Isn’t that what you all want to know? Daily I am inundated with ‘can you give the PR my email?’ Or ‘how do I get on brand XYZ’s PR list?’. Occasionally I do get a really abrupt ‘give me the details’ message from that person who shades me at events and thinks they’re above me. Honey, no…
I’m not going to grind my backside off day in, day out just to freely pass details to virtual strangers, and quite frankly users. Yes, my inner circle and I pass details between us, massive love to Zest of Alice, we are team #scratchyourback and of course have a mutual understanding that if we work with brands based on each other’s recommendations we do each other proud! That’s the way it works. How this works and actually, a mutual reciprocation is the key to success!
Firstly though, I want to just touch with you on what it means to work with a brand. You are acting as an advertising outlet for a brand. You may not be in the same size or revenue league as Vogue, Cosmo or Tatler, but let me tell you, you are an advertising outlet in your own right. You’re providing a service to bring customers to brands. Customers who will generate the revenue. WHY THE HELL ARE YOU ADVERTISING FOR THEM FOR FREE IF THEY’RE MAKING MONEY FROM YOU?
Now we’ve got that. You need to map out what you can do for them. Simple right? Wrong, are you missing key figures and statistics? Have you included everything that you need to be including? Are you showcasing yourself in the best possible light?
How To Secure Work With Brands As A Blogger Or Influencer
Do you even know what to include?
That’s the thing working with brands and getting on their PR lists is more than just getting your email to them. It’s how valuable you are to them. Are you a good fit for their brand? Does your content complement theirs? You need to weigh up are you a good use of their marketing budget. Just because you ‘blog’ doesn’t mean you’re entitled to everything, it’s not a one size fits all approach you know? Find your USP and use it to your advantage.
Don’t be that blogger who says yes to everything and risks their credibility either, protect your brand.
You’ll need to create a banging Media Kit, with relevant stats as well as a great pitch email, a buttery email that isn’t too long-winded.
I recently saw my girl crush Lydia Elise Millen had produced a memorable statistic for one of the campaigns that she had been working on for a brand. Through her influence, she had brought the campaign a revenue of over £30,000. An astronomical statistic which she can now use for leverage. Brands are able to see her potential value in more than just likes and shares, they can see it as a ROI (return on investment). Simply put, they can see what sales value she’s brought to a company and assess how much of their marketing budget they wish to allot to working with Lydia, with this proven track record.
Top tip: Affiliate marketing reports are great indicators of how much money you’ve generated a business or the volume of traffic you’ve sent to their site. I use Awin and Skimlinks.
A post shared by Laura Dawson (@laurajdawson26) on Mar 7, 2018 at 3:31am PST
Approaching brands is a really difficult task to ensure that you’re maximising getting a successful response. Done correctly you can ensure you create great long-lasting relationships with brands.
It’s all about the pitch.
Related Read;
How do you know if you’re doing it correctly?
It’s funny really because it’s a strategy that can be easily adapted and changed to suit every niche of a blog. Yet so many people get it really wrong. They either end up running around like a headless chicken for absolutely very little payment or they don’t even get an email back.
You’ve landed here to really find out how to work with brands, haven’t you? Yet right now I’m just brushing over the surface. Why? Well…
We’ve spent the last year creating an academy as part of my ELLEfluence brand, which we’re so passionate about. We’ve designed the academy to flip anything we’ve ever known on its head so that your success is the focus. We want to fill you with so much valuable content that instead of just reading and adding to your to-do list, we help hold your hand through each chapter, and create actionable events so that you can grow your brand as you go.
We even have easy options for asking us questions within the programme where one of our team will always help you out.
The best part, it’s not going to break the bank. We want it to be affordable for everybody, so for £9.99 a month we’re providing you with thousands of pounds worth of knowledge, which we work together with you to turn your passion into profit.
If you’re looking for how to align your business, grow your exposure online, increase website traffic and social following then we highly recommend auditing your business. Our easy to implement guide can help you make huge improvements to your business.
Start at the beginning;
Our first chapter sees us go into huge detail, with practical tasks to help you implement the knowledge we provide there and then for instant success. We’re covering;
- How to ask payment from brands who approach you
- How to approach brands for paid for collaborations
- Getting brands to find you
- Finding brands (and the people at them)
You have a pitch, you know your worth, you now need to find brands that are open to working with bloggers. How do you do that? We show you 10 ways in part 4 of this month’s chapter. Then once you’ve found them what do you do? Have you a follow up procedure?
There’s an art to approaching brands, and taking your success rate from negative to a high converting positive! You just need to learn that art.
So, of course, I’m not going to share all of our tips right now because the value is in the academy, but my parting shots for today when it comes to working with brands;
- Create a solid pitch, tweak it and refine it
- Build factual evidence of your successes
- Never overpromise and underdeliver
- Always be ahead of schedule and do more for the brand to build lasting partnerships
- Be active, don’t just comment on their socials when you want something, actively engage with them
Not ready for the academy, yet want more tips on how to grow your blog into a business. Why not join the Boss Queen Tribe? Subscribe to my weekly email and I’ll drop you some banging blog growth resources weekly.
That’s true. Securing work with brands being a blogger is a tough task, especially when we are working with so many brands as a time.