"Psst...!"

"Psst!"

A rambly Brown Bear appeared.

You barely got separated from your group and are already being approached by some weird creature...

"Hey!"

"Hey, hey!"

"I see you’re a good freelancer, and we need a good freelancer here."

...

"What?! Exposure?! No, no, no, nothing like that ‘ere."

"Come on, I’ll explain everything"

Tililitilili *epic song*

Send direct messages to as many influencers as possible.

Find them on your preferred social media. Ask them to give you feedback about what you do, how they started out, to work together, …

Look for that feedback, connect and grow your network.

Contact real people. Not a company page but a profile on social media with a first and last name. Try to learn about them, understand them and help them with something. Create a real human connection.

Many will not reply. That is ok. Some will, and their feedback and connection are gold.

Always contact one person at least twice. Most influencers will answer you only after the follow-up. It’s a big mistake to not follow up always do.

That’s also why you worked on your ideal client avatar at the beginning. You listed your ideal client’s influencers then.

There are many types of influencer and can be sum up in 4 categories:

You can start with people you already know. You might also have more chances and get more responses with people who have about the same popularity/notoriety than you.

Write two message templates. One for the 1^st contact and one for the follow-up. Don’t spend too much time on it. Write it, send it to about 20 people and adapt it over time. Once you’re happy with the responses you get, keep on using the same template and try new versions from time to time.

There are 7 parts to a typical message template:

1. Greeting -- Use their first name
2. Hook -- Comment about an event they’ll speak up at, a post they shared or something that affects their business, make it about them
3. What’s in it for me? -- You are the one asking them to do something, what do they get out of it?
4. Who you are -- Your short bio, like an elevator pitch, linked to your ask
5. Your ask -- What do you want them to do?
6. Greeting -- Time to get creative, add a ps or a link to an interesting article or funny gif, something that can help them right now
7. Signature

Here are 2 simple template examples with my ideal client: