What you have learned is that the capacity of the plant is equal to the capacity of its bottlenecks.
—Eliyahu M. Goldratt1
Key Questions
How do you eliminate bandwidth and time restraints when you scale your influencer marketing? How do you maintain your 1:1 relationships with creators, while reducing 80% of work? How do you turn email communication into your advantage, and not a bottleneck? What is a good benchmark for campaign participation, email delivery, email open, email reply, and click-through rates? How do you build a dynamic model for compensation creators and get rid of unnecessary negotiations? What are the five most valuable third-party software services that will put your influencer marketing on autopilot?
Core Concepts
1. The Theory of Constraints. 2. The 80-20-80-20 strategy. 3. 1:1 relationships at scale. 4. Campaign participation rates. 5. A dynamic model for compensating creators.
When the founder of the largest bookstore in the world recommends a read, it’s wise to pay attention. With a trillion dollar market cap2, Jeff Bezos has built one of the largest and most complex companies on the planet and has come a long way since Amazon was “just” a bookstore. Bezos and his organization has managed to identify the biggest constraints in their operations and built a structure to get the most out of those constraints. The recommended read in question, business novel The Goal, was published by Eliyahu Goldratt in 1984 and is considered a bible by the team that built Amazon’s fulfillment network.3
Theory of Constraints
The book is an introduction to the Theory of Constraints (TOC)—a management concept developed by Dr. Goldratt that aims to help companies and managers systematically focus efforts, energy, and attention on the constraints of a system. The constraint is typically a bottleneck that restricts output, preventing the organization to increase the flow of throughput which otherwise would yield better delivery to customers, less firefighting, reduced cycle times, conflicts between team members, additional capacity, or higher net profits.
See where I’m going with this?
TOC’s key processes are, in short, focused on removing barriers that prevent each part from working together as an integrated whole. And despite its name, the “Theory of Constraints” is not particularly theoretical. Rather, it helps find practical, effective solutions to challenges within businesses.
This chapter is dedicated to eliminate the many bottlenecks that marketing organizations face when they attempt to scale their influencer marketing. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the approach my company has taken over the last couple of years, to help our clients scale their influencer marketing programs, closely resembles several key components within the Theory of Constraints. Especially its mean thesis—that rather than trying to reduce costs, TOC declares that the most powerful and sustainable method for increased profit (and return on investment) is to increase your throughput. In Chapter 4: The Art and Science of Creativity, we covered the many aspects of identifying the right influencers for your brand and how to build a talent pool for your brand. Many of the concepts that we’ve already covered are built on the premise of increased throughput, and in this chapter, I’ll pull back the curtain further and show you a set of practical solutions that will help you and your organization knock out the bottlenecks that have been holding you back.
The 80-20-80-20 strategy
A global survey from 2019, across more than 350 participating marketing teams, revealed that bandwidth and time restraints are almost as common of a challenge as finding the right influencers.4 Further, the same survey respondents expressed issues with both “managing contracts and deadlines” and “processing payments to influencers.” Ask any marketer with even the slightest of experience within our industry, and you’ll hear about their challenges with email communication, contract negotiation, content submission, content approvals, logistics, payments, regulations, payments, tracking links, promo codes, and reporting.
80% overhead, 20% value
On the other hand, as time consuming and frustrating it may be, most marketing teams that are successful with their influencer marketing efforts have all seen the importance of building one-to-one relationships with the creators and influencers that they’re working with. It moves the value beyond being pure transactional and allows for you to be more creative and strategic. It would seem like the very thing essential to their success is also what’s holding them back. So, how do you increase your throughput (scale your influencer marketing with efficiency) when your constraint (building one-to-one relationships) is critical to your success? And the answer is you don’t. You get rid of everything else.
80% value, 20% overhead
The best part? You’ll write zero lines of code, and should you happen to hold a PhD in mathematics or computer science, I’m afraid it’ll be of little use.
