The time you’re spending in your inbox is sabotaging your career – and not just because it’s exhausting. 

Sure, keeping up with creators’ odd working hours, the fourth reminder email, and the endless copy-paste loop between briefs, contracts, and your inbox – it’s brutal. 

But the real cost of this busywork? It’s what you’re not doing while buried under all the chaos. 

You’ve got no time to pitch campaign ideas, build actual relationships, or analyze what did well last quarter. Worst of all, you don’t even have time to strategize because you can’t come up for air. 

Influencer marketing is a relationship business, so it makes sense that marketers spend 16+ hours per week on average communicating with influencers.

Let’s break that down even further. On average, marketers are sending each individual influencer 25 messages over the course of their collaboration together.

That’s fine if you’re managing 10 influencers – it’s still 250 messages, but ultimately, it’s doable. 

What happens when you want to scale, and you’re managing 50 influencers? 100? Then what? 

Chatting to creators is a big part of the job. But will spending 2 full days a week in your inbox (or DMs, or WhatsApp, or wherever) actually build those relationships? How much of the emailing back and forth (and back and forth) is about connecting with the creator, and how much of it is just about logistics?

Ask yourself: Is all this busy-ness around communication simply a necessary evil in your workflow? Or is it ultimately damaging the very relationships you’re trying so hard to build? 

I asked 37 marketers about how they communicate with creators. After crunching the numbers and studying their answers, one thing is clear:

When communication breaks down, relationships crumble.

And when relationships crumble, so too does your ability to scale: 

• Creators stop replying to you.
• Agencies don’t prioritize you.
• Your team spends precious time managing chaos instead of building campaigns.  

Even worse? A breakdown in communication damages the very thing that builds brands: consistency. 

What happens when communication fails

More than a Led Zeppelin song, communication breakdown has real consequences – over 60% of respondents told me that communication bottlenecks damaged their relationships with influencers. 

But what does a communication bottleneck look like? How does it start?

Communication tends to break down in one of the following areas:

• Long, convoluted email chains in which details get missed entirely
• Delayed responses and needing to chase – on either side
• Mixing up details, or sending the wrong information to the wrong person
• And everyone’s favorite: ghosting

Fernanda Marques has firsthand experience with these communication bottlenecks, saying it’s hard to keep crucial details straight when long email chains aren’t clear. 

Fernanda Marques

Influencer Marketing Coordinator

Bottlenecks in communication have affected relationships when messages get lost in cluttered inboxes or when responses from either side are delayed, especially during crucial stages like product shipping, deadline confirmations, or last-minute content adjustments.

She goes on to say that this creates friction, impacting how an influencer views your brand. 

Fernanda Marques

Influencer Marketing Coordinator

In some cases, influencers felt neglected or unsure about next steps, which created unnecessary tension and even led to dropped collaborations. Clearer tools and faster communication could’ve prevented these issues.

Missed details and delayed responses necessitate repeated follow-ups – and it’s exhausting. Ain’t nobody got time for that. 

What communication bottlenecks are costing you

Now the real question is: If you’re spending too much time managing your inbox, what could you be doing instead? 

Frankly, the fun parts of being an influencer marketer: deepening relationships with the influencers you’re working with, dedicating more creativity to campaigns, and deep-diving into the metrics to see what’s actually resonating. 

You know, the reasons you got into this business in the first place. 

For Joshita Dodani, she would use that time to analyze previous campaigns for insights. 

Joshita Dodani

Head of Social Media and Influencer Partnerships, DigiOrange

If I cut down on all the back-and-forth communication, I’d definitely spend more time figuring out which stories really click with our audience and diving into the metrics. Right now, a lot of time just gets eaten up working out the details with influencers.

Fernanda, on the other hand, would choose to spend that time flexing her creative muscles. 

Fernanda Marques

Influencer Marketing Coordinator

I’d love to spend more time identifying the right creators, brainstorming innovative campaign angles, analyzing performance to optimize future efforts, and nurturing long-term partnerships – all of which truly elevate the impact of influencer marketing but often get sidelined due to the time spent managing logistics and follow-ups.

And almost counter-intuitively, focusing less on the back-and-forth would help marketers build better relationships with their influencers. Cheyanne Pettyjohn agrees, saying she’d dedicate more time to strengthening her relationships. 

