How to Win Quality Sponsorships
Confession: I am super lazy when it comes to sponsorships. By lazy, I mean that I don’t usually reach out to brands; I just wait, like a lethargic spider, for them to approach me after discovering my Instagram account. So if you are looking for a post on how to approach brands for collaborations, the following advice within this post won’t help you very much. (Luckily, there are many bloggers out there who write about topics such as media kits and emailing brands— DM me and I would be happy to direct you to my favourite ones).
While I admittedly don’t try to reach out to brands, I still receive about 10-20 collaboration offers a week. However, since I don’t blog full-time, I am extremely selective and usually only take only maybe one new collaboration or so per week.
What WILL be contained within this post are the following sub-topics:
How to attract brands
How to select quality brand partnerships
How to deal with brands while collaborating with them
The importance of building strong relationships with other bloggers for support and advice
How To Attract Brands
In order to lure brands into an attractive web of sponsorships (especially paid ones), you should try your best to nail down several key aspects of content creation: quality content, quality engagement, and a clear niche.
Quality Content
While I don’t claim to have absolute authority over what constitutes as “quality” content, I do feel like I at least can discuss the basics. By this, I mean having proper equipment, a degree of artistic vision, and decent grammar (or at least know how to use spell-check).
For me, proper equipment means using a camera that produces quality images that will catch the eye of your audience. It doesn’t have to be a pricy DSLR camera; a decent camera phone will do! Personally, I use my Sony A6000 mirrorless camera for outfit shoots and my iPhone 11 Pro Max for everything else.
While you don’t need have an expert eye for aesthetic, having an attractive feed is important for attracting both brands and new followers. I always encourage new bloggers to find several accounts that inspire them and try to build their own theme from an amalgamation of their favourite features from those accounts. (I do not, however, agree with taking images from Pinterest to supplement your own feed— I personally find it lazy since you could be recreating those images yourself.)
Lastly, having some ability to write is a major plus for obtaining good brand partnerships as you will be able to describe their products in greater detail (as opposed to sassy three word captions). Although you don’t need to have the abilities of a copy writer or write essay-length captions, try to at least double-check spelling and punctuation before posting. As well, proper formatting and well-placed emoji usage are great ways to entice readers into actually reading your captions. (Hint: Putting paragraph breaks in your caption is much more attractive to readers as it gives their eyes a “break” and allows them to more easily follow your train of thought. If people post a huge block of text, I finally that I almost never finish reading the entire thing.)
Quality Engagement
While I discussed this topic in greater detail in my last post, I will say here that brands do care if you have a decent level of engagement on your posts. Since engagement is gauged on how many likes, comments, saves, shares, and accounts you have reached in conjunction with the size of your following, you do not need to have 1000s of likes or comments in order to have good engagement. I believe that brands like to see your followers posting thoughtful comments showing that they actually looked at your images or read your caption (especially since quality comments are so much harder to get than mere likes).
Additionally, as micro-influencers (accounts with anywhere between 1,000-50,000 followers), you tend to have more personal and trust-filled relationships with your followers than “big” accounts would have. Since many brands, both big and small, are aware of this, they specifically target micro-influencers as part of marketing campaigns. Therefore, know your value and be confident in your dealings with brands if you know you have a committed following.
Clear Niche, Bio Keywords, and Target Audience
Distinguishing a clear niche for your account is a task much easier said than done. As I mentioned in my very first post, it took me a while to figure out what my niche was. After experimenting with several different ones, I eventually settled on fashion, beauty, and travel as they were the topics for which I felt I could create the best content.
Once you have clearly identified your niche and your target audience (i.e. gender, age, country, city, etc.), it helps to display strong key words on your bio as they will help brands will to figure out if your account aligns with their needs. For instance, I have the following on my bio:
〰 𝕒 𝕝𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕣 𝕠𝕗 𝕨𝕠𝕣𝕕𝕤 + 𝕤𝕥𝕪𝕝𝕖
fashion ➕ beauty ➕ travel
✖️✞ follower
📍vancouver, bc
This bio shows brands that that I like to write and that I focus on fashion, beauty and travel. As well, I am a Christian who lives in Vancouver, Canada.
It’s also very helpful to put your email address on your bio as many PR agencies view your Instagram feed on desktops and cannot click on the mail button. Providing your email in the bio allows them to copy and paste your email in order to message you about a potential collaboration.
How to Select Brand Partnerships
Disclaimer: This section is admittedly based on my very subjective opinions. For selecting the right brand partnerships for you, I would say the decision should be largely based on your goals for your account. For instance, are you new to partnerships and want to grow your experience with collaborations? Or, on the other side of the spectrum, are you a more experienced influencer who is interested in paid collaborations that closely align with your values and niche?
ROI
While I started off as the former, these days I do not take on partnerships unless I have given them some thought. Usually, I try not to accept collaborations unless they are paid or from a well-known companies. Even then, I will think about factors such as: Will this partnership be difficult or stressful to fulfill? Is the compensation worth the effort of completing the requirements?
For example, a company might not be able to pay me much or at all; however, I might find their products to be desirable or their requirements are very easy to fulfil (i.e. one Instagram post and story with full authority over how to shoot the content). On the contrary, a well-paid partnership will most likely require you to carefully follow a creator’s brief and correct any perceived issues with your proposed content.