1:1 relationships at scale, with 80% less work
The end goal is threefold: First, reduce the time you have to spend on factors that contribute little or no value, as outlined in the preceding text. Second, use the time and resources toward relationship building (and consequently strategy and creativity). I’ll stress this—the goal is to increase the amount of time you spend on the factors that create the most value. Third, build systems (again, no coding or PhD required) that can allow for you to scale your throughput by 10 or even 100 times from where you are today. If you’re just starting out, I understand that the thought of running an influencer marketing program with 100 creators simultaneously may seem very distant, but know this: Your constraints (80% overhead) are best eliminated from day one. We follow the very same process, and operate within the same system, to run an influencer marketing program with 5, 50, or 500 participants, and it all thanks to an approach we implemented years ago where workflows, technology, and system thinking were integral to our operations and execution. Because of this, 97 of 100 polled influencers highly recommend working with us and the brands we represent and frequently cite that it’s been the most smooth and pleasant experience they’ve ever had when collaborating with a brand.
Constrained by communication
Email communication (in general and particular within the context of influencer marketing) is a real-time suck. Not only when you’re building your talent pool (as per Chapter 4: The Art and Science of Creativity) but especially since it’s a platform of communication that will touch most of the constraints that are holding you back—from outreach, briefing, negotiation, and onboarding. Luckily, it’s also where you’ll see high impact (return) with relatively low effort (investment).
Good old-fashioned email is also a method of communication preferred by creators and influencers regardless of social media platform, country, or industry—as long as it’s used effectively.
Step 1: Set up a dedicated email address
Time required: 5–10 minutes
Effort: Low
Impact: N/A (but an essential first step)
The very first thing you need to do (to optimize the rest of the steps outlined in this chapter) is setting up a dedicated email address used only for communication with influencers. As easy and obvious as this may seem, it’s essential that you address this before moving on. A chain is, after all, no stronger than its weakest link.
The email address should be from an actual person within your company that is responsible for communication, and it’s important that it’s used only for that purpose. My work email address is [email protected] (say hello!), so I’d set up an additional one with another alias, like [email protected] (not my primary inbox!). You’ll see better open rates, click-through rates, and reply rates if you use a real name instead of an impersonal alias like [email protected] or [email protected]. Set up the name of the account to be your full name, and don’t forget to upload a profile picture.
Do People Even Read Emails?
Based on a dataset on emails sent to more than 100,000 influencers and content creators, I can assure you that it’s a very effective form of communication if used properly. The following benchmarks can help you check if you’re hitting the right notes.
Delivery rate: 95%>
Open rates: 50%–70%>
Reply rate or click-through: 5%–30%
Further down the road, if you’re building a larger team or other aspects of your campaign delivery become a constraint, you’ll be able to replicate this step and add multiple people to your team, all following the same process—but let’s leave it at that for now.
Once you’ve completed this step, you’ve successfully established a single point of contact, a focal point of information, and are ready to move on to address the next constraint: the inbox itself.
Step 2: Kill your inbox
Time required: 30–60 minutes
Effort: Mid
Impact: High
Once you have your dedicated email address in place, it’s time to kick things up a notch. I’d grade the following action as mid-effort, high impact. Our goal? To eliminate the entire idea of an inbox and different email threads—implementing an approach that’s already widely adopted across most businesses.
Now, I can’t say with certainty how things are set up within your organization, but it’s very likely that you have some kind of support function for your customers, especially if you’re a consumer brand. If you don’t, that’s not a problem—just play along for now. When an email is sent to a [email protected], it’s probably routed to some kind of customer service platform, rather than a regular email inbox. This is at least the case for most larger businesses that frequently interact with their customers. Again, there’s no need to worry if your company is an exception to the rule.
Either way, the approach holds several benefits: Communication with each customer is neatly organized; they’re able to track previous communication and what’s been said and connect your profile (in this instance your email address or a unique identifier) to their CRM.5 If there are several members within the customer service team, they can open and close tickets and jump into a conversation if one specific team member is unavailable and there’s an urgent need to resolve the task. This is what Step 2: Kill your inbox is about: Implement a similar workflow, used specifically for managing the communication of your influencer marketing campaigns. You’ll run your communication as efficiently as a customer service team that manages hundreds or even thousands of messages in parallel—but here’s the beautiful part: On the other end, from the point of view of the individual you’re communicating with, it’ll be a personalized one-to-one conversation.
