This is the influencer marketing strategy that we used to do $30,000,000 in attributed revenue over 3 years.

The exact step-by-step game plan is right here.

If it worked for us, it’ll work for you.

THREAD

Before you go through this, please RT the tweet above this.

This could be life-changing information for someone (or you) and I want this to reach as many people who are interested in e-commerce/marketing as possible.

Let’s jump in.

Firstly, you need to be very picky with how you identify your influencers.

Instead of doing everything manually and spending hours, grab a discovery tool.

If you have a couple bucks, our agency uses Tagger. It’s the best tool our agency has used for discovery.

Once you find the “perfect” influencer, you’re a couple of clicks away from finding 20 more. This is so simple, but everyone overlooks it.

The “suggested” button is much more effective than you think. The accounts that Instagram shows you are not random.

Now, a quick warning:

Do not wait until you have a list of 1000 influencers to reach out to.

Execute immediately. The faster, the better.

Good influencers get scooped up quick. Don’t get pushed to the back of the line.

Here’s how you craft your message:

For DMs to influencers, this is your 3 point checklist

1. Your intro (who you are)
2. Your justification (why you’re reaching out)
3. The magic phrase (the reason they’re gonna work with you)

You’re gonna laugh when I tell you, but nobody does this.

Ready?

“No strings attached.”

You need to tell the influencer you’re going to send them product with no strings attached.

This is called seeding. It’s the process of starting a relationship with a person you might work with for years.

Here’s the exact script we use:

“Hey {name}, I’m Cody Wittick from the {brand} team.
I’m reaching out because you’re an extremely talented creator and I thought you might like to try some {product} from {brand}, no strings attached. Where should I send it?”

Wanna know why this works?

Influencers get 50 DMs a day from brands. Brands get put in a “bucket” where they need to put themselves in business mode to deal with you.

By sending this DM, you’re in the “friend” bucket. They don’t feel intimidated.

Now, here’s what you do next.

When you get their address and send your product, you have to impress the heck out of them.

Include a handwritten note & custom packaging, or something else unique.

This is LITERALLY the most important thing here. Here’s why.

If you do it right, this interaction impresses the hell outta them. And it winds up on their story.

An influencer with 10k followers gets between 1500-2500 views on these stories.

You just got that for free, except for the cost of product which should be minimal.

Now what?

Great, they posted you! But you’re not done yet.

The app MightyScout (we use it) will track all of the content produced for your brand by influencers on your socials. Learn more on their site.

Once you collect the video they made for you, this is where the real gold is made.

To use this video as an ad, get usage rights.

We’ve seen IGC (Influencer Generated Content) outperform regular UGC ads by an order of magnitude.

But don’t repost their content without permission, just drop another friendly DM like this:

“Hey {name}, thank you so much for posting us on your story! We loved it so much. We wanted to ask your permission to repost this video on our social channels and ad channels for 30 days. Is that possible?
Let us know!”

One last step.

All you need to do from here is add captions to the video with an app like VEED or Kapwing because 90% of scrollers watch videos without sound.

Tag them, use their clout, and then refresh your Shopify dashboard.

Sounds easy, right?

It is!

Anyone can do this. Freelancers can do this for their brands, or brands can do this for themselves.

It’s nearly untapped potential.

The best content you can get is available to you for free if you lead with a personal relationship instead of being transactional.

Now, go get great content and generate some revenue for your brand.

If you enjoyed this thread, there’s more where that came from.

Follow @cody_wittick and be sure to RT that first tweet to spread the word.