YouTube influencer marketing for small business

Large brands have agencies and budgets. A small business has an owner or one marketer, a product people like, and an hour here and there. The usual obstacles:

• Not knowing who to approach. Searching YouTube turns up the biggest channels, which are out of reach, and buries the smaller ones that might say yes.
• Fear of overpaying. With nothing to compare against, every quote looks either suspiciously cheap or too dear.
• Not enough time. Checking channels, finding contacts and writing messages one by one can take a week you don't have.
• Worry about doing it wrong. Disclosure rules and tracking sound like work for a legal team. Most of it is simpler than it looks.

You don't need a big fee to start. These approaches suit a small budget, and they work well together:

Product seeding

Send your product free to creators you've asked first, with no obligation to post. It costs stock and postage, and creators who like it tend to say so. See product seeding on YouTube.

Micro creators

Smaller channels focused on one topic. Their fees, where they charge one, are lower, and their viewers often share the specific interest your product serves. See micro creators on YouTube.

Small paid integrations

Once you know who fits, a short sponsored segment in a smaller creator's regular video. Check the quote against their median views with the sponsorship cost calculator.

Commission deals

A share of each sale through the creator's link or code. Low risk for you, so pair it with free product or a small fee to make it fair for them.

1. 01

   Write a short brief, once

   Who buys from you, where they live, what they care about, and what you can offer a creator: product, a small fee, a commission or a mix. Keep it to a paragraph.

2. 02

   Pick five to ten channels a week

   Search YouTube for the problems your product solves and the hobbies around it. Note channels whose recent videos fit, whose comments are real conversations, and whose median views you can afford.

3. 03

   Find the contact they publish

   Check the channel description, recent video descriptions and the creator's website or link-in-bio page. Don't guess addresses. See how to find a YouTuber's email.

4. 04

   Write short, personal messages

   Mention one recent video, say what you're offering in a line, and make it easy to say no. Short and specific reads better than polished.

5. 05

   Follow up once or twice, then move on

   Send a short follow-up after four days to a week, and at most one more a week later, then leave it. Keep a simple list of who you contacted, who replied and who declined.

6. 06

   Review once a month

   Count codes used, link visits and what customers say when asked where they heard of you. Do more with the creators whose viewers bought.

Nakodo does the slow parts of that routine. Give it your website address and it writes a brief you can edit, searches YouTube for matching videos from the last 12 months, and scores each channel behind them from 0 to 100 with its reasons written out, so you can see why a small channel made the list. The method is on how it works.

It finds the business email each creator publishes and emails the ones you choose on your behalf. Each first email mentions a recent video, states your offer exactly as you set it, and ends by telling the creator that if it's not a fit, they can say so and you won't follow up.

The emails carry your name, such as "Sam from Acme", and first emails wait for your approval unless you let them go out on their own. Nakodo follows up when there's no reply, answers what it can from your offer and notes, and brings you anything it can't, such as rates. When a creator says yes, it introduces you by email with your own address in copy, and you carry on from your own inbox.

• It doesn't guess addresses or get around YouTube's captcha, and never emails a creator who has opted out.
• It doesn't negotiate fees, ship products or pay creators.
• It doesn't promise replies. Some creators will say no, and that's fine.