Therefore, my best advice would be to think about how much time and effort you can commit towards a partnership and if the ROI (return on investment) is worth it for you. Personally, I work full-time and lead a relatively full social life; as a result, I can’t take on a million collaborations without going into a nervous breakdown.
Aesthetic and Branding Alignment
This is another subjective area of thought regarding selecting brand sponsorships— does the brand’s product align with your aesthetic theme and branding?
For me, creating an aesthetic theme was a very long and angst-filled process; therefore, it is very important for me to choose products that will fit into my theme easily. Since it can be more difficult to control the environment, I usually avoid Instagram feed posts for things such as events, food, or restaurants nowadays. However, if they only require an Instagram story or two, then I might consider the partnership.
As well, I know that my audience appreciates that my content mostly adheres to my niche of fashion, beauty, and travel. An account that is “all over the place” in terms of content will confuse current and potential followers. Consequently, your chances at landing a good sponsorship will also greatly diminish.
How To Deal With Brands or PR Agencies
In general, my policy for all human interactions is to always be courteous and stay true to my word. When dealing with brands (and sometimes with difficult individuals), however, you sometimes are forced to be more assertive and stand up for yourself.
Usually, when dealing with legitimate companies or PR agencies, I try to communicate with clear, concise, and polite emails. As well, when I agree to a partnership, I always try to fulfill my end of the bargain after an email agreement or signing a contract.
Over time, however, I have become very firm with brands that try to take advantage of me unnecessarily, especially when they are not providing any monetary compensation. Some large online clothing brands of questionable quality and ethical practices (who shall remain unnamed) try relentlessly to exploit influencers to create much content as possible in return for poor-quality clothing.
When dealing with one such brand over numerous collaborations, I came to realize that I was doing more and more work for less and less compensation (which was product only). The stress become more noticeable for fulfilling such collaborations, particularly when the brand asked me to reshoot some material arbitrarily (after handing in my content, they asked me more than a month later to reshoot a video even after I had carefully followed the signed contract and brief).
During this specific collaboration, I decided that their product wasn’t worth bending over backwards anymore and staunchly refused to reshoot the material. As well, I informed the brand that I had not received the full amount of product I had requested (which they eventually sent me after making some lame excuses about how they were out of stock when I had asked for them— which is complete BS). I had also heard from other bloggers dealing with this brand that they found it very difficult to ask the company for monetary payment; they would often tell bloggers that they did not pay unless they met an unrealistic stat or unless they were willing to create a large amount of content across different platforms.
Long story short, I am glad that I am no longer working with this brand— especially since I am trying to shop more sustainably these days and I usually ended up throwing out half of what I received from them.
On the flip side, I have respect for quality companies that pay their influencers fairly and, in turn, expect quality content out of it. I currently have an ongoing partnership with a very well-known brand that pays me generously and provides me with several hundred dollars (or even a thousand) worth of product with each campaign. This brand has informed me that they admire my authentic engagement and quality content; things that I worked very hard to cultivate on my Instagram platform. Although I often get feedback that requires me to make revisions or even reshoot content, I feel it is fair when I am being paid so well.
To summarize, I would recommend always signing a contract of some sort when dealing with a brand (especially for monetary compensation). When a contract is involved, you can refer back to it in order to make sure you are being treated fairly by the brand. Also, always be sure to carefully read creator briefs; being polite and carefully following instructions goes a long way in impressing PR agencies or brands and setting you up for future collaborations.
Building Strong Relationships With Other Bloggers
A trusted relationship with another blogger can be an invaluable of support and advice regarding sponsorships. Since the influencer world is still so murky and fast-moving, there are not many set rules or regulations setting standards for collaborations. Therefore, the best guidance you can attain is usually from another blogger you trust.
Over the past three years of having this Instagram account, I have been blessed enough to meet and become friends with several wonderful Vancouver bloggers. One blogger in particular has become my closest confidante and advisor when it comes to Instagram partnerships. Throughout our friendship, I have been lucky enough to learn many tips from her past and current experiences collaborating with brands.
Whenever I am unsure about a potential sponsorship, I don’t hesitate to share it with her and ask for her opinion. Over time, her perspectives have taught me how to be more selective and assertive on my own— for instance, regarding aspects such as brand alignment, deadlines, and content creation requirements.
When asking another blogger about partnerships (especially paid ones), I would highly recommend ensuring that you have a good relationship already set in place. When talking about sensitive topics such as rates, it can be difficult to open up unless you really trust the other individual.
Furthermore, I would suggest partnering with a blogger with a similar following and niche so that you can relate on more topics. As a result of having a similar niche, my friend and I often get the same partnership offers as brands frequently find discover us at the same time (probably because we often tag each other in posts). Consequently, it’s even easier to discuss whether the sponsorship is worth the trouble or not.
Conclusion
Well, I hope that the above helped you in any way regarding how to attract, select, and deal with sponsorships. While I feel like I handle partnership relatively well, it is a mini-goal of mine to be more proactive with reaching out to brands. In fact, I have just updated my media kit and hope that I will be successful in the near future.
Did you learn anything useful from this post? Did you want to learn more about anything else in greater detail? Let me know below in the comments!
Cheers,
Debbie (a.k.a. The Stylish Wordsmith)