Have you ever wondered how to get paid on Instagram? Or how to make money from a blog?
Partnerships are amongst the most effective means of earning money (and a larger audience) as an influencer and a blogger.
What do I need to include in my pitch to a brand as an influencer or blogger?
Well, first things first, what is a pitch?
A pitch is an E-Mail written to a company/brand or a specific person. It entails different information including a request to work together.
A pitch should not be longer than two or three paragraphs because you want to make a good, quick first impression.
Things to include in your brand pitch are:
a) A brief introduction
You cannot assume that the brand will know you. So introduce who you are, what you do. A summary should introduce you and your brand. Ensure that the introduction stands out as it will be the first part of the pitch that the brand reads.
b) Your favourite thing about their brand/product
To showcase your knowledge of the brand. No brand is going to work with an individual who does not know about their brand.
c) A verified analytics report;
An audit is encouraged but not necessary.
d) Media kit
A media kit is a document that contains information about your brand. It should be a ‘one-stop shop’ for all of the information about your brand – it is the ‘skeleton’ of your pitch and the main body that the brand might consider when reading through your pitch.
e) Your rate card;
In case they do decide to take the partnership forward it would be wise to give the brand/company your rate card.
How to pitch a brand as an influencer or blogger?
Your pitch has to be directed to the ‘right person.
The internet has made it easier for influencers to connect to brands. When trying to find a PR person or the best person to address you must look out for “Collaborations” or “Influencer Marketing” in their job title.
Ensure that you do your own added research on the brand you are attempting to work with. You want to avoid working with brands that may not be beneficial to you – they might be infamous for not paying influencers and bloggers that they work with.
You want to grow your partnership with them organically but have a backup budget in case things go south. Try and find the best way to reach out to them – via E-Mail, directly or by Instagram DMs.
How do bloggers and influencers work with brands?
Influencing is comprised of three components:
A) Relevance
An influencer’s content should be relevant to the brand’s content. Before reaching out to a brand ask yourself, will your audience find the brand’s products and contents relevant?
Would collaborating be worthwhile?
B) Reach
Once you establish the above you need to determine how far your reach with your audience goes.
C) Resonance
The above will determine whether or not the audience is engaging with your content (you can determine this by checking your insights).
It is important to check on your insights ever so often to determine when the best time for you to post your content is.
Your audience, if consistent with engagement with your content, will support your brand deal as well.
Remember that you want to avoid working with brands that work with many influencers (as this leads to brand saturation). Your audience might be following other influencers and if they see the same brand being sponsored the likelihood of them engaging with your content is low.
How many followers or page views do I need to pitch a brand?
Brands can either reach out to an influencer OR an influencer can reach out to a brand.
You might be worried about reaching out to a brand due to your following being small BUT with a good, solid pitch anything is possible. So, do not worry about having a few hundred versus a few thousand followers.
