Influencer marketing is no walk in the park, especially considering the time and effort it takes to contact influencers. Searching for brand-fit creators and hunting down their email address or sliding into their DMs is a labor-intensive process. The good news is, there is an easier way.
Keep reading to learn about the best influencer outreach tools and how they can help you get better results with your overall influencer marketing strategy.
What is an influencer outreach tool?
An influencer outreach tool is specialized software that makes it easier to contact and communicate with influencers. No more endless searching for creators’ email addresses and contacting them one by one. Sounds good, right?
It’s important to distinguish between influencer marketing platforms and influencer outreach tools.
Influencer marketing platforms encompass an array of features to help brands drive and scale their influencer marketing. With most influencer platforms, you can:
- Tap into an influencer database
- Search through creator profiles using specific filters, like demographics
- Analyze influencer campaign results
- Keep track of influencer data
An all-in-one influencer marketing platform, like Storyclash, includes influencer discovery and outreach. So you can search for influencers and contact them in one place. However, bear in mind that not all influencer marketing platforms have an outreach feature.
Influencer outreach is a key feature that you should prioritize when putting together your influencer marketing toolkit, because it can save you a lot of time when contacting influencers.
Do you need an influencer outreach tool?
The short answer is, it depends.
An influencer outreach tool is very useful if you’re a larger brand, running numerous influencer campaigns, possibly in different markets. The more influencer partnerships you are managing, the more essential a comprehensive outreach tool becomes.
If you are a small brand working with a small number of regular influencers and rarely reaching out to new ones, you probably don’t need a dedicated influencer outreach tool.
It also depends on your future goals, though.
If you are aiming to run scalable, data-driven influencer campaigns, an outreach tool is super important. It not only saves time but also helps you keep track of your outreach efforts. So you know when to follow up, avoid accidentally contacting the same creator twice, and can collect insights on what kind of approach works best.
How does an influencer outreach tool work?
Let’s say you’re a fitness brand based in Germany. You want to partner with creators who live a healthy lifestyle and promote positive body image among their audience. Your target audience is mostly made up of females aged 25-35, so you choose to focus on this demographic.
So, you open up the Storyclash app. In the “Discover Creators” tab, you can search using keywords, filters, and more. You’ll also see AI-powered recommendations. So, you enter your requirements, and hit “Apply.”
You’ll find a list of suitable creators, along with KPIs and their relevance scores. Like this:
Let’s say you’re interested in @amelieklk. So, you check out her profile and previous posts:
You do a quick check of her previous collabs, to see if she is affiliated with competitors. You notice she has worked with major fitness brands like GymShark and John Harris, as well as beauty brands like L'oreal, Olaplex, Kerastase and GHD:
Finally, you decide to get some audience insights to see who you would reach if you worked with her. Storyclash shows you key details, like the average age, gender, language and audience quality.
You decide you’d like to collaborate with Amelie. The next step is to reach out.
Scroll to the top, click the message icon, and select “Contact creator.” Then a window will pop up where you can enter and send your message:
In a hurry? Like in most advanced outreach tools, you benefit from time-saving automation features, like mass outreach, templates, and personalization.
To contact several creators at once, just add the creators to a list and click “+ Variables” then “Creator name” to address them all by their first name. To save even more time, you can set up your own custom templates, like this:
Check out our free influencer outreach templates to get some inspiration.
You can also set up an email signature to seem more professional.
Another advantage of Storyclash is that the outreach is combined with a complete Influencer CRM. That means you can check real-time social media and performance data for any influencer. And all communication (like briefings, contracts, files, etc.) are in one place so your whole team can easily find them.
Of course, every influencer outreach tool is a bit different, but that should give you an idea of how it works.
10 Best Influencer Outreach Tools
Now, let’s dive into the best tools. Here is our list of the top 10 influencer outreach tools:
1.Storyclash
Storyclash makes it easy to find, vet and message influencers in just a few clicks. That’s why it’s the influencer marketing platform of choice for fast-growing DTCs like Bears With Benefits, Junglück or Kapten & Son, as well as large, established companies like Vodafone, Mercedes, and Kaufland.
Storyclash transforms the way brands connect with influencers, harnessing the power of AI to help brands find the perfect collaborators.
Storyclash’s advanced influencer search is not limited to basic demographics; instead, it dives deep into the content created by influencers, ensuring a seamless and relevant match for your brand. Whether you’re a car manufacturer or a skincare brand, Storyclash can quickly find influencers who are a perfect fit.
Storyclash stands out for a few reasons:
- Unparalleled insight into previous collaborations, so you can see who else influencers have worked with
- Access Instagram stories after 24 hours, so you can check influencers’ content fits your brand
- Direct messaging functionality, with the option to add your own templates, so you can reach out within seconds
2. Ninja Outreach
Ninja Outreach streamlines the process of finding and connecting with relevant bloggers and social media influencers.
This tool enables you to pinpoint influencers through keyword searches, refining your results further with tags such as bloggers, influencers, and companies. It has a database of influencers from platforms like Twitter and Instagram and includes contact details where available.
The tool allows you to integrate your existing contacts, offering flexible organization options. Additionally, its Chrome extension makes it easy to add new contacts while web browsing.
