So, you’re thinking about pitching brands to become a sponsor and ready to write your first email? But ummm, what do you say??
You’ve got your regular blog posts. You’ve been steadily building up your Twitter and Instagram following. Now you want to take things to the next level and monetize your platforms by working with brands…
BUT there’s no wiggle room in the budget for a pricey PR expert to write those email pitches and get you connected.
Most of us aren’t a Kardashian or a YouTube star with brands filling up our inboxes, desperate to work with us. Sorry to break it to you, but that means we’ve got to put in the extra work and reach out ourselves.
Once you’ve got your hit list of brands you’d like to collaborate with, you need to make sure you write an email pitch that actually gets read and grabs their attention. I’m not gonna lie, this can feel like a struggle when you don’t know where to start, but that’s why we’ve put together these simple tips for you!
Contents
Follow these tips to write an email pitch to brands that will get you noticed.
Keep it concise.
This is not the time to share your life story! Seriously, no one in going to give up a chunk of their workday to read through an essay. You need to make your email short, succinct and most importantly – enticing. A few paragraphs, tops. Use bullet points, even better! If you can get someone’s interest, they can always email you back for more info if they actually want it.
Grab their attention with a catchy subject line.
Think about your inbox and how many unopened emails pass through it. (If I’ve just made you panic about the state of your inbox – sorry!)
Even if you do open them all, there are plenty of emails you delete, skim over, or simply forget to chase up.
So you need grab people’s attention with the subject line. Don’t be super wordy – just get straight to the point. What do they need to know and what will make them care enough to open the email and keep reading. And no, you don’t need to label it “PITCH: ________.” Just write something short, sweet and catchy like “I’ve got an idea to promote your Lucy & Yak short dungarees with 20k UK women this summer.”
Who are you and why should the brand care?
Start with a quick sentence about who you are and who your audience or following is. Male, female, your audience’s average age… are they parents, young professionals, creatives, corporate types, etc… A brand wants to know if your audience matches the people they want to target with whatever they are releasing next season/quarter.
Don’t forget to include important stats. For example, your follower numbers, engagement rate, the open rate on your e-newsletter, monthly views and growth from month to month. Brands want to know you’re a professional with an engaged following and are thinking strategically.
Make sure you include hyperlinks to your social media accounts. Compile it all in a media kit or a 1-2 sheet PDF… Bottomline, make it super easy for the recipient to find out what they need to know and fast.
Why this brand?
Yeah, we all want the money but there’s got to be more to it than that! Have you been a big fan of their brand for years? Did their product or service solve a major problem in you life? Do you think your followers would benefit from using it? Do you already talk about their products in your social media feed, because you’re one of their super fans? Let them know!
Authenticity and genuine passion is very effective when it comes to marketing and selling. If you can’t explain why you love their brand, why should they work with you?
What are you proposing?
Keep your actual proposal super short. Think 3 paragraphs made up of 3 sentences each. Share your ideas for how you could use your platform and work with the brand. You want to spark ideas and get the company interested – you don’t need a detailed plan! All of that can be worked out once you’ve got their interest!
NO copy and paste allowed!
Don’t panic, not every single sentence needs to be different each time you sent out a pitch email, but you want to make it sound like it was written for that one specific brand.
And if you send out one email and BCC several brands or even worse – CC them, then we need to have an intervention. Seriously – just don’t do it!
Hopefully you learned this early on when sending out cover letters with your resume, but I can’t believe how many people think they can get away with a generic email when they should trying to impress.
Write your pitch emails to brands using these tops and see if you get a better response. Oh, and don’t forget to follow up! It’s highly likely they won’t respond to the first email you send. Send a reminder 4 days later and then a week later after that to follow up.
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