As an influencer, one of the biggest ways to gain revenue is to land paid brand partnerships. No matter whether you are looking to land an Instagram paid partnership or get a sponsored partnership on your blog or other social media channels, it all starts with first getting the attention of the brand, negotiating a rate to get paid, and then securing that brand partnership.
After that, you begin your content creation and work to not only do well on that partnership but to connect with the brand so that you can work with them continuously.
In a world where there are so many influencers who are pitching brands for paid partnerships and applying for them on influencer networks, you find yourself getting frustrated because you either get no response or you get a lot of responses saying they would be happy to gift you in exchange for product or that they don’t have opportunities for partnerships right now.
Though the frustration can be overwhelming, there are ways to stand out among the rest and land those paid partnerships while also negotiating a rate that match the time and effort you are putting in to create content.
What is a Paid Brand Partnership ON INSTAGRAM, YOUR BLOG, AND OTHER SOCIAL MEDIA CHANNELS
Paid partnerships in the influencer world are marketing/social media efforts where the influencer, content creator, or blogger is creating content and posting on their channels to promote a brand and/or a specific product. Within that work, the influencer is then getting paid to complete the work with set deliverables that are outlined early on in contracts. Paid partnerships, which can also be termed as sponsored partnerships, are lucrative to an influencer and essential for maintaining their influencer business. These posts that are requested by the brand can be on any of the platforms that an influencer agrees to post on. Therefore, you can have an Instagram paid partnership, a blog paid partnership, a TikTok paid partnership, a YouTube paid partnership, or other sponsored partnerships based on what the brand is looking for. No matter what platform the content is being created for, one thing that is the same for every type of paid partnership is that when an influencer is working with a brand there should be a mutual benefit for the both.
The mutual benefit for both the brand and influencer come from the fact that both are receiving some type of exposure. For the brand, the influencer is introducing their brand and/or product to their audience and for the influencer, the brand is providing them work to add to their resume while possibly also offering to share the influencer’s post, with credit, on their own social channels to expose that influencer to another group of people.
How to Pitch for a Paid Brand Partnership ON INSTAGRAM AND OTHER PLATFORMS
Though there are brands out there that are seeding for influencers for sponsored partnerships on Instagram or other social media channels, the best way to land paid partnerships is to not sit around and wait for them to find you, but to pitch for these paid brand partnerships as that is a quicker and more efficient way of becoming a part of a sponsored marketing campaign.
The first part of pitching for a paid partnership is to find the right contact, and there are a variety of ways to do so. You can search on LinkedIn or reach on Instagram, but either way, you want to make sure that you are finding the right email so that your pitch is landing in the right hands. Then after you’ve found the right contact, then it’s time to put together your email. And there are essential parts of your pitch email that will make a difference.
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CLEAR SUBJECT LINE
Create a subject line that is clearly identifies what is in the email that you are sending so that when a rep is looking at their inbox, they know what they are about to open and don’t think that it is spam. Avoid using abstract subject lines as those can look spammy, at times, and may get caught in the spam filter or ignored by the person. -
SHORT BIO
Introduce who you are in 1-2 sentences. You want to bring the person in and let them know who you are as if you are meeting them in person, but you don’t want to make it too long as the meat of your pitch email should be your idea. -
SHORT INTRODUCTION TO YOUR BRAND AND CONTENT
Include a 1-2 sentence introduction to your brand and content type. Make sure that you have direct links to your main platforms, especially if you’re looking to create content on that platform. This allows the brand to see what content you are creating and get an idea of who you are. -
YOUR UNIQUE IDEA / CONCEPT
This is the biggest part of your pitch email. In this part, you’ll want to present a unique idea as to how you are going to create content for this brand. Do research on what this brand offers, if there are any new products coming out, and what type of content they have already had done before so that you don’t send an idea that they’ve already done. Your unique idea should connect back to who you are and the unique perspective that you are able to offer.
Negotiating Your Rates FOR INFLUENCER PAID BRAND PARTNERSHIPS
Once you’ve sent your pitch for a paid partnership on Instagram or other platforms and the brand is now interested in working with you, you’ll now want to begin the negotiation. At this point, they already have your media kit, your concept, but they may not have what platforms you’ll be posting on and the specific deliverables that you’ll be offering. At this point, you’ll want to ask the brand what is the budget that they have for this specific campaign. Knowing what budget they have will allow you to offer deliverables that match your rate and fit their budget. In some cases, you may have situations where the brand names what deliverables they are requesting and they will ask for you rates for those deliverables. But make sure to state that those are your starting rates as there are many factors that go into what your rate should be based on timeline, reviews, whitelisting, etc.
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