--- name: influencer-outreach description: Draft the personalized first-touch pitch message and follow-up plan used to propose a partnership to one already-vetted influencer or creator - personalization angle, the compensation stated on offer, a message fitted to the channel the creator actually lists (email, DM, or their manager), and a bounded follow-up cadence. Covers B2C brand collabs and B2B creator programs (newsletter writers, podcasters, industry experts). Use whenever the user mentions pitching a creator, DMing an influencer, a collab proposal, or a creator outreach message, even if they never say outreach. Stops at the first positive reply. Do NOT use for list-scale affiliate recruitment - use mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@affiliate-recruitment-outreach instead. license: MIT metadata: author: Maya-Beth Finotti version: "1.0.10" --- # Influencer Outreach Draft the first-touch pitch and follow-up plan a partnership manager uses to propose a collaboration to one individually vetted influencer or creator, then stop at the first positive reply. No named industry-standard framework exists for creator pitching. Published guidance is a scatter of single-outlet formulations, none branded or adopted cross-vendor: - one vendor's soft-CTA vs. specific-ask split - one commerce guide's four-question first-message checklist - one consultant's unnamed six-step process Never present any of them as a standard. ## Interview Ask before drafting anything. One question per message; offer multiple-choice answers when possible. Skip any question the user already answered. - Is this a B2C brand collab or a B2B creator program? (Product sold to consumers vs. to businesses - drives message framing and deliverable types.) - What does the brand make, and what is the one-line reason this creator's audience would care? - Who is the creator, on which platform(s), and what evidence says they fit? (Specific posts, audience data, a discovery brief - fit evidence is required input, not something to invent here.) - What compensation model is on offer, with the actual number? (Flat fee $X / commission % + attribution window + payout schedule / gifted product only / hybrid.) This skill communicates the offer; it never designs or adjusts it. - What campaign shape do you have in mind - rough deliverables and timing? (Stays a one-line sketch in message one.) - What contact does the creator actually list: business email, DM only, or a manager/agent? - What is the brand voice? (Formal, peer-casual, playful - or point to an example message.) - Who signs, from which address or account? - Which CTA can you actually honor: reply-for-details, product sample on reply, a short call, or an application link? (Anything you cannot honor this week is deleted from the menu, not ranked low.) - By when does a reply have to land - is there a launch or campaign date this pitch must beat? (A hard date promotes the near-zero-effort angles, the reply-for-details CTA, and the single-follow-up cadence; no date lets an hour of grounding and the longer cadence pay off.) - One-off win, or a relationship you intend to compound? (Compounding promotes the manager route and the long-tail cadence; one-off promotes the creator's own listed contact and a hard stop at three messages.) - What is your effort ceiling per pitch - hours for grounding, product you can ship, calendar you can offer? (An hour of grounding buys the content-specific angle; no product deletes the sample CTA; no calendar deletes the call CTA.) Every ordering this skill gives is a default, not a law: it shifts with context and with who executes it. Re-rank it against what you already know about this user before proposing anything, then say which answer moved which option: - an existing relationship with this creator or their manager - a brand the creator already recognizes - audience data already in hand - no product to gift at all ## Workflow 1. Run the Interview; collect every answer before writing a word. 2. Ground the personalization: if you can browse the web, load the creator's two or three most recent posts and confirm the fit evidence yourself; otherwise ask the user for the specific post, series, or audience trait the pitch will cite. Never fabricate familiarity. 3. Confirm the recipient against [references/channel-and-manager.md](references/channel-and-manager.md). The creator's published business contact decides it; where more than one is published, the default order is `listed manager > listed business email > DM`. Going around a listed manager is a failure mode, not a shortcut. 