howtogetbrandstoworkwithyourblog

For many, blogging is like therapy. Journaling your thoughts in an online setting helps you to make sense of your life. If your blog is about a hobby, it helps you feel more connected to what you love. But at the end of the day, what most bloggers want to do is build notoriety and respect so that they can monetize.

In order to monetize, you’ll likely need to get brands to work with your blog. There are other ways to monetize your blog, but they tend to involve chance (people clicking on banner ads) or a huge investment of time (writing a book).

If you’ve held a sales position before, you’re probably familiar with the art of the cold call. Cold calling for a company is not so different than reaching out to brands you’d like to work with for your blog.

But if you’ve never had a sales role before, or perhaps are a little shy, it may take some courage and strategy to work yourself up to cold emailing a brand.

So take a deep breath, give yourself the confidence to know that you’re worth working with, then follow these steps to create a brand partnership:

Create a list of brands you’d like to partner with

Take that a step further and create a spreadsheet with the following fields:

  • Date of sent email
  • Brand’s Name
  • Interested in Partnership?
  • Due Date
  • Actual Date of Blog Post/Link

This will help you to stay organized if you contact a mass amount of brands at once, and they all give you specific deadlines when they want content.

Craft the perfect outreach email

Your best bet is to create a template that you can modify for different types of brand partners.

The key elements include:

  • A salutation (you’ll be most effective if you can manage to find your contact’s name)
  • A short bio about yourself and your blog. It should be written in a way that would be relevant to the brand you’re trying to partner with. Include social stats or attach a media kit so they know what to expect impression-wise.
  • Why you’re reaching out. Maybe include a basic idea for partnership, like what kind of post you’d write.
  • What you want. Is it free product, payment, or both? Make sure you clearly define what should be expected when working together.

If you’d like a second opinion on your outreach email, or help writing it, feel free to email me at [email protected].

Follow Up!

Just like in sales, one of the most important things you can do is follow up. Brands get hundreds and thousands of emails on a daily basis, and it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. It’s ok to shoot a second email asking them if they’ve had a chance to view your proposal for a partnership.

In some cases, your blog may be too “small” to work with right now, but keep the relationship open. You never know what the future may bring!

Getting brands to work with your blog is not dissimilar from cold calling in sales. These tips will get you on the right track.

Long-time bloggers – what’s worked for you when trying to work with brands in the past? Share your thoughts in the comments!