- 1.
When someone sends an email to, or replies to an email sent from, [email protected] (your new unique email address used nowhere else), the email is automatically forwarded to your Intercom inbox.
- 2.
Rather than logging into your email inbox, you’ll receive a new message within their web-based client (there’s also a mobile app). The interface is similar to Facebook Messenger and very easy to use.
- 3.
Replying to an inbox message is just as easy as sending a chat message. In my experience, it’s also a lot faster, because you’re given full context from previous conversations and the interface is better organized. You have the option to close conversations, assign them to other colleagues, and even route messages to different team members depending on their context.
But what’s the experience like for the other party, the influencer, or creator that you’re in communication with? Will they have to jump through hoops and feel like they’re routed through a customer service platform? Quite the opposite. The communication feels just like a regular email thread, but since the system allows for you to reply faster and with greater accuracy, you’ll be perceived as more responsive and even easier to work with. Time spent on overhead? Reduced. 1:1 relationship? Improved.
Step 3: What the FAQ do you want?
Time required: A couple of hours
Effort: Mid
Impact: Mid to high
With a dedicated platform in place for handling negotiations, discussions, and general communication with influencers that you reach out to (and those that you’re actively working with), you’ve engineered a system where throughput of communication, or the number of creators you’re working with, doesn’t create additional bottlenecks. An ongoing conversation with 1, 10, or 100 individuals in parallel follows the same process, and a cluttered inbox is no longer the weakest link in your chain. Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt would have been proud. But we’re not done yet.
Speaking of ongoing dialog, the third thing you’re going to do is reduce the number of messages that you send and receive to each person.
First, we need to debunk a common myth among marketers, that is, people don’t read, or prefer, long-form content, especially email. I disagree with the entire premise. It depends entirely on what the content is—and if it’s relevant to its reader. And know this—most creators and influencers are utterly frustrated with agencies, brands, and marketers that can’t give them enough information and are left wondering: What the heck do you want?
- 1.
Who are you and your company? (introduction)
- 2.
What does your company, product, or service do? (background)
- 3.
Why are you reaching out to me? (context)
- 4.
What is expected of me? (brief)
- 5.
When is it expected? (commitment)
- 6.
How will we be working together? (process)
- 7.
How much will I get paid? (compensation)
- 8.
What do you want me to do next? (call to action)
- 9.
How will this help me create content for my audience? (benefits)
- 10.
Any chance that this could hurt my career or personal brand? (risks)
- 11.
Are there other benefits for me that I should know? (benefits)
- 12.
How do I know that I can trust you? (risk)
- 13.
Who else have you worked with? (social proof and community)
- 14.
How much time will this take? (commitment)
- 15.
When will I get paid? (terms)
- 16.
What are your marketing goals? (objective)
- 17.
What makes your product/service special? (unique selling points)
All perfectly reasonable questions, relevant to anyone deciding if what you’re proposing is interesting or not. Your end goal: To minimize asynchronous conversation by addressing and answering as many questions as possible, up front, that is, before the other party even decides if they want to work with you. And when you do, three things will happen: First, there’s a reduced dialog between both parties. Second, because there’s less dialog, your cycle time improves. Instead of multiple messages back and forth before you have addressed each relevant question (and likely hours, if not days, of calendar time), things can move forward in an instant. Third, because of the clear communication, your relationship with the other party skyrockets.
There could be other frequently asked questions specific to your brief, campaign, or even product that should be addressed as well, but you might be better off addressing those further down the road when you begin to spot a pattern.
Step 4: Cash rules everything around me
Time required: A couple of hours
Effort: Mid
Impact: Mid
“How much will I get paid?”
