It’s an unescapable truth that if you want people to find you online, then you’ll need the louder voice of a well-known leader to back you up. You can only accomplish this feat with a kick-ass influencer-outreach strategy.

Tami Iseli from powercontent.com explains in a nutshell why influencer-outreach strategies matter to jumpstart your business:

“Influencer outreach is the process of approaching those with an already established audience for assistance in distributing or linking to your content — or producing new content. ‘Influencers’ may include journalists, editors, bloggers and social-media stars, or the publications, sites or blogs themselves. Whatever the form of the ‘influencer,’ the key attributes they must possess are: the ability to impact followers’ opinions or decisions and a reasonable-sized audience in a field that’s relevant to your offering.”

1. Find the ideal influencers in your niche who have the audience you need.

Some of the best tools for finding bloggers and other online trendsetters are Followerwonk, BuzzSumo and Klout. For example, BuzzSumo lets you search for the hottest articles on any subject and breaks down the results to show you how many shares each article received. Plus, this search shows you exactly which social-media websites each one is most popular at by displaying the work’s current number of shares on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and GooglePlus. You can click on an author’s name to automatically see all online work by this author, which tells you how much experience they have writing for your niche. Make notes on which authors or websites have the same audience that you’re trying to reach, and you should also make sure that they’re writing about closely related topics to the ones you currently feature on your own website. BuzzSumo lets you see at least nine search results for free, and you can see up to several million more advanced search results when you buy the BuzzSumo Pro application.

2. Research your favorite influencers to customize your email to them.

Nobody likes to feel as if they’re just another name for you to cross off of the list; therefore, make sure that you always use someone’s real name instead of the formal “To Whom It May Concern” or “Dear Sir or Madam.” Read their website thoroughly to make sure they actually accept guest posts, and if so, what they require. Take time to write your email well by discussing what exactly you like about their work and what you both have in common.

3. If your influencers don’t want guest posts, then mention them in your next big piece.

Tami Iseli also brings up another valuable gem of advice for how to connect with those who aren’t interested in publishing your content on their platforms:

“Remember that influencer outreach doesn’t necessarily have to be about getting the influencer to actually publish your content. It could be simply about drawing their attention to a great piece of content you’ve created to see if they might be interested in sharing it with their networks or linking back to it in a blog post. Or maybe you’ve mentioned them in your content and you simply want to reach out to them to let them know. This is a great, non-intrusive way to encourage influencers to share your content.”

4. Ask your influencer if you can interview them on a podcast.

Few things make someone feel more special than when you sincerely and respectfully request an interview from them. In this scenario, everybody wins too. You get to connect with the influencer on a more meaningful level, and you’ll attract the attention of many of their followers to have a look at your business as well. As an added bonus, the influencer is almost guaranteed to share your published interview in text or audio form with their audience, which is good for their own publicity and also throws your name out there with powerful backlinks. As Copyblogger’s Demian Farnworth notes:

“Even big shots like Brian Clark, Seth Godin, and Guy Kawasaki are happy to do interviews. They know it adds to their exposure … it opens them up to a new audience … fresh ears to share their message with. And because of today’s technology, we don’t have to leave the comfort of our offices or living rooms to give an interview. We could give five interviews a day and not pack one single bag.”

5. Always remember to keep a generous attitude in your approach.

Kit Smith from Brandwatch.com points out how to really impress your influencers:

“If you are giving them a gift, put some thought into it – don’t just send over a pen with your logo on it. Get inventive and think of something that will really delight them. We spend a lot of time and money creating quality swag in the hope of making a big impact. Whatever you choose to do, try to stand out from the crowd by thinking of a creative way to engage with them.”

After you’ve followed your industry leader on social media for a while, you need to put yourself in their shoes. Ask yourself what your prospect really values, or at the very least, offer to do them a favor when you make your pitch. A little generosity goes a long way to set you apart from your competitors.

By combining all of the above tactics into your master plan, you’ll build up the momentum you need to seriously kick some ass with killer brand outreach that really works.