4. Enter brainstorming mode for the personalization angle: propose 2-3 candidate angles with trade-offs and a recommendation, phrased in the manager's own vocabulary (angle, hook, fit, deliverable, CTA). Draw them from the ranked angle menu in [references/pitch-anatomy.md](references/pitch-anatomy.md) - default order `already-recommending > recent launch > specific content > their-product-we-use > format fit > asserted overlap` - and delete any angle that is not true of this creator instead of offering it low. 5. Ask brainstorming questions one at a time. Write no message until the manager explicitly picks an angle. 6. Draft the first touch per [references/pitch-anatomy.md](references/pitch-anatomy.md), fitted to the confirmed recipient. Pick the one CTA from that file's ranked menu - default order `reply for details > sample on reply > short call > application link` - and drop any the brand cannot honor. Compensation transparency follows the model: - commission offers front-load exact mechanics - flat-fee offers name the model without dumping a rate card 7. Draft the follow-up plan per [references/follow-up-cadence.md](references/follow-up-cadence.md): default order `two follow-ups > one follow-up > long tail`, then close the file. 8. Run your preferred humanizer skill over the pitch and every follow-up. Never ship raw first-draft model output as final - AI-tell phrasing is exactly the mass-template smell that gets a pitch deleted on sight. 9. Self-check against the Quality gate below; redraft and re-run the humanizer until every item passes. 10. Present the package section by section - angle, first touch, follow-up plan, stop rule - and validate each with the user before finalizing. 11. Hand off the full artifact (next section). On a positive reply, this skill's job is done: carry the stated compensation facts into negotiation unchanged. 12. If your harness has persistent memory, memorize the approved angle, brand voice, compensation facts, and the outcome once known - later pitches for the same brand then skip straight past most of the interview. ## Invocation and expected output Typical invocations: - "Pitch @plantsbypriya for our ceramic planter launch - she's vetted, 48k on Instagram, offer is gifted product plus 15% commission." - "Write the first-touch email to the DevOps newsletter writer from our shortlist - $2,000 sponsored deep-dive, she lists a partnerships email." Deliver one structured artifact: ``` INFLUENCER PITCH PACKAGE - , Chosen angle : approved personalization angle + why it beat the alternatives First touch : subject (email only) + message body, fitted to the confirmed channel Follow-up plan : table - touch / day / channel / angle / one-line summary Stop rule : positive reply -> stop and hand off; silence after final touch -> close the file Handoff notes : compensation facts as stated, deliverables mentioned, CTA promised - for the negotiation stage ``` ## B2B and B2C - **B2B** - Speak to a business need the creator's audience has, not just a product benefit - the one consistently documented B2B-specific rule. - Deliverables skew to webinars, white papers, articles, and podcast reads. - Gifting is documented B2B practice, but shaped differently than in B2C: extended platform access, a conference pass, a beta invite, or event hosting, rather than a physical product. Zapier's creator-partner retreat is a real named example, and a 2025 industry report ranks in-person gifted events as the second most effective B2B creator content type after social posts. Where none of those forms fit, default to a fee or a commission. - Expect longer, multi-stakeholder buying cycles to shape what "conversion" means in the pitch. - **B2C** - Deliverables skew to posts, videos, and stories. - Gifting and commission offers are common and well documented. - Honest limit: the pitch-anatomy and cadence guidance here is published unsegmented by business model, which weakly suggests practitioners treat it as universal. Apply it to both, knowing that universality is an inference, not a documented rule. ## Quality gate The gate splits by message type: a follow-up is capped at one or two sentences with nothing from the first touch restated (see the cadence reference), so it cannot carry the compensation terms or the full email structure. Scoring a follow-up against the first-touch list would make the gate unpassable and the loop below never terminate. Iterate, redraft, and re-run the humanizer until nothing fails. **First touch - all nine items, 9/9.** 1. Opens on one verifiable, creator-specific fact (a named post, series, or audience trait) framed as audience fit, not flattery. 2. The swap test: replacing the creator's name with another creator's would force a rewrite. If the message survives the swap, it is a template. 3. Compensation model and the real number are present and match the interview exactly. - Commission pitches state rate, attribution window, and payout schedule. - Flat-fee pitches name the model without a rate card. - Gifted-only pitches say so plainly and never imply payment. 