How to Contact an Influencer as a Small Brand

Write to the email address in the bio when there is one, and use a direct message when there is not. An address shown in a bio is usually the one the creator chose to publish for business proposals; a brand’s direct message can get lost among those from followers.

A direct message is also the right channel when the bio asks for it (“DM for collabs”) — follow what the creator wrote. Whichever channel you pick, write once, wait a few days, and follow up once, in the same place.

• Bio email: the business channel the creator chose to display. Try it first.
• Direct message: when no address is shown, or when the bio asks you to write there.
• Agent or agency: if the bio names one, write to the agent. French law lists the influencer’s agent among the possible parties to the contract.

Look in the account’s public text: the bio first, then the channel or profile description on platforms that have one. That is where creators put the address they are happy to make public.

To find the creators before you contact them, the method is in How to find micro-influencers in your niche.

Say who you are, what you are offering and what you are asking for, in two or three sentences, then let the creator reply. A first message is not the full brief; it is an open door.

It is also the moment to tell the creator who you are, where you found their contact details (their public bio, for example) and that they can ask you not to contact them again. BriefBench’s terms of use require this of anyone who contacts a creator from the platform’s data: write only to make a proposal related to the creator’s activity, say in the first contact who you are, where the data comes from and that the creator can object, and respect a refusal at once.

• First, who you are: your brand and product in one sentence, with a link.
• Second, why this creator: one specific post you saw and what connects it to your product. A pasted template is easy to spot.
• Third, the offer: a gifted product, a fee or an affiliate link, stated plainly.
• Fourth, what you want back: a rate or an availability, and a way to reach you.

Name the type of offer in the first message: a gifted product, a fee, a commission on sales, or a mix. The creator should not have to guess whether you are talking about free product or budget.

• Gifted product: easy to offer, but not “free” in the eyes of the law when it is given in return for a post. In France it is an in-kind benefit that counts toward the year’s total (the next section comes back to it); in the United States the FTC treats free products as a connection to disclose.
• Fee: an amount per post, set in writing with the deliverables, deadlines, rights to reuse the content and any exclusivity.
• Affiliate link: a link or code, and a commission on the sales it brings. State the rate and how long the link stays valid from the start.

To size a budget before you write, the influencer rate calculator builds a fee line by line, and the article How Much Do Micro-Influencers Cost? sets dated public rate ranges side by side.

In the United States, two federal rules in particular touch your outreach: commercial email must follow the CAN-SPAM rules, and a creator must disclose a gift or payment from you. If you work with creators who address an audience in France, French law adds a written contract once what you give one creator in a year, in return for their services, reaches 1,000 euros before tax.

The Federal Trade Commission’s CAN-SPAM guide for businesses (published August 2023, edited January 2024, read October 17, 2026) says: “The law makes no exception for business-to-business email.” If your message exists to promote your product or service, treat it as covered. Among its requirements: “Don’t use false or misleading header information,” “Tell recipients where you’re located,” “Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future marketing email from you,” and “You must honor a recipient’s opt-out request within 10 business days.”

On the creator’s side, the FTC’s Disclosures 101 guide for social media influencers (November 2019, read October 17, 2026) counts receiving “free or discounted products or services” from a brand as a connection to disclose, “even if you weren’t asked to mention that product.” A gift has to be disclosed: say in your offer that the post must say so.

In France, Law No. 2023-451 of June 9, 2023 requires, in its article 8, that the contract between an influencer and an advertiser be in writing, on pain of nullity, and exempts contracts below an amount set by decree (our translation from the text on Legifrance, read October 17, 2026). Decree No. 2025-1137 of November 28, 2025, in force since January 1, 2026, sets it: the written contract is required when the sum of the fees paid and the value of the in-kind benefits granted to an influencer by an advertiser during the same year, in return for one commercial influence service or a set of them pursuing the same promotional objective, reaches 1,000 euros excluding VAT. The French public-information site service-public.gouv.fr announced the change on December 3, 2025, under the headline “Contracts between brands and influencers more tightly regulated from 2026” (our translation).

At or above the threshold, article 8 says the contract includes, among other things:

• the identity of the parties, their postal and electronic contact details, and their country of tax residence;
• the nature of the assignments;
• the cash fee or how it is determined and, where relevant, the value of the in-kind benefit and the terms on which it is granted;
• each party’s rights and obligations, including intellectual property;
• submission to French law when the contract targets an audience in France.

A commercial message to a creator also counts as prospecting under European data-protection rules. France’s data-protection authority, the CNIL, says in its guidance on electronic prospecting (page dated June 10, 2026, read October 17, 2026) that prospecting professionals can rest on the organization’s legitimate interest when the subject of the message relates to the person’s profession, and that when you hold data obtained from a third party you must make sure the person was informed and is able to object (our paraphrase). The practical reading: a proposal related to the creator’s activity, clear information, and a refusal respected.

Save each creator in a folder and give each one a casting status: “To contact”, “Contacted” or “Negotiating”. Folders are included in the free account, within its plan limits; the two other statuses are “Accepted” and “Declined”.

You choose the status by hand from the folder’s list. It keeps you from writing twice to the same creator and tells you whom to follow up with.

Describe your product: BriefBench searches live on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, and the “Email visible in bio” filter keeps the creators for whom an address was found in public text; the address itself shows with a paid plan.