HOW TO PITCH TO BRANDS AND ATTRACT CLIENTS AS AN INFLUENCER

Developing relationships with companies is like dating or developing any modern-day friendship. It takes time, effort, honesty and consideration. The first steps come in well before you even approach a specific brand, PR or agency. As an influencer, it’s crucial to consider the ways that you choose to communicate with the decision makers, be they within a brand or external. We are often forwarded influencer approaches by our clients, so it’s worth trying to track down the appropriate contact – and when formulating your pitch be aware that your message could be passed around! We see a wide variety of messages, some of which are really impressive, and others that stand out for the wrong reasons.

If you want to work with a brand, it’s worth considering their side of the story. Brands don’t choose influencer on aesthetics alone (or at least they shouldn’t if they’re running their influencer marketing activity wisely); influencers are chosen based on what they can give in return. What you need to remember is that PRs and brands must be accountable for their decisions, and if they work with or gift an influencer they need to see a result. So you should only approach when you are comfortable revealing the stats and figures behind your channels.

There isn’t a hard and fast rule for what point this happens: it’s not a certain number of followers, or a specific time scale when an influencer becomes valuable to brands – that’s entirely personal to each and every influencer. But if you have an engaged following, interesting conversations with your audience and a defined content style that’s eye-catching, then that’s a strong position to be in. So, if you feel you’ve got to the point you have something to offer a brand, where do you start? 

RESEARCH – Dig into why you want to work with the brand in question and how you are closely aligned. Does your style complement theirs, or do you speak to your followers about the factors their products are designed for? (Examples of this could be a skin complaint like rosacea, a specific hair-type, or the type of car seat you strongly think is the best around.) Try to formulate an accurate picture of what their customer type is – this will give you a framework to construct your pitch around and show that you have an aligned audience. Remember to check where the brand ships to, as this is a common reason to immediately eliminate an influencer if their core demographic doesn’t fit with a brand’s markets.

PREPARE – While it sounds like a fundamental aspect of launching a relationship, do make sure that you are following the brand. They will check, and when they do there should already be historic engagement between you and them. In an ideal world, you will already be on a brand’s radar as a result of your past engagement. This might seem unnecessarily lengthy, but it can really make the difference to someone brand-side (especially when they have hundreds on talent to choose from, and limited resource to put into influencer marketing). 

COMPOSE – Once you have this background information, remember that Instagram isn’t the place to pitch yourself. If possible, find a direct email address to send your pitch through to; you’re more likely to get a reply of some kind when you ping into someone’s direct inbox rather than a generic email. If you can’t find the appropriate contact, only then try Instagram. But do ask for a contact email and get off social media as soon as possible. It’s essential for your credibility, not to mention less likely to get missed or overlooked in overflowing DMs.

APPROACH – You can’t undo a first impression, so make sure your interactions with the brand is professionally structured and strike the right tone, avoiding over-familiarity and presumptuousness. It sounds incredibly basic, but don’t fall at the first hurdle and neglect to check your spelling (particularly the brand name itself!), along with your grammar and sentence structure. Another rookie error is copying/pasting a generic message to a list of brands, often made obvious by font errors. Some of the emails you receive as a brand aren’t compelling pitches – they’re just expectancy, whether for product or paid work, which is beyond off-putting. At this juncture, it often feels like influencers and brands are speaking two different languages, and it’s crucial to put your approach in terms that the other will not only understand, but be engaged by.

IMPRESS – When pitching as an influencer, like applying for any job, you need to closely tailor your approach. If you’ve posted about their products or services before, mention it (and be honest, it’s very easy to verify!)! With budgets so limited, you must have already shown an organic interest in the brand prior to formal partnerships. Otherwise, neither brands nor your audience will want to hear it – there just isn’t any evidence to prove that it’s a good fit. Otherwise, give the most relevant examples you can, making sure that your other clients are something your target brand can compare themselves to. Big budget paid campaigns aren’t being thrown in people’s laps at the moment, so you have to work for it.

PROGRESS – Manage your expectations but do come with ideas; show them how you can help them in this difficult period. Request an online look book, or offer to shoot with samples, or provide some simple information – explain that you’re planning to write about them again and would like a little more detail/content to work with. Essentially, show genuine interest. This kind of approach will usually warrant a response, in which case that’s the first line of communication made.

If you have seen that there’s a paid campaign going on, the likelihood is that it’s too late to pitch to be a part of that. From our perspective of managing campaigns for clients, sometimes it is really useful because an influencer will approach you who is bang on relevant and absolutely should be included, but almost every time the budget allocation has already been spent and it’s much too late. It’s important to bring across that you’re approach isn’t just because you’ve seen other influencers being paid by the brand, which sadly happens an awful lot (and so is an unfortunate assumption brands will make if you time a pitch around a paid campaign).

That’s not to say that it’s not worth taking note of the way that the brands you want to work with are already integrating influencers into their marketing programme; indeed, this information can be vital in formulating your approach. Don’t be afraid to differentiate yourself and spell out what you do really well – if this resonates with a brand’s KPI’s it’s going to catch their attention.

You’ll notice not once have we suggested asking for payment. It might seem counterintuitive to offer to work for free, and indeed we’re massive proponents for influencers getting fairly remunerated for the work they do on behalf of brands. But that’s the nature of influence – it’s a reciprocal relationship and content creators need to be able to show their commercial partners what they can bring to the table. We believe that both influencers and brands have a strong hand to play, and the crucial factor is being able to sell yourself persuasively and appropriately. Once you have that nailed, there’s nothing stopping you from building relationships with your dream brands and turning them into future clients.