How to pitch brands and get more sponsorships

Your channel has been growing. You’re hopeful that brands will eventually line up to sponsor you. But honestly, what are you waiting for?

Take your business into your own hands and unlock more sponsorship opportunities by reaching out to brands.

Why reach out to brands

Just because you’re a “small” creator, doesn’t mean you aren’t a valuable one. It just means sponsors might have a harder time finding you. Don’t forget the individuals who make sponsorships happen are working in 9 to 5 jobs with a strict marketing budget. They need to find the right partnerships in a small amount of time. Rather than looking for small needles in a haystack, they go for larger creators right in front of their eyes. If you make yourself found you’ll make their job easier for them by presenting them with value.
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Pitching yourself to brands has many benefits:

• It gets you leads by helping partners discover you
• You develop relationships that are unique and useful to you
• You don’t have to give away a +20% cut to a marketplace
• You are developing a skill that will serve you continuously throughout your creator business
• It saves brands the time of having to source creators - you’re doing them a favor

Lloyd George launched his creator business in 2022. He jumped into reaching out to brands and landed a collaboration with Acast. His splash on the scene caught our eye and led to us sponsoring his newsletter. All this, with only a few hundred subscribers started by pitching to a brand!

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How to reach out to brands in 3 Steps

Outbound sales is both a science and an art. However, the actual work is surprisingly easy - it just requires some persistence and niftiness, which most creators seem to possess anyway. Follow the 3 steps below to kickstart your outbound sales.

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1. Build a target list: Before shooting out DM’s to everyone you can think of,  take a step back. Do a quick match and feasibility test:

Match: Ask yourself these 3 questions for every brand you consider:

1. What topics do I cover and what topics does this brand cover? Is there any overlap?
2. Who is my audience? Will this brand want to reach them?
3. Am I excited to work with this brand?

Feasibility: While we all want to work with Nike - unfortunately some brands just aren’t easy to get a hold of. Here are some quick questions you can use to assess the likelihood of being able to land one of these brands:

• Do they do a lot of creator marketing with similar creators and channels?
• Do they have regional leads for marketing? (Big plus if they do!)

2. Find your point-of-entry: Once you have a target list together, identify who you will reach out to. Contacting the right person is just as important as contacting the right type of company. One way to do this is via a quick search on Linkedin for the marketing departments of each company and who manages it. Once you have found the right person, consider whether you’ll contact them via e-mail, Linkedin, DMs, phone, or any other means.

Bonus tip: Many companies divide their marketing teams into countries/regions - try to find the ones working in your region to increase your chances of converting.

3. Reach out: Now it’s time for cold outreach! We’re not going to lie, this is easy to get wrong. There’s nothing worse than messaging someone and hearing nothing but crickets in return. Your goal is to write message that won’t get ignored. Check out this thread on cold DMs from Shounak - it’s fantastic. Also, one great superpower that you have is your Passionfroot Storefront. Make sure to link to your Passionfroot page in your cold email to show them how amazing you, your content, and community are.

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.” - Michael Jordan

Even if you do all of the above, nobody gets a yes on their first shot. Take that into consideration. If you want 2 conversions, do 10 outreaches. If you want 5, do 25. Be diligent, persistent, and positive - all you need is one yes!
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Bring them into your world

You got your first reply - life is frooty! It’s time to go all in. Take them out of the cold and bring them into your world as quickly as possible by understanding their needs and presenting the products you think are best suited for their needs. Here your investment in your Passionfroot page will come in handy. Once you are aligned on a setup, quickly send them a proposal that matches your discussion - try to make the time between their reply and them getting a proposal as short as possible - this will increase your conversion rate.

Using the Passionfroot Proposal Feature

Once you have a partner on the hook, make it as easy as possible for them to book you. Marketers may have the money, but they don’t always have the time. By using Passionfroot’s Proposal feature, you can tie the knot on your current conversations in a professional way that easily converts. Simply create the package or product you discussed with the partner, send over the proposal, and if the partner likes it, you’ll get a booking instantly!

In the end, there’s no right way to reach out to brands. It’s just about taking the initiative. The worst that can happen is that they say no, but the best that can happen is pretty amazing.

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