Negotiating compensation and how much someone will get paid is the only questions outlined in the previous section that doesn’t have a static answer. Here, the recommendation is to establish a compensation rate dynamic to follower count, average video views, level of engagement, or other relevant KPIs8 or marketing goals. Let’s illustrate with four different examples:
Note
These are entirely made up examples and do not constitute a recommendation on how much you should compensate someone.
Example 1
Output: A set of photos and stories on Instagram
Dynamic model: $30 per 1,000 followers
Formula: [Follower count]/1000 x $30
Creator A with 100,000 followers. Budget: $3,000
Creator B with 50,000 followers. Budget: $1,500
In this example, you’ll see that the pricing model is dynamic, with a very simple model in place. Not the most sophisticated compensation structure, but a simple example that remove the need for guesswork. More importantly, you now have a mathematical formula (fifth grade math or so, no PhD required!) in place that you can run across hundreds of influencers that you’re seeking to engage.
Let’s review a slightly different example:
Example 2
Output: A set of photos and stories on Instagram, attend launch event with a +1
Dynamic model: $20 per 1,000 followers and flat fee of $250
Formula: ([Follower count]/1000 x $20) + $250
Creator A with 100,000 followers. Budget: $2,250
Creator B with 50,000 followers. Budget: $1,250
Creator C with 10,000 followers. Budget: $450
In this example, you’ve simply included an additional flat fee, but lowered the dynamic rate. Why would you do that? Because, in this example, you probably have to. Look at Creator C in the example. The flat fee assures that the absolute compensation is reasonable even for someone with a smaller following. You can also build your compensation on engagement and interaction rates, as follows:
Example 3
Output: A feed post on Instagram, optimized for engagement
Dynamic model: $0.30 per engagement on recent posts
Formula: [Average engagement x follower count] x $0.45
Creator A with 3% engagement and 100,000 followers (3,000 estimated interactions.). Budget: $1,350
Creator B with 5% engagement and 50,000 followers (2,500 estimated interactions.). Budget: $1,125
Is one model better than another? It depends entirely on what your campaign objective is. Let’s look at a fourth and final example on YouTube.
Example 4
Output: A video on YouTube promoting your product
Dynamic model: $1509 per 1,000 views, calculated on average view count on most recent videos
Formula: [Average video views]/1000 x $150
Minimum compensation: $2,000
Maximum compensation: $6,000
Creator A with 30,000 average views per video. Budget: $4,500
Creator B with 50,000 average views per video. Budget: $6,000∗
Creator C with 10,000 average views per video. Budget: $2,000∗
In this example, note the minimum and maximum compensation. Why would we do this? You don’t have to, but it’s a way to mitigate for risk on both ends. On the lower side, we know that too low of an absolute compensation (minimum) isn’t attractive. Someone that will spend a week shooting a video for you will demand a certain base pay for their efforts. On the other end of the spectrum, your internal objectives might be to certain total number of videos, which wouldn’t be possible if each individual creator received too much compensation. Again, you don’t have to structure your compensation this way, but I’ve included the examples to demonstrate that you can be more sophisticated if you want.
It should be noted that this is something you do internally. There isn’t a need for you to communicate the model you use to anyone. Just state what your budget suggestion is.
Obviously, your overall budget and average industry rates will also play an essential role in how much your compensate someone you work with.10 A rate card or formula for how you compensate the talent you engage in your campaigns will be an essential cornerstone to mitigate the need to negotiate from scratch in every single engagement and dialog that you create. Plus, compensation will be an important consideration for someone to decide if they want to work with you and, as such, something you’ll want to be transparent with up front and as soon as possible.
A dynamic model for calculating compensation
A | B | C | |
1 | Followers | Compensation | |
2 | CreatorA | 100,000 | =sum(B2/1000*30) |
3 | CreatorB | 50,000 | =sum(B3/1000*30) |
As you can see, the line items could be replicated with hundreds or even thousands of lines without additional work on your end.
