Welcome to the Mom Blog Money Blog Series! For 30 days we are following the Mom Blog Money Blog Workshop (affiliate link) sharing some tips so that we can work through the steps and grow together. Grab your coffee, have a seat, and join us.
In Day 28 we talked about branding and protecting your online photos. Today we are going to look at effectively working with brands.
I’ve been blogging for over 2 years now and up until two weeks ago I had only ever reached out to a brand once.
All of the opportunities I’ve had so far have been from companies contacting me.
The one and only time I had reached out to a brand before starting this series was terrible. The email was all about me. Why I wanted to try the product and why it would help me. Nothing at all about how I could help the company.
So, when I read Laurie’s words of think about “what you can do for them” when pitching brands I had a lightbulb moment.
No wonder the one and only company I had ever pitched didn’t respond to my email. It was all about me and nothing about them.
I decided it was time to try again with pitching a company. This time I would follow Laurie’s advice of making it all about them.
Choosing a company to pitch
I choose a smaller, local company that I had already been following on Facebook. I read everything they had on their website. After all of my research I concluded that they were trying to grow and probably had a very small budget to do so.
Composing the pitch email
When writing my email I started out by first introducing myself as a local and then as a blogger who had been following their journey.
The next part was all about what I wanted to do to help them grow. The blog posts I was growing to write, the promotion I was going to do on what social media networks and the numbers to go along with it all (average blog page views and social media reach).
The very last part of the email stated what I wanted in exchange. This part was one line.
Instead of asking for money from this small company I asked for product. Since I was operating under the assumption that they had a small budget, I figured they wouldn’t have money to pay me for my efforts. But they did have the product already and that would be easier for them to give away than money in their checking account. Plus, free product would equal money I didn’t have to spend buying it myself.
The results of the pitch email
After hitting send I felt a lot better about this email. It was all focused on the company and not me.
And????
Not even 10 minutes later I had an email saying absolutely, they would love to partner with me!
It felt awesome.
Not only did I get a yes from my pitch but I get to test out a product I’ve wanted to try for a long time and I get to help a local company grow. I feel good about this partnership and it helps me with my personal blog goals. Win-win.
Don’t miss this very informative Google + Hangout with more information on working with brands including how to pitch, how to charge, what to do if you don’t like the product, amplification of the post and follow up with Holly, Jessica, Kelli and Randi.
Have you reached out to any brands? How did it go?
Don’t miss Day 30 which focuses on the Business Blogging Toolkit.
About Jessica Torres
Congrats on the successful pitch!
Thank you!
I did reach out to a brand once. And they reached back, but then it went nowhere. I did try to make contact again, to no avail. I was bummed. I’m just glad I had the gumption to try!
Sometimes it won’t work out with brands. Don’t give up though. Continue to reach out as you find brands that might be a good fit.
This is something I want to try this year. So far I’ve only worked with companies that have come to me…and there are some local companies I’d love to work with. Thanks for the reminder that the letter should be mostly about them!
Making your pitch all about them will really help you capture their attention. Good luck!