Brand Collaborations: Part II

Now last week I wrote a blog post about Brand Collaborations and if you haven’t read it you can catch up HERE!

We’re going to dive in a little deeper and hopefully I can give you some good information!

Lets get right to it: Brand Collaborations: Part II

How To pitch to Brands:

So if you have decided that you want to start reaching out to brands you have come to the right place!

First, you always want to make sure you are reaching out by email because it is much more professional. If you can not find their email you can DM them and ask for the proper email. You want to contact the person in charge of influencer relations and collaborations. You may not get any response and you can always try digging around on their website for a proper contact. LinkedIn is also a great place to search for people and make connections! If you are not on LinkedIn, you should be, so go and create a profile after you’re done reading this post!

Once you have the proper email you can compose your pitch! You should create a generic pitch and keep it in your notes. You can add details about the brand when needed.

Email Pitch:

Section 1: Intro/About you

Section 2: How you found out about the brand, why you like the brand (be specific), why you want to work with them

Section 3: What value can you provide to the company

Section 4: Deliverables and the ask

Section 5: Outro

EXAMPLE:

Hi Suzy,

My name is Elizabeth Montano and I am a lifestyle blogger based out of Los Angeles. My passion is to create content that resonates with my audience in the categories of beauty, fashion, health & fitness, and travel.

I actually found out about your brand Level Up several years ago and have been a consistent supporter ever since.  Your brand message, “always LEVEL UP and never give up,” is a message that I live by.  I also think that it’s amazing that you use a percentage of your profits for charity. It’s for these reasons that I find Level Up really aligns with my brand and I know my audience will love it too!

As a lifestyle blogger I am dedicated to creating quality content that can drive brand awareness as well as creating sale leads through my platform. By taking a look at your Instagram feed, I can see that you lack content that is more lifestyle, incorporating the human element in showing off your socks.  Although flat lays are beautiful, lifestyle pictures can get better engagement with customers.

For this collaboration I would like a pair of your Level Up socks in exchange for a static post on my Instagram feed, stories telling my audience what your brand stands for, and a blog post where your socks will be featured with other favorite products.

I hope you are interested in this collaboration and that you find my style fits your needs. I have attached my media kit for your review !

*If interested please let me know if you would like to see my rate sheet as well.* paid collaborations only

I look forward to working with you soon!

Best,

Elizabeth

Notes on Example Pitch:

Now I completely made everything up but I composed this pitch to give you an idea. You can see that I did research on the brand prior to composing this email. You should always go on the website, look at their Instagram and see what you can find out about them. If you are super generic the brand is most likely going to look you over!

I talk about the value I bring in creating QUALITY content. When I say quality I mean it. I have professional equipment, I dedicate hours to shooting/editing and composing the perfect captions for brand awareness. I know that I can say quality because the images that I produce reflect that. You can also see that I noticed that they have mostly flat lays, which tells me they desperately need some lifestyle content. This means I can provide VALUE to them!

In my deliverable section I am very specific on what I want and what I will be doing for them!

Also, if you are looking to get paid you can include the line I did as well as making some minor changes to your deliverable section.

When should you start charging brands for content?

Well, this one is simple, when you can provide VALUE to the brand. Often bloggers just ask for free stuff in addition to wanting to get paid and this is probably a brand’s worse nightmare.

We need to realize that coming from a brand perspective it has to be worth it to pay you. Your value doesn’t have to be how many followers you have either. You can be really creative in how you shoot, edit, create awesome videos, great engagement with your audience, etc etc.  You really need to think about what you bring to the table before asking for money. If you can’t quite pin point what your value is then maybe you still have some work to do on your end. And if that is the case, it’s OK! Work on your craft, educate yourself, and start creating awesome content that means something. Eventually you will get to a point where you feel comfortable getting paid for your work.

Other than value, you need to be CONSISTENT. You will see that the bloggers with more collabs are often those that post regularly, you can go take a look and see this is almost 100% true!

The last point would be to evaluate how much time you are spending on creating content. If you are not really putting that much effort or time in creating content for your free products then in my opinion you are not ready to take on paid collabs. When a brand pays you they’re expecting more than a quick iphone picture.

