The Public Relations BlogDigital PRInfluencers & AudiencesThe Honeymoon Outreach PR Strategy: Influencer Relations 2.0

The Honeymoon Outreach PR Strategy: Influencer Relations 2.0

Get permission to pitch first.

Cover photo: @jerrysilfwer

The hon­ey­moon out­reach should improve your influ­en­cer marketing.

In a best-case scen­ario, you have a pre-exist­ing rela­tion­ship with the influ­en­cer you’re pitch­ing. However, we all know that this often isn’t the case. 

Typically, you must con­tact an influ­en­cer who doesn’t know who you are and what you’re selling. In a way, this is the mar­ket­ing equi­val­ent of cold-call­ing.

I hate cold sales—as I’m sure most of us do.

So, how do you avoid pitch­ing cold?

How To Do a Honeymoon Outreach

The fun­da­ment­al prin­ciple is straightforward:

Never sell or pro­mote any­thing in your first con­tact with an influencer!

But how should you get in touch with influ­en­cers, then? 2 – 8 weeks before your planned out­reach, drop your pre-selec­ted list of influ­en­cers an email and intro­duce your­self. Don’t try to act as if you’re about to become best friends or any­thing — state the fol­low­ing clearly:

  • Your full name, your loc­a­tion, and your con­tact details.
  • Who you work for (or what type of cli­ents) and why you con­nect with them.
  • The crit­ic­al ques­tion: Would they be inter­ested in poten­tial brand collaborations?

Non-Interested Influencers

  • You can remove them from your influ­en­cer map­ping entirely since they would have turned you down anyway.
  • You and your col­leagues don’t need to waste any pre­cious time on this influ­en­cer in the future. Win-win.
  • You run less risk of get­ting a hate­ful post from an influ­en­cer that likes to “burn” pitch­ers. A great safety net.

Interested Influencers

  • Getting a per­son to say ‘yes’ to one thing psy­cho­lo­gic­ally increases their chance of say­ing yes again.
  • You ensure that your map­ping con­sists of influ­en­cers that are 100% pos­it­ive to cor­por­ate collaborations.
  • You don’t have to “cold call” them when you finally approach them with an actu­al pitch.

And this, ladies and gen­tle­men, is how you do a hon­ey­moon outreach.

In my exper­i­ence, hon­ey­moon out­reach increases influ­en­cer mar­ket­ing res­ults sig­ni­fic­antly. After all — you’re only con­tact­ing influ­en­cers who have giv­en you their per­mis­sion to pitch them. 1See also Permission Marketing by Seth Godin.

Still, it’s not only about avoid­ing the ‘not inter­ested;’ you will most likely write bet­ter out­reach emails if you’ve been in con­tact with the people you’re reach­ing out to.


Consider shar­ing my pub­lic rela­tions blog with oth­er com­mu­nic­a­tion and mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sion­als. If you have ques­tions (or want to retain my PR ser­vices), please con­tact me via jerry@​spinfactory.​com.

Update: Since this post was writ­ten in 2012, the influ­en­cer mar­ket­ing industry has grown con­sid­er­ably. Today, there are many spe­cial­ist out­reach agen­cies whose primary strategy is estab­lish­ing many influ­en­cer rela­tion­ships before con­nect­ing them with brands.

PR Resource: Different Types of Influencer Marketing

Spin Academy | Online PR Courses

Influencer Marketing vs Influencer Relations

There are two main types of influ­en­cer mar­ket­ing and two main types of influ­en­cer relations:

Influencer Marketing

Influencer advert­ising = the influ­en­cer will pub­lish the brand’s pre-made con­tent in their channels.

Influencer spon­sor­ship = the influ­en­cer will read a script to con­vey an offer­ing fol­low­ing the brand’s instructions.

Influencer Relations

Influencer col­lab­or­a­tion = the influ­en­cer show­cases the brand’s offer­ing by cre­at­ing con­tent sim­il­ar to the influ­en­cer­’s reg­u­lar content.

Influencer out­reach = the influ­en­cer receives invit­a­tions, demos, or exclus­ive mater­i­al without strings attached.

Advertising and spon­sor­ships are what we typ­ic­ally refer to as influ­en­cer mar­ket­ing. Collaborations and out­reach are typ­ic­ally referred to as influ­en­cer rela­tions.

Organisations look­ing to util­ise the poten­tial reach of rel­ev­ant influ­en­cers will be wise to pay atten­tion to these dis­tinc­tions. 2Silfwer, J. (2020, January 15). The Influencers in Public Relations. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​i​n​f​l​u​e​n​c​e​r​s​-​i​n​-​p​u​b​l​i​c​-​r​e​l​a​t​i​o​ns/

Learn more: Influencer Relations Is Not Influencer Marketing

💡 Subscribe and get a free ebook on how to get bet­ter PR ideas.

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ANNOTATIONS
Jerry Silfwer
Jerry Silfwerhttps://doctorspin.net/
Jerry Silfwer, alias Doctor Spin, is an awarded senior adviser specialising in public relations and digital strategy. Currently CEO at Spin Factory and KIX Communication Index. Before that, he worked at Kaufmann, Whispr Group, Springtime PR, and Spotlight PR. Based in Stockholm, Sweden.

The Cover Photo

The cover photo isn't related to public relations; it's just a photo of mine. Think of it as a 'decorative diversion', a subtle reminder that there is more to life than strategic communication.

The cover photo has

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