It doesn’t matter how many followers you have, and it doesn’t matter what niche you are in, or if you do UGC. The first thing you need to know is that paid collaborations don’t fall from the sky, you need to chase them in order to become a financially independent creator and in this post you will learn how to pitch brands correctly to land paid collabs every month.
I have audited hundreds of accounts in the past year and I have also interviewed some of my creator friends to find a pattern, and this is what all successful creators do to land a paid deal:
- You need to have a media kit:
Going to a job interview without a CV is not professional and all successful creators have a media kit. Trustworthy brands will always ask for one and these are the things you should always include in your media kit:
-Your niche
-The updated number of followers you have
-Your engagement rate %
-Your rates per post, reel & story
-Your contact details
- Short and sweet:
Just as big influencers get dozens of brand collaboration requests every day, respected brands get dozens of influencers emailing them for collabs daily, so don’t make it difficult for the person who receives your email at that company to read your email and understand your value proposition.
Start with a 1 sentence introduction to who you are and a 3 line parragraph with what they will get in return if they work with you.
Just don’t forget to mention you have attached your media kit to the email so they don’t forget to open it to find your rates.
1. You need to know your worth:
In the previous slide, I mentioned you need to easily explain your value proposition. This means you need to know your worth and explain with numbers what the brand will get if they were to pay you. This includes:
-Average views
-Average likes
-Why they will get good conversions (why they are aligned with your audience)
2. Research is key:
Before pitching a brand, go to Linkedin and type “name of the brand” + “CMO” or “influencer marketing manager” and find out the name of that person.
If you write their name on their email and you include some flattering lines congratulating them for a specific post, ad or campaign they have recently done, they will automatically see how well informed you are making you a good candidate to land a paid deal with them.
Think about it:
if 2 brands were to email you for a collab, wouldn’t you go with the brand who mentioned something specific about your recent posts? It means they really follow you and like what you do, but genuinely.
3. The golden tip:
You’ve sent your email but they reply saying they would only work with you in exchange of a product.
Gifts don’t pay rent and if you agree you will find it very hard in the future to turn this into a client who pays you.
And not just that, you are also making it more difficult for other influencers to get paid collabs.
Stay calm, try again an 1 month and don’t forget to reply why you don’t take gifts.
4. This will give you extra points:
Once you reply saying you don’t take gifts, don’t forget to ask them the golden question many influencers forget to ask:
"What do I need to achieve in order to be on your list of paid influencers next time?".
They will probably give you a list of KPIs so start working on them form tomorrow, and once you achieve those KPIs, you’ll be able to (without any excuse from the brand) to turn this into a paid collaboration.
I made a post about this recently in @thereelgiga in collaboration with @gigapay.co on instagram and you can read more about it here.
Let us know what you think in comments!
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