On iphone pictures: There is nothing wrong with creating content with your phone. There is bloggers that do this and create amazing pictures. These bloggers often put in a lot of effort in coming up with a concept, scouting a location, styling the shoot, shooting the content, editing the pictures, and coming up with thoughtful captions. Do you see where I am going with this? There is a lot of time & effort going into the content creation process.

If you want to get paid for your work, you need to take it seriously and LEVEL UP.  When you take yourself seriously others will too.

How much should you charge?

Now, there are several calculators that can help you establish a fee.

OPTION 1

OPTION 2

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If you are on any influencer platforms like FOHR, they also provide an estimate on how much you could charge.

I look at this as just an estimate or at minimum the base fee because these calculators are only looking at your followers & engagement rate.

You should also think about these things when charging:

-photographer fees (if you are hiring someone)

-travel expenses

-location permit/rental fees (if applicable)

-props needed for the shoot

-outfit if not provided

-hair & make up

-how many hours to shoot

-how many hours to edit/create caption/post/promote/engage with audience

-if blog post how many hours to draft/write/edit/post/promote

You should figure out how many hours it will take for you to do this and figure out a base rate for yourself. Look at the minimum wage in your state and work your way up! You can take into account your skill level, any credentials/ degrees that are applicable, and experience.

Add your base rate+ hourly fee x (# of hours for campaign/project)= YOUR FEE

How do I transition from free work to PAID WORK?

Alright, so you already get free stuff from brands and its taking a lot of your time to shoot! Now you’re thinking I need to be getting paid for this!

Like I mentioned before you must help the brand see the value you provide to them. If you are already working with a brand and have been for a while it is a conversation you can have with your contact from the company.

Some things that you can use in your favor:

-you now have a professional photographer to shoot your content

-you are investing in  professional equipment

-you are investing in software/apps/education to improve your content

You can use those things as leverage if you are starting to LEVEL UP!

Now to get more technical and use numbers:

For the most part brands want to see ROI. ROI means return on investment. If you can prove that the content you create for them translates into $$ this is a huge plus for you.

Analytics that you can use in your favor:

-likes on a picture featuring the brand

-comments talking about the brand in a positive way

-saves on a picture featuring the brand

-total impressions/reach  on pictures featuring the brand

-impressions/reach on an insta story where brand is mentioned

-amount of clicks on the brand mention in your instastory

-amount of swipe ups when product is linked ( only for 10k and up)

-number of DM’s about the product

You also have to have a business profile to see some of these analytics as well. These analytics can work because you are using them to prove that you are either driving sales or brand awareness. If your numbers show it, you can very well present it to the brand to try and start getting paid. You don’t want to come off snobby or anything but professional and you can also include brand loyalty to them if you have a good relationship with them.

What is a media kit and how do you use it?

A media kit is like your social media resume that summarizes what you do, who you are, your following, the demographics of your followers, past brands you’ve worked with and your blog analytics if you have one. You should be including your demographics on the platforms you use the most!

You can find templates on Pinterest or Etsy and you can also create your own. If you would like to see an example, feel free to email me and I can send it over to you.

A brand will ask you for one sometimes so you should have it ready. You can send it to a brand in a pitch email or choose to say “if interested I can send over my media kit and rate sheet.”

You use your media kit as something extra to show what you can do instead of brands just seeing your Instagram profile only.

A rate sheet: It should follow similar format and color scheme to your media kit. This sheet should list all the services that you can provide for the brand along with the fee/service.

 

Closing thoughts:

Working with brands for a collaboration or a campaign is a ton of work. Often times people just see free stuff or money and not all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes. I really hope that as a blogger or an influencer you take it seriously when brands give you products and even pay you for your services.

Many brands have come across people who are unprofessional and this can ruin it for people who are serious about what they do. I think what I want you to take away is to put yourself in a brands shoes and think about what they want to get out of it. Be fair & be honest and slowly but surely you will get those collaborations that you want.

Being a a blogger/influencer is a job and when you begin to treat it like that, brands will start to reach out to you!

I hope you got something out of this and hope you can apply my tips!

So if you want something bad enough, LEVEL UP!

It’s been real.

 

xoxo,

 

Liz-Laugh-Love