Reaching out to an influencer you want to collaborate with can be daunting. After in-depth research and shortlisting (and further narrowing down), you finally send these influencers an outreach email. 

And at this point, you don't want to hear anything, but yes.  

So, how do you ensure your outreach email is convincing and persuasive? What are some elements of the pitch that will make influencers excited to collaborate with you and eager to promote your products? 

This article covers everything you need to know about an influencer outreach process — from finding relevant YouTube influencers to sending them a perfect email and the types of collaboration your brand can do with them. 

Let's dive in!  

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The power of YouTuber influencers promoting your brand

YouTube is the second most popular search engine, with over 2 billion users. Due to its huge popularity with Gen Z and millennials, YouTube is the perfect platform to put your brand in front of a large audience. 

A study by Statista shows that 62% of people aged between 13 and 24 are more likely to buy a product endorsed by a YouTube influencer than a social media ad. This shows that influencer marketing is more popular than running ads on social — especially for your younger audience. 

According to new research, brands look for a lower average engagement rate (7%) and follower count (3,000) when partnering with YouTube influencers. 

This shows that collaborating with nano and micro-influencers is more popular, so you don't have to have a huge influencer marketing budget to partner with YouTube influencers. 

YouTube videos continue to get organic search traffic well after a campaign is completed, allowing you to see the results from your influencer collaboration years after posting videos.

How to ask YouTube influencers to promote your product 

Before reaching out and asking influencers to promote your brand, there are other steps along the way, like finding relevant influencers, getting their contact details, and writing a personalized pitch. 

We discuss all this and more below. Let's go!  

1. Find relevant YouTube influencers

The first step in your YouTube influencer marketing campaign involves finding influencers who fit your brand well. Here are three ways you can find relevant influencers for your next campaign! 

Search on Google 

To find YouTube influencers through Google, you can type in "Youtube influencer + your industry" and sift through the results. Although this method is free and quick, you'll need to manually check every influencer and determine whether they are a good fit for your campaign. 

Use hashtags 

Hashtags are a great way to find relevant influencers on YouTube. Creators add key hashtags in the video descriptions and titles to make their content more discoverable. 

Include ad disclosure hashtags like #ad, #sponsored, and #paidpromotion to discover YouTube influencers already posting sponsored content. You can also add hashtags relevant to your industry, like #fitness or #skincare. 

By searching through hashtags, you can see the type of content that gets better engagement and pops up in search results with specific hashtags.

Use an influencer discovery tool

If you are looking for a quick and easy way to find influencers that does most of your work for you, check out an influencer discovery tool like Modash. 

With a searchable database of every YouTube influencer, Modash lets you find influencers that fit your requirements in just a few steps.  

With filters like influencer location, gender, average views, subscribers, engagement rate, growth rate, and much more, you can find YouTube influencers in a matter of seconds. 

Modash lets you see important metrics for each influencer, like growth rate, engagement rate, and fake followers. You can also check audience demographics to ensure your campaign reaches your target audience. 

Pro tip: even without signing up to a platform, you can still use a free YouTube engagement rate calculator to quickly vet prospective partners.

2. Get contact details

After finalizing your list of YouTube influencers you want to reach out to, it's time to get their contact details. 

You can simply go to the About section of their channel and get the email listed there. Most influencers have their contact details in this section. 

If you don't find any email, you can use Modash to access the YouTube influencer's email address. 

Just sign-up for your 14-day free trial and create a list of influencers whose email addresses you are looking for. Export their contact details or unlock their email address individually. It's a quick way to find individual emails or in bulk. 

3. Reach out to YouTube influencers 

After getting the contact details, it's time to contact your shortlisted influencers. Take some time and carefully think about what you are going to say in your outreach email. 

To ensure you get a positive response, craft a personalized pitch telling them why you want to work with them and give them a brief intro about your business and products. Let's look at three critical factors of sending a pitch — subject line, email content, and follow-up. 

