collaborate closely to develop effective strategies for your target audience.
These creators have already built up a following with compelling posts, videos, or blogs. So tap into their knowledge for better content plans—otherwise, you’re skipping over a great resource.
Bowlero, the nightlife-inspired bowling lane and arcade hotspot, leaned on the expertise of their creator partners when promoting their brand. This translated to 56 unique pieces of user-generated content (UGC) promoting Bowlero’s fun atmosphere to various bowlers, foodies, and nightlife lovers. The campaign resulted in an impressive 6.7 percent engagement rate and 23k+ engagements.
TikToker Ana Garcia positioned Bowler as a “Fun date night idea” and reached 80k+ people.
Brand tip:
According to impact.com’s research, U.S. brands prefer communication via DM and email. This aligns with influencers’ preferences and how they often contact brands—this encourages more open conversations and sharing between partners.
How impact.com can help:
Our platform lets you create bespoke contracts with flexible payment models, usage rights, and performance incentives.
From How brands can drive content conversion with creators [+5 steps to build communities]
3. Treat creators as equal partners
Lasting partnerships are formed when brands and influencers align their goals and priorities. Content creators want to earn a living and build their brand and their aspirations will vary based on their career stage. Supportive brand partners should consider this, approaching creators as unique individuals.
To foster a true partnership, treat creators as equals—not one-off freelancers or simply publishing outlets. Share your success metrics openly for a unified vision. Define your goals and which data points matter most. This genuine approach fosters long-term partnerships with experienced influencers—promoting stability and mutual benefits rather than constantly hunting for new talent.
Brand tip:
Treat creators as true partners. Involve them with how you measure campaign success and what growth looks like for your brand. Transparency helps you share and work toward the same goals.
How impact.com can help:
Track campaign performance from brand awareness to conversion using our robust dashboard. Then, instantly share that data with your partners. Next, incentivize top performers with performance bonuses, gifts, and more.
4. Find a rhythm for ongoing check-ins
Consistent check-ins are vital in ensuring influencers feel supported rather than overwhelmed. By doing so, you can assist influencers in overcoming obstacles and offering support proactively. Schedule suitable timings for both parties to cultivate a positive experience that alleviates stress for your creative partner.
By keeping the conversations going, you also keep the door open for future collaborations and projects. Love working with a specific influencer? Reach out with new opportunities. Invite them to hop on other campaigns. Consider the creative ideas they bring to the table. These ongoing, open conversations are a great way to set up both parties for success—now and in the future.
Brand tip:
Create a regular cadence to check in with influencers. Keep them in the loop of content performance—encouraging them to voice concerns and optimize their strategy.
How impact.com can help:
Use built-in DM tools to contact influencers on our platform or add them to a mailing list. You can personalize messages and double-check social handles/name spellings. Then, follow up with an automated drip campaign to boost engagement from partners.
An excerpt from Ghosted no more: The secrets to thriving brand-creator partnerships.
This chart illustrates the importance of a creator’s work to resonate with their audience. Compensation and the overall brand experience come in at a close second, followed by the conversion rates of the creator’s content.
5. Automate personalized messaging with powerful technology like impact.com / creator
Personalized outreach and ongoing influencer support might seem like a big hurdle. Thankfully, you don’t have to manage your program manually for it to be successful or efficient.
With a partnership management platform like impact.com / creator, you can easily implement these communication best practices—with 80k+ influencers to potentially team up with. This platform is designed to help you track and optimize your partnerships at every point in their life cycle.
Built-in communication tools, automated reminders, powerful performance tracking (and more) help you scale up your program without wasting time and resources. That means check-ins, commission payments, and contract changes won’t fall through the cracks. Instead, you can highlight (and learn from) top performers and keep improving your program.
Brand tip:
Invest in purpose-built partnership tech and dedicated teams to handle your influencer programs for you. You can focus on scaling up and refining your strategies after freeing up your time.
How impact.com can help:
Our influencer-managed services team can handle the entire project for you—from recruitment to contracting, personalized communication, and measuring success. To learn more visit https://impact.com/influencer-marketing/managed-services/.
Keep the conversation going
Many brands re-engage top performers for future campaigns. Once you learn how each other likes to collaborate, the process will be easy, and both parties can get something out of the deal.
Add performance incentives like commissions or an increased flat-fee rate to reward high-performers. By keeping that line of communication going, you can develop a team of go-to influencer partners that get it right every time.
FAQs:
Brands should research and identify influencers whose audience demographics and values align with their own. Then, reach out with personalized, clear proposals demonstrating the collaboration’s mutual benefits.
Brands typically engage influencers by offering them compensation—free products, commission payments, exclusive insider access, and more—in exchange for promoting products to their audience. Brands can reach out directly through influencer marketing platforms or promote their rewards/benefits to attract potential partners.
Brands get influencers invested in their brand goals by carefully selecting individuals whose personal brand values and audience demographics match their own. Then, define common targets and goals with your partners. Clear communication is key for a cohesive, authentic collaboration that benefits both parties.
How personalized influencer partnerships help you find the right audience
Provide your partners with the right tools and support to inspire a high-performing campaign. Ditch the generic pitches and personalize your messages to match the influencers you want on your side. Treat them as true partners—asking for insights and sharing successes with them. With many brands trying to reach their target demo, this top-tier influencer outreach and ongoing communication will set you apart.
How to manage the full influencer partnership life cycle with impact.com
Want to learn how you can manage the entire influencer life cycle with impact.com? Our latest infographic covers everything you need to know.
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