Not too little, not too much
Just like an employer hiring new members to their staff, you won’t attract workers with the right skills if the salary is too low. And while there’s certainly a long tail of talent out there (as covered in previous chapters), there’s no such thing as unlimited supply. Suggest compensation that is too low, and you’ll find that no creator, or influencer, will show interest in working with your brand. On the flipside, it’s obviously not wise to pay more than you have to.
So, how do you set yourself up to balance between the two?
Within our agency, we optimize for campaign participation rate. Creators will accept or reject a collaboration on other factors than compensation, but this has, over the last few years, turned into a great proxy for us. The formula is simple:
Calculating your participation rate
[Number of creators that accept your offer]/[number of creators you reach out to]
Deciding factors, brand collaboration
Factor | Respondents |
|---|---|
How much they pay | 14% |
That I know their product/service works | 27% |
That I have heard of their brand before | 3% |
That their core values are aligned with mine | 34% |
That they give me creative freedom | 23% |
It’s evident that there are other deciding factors that will determine your participation rate—some more important than how much you pay. With this in mind, make sure that you’ve addressed the other factors outlined in this table if you see low participation rates even though you’re paying fair rates. The opposite is also true: If your core values are aligned, there’s creative freedom, you have demonstrated that you have an amazing product, and you could likely lower your compensation and maintain a decent participation rate.
Step 5: Let’s fire up the engines
Time required: A couple of hours
Effort: Mid
Impact: High
It’s all been leading up to this moment. We’ve set up a dedicated email address to create a single point of contact, implemented a system to allow for efficient dialog with multiple individuals in parallel, and addressed common questions to reduce cycle times and build even better 1:1 relationships. You have mathematical formula (fifth grade math) for compensation and rely on participation rates rather than individual negotiation.
If you’ve skipped any of these steps, your entire workflow will break down as soon as you begin to increase your throughput. That’s how the Theory of Constraints works—in theory and in practice.
Remember our exercise with the talent pool, from Chapter 4: The Art and Science of Creativity? The act of onboarding a hundred people to a campaign, ambassador program, or talent pool simultaneously may have seemed daunting—but as promised, I’ll now guide you through the steps you need to take to get there without breaking a sweat along the way. Just like with the customer service analogy and Intercom, we’ll use two tools that already exist (95% chance or so) within your organization: spreadsheets and email marketing. You’ve probably heard of email service platforms like MailChimp11, Sendgrid12 or Drip.13 I’ve personally used all three extensively, and I recommend them all. Just like with Intercom, I’d propose that you get a different account, or service, outside of what you use otherwise for communication with customers or other related email marketing initiatives.
Your experience with email marketing platforms such like those mentioned in the preceding text will vary, so certain parts of this step will either seem very basic or very complicated, depending on your experience. Don’t worry though—just keep the end goal in mind: The shift we’re looking to make is to move you away from reaching out to influencers and creators one by one while building even stronger 1:1 relationships.
For the following steps, you’ll need a spreadsheet software such as Numbers, Excel, or Google Sheets and an account with one of the preceding email marketing services. In the following step-by-step instructions, we’ll use Google Sheets and MailChimp to set yourself up to reach out to 500 creators with the press of a single button. Note, the numbers could be 50 or 5,000. Same steps, same workflow, no constraints. Ready?
Step 1. Create a table
Start by opening up an empty spreadsheet. Your table will consist of a line, or row, for each creator, and column for each variable we need to include in our email (Table 6-3). There’s no limit to the number of columns you can have—but we’ll keep it simple and stick with these essential six.
Example table with descriptions for each column
Id | First Name | Followers | Compensation | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A unique numerical identifier, incremental with each new line | The Instagram username of the creator, without any other characters | The first name of the person you’re reaching out to | The email address | I’ve included this to show you how to automatically calculate compensation, using our prior example | How much you’ll pay the creator for the collaboration, influencer marketing campaign or program |
1 | aronlevin | Aron | 20,000 | $1,000 |
Example of a populated table
Id | First Name | Followers | Compensation∗ | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | aronlevin | Aron | 50,000 | $5,000 | ||
2 | janedoe | Jane | 100,000 | $10,000 | ||
3 | johndoe | John | 75,000 | $7,500 |
Note
Go back to the previous section for an example on how to calculate this automatically. I’m using three fictitious examples in the preceding table for demonstrative purposes.
