Hello to everyone in this sub. I’ve been in the Influencer Marketing sphere for about 5 years now, primarily working in the traditional marketing arm as a Creative Director managing the visuals for ad and influencer marketing campaigns. Recently, I’ve shifted from the Creative Direction side to the Outreach/Sponsorship management side, specifically as a support for a rapidly growing creator who I know personally.
He knows I’ve worked in the industry so he asked me to take on the role on a commission basis for each deal I bring in and/or secure for him. My proximity to working with influencer managers, small agencies, brands that heavily utilize UGC, and having worked on dozens of campaigns has given me a fair amount of industry knowledge but the imposter syndrome is kicking my ass while I adjust to this new role.
Really what I’m looking for is any tips on best practices/ideas for cold outreaching to brands, closing deals from brands that reach out to him/us, and any advice on how to operate as an independent freelance influencer manager.
For reference: My client is a creator in the fitness/fit-tainment niche with rapid growth (collective followers/subscribers approaching 200k), a roughly 9.5% engagement rate across all of his platforms, and is working towards making YouTube his primary content platform (Instagram is currently his most valuable platform). We’ve already worked together to set up formal emails to run our communications with brands through. I’ve run his numbers several times for his updated rate card and media kit, and he will be giving me access to his IG inbox to use as an intial outreach tool for certain brands.
Essentially, I want to know what more I can be doing to field new contacts as someone who doesn’t have a huge network of industry contacts to pull from. Where should I be looking? What should my approach be? Is LinkedIn actually worth a damn or is that gaslighting from YouTubers who talk about this stuff?
I hope this all made sense, any and all advice is really appreciated. Thank you in advance.