4. Exactly one ask, low-friction, matching a CTA the manager confirmed they can honor. 5. Fitted to the confirmed channel: full structure for email, 2-4 sentences and no links for a DM, addressed to the manager when one is listed. 6. None of the documented negative signals: generic salutation, emoji-bait subject, fabricated familiarity, feature dump, rate-card dump, aggressive negotiation language, long campaign proposal. 7. B2B pitches state the business need; B2C pitches state the audience-purchase fit. 8. No disclosure language, contract terms, or exclusivity demands - documented practitioner workflows place all of these after agreement, never in the cold pitch. 9. Passes the humanizer and reads human when spoken aloud. **Every follow-up - items 4, 6, 8 and 9 above, plus these three, 7/7.** 10. One or two sentences. Nothing from the first touch restated. 11. Carries one new small angle - a proof point held back from message one, an easier version of the ask, or a genuine timing hook. Never "just checking in", "bumping this", or "did you see my email?". 12. Low pressure: no guilt-tripping, no invented deadline, nothing that reads as chasing. Silence is busy, not rejection. Items 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7 are first-touch content by construction and are not scored on follow-ups. Item 11 does the work item 2 does on the first touch: a follow-up that could be sent to any creator unchanged fails it. ## KPIs - No trustworthy reply-rate benchmark exists for creator outreach. The only survey on the topic explicitly declines to publish one. Never quote any of the circulating figures as fact or as a target - each traces to broken citations or a single-source self-report: - an "8.5% reply rate" - a "99% ignored" claim for generic salutations - one practitioner's self-reported "90% response rate" - Benchmark against your own log instead: track every pitch in a flat table (creator, channel, angle, sent date, follow-ups used, outcome, days-to-reply). After a dozen pitches, your own reply rate per angle and per channel is the benchmark that matters. - Core KPIs: - reply rate (any response) - positive-reply rate (open to talking) - days to first reply - which angles produced pitches that survived negotiation, recorded after the downstream stage closes - If your harness has persistent memory, keep the log there across sessions; otherwise hand the table to the user to maintain. ## Common failure modes | Failure | Fix | | --------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Template smell - personalization swappable to any creator | Rerun the angle brainstorm; cite one verifiable specific; apply the swap test | | Compensation question buried or omitted | State model + real number per the anatomy rules; vagueness reads as a lowball | | Copying a paid-collab template for a commission offer | Commission flips the risk onto the creator - front-load rate, window, payout, per-sale estimate | | Pitching the wrong channel | Re-run the recipient gate in step 3 before anything else - the published contact decides, the ranking only breaks ties | | Ignoring or going around a listed manager | Pitch the manager with full personalization; go direct only when the creator has asked for it | | Fabricated familiarity ("longtime fan of your work") | One verifiable specific, or say honestly how you found them | | Rate card or full campaign proposal in message one | One-line deliverable sketch; details belong after the reply | | Disclosure, contract, or exclusivity terms in the pitch | Post-agreement topics; route disclosure to the compliance skill | | Negotiating in the pitch thread after a positive reply | Stop - the handoff notes carry the facts into the negotiation stage | ## Reference - See [references/examples.md](references/examples.md) before writing copy - a positive B2C and B2B example with follow-up plan, and a line-by-line annotated negative example. - See `mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@influencer-discovery-brief` for choosing and vetting which creator to pitch - this skill assumes that work is done. - See `mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@influencer-negotiation-playbook` for everything after the creator replies with interest. - See `mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@influencer-campaign-brief` for the creative brief once the deal is signed. - See `mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@affiliate-recruitment-outreach` for recruiting affiliates across a prospect list rather than pitching one vetted creator. - See `mbfinotti/partnerships-skills@affiliate-disclosure-compliance` for the disclosure obligations that attach once a material connection exists.