What’s actually taking the most time – and should it?

I asked influencer marketers which communication steps take the longest – and over 67% of marketers ranked briefing (and creative input) as the most time-consuming step, followed closely by formal negotiations and content approval, respectively.

And not all collaborations are created equal: three out of four of the marketers we polled said they’d dedicate more time to those steps depending on the quality of the influencer they’re working with. 

What other factors signal more back-and-forth communication? 

• If the influencer has a larger community or following, or if your spend is higher – you’ll need to get the details right, and you’ll need to involve more people (agents, legal, etc.).
• If you’ve never worked with this person, you’ll need to devote more time to onboard them versus an influencer you’re already used to working with.

And the respondents are doing it right: briefing, creative input, and formal negotiations are precisely the tasks you should be spending the most time on. 

Yes, it’s in your interest to empower your influencer with the context and feedback they need to make content that’ll resonate with their audience. 

Yes, you should build trust with your influencer during formal negotiations because that will foster a solid relationship. 

If those things take more time, that’s okay – they’re supposed to! After all, the person you’re communicating with is going to represent your brand. 

The other tasks, however? They may not take long individually, but they add up to a huge time-suck. And that’s how they become bottlenecks. 

How marketers are really removing communication bottlenecks

Let’s focus on the communication bottlenecks that take away from relationship building. If your messages aren’t helping you build relationships with influencers, then your communication is fundamentally broken. 

I asked marketers how they remove any bottlenecks before they happen, and they shared some tough love. 

1. Remove the bottlenecks that come from *you*

It’s easy to say you’re going to “get organized,” or “be a better version of your work-self.” But what does that look like in practice?

First, look at your processes in-house. What might slow down a collaboration on your end?

Noor Ahmed suggests getting preapprovals for the content you commission, the budget you can use, and the brief you’re going to send. Make sure you have the autonomy to act as quickly as possible and make your own decisions. 

Athira Aravind recommends using a checklist to help avoid common pitfalls:

Athira Avarind

Brand Partnerships and Influencer Manager, Mahina

Over time, you’ll notice that communication failures often stem from the same recurring issues. Once you know the patterns, you can easily get ahead of them with detailed guidelines, pinned messages, and repeated reminders.

2. Prioritize clarity from the start – and be exhaustive about it

It’s (probably) not your first rodeo. You know the questions you typically get, what influencers tend to forget, and which details commonly get glossed over. 

So how do you get around that? Anticipate. Answer the questions you know they’re going to ask before they’re asked.

Lee Drysdale affirms that they try to get ahead of anything an influencer might want to know at the very beginning of their relationship:

Lee Drysdale

Senior Influencer and Affiliates Executive, Argento

I always try to address the most important parts in the first couple of emails. Having a call after sending the brief helps too.

Getting ahead of those questions, and being exhaustingly transparent about the way you work, is going to smooth over any potential communication wrinkles before they even happen. 

3. Template what you can, personalize what you should

You can’t do it all manually – nor should you. A great outreach template can shave minutes off those menial tasks, and those minutes add up. 

Valerija Somi uses a hybrid approach between templating and personalizing her outreach. 

Valerija Somi

Influencer Manager, Qure Skincare

Although we have an outreach template, we always personalize the first email. We will go to the influencer’s socials, check their content, and see how specifically they fit our brand and how their type of content fits our needs so that we can personalize our approach.

While you should customize that first message, don’t waste time writing sonnets in your follow-ups – templates will do. Sometimes, a quick reminder is all it takes to get a response. 

And templating doesn’t stop at outreach. You can also template portions of your contracts, especially if you’re working with multiple influencers on the same kind of campaign. If you can, work with your legal team to get certain sections drafted for your campaigns, and then working out the details will go much faster. 

Also consider templating your briefs – especially anything that’s related to a larger campaign, your brand, moodboards, and other aspects that won’t necessarily change from influencer to influencer. 

Leslie Belen provides her influencers with everything they need to create their content up front – and much of it can be templated and reused across different collaborations. 

Leslie Belen

Influencer Search and Outreach Virtual Assistant

Our best tactic is providing a clear, visual brief upfront — including moodboards, reference content, timelines, and key do’s and don’ts — so there’s less back-and-forth, and everyone’s aligned from the start.

