One of my favorite aspects of blogging is working with brands. It’s always exciting to collaborate with someone on a sponsored post, product review or a giveaway. While there are some brands that contact me for these collaborations, I sometimes will make the first move and pitch to a brand for a potential collab. Do you want to start pitching and make these collabs happen? Read these 7 tips on how to craft the perfect pitch!
- Make sure your email address aligns with your brand
First things first: take a look at your blog’s email. If you’re still using that archaic AOL email address, chances are a brand isn’t going to take you seriously. Ideally, you should use an email address that has your domain name in it (ex. yourname@yourblogurl.com). If that isn’t a possibility, Gmail is the most professional, free email provider. Sorry Yahoo and Hotmail fans. It’s time to move on! - Target a specific contact person
As tempting as it is to email the general customer service email or the press@mydreambrand.com address, you’re more likely to get a response if you find a specific contact person’s name and email. How do you get this information? I’ve found that LinkedIn is a great resource to find out who you need to contact (I like to do an advanced search and seek out a company’s marketing/pr team members!) Also, make sure to network when you’re at blogger meet ups and conferences. Often times, local and/or national brands are there to meet bloggers to collaborate with. Never throw out those business cards! - Personalize your greeting
Please, please spell your contact person’s name correctly! Also, make sure to personalize the first couple of sentences in your pitch and make it specific to the brand. Compliment them on a certain campaign, a product of theirs you use, a recent collaboration. Make it known to the brand that you follow their work. If you’ve met the contact person for that brand, remind them of where you two met. - Make a convincing argument
Explain to the brand what type of collaboration you had in mind (ex. a sponsored post, giveaway, product review, etc) and why your blog is the ideal fit. Mention your blog/social media stats, reader demographics, include any testimonials you might have or link to past collaborations with other brands. Make it clear what exactly you want from the organization and what you can do for them in return. - Keep it brief
Who knows how many pitches these PR/marketing reps receive on any given day? I would keep your pitch to three (short) paragraphs, max. Quantity ≠ quality in this case! Get to the point and include relevant information in your pitch (after your personalized greeting, of course). Skip the fluff! - Always have a media kit on hand
Offer to send over your media kit to the brand if they’re interested. Most likely they won’t request one, however, always have it on hand just in case they want to see it. I don’t send my media kit right off the bat because occasionally attachments won’t pass through some companies’ spam filters and firewalls, but I always let the brand know that it is available upon request. - Follow up
No response after a week? Send a short and sweet follow up email and ask if they received your first email and reiterate your interest in working with them. The PR/marketing world can get a little hectic at times, and they may not be ignoring you on purpose! They might have a little too much on their plate. If you don’t hear back after one follow-up email, I would call it quits and move on to the next brand.
Do you have any tips to share? Have any questions? Leave ’em in the comments section below!
Amazing tips! Thanks so much!
x Tiffany (Creator & Editor @ HauteMessMag.com)
Great tips Alicia!
These are some really great tips! At the risk of sounding like a newb, though, what’s a media kit?
That’s a really good question! A media kit is a 1-2 page document that lists your blog’s bio, a short bio about yourself (the author), stats, reader demographics, lists brands you’ve worked with, any press you’ve received and collaboration options. Basically it’s a great document to send to anyone who’s interested in working with your blog. You can see some examples of what a media kit looks like here: http://www.theblogmaven.com/make-a-media-kit-that-rocks/
Excellent, thanks again!
Great tips! I still get so nervous when contacting businesses, but these tips are great!
Great tips!! Nothing annoys me more than when someone gives me little to no information about why they want to work with me!
Great tips! I also want to add something on writing a pitch: make it a 300-word story. As Adam Sternbergh, New York Times Magazine Culture Editor, has said “Pitch a story. Not an idea. Story has characters, timeline, conflict. Like a movie!”
Ever since I started writing my pitch on brands like a 300-word story I received great response unlike before when I sound like so business-y and technical. I think it bores them, because they probably receives hundreds or even thousands of emails, making yours interesting and entertaining will set you apart 🙂
STYLE VANITY
Those are really great tips. It’s definitely about having done your research.
I am very new to the blog world. So I love all the tips I can get! Thanks for sharing!
This is such a tried and true list…I love it! My only follow-up question: I’ve always wondered personally how the other end is receiving my message based on length. I feel like including all of the necessary info could lead to a WAY long and tedious message that their PR or social team might not have time to weed through, so what gives in situations like that??
Thanks for a refreshingly unique list. <3
lovelovelove,
Erica
cominguprosestheblog.com
Thanks for all these tips! I really need to get in there and contact brands that I love! Such a great list, totally gonna pin it 🙂
These are great tips, especially sending an email to a specific person!
xx Kelly
Sparkles and Shoes
These are great tips! I can’t wait to start using some of them!
Nicole
Nicole to the Nines
This is awesome! It’s basically how I go about pitching as well, however I never thought to use LinkedIn to find PR contacts. Great idea!
Loved this. I’m always looking for brands to work with! LinkedIn is a very great tool to discover people in these specific positions. I just recently began to use it!
http://adornedinarmor.com
Just pinned this! Thanks for the great tips. I actually contacted a couple of people last week so we will see what happens. 🙂
This is a really great, comprehensive list. Also I love the info you posted below regarding media kits for anyone who isn’t in-the-know and think it would be great if you updated your post to reflect this info–I’m sure a lot of people would find it super helpful! Congrats on your LALM pick 🙂
Great and informative read! I especially like the bit about the Follow Up. its so important in this business to have that drive and keep your eye on the prize, even when the set backs roll in…brands get inundated with emails from bloggers, its up to the blogger to stand out, and one way to do that is via a professional Follow Up.
What an awesome post. Thank you Alicia for sharing all of these tips! Definitely happy to pin it for future reference.
This article was referenced by Katie from A Touch of Teal and these are awesome tips! Thanks so much for sharing. I’m going to try to reach out to a few brands now 🙂
Tina
http://www.justatinabit.com
Great post, I love how information packed this was. I’ve been looking to start reaching out to brands soon, but I’ve been treading lightly because I didn’t really know how to go about it. This post demystified a lot of the process for me. I pinned this so I can come back to it in the future.
Happy Tuesday!
– Liz Lizo
http://www.LizLizo.com
Great Tips! I just realized about a month ago that LinkedIn was a great place to get actual e-mails for brands! That’s an outstanding tip!
These are great tips!
Great info! Thanks so much for the tips!