How did you find your marketing contractor? What were they doing?
What he did was mostly to reply to whatsapp messages and to grant free bikinis to Instagram influencers.
One particularly good angle was yoga teachers. They'd usually be doing retreats at exotic locations and posting inspirational photos multiple times per day. Plus the yoga teachers that are popular on Instagram tend to be extremely attractive girls doing slightly suggestive poses. So that was a great fit for my bikinis.
And you'd be surprised how cheap Instagram influencers are. There's so many people who want to be famous that it's 100% a buyer's market.
The marketing contractor organized a list of Instagram handles, follower counts, and email addresses. I don't really know from where, but my guess would be that it was from his marketing buddies. I mean it wouldn't make sense for an agency to just grant us direct access to all of their members.
He then initially emailed some of them manually. After our brand became more popular, we sometimes received offers via email or pm. He would then determine the value for us and reply accordingly.