4. Know when it’s time to jump on the phone

For my millennial readers, I’m going to need you to put your phone anxiety in a box for a sec. 

Email and async communication are convenient. But if something lacks clarity, or you need to get details ironed out in a format where tone isn’t wildly up to interpretation, knowing when to jump on the phone can save time – and possibly your relationship with an influencer or agent. 

Kat LaFata says jumping on the phone to talk through briefs is a great way to reduce potential bottlenecks. Damini Gulati agrees, reporting that he uses phone calls as opportunities to double-check that everything is clear. 

For Greta Zacchetti, when emotions are involved, a phone call is the best way to go. 

Greta Zacchetti

Influencer Marketing Manager, foodspring

Establishing communication platforms is crucial: Whatsapp for faster exchange, emails for more formal communication, and phone calls for more emotional talks.

Email might be your go-to communication channel – after all, in corporate, that’s standard procedure. But influencers often aren’t very corporate at all. The best way to reach them might be somewhere else. 

And just like knowing when to jump on a call, knowing when to swap email for a more immediate communication channel will also help you move faster, like Fernanda: 

Fernanda Marques

Influencer Marketing Coordinator

When possible, I move the conversation to faster channels (like iMessage or WhatsApp) with influencers I work with often, which helps us avoid delays from email clutter.

5. Set communication expectations in the beginning

Say it with me again: influencers aren’t necessarily corporate-savvy.

They’re not always going to have the same expectations around what communication should look like, or what’s “professional.” (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) 

So from the start of your relationship with them, get on the same page by outlining your expectations around professional communication.

Fernanda goes as far as creating a shared spreadsheet to avoid potential misunderstandings. 

Fernanda Marques

Influencer Marketing Coordinator

I make sure to summarize next steps, deadlines, and expectations in one message to avoid back-and-forth confusion. I also use spreadsheets and trackers that are updated in real time so both the brand and influencer have a shared understanding of where we are in the process.

Another idea: treat your communication like sales.

Stop hissing. It’s for your own good. 

At the end of a sales call, you agree on the next step before you hang up. (Otherwise, your prospect just fades into the abyss, never to be heard from again.) 

You can do the same as an influencer marketer, and Matheus Ribeiro suggests giving creators a CTA or an action item as that next step. Chances are, that action item will keep them engaged with you so they don’t go “cold.” 

Workflow woes: where your workflow is getting in the way

Many of those bottlenecks point back to one thing: workflow.

When I asked 37 marketers to use one word to describe their current workflow, only five of them said “organized.”

Five. 

Instead, most of their answers were some version of: 

“Inefficient. Manual. Rough. Fragmented. Overwhelming. Time-consuming.”

I’m a marketer too, so I get it. I’ve been trying (and failing) at Inbox Zero for the last 10 years. Our inboxes are pure chaos. You know it. I know it. It’s time to accept that fact – just like we accept the emotional support tabs and spreadsheets. It’s just part of the trade. 

Many marketers expressed to me that the biggest communication bottlenecks are impacted by the workflow we put in place ourselves. 

What if you could:

• Splice out your inbox to only see the emails between you and your influencers? 
• Had a dashboard where you could see all your notes so you could personalize your message in real time without having to pull up (again, more) tabs with your influencers’ socials?

Actually, you can do all of that in Modash. 

Modash’s inbox isn’t yet another inbox to manage – it’s your Gmail or Outlook, but better. It integrates with your existing inbox and reprioritizes your emails so you’re only looking at your messages with influencers.

You know, instead of shuffling through your important conversations and requests from your manager around TPS report covers. 

Not only that, to help you keep it all straight, every conversation with an influencer automatically pulls up their profile so you have a bird’s-eye view of their metrics, recent and sponsored posts, and any notes you wrote about that influencer and your collaboration together.

It’s okay. You can let that spreadsheet go. 

Plus, you can use the same platform to dive in to an influencer’s metrics, automatically send them gifted products from your Shopify store, and even set up and manage full affiliate programs. That’s saving you at least 10 tabs right there.

But don’t take my word for it. You can try out Modash’s inbox free for 14 days (and we don’t even ask for a credit card).