You can use the same structure to populate the table with hundreds, or even thousands, of lines—each representative of a creator. Most spreadsheet software even have functions and features that will allow you to remove duplicates, validate email addresses, round a number (such as compensation) to the nearest integer, and sort or filter by certain values.
Step 2. Import to your email service provider
Once completed, it’s time to export your table (in Google Sheets, you simply head over to main menu, select file, download, and comma-separated values (.csv, current sheet). Then, head over to your email marketing service provider, and import the file. Each service provider will have a simple tutorial or instructions on how to do this. Directionally though, there should be an import contacts/audience or list feature. MailChimp call them audiences.
When you import your table of contacts, you’ll have to map each column to a variable within the email marketing platform. MailChimp call these variables Audience fields and *|MERGE|* tags. Audience fields or Merge tags are variables associated and values with each contact (each an influencer or creator). When you import your table, make sure that you assign each column (e.g., followers) to a corresponding Audience field with the same, or similar, name. We’ll be using these fields to personalize our email communication in the next step.
Step 3. Create and send your email
From: Your First And Last Name
To: @*|INSTAGRAM|*
Subject: Instagram collaboration with @*|INSTAGRAM|*
Hi *|NAME|*,
We’re such and such and are reaching out because of so and so. Would you be interested in a collaboration on @*|INSTAGRAM|* and @ourbrand? You’d be asked to do this and that, and your compensation is *|PAY|*.
Hit reply if you’re in, and I’ll share some more details about the project. I’m available on email and 555-123 if you have any questions.
Thank you,
Your Name
Many email services offer a preview function that will allow for you to toggle between your contacts and verify that your email looks good and that all variables are accurately in place. When you’re ready, schedule your email to be sent immediately or on a date and time of your preference. And because you’ve followed the previous steps, each reply to your outreach is sent to Intercom (or similar equivalent).
Important Email Considerations
- 1.
Verify your domain name. This will guarantee that your emails aren’t flagged as spam or appear to be sent from an email marketing service.´
- 2.
Remove all HTML formatting and strip your email layout to the bare bones. You want your email to look like a regular email and not a marketing newsletter.
- 3.
Set the from and reply-to address to your email address. Note that this should be the unique email address that you set up in the first step of this chapter.
- 4.
Consult with your legal team, or an email marketing expert, to assure that you follow all email marketing regulations. For instance, an unsubscribe or opt-out link may be required—depending on where you live.
You’ve built a scalable workflow that replicates what was previously an entirely manual process. Ready for the last, and final, improvement to our workflow?
Step 6: Who’s coming to your party? Répondez, s’il vous plaît!14
Time required: A couple of hours
Effort: Mid
Impact: Mid
As you implement Steps 1–5, you’ll quickly run into a constraint that will limit your throughput. And while this step isn’t strictly necessary, it will save you, and the people you work with, a tremendous amount of time. Consider the system we’ve implemented this far. It has a major flaw that will limit our abilities to scale—a constraint that will hold everything back until it’s resolved.
That constraint is you.
See, with each creator responding to your initial outreach, you’ll soon have issues keeping track of who’s in and who’s not. Initially, it won’t be a problem—but our goal is to eliminate the roadblocks that will arise further down the road, ahead of time. We need to clear the road to keep the engine running at full capacity, at all times. There are, after all, budgets, timelines, and marketing objectives to be met. To eliminate this constraint, we’ll use yet another proven method. This time though, it’s one from outside of office hours: It’s party time!
If you’re hosting a party, it’s essential to keep track of who’s planning to attend the festivities, especially if you’re hosting a major event. You could have your guests give you a call or send you a text and let you know if they’ll make it—but imagine the headache such approach would cause if you’ve extended your invitation to hundreds of guests. What a mess! Nah, a much better way—and better experience for both parties—would be to send your guests to a website where they can respond with their status of attendance.
