BLOGGER TIPS: PITCHING TO BRANDS

In my first year of blogging, alike most fellow bloggers who create their own space on the web, I wrote about my passions and stories. Don't get me wrong, I still do this now; however, I've been able to make interactions with brands who have stepped forward and contacted me to work collaboratively. Fifteen year old me had NO idea that a world of social influencer and brand interactions existed so was in complete shock when I received my first brand deal email in my personal inbox. Since this massive change in my life, I have learnt so much about brand deals, sponsorships, the rights and wrongs of working with a company etc. I thought I'd share my top tips when working with a brand; including how to pitch ideas, what to look out for and why it isn't a bad thing to reach out to a brand first (despite how daunting it may seem). 

EMAILS & REACHING OUT

My number one tip before contacting, or thinking to contact a brand, is to set up your own professional email. I decided to make myself a blogging email, specifically for blogging work and brand connections. This not only helped organise my personal emails from my business ones, but makes you look more experience and your blog look more serious than a hobby. Still on the emailing front, DO NOT send a generalised email to a company if you are pitching an idea. One of the worst thing in the blogging industry, for me, is when a brand emails myself and spells my name wrong (usually calling me Scarlet due to lack of research), fails to mention any of my blog work and quite explicitly is only searching to work for their brand exposure with nothing in return for me. Therefore, I'd highly recommend personalising you emails if you are the first one to make a move! Maybe you could mention a specific product that you've loved for years and continually repurchase, or point out an item from their site explaining why you'd love to review this and why it would benefit them. Make sure you have pointed out why working with you can benefit their brand and possibly do some research to show your passion/interest of the company in a more intimate way. Your emails should always include your passion, the benefits, politeness and most importantly, your successes! This can be quite difficult if you've just started out but if you've managed to network with great brands before - wonderful - whack it in the email. Obviously ensure your email still flows but if you are pitching an idea to a makeup brand about wanting to review their new eyeshadow palette, then perhaps you could send a blog post link to a previous time where you worked with another prestigious company. Flaunt your successes!

MEDIA KITS, STATS & COMMUNICATION

Statistics and media kits are useful when it comes to pitching ideas. Unfortunately, the majority of brands will have an expectation or want to know your following, either on a particular platform or over all your social platforms. Media kits are perfect to share your engagement statistics, services offered, previously worked with brands and a range of aspects linking to your blog. These are also great to send to a brand, attached to your email; thus, if they don't particularly want you to post a review, they may suggest an alternative service that may leave you with a better result. For instance, if the brand can see you have 10,000 Instagram followers and they are currently working to push their Instagram engagement/followers, then they may suggest a different campaign to the one you suggested. Your media kit provides a chance to share your current, and previous work, and sell your capabilities to the brand. 

Finally, if you've managed to be successful and secured the collaboration. My ultimate tip would be to regularly communicate. Keep in contact with the brand throughout the collaboration, NOT just when the review is live. Whenever I work with a brand, I will always email to notify when a product arrives, when the post will go live on my blog and the link to post afterwards. It is super important to maintain a high level of communication - not only with the brand remember you in the future, it is polite and informs them of the entire process.

I hope that this post has been somewhat helpful to any of you bloggers out there! In no way am I the best at giving this advice; however, I've been wanting to do this for a while and thought it was time to share some of my personal blogging tips, after almost 5 years of experience on this platform. Let me know if you want more blogging tip style posts in the future, and if there is anything you want to see from myself in particular. Lots of love x

Have you worked with a brand before? Did these blogging tips help?

Lots of love