Ninja Outreach offers some automation options. Once you have your email templates set up, the tool can automatically initiate contact with influencers and manage follow-up sequences.
3. Overloop
Overloop (formerly Prospect.io) is primarily a sales tool. It excels in locating contact information and facilitating outreach.
Once you've identified a potential influencer, Prospect.io can be utilized to uncover their contact details. Simply visit their LinkedIn profile or website, and the tool will assist in gathering available contact information.
Moreover, you can seamlessly add these influencers to an email list within Prospect.io. This feature streamlines the process of sending outreach emails, especially when reaching out to several influencers, enhancing efficiency and effectiveness.
4. Hunter.io
Hunter.io is a go-to tool for finding and checking professional email addresses. It's got a huge list, with over 100 million email addresses from people at all sorts of companies, organizations, and schools.
You can use its search filters to dig up specific emails, whether you're looking for someone's personal email or their work one. It's a favorite for brands trying to track down email addresses for leads, big-name bloggers, and authors. Plus, Hunter.io makes it super easy to grab all that contact info and save it for later.
On top of finding emails, Hunter.io has this cool Campaign tool that lets you blast out emails to a bunch of people, keep tabs on your conversations, and see who's actually reading your emails. It plays nice with other platforms too, like Pipedrive, Salesforce, Gmail, and Outlook.
Hunter.io has some free features, but if you need more, they've got different paid plans like Starter, Growth, Pro, and Business to fit what you're looking for.
5. Snov.io
Snov.io helps you find an influencer's contact info. It's an email discovery and cold outreach automation tool that saves you the hassle of searching for influencers’ contact details.
Snov.io lets you easily pull email addresses from any domain. It also digs up names and job titles, though that's more for lead generation purposes. And if you're using LinkedIn, Snov.io can help find email addresses there too.
After snagging those emails, Snov.io isn't just about discovery; it helps you reach out to your contacts. You can track your Gmail-sent emails to see who's opened them and clicked on any links. Plus, it lets you set up and send out drip email campaigns, keeping your outreach efforts organized and efficient.
6. MailShake
MailShake focuses on cold emails. Getting started is easy: just add your contacts and draft the emails you want to send.
If you need a hand crafting that first outreach email, MailShake offers a helping hand with its pre-written templates. Alternatively, you can answer a few questions to generate a personalized message tailored to your needs.
The platform allows you to set up campaigns complete with follow-ups triggered by specific actions, like clicking a link or reaching a certain date. Plus, whenever you add a new contact, MailShake automatically kicks off your email sequence, ensuring no one slips through the cracks.
7. QuickMail
Quickmail is all about streamlining your email outreach with automation and intelligent follow-ups.
With this tool, you can set up personalized, scheduled emails that appear to come directly from your own inbox. You're also free to arrange as many follow-up emails as needed.
One of Quickmail's standout features is its reply detection software, which checks to ensure recipients haven't responded to your emails, even if they've used a different email address. This helps to prevent any awkward missteps in your communication process.
8. Grin
Grin positions itself as a comprehensive influencer marketing platform aimed at scaling influencer relationships, sales, and brand impact without increasing your workload. It's trusted by brands like MVMT, CUTS, and Everlane.
However, in September 2022, Grin lost access to the Instagram API, which means brands can no longer use Grin to search for Instagram influencers or analyze influencer campaigns and content through the platform. The only data available is from creators who have explicitly given Grin permission to use their information.
Despite these changes, Grin still offers valuable tools for contacting creators, processing payments, and managing gifting campaigns. However, it's worth noting that the platform's capabilities for creator discovery are now somewhat limited.
For brands seeking alternatives to Grin that offer broader functionality, particularly in creator discovery, check out our article on the best alternatives to Grin.
9. Kolsquare
Kolsquare is a platform that champions the influence of Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), hence the name. It's designed to manage and monitor campaigns, track performance, and tap into a pool of 3 million creators.
One of its standout features is the audience credibility index, which helps in identifying and avoiding fake influencers. Kolsquare's advanced search capabilities allow for precise filtering of influencers and their audiences, ensuring targeted campaign efforts.
Kolsquare offers a Gmail integration, enabling direct communication with KOLs through the platform.
However, Storyclash offers AI-powered influencer discovery, deep insights into creators and competitor brands, and comprehensive campaign tracking—all at a more affordable price than Kolsquare. Learn more about why Storyclash is a better alternative to Kolsquare.
10. Lefty
Lefty is an influencer marketing platform dedicated to helping brands identify influencers who align with their target audience.
Lefty provides insights into each influencer's profile, including audience quality, interests, demographics, and their performance in past campaigns. Additionally, Lefty offers valuable content insights from previous campaigns and includes a useful fee estimator tool.
However, one notable limitation of Lefty is its lack of direct messaging functionality for reaching out to influencers on the platform. In comparison, Storyclash offers more sophisticated, AI-based search options and influencer outreach capabilities.
Learn more about Lefty and how the platform compares to Storyclash.
Try Storyclash, the leading influencer outreach tool
Storyclash makes it easier than ever to find and contact the perfect influencers for your brand. With Storyclash, you get an influencer marketing search and outreach in one.
Book a demo to see Storyclash in action.