Our goal is to have the many creators and influencers that you’ve invited to your campaign, program, or talent pool, not respond with their status in an email, but rather visit a website where they can let you know if they’re in or not.
Répondez, s’il vous plaît
The two steps required to implement this small but meaningful improvement are quite literally as easy as throwing a birthday party. First, we need to build a way to capture responses, and secondly, we need to direct campaign participants to your page.
Step 1: Capture responses
While you could certainly build this yourself, there’s a range of online services available that will do everything for you—with no design, web development, or web hosting required. I’ll be walking you through the steps you need to take using yet another favorite service of mine—Typeform.15 (Other options include Jotform,16 Formstack,17 Wufoo,18 Formsite,19 or Google Forms.20)
Set yourself up with an account. Login to their interface and start from scratch with a new form. There are both help sections, example forms, and tutorials available if you need help. For what we’re aiming to accomplish to eliminate constraints, your entire form could consist of just one single checkbox or dropdown field where you respond “Yes” or “No” or RSVP to your initial outreach.
But how do you know who the respondent is if there’s nothing but a dropdown menu? Good question! Typeform allows for you to create what they call hidden fields. Within these hidden fields, you can pass other relevant variables to the responses you collect, such as their email address, Instagram username, Follower count, or compensation. Remember the Audience fields or Merge tags from before? If you include those values as hidden fields, you’ll know exactly who each respondent is. Rather than including a full tutorial on how to construct your form, I’d recommend the official tutorial from Typeform.21
Pro Tip
If you’re shipping a physical product to influencers, you can use the very same form to collect their shipping details, along with product preference and size(s).
When your form is ready, you’ll have a link that anyone can access to fill out the form. This is the link that you’ll include in your initial outreach email. The link will also include a string of characters called “query strings” that will be added to the link.
id=xxxxx
name=xxxxx
followers=xxxxx
instagram=xxxxx
compensation=xxxxx
Note that xxxxx will be replaced by actual values from each individual respondent. Go ahead and grab the unique link to your form, Typeform. We’re ready for the second, and final, step. There’s just one more thing we have to do.
Step 2: Call to action
From: Your First And Last Name
To: @*|INSTAGRAM|*
Subject: Instagram collaboration with @*|INSTAGRAM|*
Hi *|NAME|*,
We’re such and such and are reaching out because of so and so. Would you be interested in a collaboration on @*|INSTAGRAM|* and @ourbrand? You’d be asked to do this and that, and your compensation is *|PAY|*.
If you’d like to participate, head over to this link and confirm your participation:
Yes, confirm my participation
Once you’ve confirmed your participation, I’ll be following up with the information you need. I’m available on email and 555-123 if you have any questions.
Thank you,
Your Name
These values will then be passed onto corresponding hidden fields in Typeform, and each campaign participation will be stored within their platform. You’ll have a bulletproof way to collect, store, and access reliable data, and it’s a frictionless incredible experience for the many creators and influencers you engage in your campaigns. But where are responses stored? Within Typeform. From there, it’s easy to both export the data and even collect your responses in an external spreadsheet, automatically.
Step 7: Other considerations
Automate your entire contract process with HelloSign.22
Password protect confidential briefs (including streamlined NDAs) with Docsend.23
Upload assets for approval with Typeform.24
Have influencers RSVP to actual events with Confetti.25
Connect all in the preceding text to Slack, Google Sheets, or any other third party with Zapier.26
This chapter has obviously been written from the point of view of handling this entire process yourself. There are several self-service tools for influencer marketing available as well as agency partners that will handle this entire process from start to finish should you consider that path. Regardless, steps within chapter are useful to demonstrate how to shift your approach from 80% overhead and 20% value to the other way around. Within the company I co-founded, Relatable, we started off (and came very far) by stitching multiple platform services together. In several cases identical to the process outlined in this chapter—while simultaneously writing our own software. Eventually, we had an entire operating system for influencer marketing in place.
One thing is for sure—we would be nowhere near where we are today if it wasn’t for system thinking and the Theory of Constraints.