Are you a content creator or influencer looking to take your brand to the next level with paid partnerships? One of the best ways that content creators can monetize is by partnering with brands. In this post, we will discuss the five essential steps to effectively pitch to brands as a creator to successfully land paid partnerships.
Step 1: Choose Your Partners
The first step to successfully pitching to brands is to choose which brands you want to partner with. Most creators make the mistake of forgetting that this is a two-way street and you get to decide which brands you even want to feature in your content and introduce or connect your audience with.The best brands to partner with are the ones you’re already using!
If you’re already a customer or even loyal fan of the brand, the more they will want to work with you. Think of the brands you currently own, wear, buy, recommend to your family or friends, feature in your content (even if it’s not intentional or consciously). Write a list of the products in your home, office, kitchen, refrigerator, car, and what you use on your body from head to toe.
These are the brands that you’re going to be able to authentically promote to your audience because you already buy them. This doesn’t mean that you can’t work with new brands that you’ve never tried or are new to market. It just means that these are the brands you are already buying and using. It will help you start brainstorming what kinds of brands you want to partner with.
For example, if you have are an outdoor adventurer and you feature hiking gear and camping equipment frequently in your content, then those are the brand you want to work with. Maybe you wear Patagonia clothing, Oboz hiking boots, and drink from a Hydroflask bottle. You can reach out to those brand for partnerships or you can also do some research on up-and-coming brands in the outdoor recreation industry who are looking to partner with creators for brand awareness.
You can also look for brands that have already partnered with content creators before. Influencers tag brands in their sponsored posts, so this is a great way to find potential partners. On Instagram, you can go to the brand’s profile and click on the “tagged” section to see the content that they’re tagged in. Sponsored content is required to be disclosed so it will have the “Paid Partnership” tag or the hashtags #ad, #partner, or #sponsored.
Step 2: Optimize Your Portfolio
Once you’ve identified the brands that you want to pitch to and get a paid partnership with, then it’s time to get your portfolio. This means that you have your media kit, rate card and case studies ready to go to send to the brand in your pitch.
These are the three essential elements of a creator portfolio
- A media kit is like a resume for creators which includes information on your audience demographics, content platforms, your numbers: followers, engagement, average video views, blog visitors, etc.
- A rate card is where you’ll have your list of prices for your services, think of it like a menu at a restaurant. We usually teach our students to craft packages in their portfolio so that they can charge a higher rate or secure a long-term deal
- Case studies are a more in-depth look at previous collaborations or partnerships. You can include screenshots and analytics to show potential brand partners the performance of your content and feedback from your community.
Step 3: Create The Connection
Before you send your pitch, make sure you create a connection and relationship with the brand first. Here’s how you can do this:
- Make sure you’re following the brand on all social channels
- Engage with their content for at least 2-4 weeks before you even reach out
- Reply to their stories on Instagram which will open up a DM conversation. Keep doing this and hopefully you’ll get a response from the brand (they may already ask to partner with you before you send your pitch!)
- Feature the brand in your content within 7 days of sending your pitch. Make sure you tag them and DM them that you featured them.
- Ask for the best email to get in touch with their marketing department for a potential brand partnership
A few scenarios can happen here. Ideally, the brand gets back to you after seeing how much you’ve engaged with them in the past few weeks and gives you an email address. If they don’t get back to you, message them again in a few days while you keep the connection and engaging with their content.
Another thing you can do is to do some research to find a contact. You can go the brand’s website to see if they have a “Contact Us” section or email. You can see if they have their email listed on their Instagram profile (if it’s not written out, it could be when you click the “EMAIL” button). You can also go to the company page on LinkedIN and find someone in the marketing department.
If you don’t hear back from anyone, be resourceful. Keep engaging on social media, follow up via direct message, and send another email. No one said that business was easy, it’s all about being persistent and consistent. There is no guarantee that they will ever respond or agree to a brand partnership.
Some creators have had to wait for years or even decades to work with their dream brand. It’s the same for any industry. How many auditions do actors have to go through to finally land their dream role? How many years do athletes have to train to get to the Olympics or even win a gold medal?
The lesson here is that it’s not about getting the deal, it’s about who you become in the process of trying and learning as you move forward and take imperfect action to achieve your goals.
Step 4: Send Your Pitch
When sending your pitch through email, create a customized, personal message so it doesn’t look like you copy and pasted it. People can tell when it’s a generic email that someone didn’t bother putting any thought into. Make sure to include specifics on the brand and why you want to partner with them, tell them a story on how their product has helped you and why you want to share it with your audience.
As part of your pitch, send them links to the content where you featured and tagged the brand to show that you’re already a customer and loyal fan. You can also include editorial ideas and upcoming partnership opportunities (for example, if Mother’s Day is coming up and you have a gift guide going out, you can mention the inclusion in that piece of content). Brands love it when you already have something in your content calendar that your community responds to and engages with.
Step 5: Follow Up
Ideally, the brand gets back to you right away after you send the pitch. Most creators that follow the process we outlined above are able to secure paid partnerships with their dream brands.
If you don’t hear back, try again after a couple of days or a week. They may be really busy and haven’t gotten to it yet. The important thing here is to not take things personal as you never know what’s happening on their end. You can send them a message on social media saying you sent them an email and you’d love to work with them.
Let’s say they do respond and they do want to work with you either on a collaboration or a paid partnership. With a collaboration, they’ll usually send you the product, and once you do get it and create the content, make sure you follow up with them when it’s posted and see if they want to share on their channels. It’s up to you to decide if you are willing to do an unpaid collaboration.
If they want to do a paid partnership, then congratulations! This is the time to get clear on all the expectations, deliverables, and timelines. Usually, there’s a contract that’s signed by both parties.
Make sure you read the fine print with all the terms and conditions, as well as any exclusivity requirements. Once you deliver the content and publish, you can follow up with a report to show them how well the campaign did so they’ll want to work with you again.
Pitching to brands as an influencer can be challenging, but by following these five essential steps, you can create successful partnerships and start to monetize your content. Remember to choose the partners that are right for you, optimize your portfolio with the three essential elements (media kit, rate card and case studies, create the connection with the brand, send your customized pitch and to follow up.
It could take several attempts and months or years to secure paid partnerships, because nothing is guaranteed. But as you continue to follow this pitch process, you’ll start getting better at communicating and negotiating with brands.
This is a skill that you’ll need to master as a content creator, entrepreneur and business owner, so hang in there and keep going!
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