Show of hands if you’ve said or thought this in the last 30 days.

”Influencer marketing is a relationship business.”

It’s not an original thought, I know. But it’s one I hear from both freshly hatched influencer marketers and marketers who’ve been doing this since mommy bloggers were invented.

The problem is, “relationship business” is a nice phrase and a terrible operating principle. You can’t take it to the bank. You can’t easily build a workflow around it. And you definitely can’t tell your CMO it’s the reason you missed your targets.

So what does it actually mean?

It means that every interaction a creator has with you — your outreach, brief, contract, affiliate landing page, payment process, or automated email — shapes how they feel about working with your brand.

As marketers, we call those things “workflow.” But, creators experience them as a relationship.

As your program scales, you’ll have to choose what gets automated and what stays personal. Choose carefully, because the personal parts are often where the biggest wins come from: better response rates, smoother negotiations, stronger creative work, and repeat collaborations.

Here are 3 key relationship moments I’d keep human for as long as possible.

Your first outreach email sets the tone for everything that follows. Generic compliments don’t make creators feel chosen. They may even make your email look like spam! You want them to feel like you’ve actually seen their content, not like you’re blasting through a list.

If you want better response rates or really want to work with a specific creator, you have to do your homework. Spend a few extra minutes studying a creator's work. Then, use a template for 90% of the structure & content. But customize the reason: Why this creator? Why this campaign? Why now?

A small touch can make a big difference. Just 2 thoughtful intro sentences based on the creator's profile are usually enough.

Don’t say this: “We love your aesthetic”

This is better: “Your recent series on postpartum fitness was so honest. We’re launching a new recovery-focused product next month, and we’d love to include your perspective in this campaign.”

Listen, not every creator interaction needs to be 1-1.

But some moments need an actual human on the other side. That might be a thoughtful 1:1 email. It might be a voice note. It might be picking up the phone. It might be coffee if you’re in the same city and feeling fancy.

Sometimes, you don’t need to just push creators through the next step in your workflow. Sometimes, you need to understand them.

Gabriel Gomez from MCoBeauty made a similar point when he talked about co-creation. Their process didn’t start with a locked brief and a list of deliverables. It started with a call: “We want to do more with you. What’s going to get you excited?”

That kind of 1:1 conversation directly impacts the content creators make for you, because now they’re shaping the idea instead of just executing it.

The same applies when a negotiation starts to feel stuck.

Marit Tiesema, Global Director of Influencer Marketing @ Augmentum Media, suggests:

“If you're sending more than two emails back and forth and not reaching an agreement, jump on a call. It usually breaks the tension fully. After that, everything is resolved because you understand each other.”

When an influencer is in front of you, you can better assess the value they bring to the table and close an improved deal than you would have on email alone.

The point isn’t “always jump on a call.” It’s: when the creator, the content, or the deal matters, don’t hide behind automation.

Nothing says “we see you as inventory” quite like sending the same offer, with the same deliverables, to every creator.

Nycole Hampton dropped the mic when she told us:

I don't think offers should be standardized. Is being an influencer standardized?

Every creator brings something unique — their style, audience, format strengths, creative approach, and level of involvement. When you standardize the ask, you ignore what makes the creator valuable in the first place.

Personalizing doesn’t just mean changing the fee. It means building the deliverables around what the creator is actually good at.

Are they crushing it on Reels? Make that your focus. Do their carousel posts drive engagement? That’s what you want to pay for. Is their dog the star of the show? Well, Marshmallow is in the content now.

The goal isn’t to make every partnership precious and bespoke. Sometimes a standard offer is exactly what you need. Affiliate tiers exist for a reason. Ambassador programs need structure. Nobody is asking you to send a tiny wax-sealed partnership proposal for every creator in your CRM.

But when you’re paying for specific deliverables, make sure they fit the creator. Otherwise, you’re just wasting budget on content that was never going to work.

Relationship-building and scaling are diametrically opposed to one another – and somehow you're expected to do both.

You can’t.

What you can do is keep the most important parts human. But you’re the only one who knows what those are in your workflow and your strategy.

Now, it’s not always clear exactly how to do this; that’s why we put together the Return on Influence Festival.

We're bringing the best in influencer marketing and asking them to share their freshest strategies, tactics, and ideas.

You’ll see exactly what they keep human, what they don’t, and how they manage to scale without making creators feel like just another number.

Register now

If you’re not among the 1 million people following Plumes, don’t worry, you’re not the only one. I only discovered him a week ago, and he’s already made my life better.

Who they are: Loris Assadian, a French singer-songwriter who goes by Plumes. He travels the world with a pink acoustic guitar and sings to animals.

Why they're worth a follow: Watching a man sit in front of a hippo and gently sing will relax your entire nervous system. He's sung for horses, tigers, elephants, capybaras, wolves, owls, okapis — all at sanctuaries and wildlife parks. It's proof that music is a universal language. It doesn't just connect people. It connects species. 🤯

Dream collab: None. I’m serious. Put down the dreams of sponsoring this creator. Some creators are sacred. Unless a brand is genuinely rooted in animal welfare and conservation, a sponsorship here would only take something away. The world doesn’t need a discount code in a video where a wolf is listening to a lullaby.

My point? Be just as choiceful with the creators you pick as with the parts of your workflow you hand over to machines.

Your 100% human marketer,
Eleni Zoe xx
Brand @ Modash. Say hi on LinkedIn

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