Subject line  

To make your outreach email stand out, your subject line needs to be on point. It's going to be the first thing the influencer will read and will determine whether they open the email or not. 

Here are some things to incorporate in your subject line to ensure your email gets opened: 

• Show the benefits: Your subject line hints at the value for your influencer. One example is, "Brand ambassador opportunity ($1,000/month)." 
• Sparks emotion: Make the influencer feel positive emotions like curiosity to learn more or excitement at a potential collaboration. You can also make them feel special, for example, "You're on our top 10 list. Let's work together!"
• Direct and to-the-point: Directly state what the email is about so there is no chance of it being considered spam or promotion. You can say, "You're the perfect match! Let's work together 👐" 

Experiment with different subject lines and see what's working for your brand. Don't be afraid to be creative, personal, and funny. You can also add emojis in your subject line as they increase the likelihood of your email being opened. 

Email content 

Your email body should have all the important information an influencer might need before they decide to accept your offer. 

But instead of making it dry and transactional, personalize it as much as possible. Get to know the influencers you are sending the pitch to. Go through their YouTube channel, make a note of anything that sticks out about them, and mention it in the pitch. 

You can talk about their previous video you saw and mention one or two things that stuck out and made you reach out to them. Make the pitch all about their content and how you would like to collaborate with them to promote your brand. 

Add social proof to show the success of your influencer marketing campaigns and what your previous collaborators say about working with you. Name-drop creators you work with to give an idea of the amazing influencers the recipient will be in the company of. 

Follow up

One of the most crucial parts of an outreach process that most people forget is follow-up emails. 

When sending an outreach email, you need to be prepared for rejection while also remembering to be persistent. 

Research by Backlinko showed that emailing the same contact multiple times leads to 2x more responses. So, sending at least five follow-ups after your initial email is incredibly important. 

During the initial outreach, send up to five emails over two to three weeks. If you still don't receive a response, take a 6-month pause and then reach out again with two additional follow-ups. 

To help you with this process, we have worked on email and social media outreach templates. Check out these free templates and successfully reach out to influencers without worrying about what to say. 

Determine a compensation method 

Set up a budget for your influencer marketing campaign to ensure a smooth and successful collaboration. Influencers have different rates depending on your requirements, and they charge differently. 

Taking some time to learn different payment models will help you determine the best method for your company. 

Pay per post

This is a flat fee per post, which sometimes includes the cost of content creation and depends on the number of posts you require from the influencer. 

While this payment method might not be beneficial for an Instagram or TikTok collaboration, as those posts disappear after two to three days of posting, the evergreen content algorithm of YouTube allows brands to use the pay-per-post method to get the most value. 

YouTube videos continue to pop up on your target audience's timeline for years— making it a great way to put your brand in front of other audiences months after the campaign ends. 

With the pay-per-post method for YouTube influencers, you can get good-quality video content and use it for your website and other social media as well. 

Here's a list of some other payment methods you can use: 

• Flat rates: Some influencers charge a dollar amount for the whole campaign — including posts, content creation, and other expenses — regardless of the engagement rate. 
• Pay per click: You pay a set amount per click. This payment system works well with specific links, also called affiliate links, which influencers can add to their YouTube description. 
• Cost per engagement (CPE): You pay a set rate per engagement on the post.
• Pay per conversion: You pay a percentage of each conversion referred by the influencer. 
• Hybrid model: This method can be a mix of any of these. It offers the most flexibility for both your business and the influencer as it determines what works best for both parties. 
• Fixed-rate + performance-based pay: This involves a set fee per post or campaign and a percentage of sales. 
• Brand ambassador program: With a brand ambassador program, you can develop long-term relationships with your influencer and pay them per hour, commissions, or free products.  

4 content types for your YouTube collaboration 

Just like finding the right YouTube influencer is critical for your campaign, so is the type of content you decide on. YouTube specifically allows for a lot of creativity in your influencer marketing campaign. Let's have a look at some of the content types for your next collaboration. 

