How do I contact influencers about a collaboration?

• Don’t attach a ready-made contract until you know they’re interested.
• Don’t set deadlines like “by tomorrow” when the campaign only starts in six weeks.
• Don’t ask for exclusivity without saying how long it lasts and which brands it covers.
• Reread the message before you send it: another creator’s name left in the template is the first thing they’ll notice.
• If a creator seems to be under 18, involve their parents: in Germany, minors can generally only enter into a contract that obliges them to do something with the consent of their legal representatives (§§ 107, 108 BGB).

Replace everything in square brackets. The first sentence after the greeting decides if the message reads like a template: mention a real post with a date or a detail, not just “your amazing content”. The media kit that some templates ask for is a creator’s overview of reach, audience and rates.

For a merchant’s business letters in any form sent to a specific recipient, § 37a HGB (German Commercial Code) and, for a GmbH, § 35a GmbHG require certain details, such as legal form, registered office, register court and registration number, and for a GmbH all managing directors. The email template has placeholders for them in the signature. If you send one of the other templates by email, add them there too.

The template for a product to test only covers the first request. What matters once you ship it, such as the address and data protection, the card in the box, ad labelling and the €50 tax limit for gifts, is covered in the guide on PR packages.

Under § 7(2) no. 2 UWG, Germany’s Act against Unfair Competition, advertising by electronic mail without the “addressee’s prior express consent” always counts as an unacceptable nuisance. The exception in § 7(3) only covers advertising to customers whose address a company received when selling to them, for its own similar goods or services. It generally doesn’t fit a collaboration enquiry. For phone calls, the law distinguishes between consumers and other market participants. For email it doesn’t, so the rule also applies to creators with a registered trade (Gewerbe).

Germany’s Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) treats an enquiry in which a company wants to buy a service as advertising in principle, expressly including enquiries to traders and freelancers. In the case it decided, a company emailed a sports club offering €5 for every sign-up through an advertising banner on the club’s website (judgment of 17 July 2008, I ZR 197/05, still on the earlier version of § 7). That resembles a commission offer to a creator. According to the judgment, the club giving an email address on its website was not consent. It can’t be said across the board if an address a creator gives specifically for collaboration requests counts as consent.

So write only to the contact the creator gives for enquiries, and send each message individually. Don’t add anyone to newsletters or mailing lists without consent, and don’t send mass emails to bought address lists. Show the same restraint with direct messages on social networks. A follow-up email is another email, and the same question applies to it.

Three more points from § 7 UWG matter for brands in particular. Advertising aimed at someone who clearly doesn’t want it is also an unacceptable nuisance (§ 7(1) sentence 2): if a bio says “no collaboration requests” or you have already had a no, don’t write. If an agency writes on behalf of a brand, the identity of the brand it acts for must not be disguised or concealed (§ 7(2) no. 3(a)). And an advertising message needs a valid address where the recipient can ask for no further messages (§ 7(2) no. 3(c)).

Many enquiries go unanswered, especially with creators who have a large community and get offers all the time. If a talent agency replies, it often sends a rate card first rather than a yes. For many creators, a product with no obligation to post, or commission alone, is not a reason for a post of their own. If you need a fixed post by a certain date, offer a fee and name the format and date.

You can look after a handful of creators by hand. With 20 or 50 at once, it becomes a job in itself: chasing replies, recording terms, checking every post for labelling and working out at the end who actually sold. An affiliate programme doesn’t solve this on its own either: it makes your products available to choose, but that doesn’t mean anyone features them.

1. Put the terms in writing: deliverables, dates, payment, approval, usage rights and labelling.
2. Send a brief: goal, product, key messages, no-go topics, links and timing.
3. Ship the product. Use the address for this delivery only.
4. Review the draft if you agreed on approval, and check the labelling.
5. Measure the result, for example clicks and sales through the link or the discount code.
6. Settle up: with the creator’s invoice or with a self-billing credit note (Gutschrift) if you agreed on this in advance (§ 14(2) UStG).

With wyrld Boost, instead of writing to each creator, you take a campaign budget to creators who feature your products. Many can take part at the same time, in their own videos and in their storefronts. You set the products, the period and the KPIs that payouts are based on, meaning metrics such as sales or clicks, and decide in which shops people buy. Creators label campaign videos as ads. They decide for themselves if they take part, so how many will join isn’t fixed in advance.

If you want to approach specific creators, the brand and shop subscription shows you which creators already feature your products, who brings clicks and who sells. So before your first message, you know who already recommends your product of their own accord. wyrld can set up custom terms with these creators or plan a Boost campaign with you.

Your products are connected through an existing affiliate programme with one of the large affiliate networks, through which creators can usually already choose them, or directly with wyrld. What suits you first, the connection, the subscription or a Boost campaign, is something wyrld can go through with you in a meeting. Prices for the subscription and Boost are available on request.