Influencer Outreach & Deal-Making Strategy
A streamlined guide for finding, contacting, and negotiating with creators.Finding Prospective Influencers
Method 1: Organic Feed Engineering
Create a new social media account and use it as if you were your target customer:- Like the content they would like
- Watch the same types of videos all the way through
- Interact naturally
This method takes longer, but every influencer you find will be highly relevant and a quality prospect.
Method 2: Outsourcing Through a VA
- Create a set of criteria:
- Minimum & maximum follower count
- Average views on recent videos
- Likes and comments per post
- Posting frequency
- Define hashtags that your target audience would interact with
- Use Upwork to hire a virtual assistant
- Have them run outreach using your account
- Pay approximately $5–$15 per 100 DMs sent
Setting Up a Professional Outreach Account
- Create a new dedicated account
- Bio should clearly communicate:
- Who you are
- What you’re building
- Select apps/products you’ve created (if any)
- Optionally, post a few portfolio items
- Either lifestyle (people tend to respect people who appear successful. I don’t do this, but it’s a strategy.)
- Things you’ve built
- Nothing (won’t kill your response rate as long as you do the next two bullets)
- Have at least 5k followers for your Instagram; people don’t want to be sponsored by nobodies. When someone has 5 followers, they distrust the account. When you have at least 5k followers, you seem more reputable
- You can do this through Upwork or various websites
- Pay for an account verification ($11.99/month)
- This is another easy way to stand out in their inbox
“You are a real builder/company, not a scam or spam account.”
What type of influencer to reach out to:
Green flags:- 25k+ views per video
- A stable amount of views never dipping under 15k
- Content does well on multiple platforms
- Has a unique style of content. You don’t want to sponsor someone who’s just trend hopping or engagement farming. You should be able to quickly understand why the internet resonates with them
- Comments show an engaged community
- Inconsistent views, some videos at 100k+, others around 5k
- Trend hopper. Just copies popular sounds and doesn’t feel distinct.
- **Comments are a bunch of emojis. You typically see this on Instagram the most. This shows low-quality viewers or fake engagement. **
- A lot of views but no comments, people “like” the content but are not engaged enough to take the time to comment. If they don’t take the time to comment, they may not take the time to download your app.
Crafting the Outreach DM
Your message should be short and instantly clear.Structure:
1. The first two words:“Paid promo?” (or similar) They get a ton of DMs a day saying, “Hey, I love your content”. The best way to get a response is by mentioning that they will get paid if they respond to you. 2. One-sentence explanation of the product
Who you are & what your app does. Don’t go overboard; you’ll explain more to them later. Just give them enough to understand what you’re doing, but not overboard to keep them curious. 3. Clear invitation
”I’d love to sponsor you!”
Example:
“Paid promo for Arc? Hey, I run an app that limits screen time and unlocks usage when goals are completed. I love your content and would love to sponsor you! Let me know if you’re interested.” They will not read a mile long dm explaining everything, and they get a 1000 of dm’s, but they will respond if they know you will pay them.Negotiating Deals
Over Text
Creators will often respond with:- “Sure, tell me more.”
- “Sounds good, what’s your budget?”
Say: “Absolutely — I’d love to hop on a call and walk you through the integration and how we see this working. Here’s my number: (xxx-xxx-xxxx).” If they directly ask for a price:
“Before we get into numbers, I’d like to show you what we want demonstrated in the video.” Don’t give them a number unless they force you! A couple of tips:
- Dm as little as possible. Every dm should be guiding them to get on the phone and closing a deal
- Remember you’re the one paying them, not vice versa!
On the Phone
Opening the call:
- Start with a friendly tone
- Compliment a specific aspect of their content. Be hyper specific, it will not only be a much better comment, but they will associate you as a fan of their content and make them more likely to give a better deal.
(“I’m actually a big fan lol, I loved watching your XYZ series”, etc.)
Explain the integration:
- Describe how the app will appear naturally in their content
- Share examples or past influencer videos
- Provide visual assets if needed
Discuss rates
Ask:“What do you feel is a reasonable rate?” Then you determine value by their average view count:
- Take average views
- Underestimate conservatively
- Multiply by the number of videos
They average 25k views/video
You want 4 posts
You conservatively project 100k total views You offer:
- $250 for 4 videos ($2.50 cpm multiplied by the minimum view guarantee)
- With **a minimum view guarantee **of 100k views
- You should’ve underestimated enough, so they are very confident that they will hit the guarantee.
- Pay 50% up front / 50% upon 4 videos completed, and a minimum view guarantee is met.
- If they don’t hit the guarantee, offer them the ability to keep posting until they do.
- Move to $350
- OR propose a CPM model:
With a cap at historical max performance
(e.g., max $500 payout if one goes viral) Present CPM as:
A chance for them to bet on themselves. Don’t directly say that, but it should be naturally implied. For example: Influencer: “I think $350 for 4 videos is too low for me. Is there any way you can come higher?” You: “I mean, I really have to keep in the $2-$3 cpm range. (pause) I mean, what I could do is pay you a rate of $3 per thousand views, so if 4 videos generate a total of 200k views, I could pay you a total of $600, but there would have to be a cap of $500 per video.” This now switched their frame from the idea of earning $350 for 4 videos, to the idea of potentially earning $2000 for 4 videos, if they do really well. If you start off with a cpm proposal, it will feel like you are trying to bait them into a commission deal, which most influencers won’t go for. When you do it like this, it makes them feel like they opened the opportunity to earn a lot more, even though you just negotiated almost a risk-free deal because you should be very profitable in a $2-$3 cpm range.
After you present your offer:
Stop talking. You are the buyer.They need the sponsor as much as you need the promotion.
Tactics to motivate them to take the deal
During the call, make sure to mention that you are only focused on long-term partnerships, not one-off posts. You’re going to say this for two reasons. One, it’s how you’re going to scale. Recurring posts will raise your floor revenue every week. If you’re guaranteed almost a certain amount of views a week, it will make growth consistent. Two, most influencers have done some one-off deals that paid them well, but never gave them a consistent way to monetize their content. Be extremely passionate about what you’re building. Naturally, they will mirror your enthusiasm and commitment. Also, people follow missions; they love working for companies that they believe are out there to deliver the best experience for the customer.Common Objections & Responses
”XYZ brand paid me thousands for a post.”
Response:“Are you still working with them?” After you say this, you will close this deal. Big brands spend thousands of dollars on influencers who don’t perform for “brand awareness,” but because the posts don’t do well, they don’t continue working with them. Once you ask, “Are you still working with them?” They will most likely say no, and then you will go on to explain how you want to build a long-term partnership, not a one-off post.
”Sponsorship content hurts engagement. So I won’t do a minimum view guarantee.”
Response:“That’s why we don’t want a typical ad. We want a subtle integration into your content that already performs well. In fact, our best results come when content looks authentic, and people naturally comment about the app. Not only that, but a lot of our influencer promos perform better than their average video, because they have people commenting about our app.”
Only say the last sentence if it’s true.
After the influencer posts: Moderate your analytics. This deal should be profitable in 1-3 days, depending on your trial length. Plant comments in the comment section. Have a couple of your friends commenton a question about the app.
- This will make people more interested in your app because they will see other people interested.