1. Reviews 

People don't trust marketing buzzwords anymore. They want to listen to the experience of actual users of a product. Not only that, many consumers rely on influencers to vet the product and share their experience with the audience. 

Video reviews are best for dissecting a product and sharing all its benefits, and YouTube is the perfect place for it. Review videos convince your audience at the decision-making stage of the sales funnel to buy your product. 

HopeScope, a YouTube channel run by Hope and dedicated to clothing, popular brands, and trends, has several reviews of different products. She posted a video review of Skims, trying on the different clothes and giving her feedback. 

Although this video is not sponsored, it's a great example of a good review video. Her audience can see each piece of clothing, get immediate feedback and see if they want to buy the product for themselves.

✅ Pro-tip: To foster trust and increase the sales of your product, encourage your influencers to provide honest feedback on your product instead of just saying a few buzzwords and making generic endorsements. 

2. Unboxing 

Unboxing videos started in the early 2000s on YouTube and are now bigger than ever. One reason for their popularity is that these videos give a holistic experience to viewers as if they were the ones opening the products. 

As viewers watch influencers open a product box, explore its features, and show the value of the product, they imagine themselves using the product, which eventually compels them to make a purchase. 

If you decide to do an unboxing video, send a detailed brief to the influencer detailing all the product features you want to be shown, as well as packaging, design, and other relevant elements. 

SassyInKorea, a channel dedicated to life in Korea, posted a beautiful unboxing video of the iPad Air 5. The video is creatively shot and has the characteristic elements of other videos posted by the influencer. 

Providing a holistic experience to the audience, SassyInKorea talks about the various features and shows them to the audience.

✅ Pro-tip: Make sure the influencer has the tools and skills to show your products in the best light and show the best experience possible. 

3. Day-in-the-life vlogs 

Day-in-the-life vlogs are quite popular on YouTube and showcase an influencer's typical workday or weekend. 

In this type of content, an influencer can integrate your product seamlessly into their daily routine. Most influencers then add a link to the products mentioned in the video in the description. 

It's a much more organic way to put your brand in front of thousands of people. These types of videos are not too promotional, and by showing your product in their life, the influencer shares how much value it brings to their life. 

Rachel Vinn is a YouTube influencer who creates content around her life and business. Her channel has multiple day-in-the-life vlogs like the one shown below. 

You can see in the video's description how Rachel has added links to all the products shown in the video. This is an excellent way for businesses to put their products in front of a new audience. 

✅ Pro-tip: Reach out to influencers who use your products or similar ones, as it will be easier for them to incorporate it in their video and have a better knowledge of its value and usage. 

4. Tutorials 

People love coming to YouTube to learn everything, and tutorials are a great way to provide value to your audience while putting your brand in front of them. 

Tutorials are great for complicated products, but these videos can also showcase the different use cases of a specific product, encouraging viewers to buy the product. 

For example, if you promote a skincare gadget, you can collaborate with a skincare influencer to show how to use your product and its benefits. To make it more enticing, add a referral code for your influencer to convince your audience to make a purchase. 

Stephanie Ledda, a beauty influencer, collaborated with Hair.com and Loreal Pro for a tutorial video to show the various ways to use Loreal's hair straightener. 

Stephanie has added various promo codes in the video description to make it easier for viewers to grab their hands on hair treatment products and the featured hair straightener. 

✅ Pro-tip: Try to seamlessly showcase your product, its use, and the various use cases. The influencer can talk about their skincare routine, showcase their products, and then feature your company's skincare gadget and show how to use it. 

Start your YouTube influencer outreach today! 

Reaching out to YouTube influencers can be a bit daunting at first. You don't know what to say, who to reach out to, and what will make them say yes. 

The steps mentioned above go into great detail on how to successfully reach out to a YouTube influencer to ask them to promote your brand. 

To make your YouTube outreach process more efficient with Modash, sign up for a 14-day free trial and manage your outreach emails, track your campaigns, and find influencers all in one place.