We Spent >$1 Million Sponsoring Creators. Here’s What We Learned About B2B Influencer Marketing

Igor has never used automated outreach tools or lists for compiling potential partners. He only uses a personalized approach. It makes sense after all; in partnerships, the scale is smaller, open rates are higher, and responses are typically positive.

You just need to find a way to contact the right person and make sure they see your message.

After working with so many partners, Igor has some outreach tips.

First, keep it short. Like really short. Just send a brief introduction followed by explaining what you want. Your goal is to start the conversation. You can discuss everything else later on.

Second, always start with the best communication channel. Igor’s first choice is email. Yo can find their personal email address or find one that’s dedicated to partnerships/sponsorships, typically found in the “Contact Us” section of a website.

His second choice is LinkedIn, as they allow you to add a short note to the connection request. There is a 300 character limit and the preview doesn’t display the full message. So, make sure your intention is clear from the start.

To keep it short, you can skip your introduction. Your LinkedIn profile should make it clear who you are anyway.

X and Facebook DMs are less ideal, as they send your messages to the “requests” folder. These may sit anywhere a day to a year (or never), depending on how often it gets checked. Comparing between the two, X is still better as you can tag the person you want to contact in a post.

Website forms are the least efficient. Response rates are low and it takes ages to get a reply. It’s also difficult to track as most websites do not send a confirmation email. Igor only uses them as a last resort.

Finally, ask for introductions. Creators often know each other. So, the more partnerships you have, the higher your chances of knowing someone who can make the necessary introduction. Look for mutual friends or followers, and you should be able to find a person you can ask for an intro.

Igor’s solution for this fatigue was a mental one. Recognizing and accepting that it was part of the role made the job easier. The other step he took was to change his thinking from “How do I respond to this email?” to “What decision do I make here?”

While nothing changed (in practical terms), it gave him more agency and made him feel more in charge.

Final thoughts

Like most budgets, our partnerships budget is limited. So, we want to get the most out of it.

That’s why we constantly try different things and change our approach several times a year. We’ve tried different price ranges, different mediums, and different messaging.

But we’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg. There’s still a lot to explore:

• Do long-term partnerships perform better than one-off campaigns?
• Is a pre-roll ad in a video about AI tools better than a dedicated video explaining how Ahrefs works?
• Will people in France engage with swag giveaways more than people in Germany?

The answer to these questions lies in trying different things and checking the results. No matter whether your experiments fail or succeed, you’re still improving your brand awareness as long as you manage to reach your target audience.