TUNE IN : Apple | Google | Spotify | Stitcher

Lately, one of the most common things I have been getting questions around is how to pitch brands without having experience. Today we are breaking it all down! The mindset, the positioning, and how to do it right…

Links Mentioned:

Land The Brand$ Masterclass: https://www.landthebrands.com/masterclass

Land The Brand$ Course: https://www.landthebrands.com/info

Instagram Account: https://www.instagram.com/thedailyinfluencers

Complete Episode Transcript:

0:07 Hey there, welcome to The Daily influencers podcast My name is Erica Marie Daily, former marketer and brand manager, turned your influencer marketing coach. On this podcast we help both influencers and brands, maximize their collaboration, grow on social media make more money and waste less time. Speaking of which, let’s jump right into today’s episode… Today we’re gonna be talking all about pitching with no experience. And the reason I really wanted to talk about this today is because I’ve been hearing it a lot. So I talk to you guys on a daily basis. And it just seems like this topic has been coming up a lot for me. And so I figured this is probably something that a lot of you guys might be thinking as well. And so one of the main things is I’ve been talking to a lot of my students that watch the webinar, and they’re considering jumping into the course, because this is something they really want to do. But they feel like since they have no experience that they can’t do this. So first and foremost, I want you guys to know, that majority of my students that I work with have never ever worked with a brand before, most of them don’t have a lot of followers. And a lot of them have zero experience. And that is exactly what I teach, I want you guys to realize that all of my programs are built for anyone at any level. And so it’s great for people that are already doing it, they do have experience because it’s a great refresher, because oftentimes, when you’re advanced, you kind of forget about the foundational things that you need to be doing. And those things are also very important. But this is also great for people that have zero experience. And so I want to kind of break this down for you guys the mindset and then we’ll work into some real life things that you can do to pitch even if you don’t have experience. So number one, I want to ask you guys, how do you think that you get experience if you don’t ever pitch to actually get that experience. And a great analogy is, like any of us when we got our first job, we don’t have experience ever having a job, but we still got a job, right. And that’s really a building block to getting your next position and your next position. And probably when you are applying to this job you sent in a resume or a cover letter, and gave them examples of life experiences that also qualified you for the job. And so that’s exactly the kind of idea that we’re going to use when we’re pitching brands, even though we don’t have experience collaborating with a brand yet. Another thing I want to remind you guys is that every single influencer had to start from zero, every single influencer had to send their first pitch, every single influencer had their first brand collaboration. And every single one of you can have that same experience. The only difference is they did it and you haven’t yet. And so I really want you guys to not let that be an excuse for why you don’t pursue your dreams. If we learned anything from 2020, like I explained in my last episode is that there’s no room to mess around anymore. We need to go for our goals, the world is getting crazier. And especially with everything going on, it’s a great way to have an extra income source. And so it’s there’s really no better time to start than right now, even if you have no experience, because there’s so much room for opportunity. And if you didn’t listen to last week’s episode, go back and listen to it because I talked about how much opportunity there is four new influencers. Okay, now I want to jump into the actionable things that you guys can do, if you don’t have experience and how you’re going to make up for it. And number one is I want you guys to audit your profile. If you guys haven’t taken my audit course, this is a great place to start. But I really want you guys to think about your social media profiles, kind of like your online resume or portfolio. And so I’m going to be using this analogy of a real job, quote unquote, versus an influencer job, because I think a lot of people can kind of connect the dots there. So especially if you want to be an influencer, brands are going to be looking at your profiles, as if they would be doing if they were, you know, looking you over for an actual job or position. And kind of an example of like a model they send in a portfolio of their work. Well, your Instagram or your social media profile is kind of like your portfolio. And so what we want to make sure first is that our profiles are in tip top shape, and they’re showcasing who you are, what you’re about and showcasing your best 4:39 work. 4:39 And so the first thing I want you guys to do, and this would be a good time to maybe get out a pen and paper, or if you’re listening to this while you’re driving, just come back and do these little exercises later. So depending on your goals, we want to set up our profiles to best match what the people that were interested in attracting would be interested in. And so for this example, we’re obviously interested in people pitching brands with no experience. And so the people we’re trying to attract our brands to work with us. So the very first thing I want you guys to do is think about your niche. And I’m just going to use the example of a beauty influencer, because that just popped in my head right now. But let’s say that I want to be a beauty influencer. And so next I want you guys to write down maybe five to 10 brands that are like your ideal brand partnerships. So just name off some makeup brands or hair brands or like a hair product, and write it out. And then I want you guys to think about what would those brands want to see on my profile, because remember, your profile is your resume. So I’m just going to run through a few things. But I highly suggest you guys actually go to our Instagram, which is at the daily influencers, and scroll through the highlights and find the ones that say audit. And I actually audit people’s profiles as examples. And they’re really, really good information on there. Okay, number one, your profile picture. If you are a beauty influencer, then we want to make sure your profile picture is probably a close up of your face, your hair’s done up and your makeup is really pretty, because that’s exactly what you’re all about. Number two, we want to make sure that your bio is kind of like your elevator pitch. Again, this is like a few, I think you get like, gosh, I want to say 150 letters you can put in there. So you don’t have a lot of room to really say what you’re all about. And so we want to make sure that what your bio says is going to attract number one, a brand to think that you are in alignment with them. And number two, that it’s going to attract the right audience. Because you got to remember that what a brands after when they’re working with an influencer, is that they want to tap into their audience of people who are most likely customers of theirs or people that would be a customer. So they’re really their target audience aligns with your audience. And so your bio is a great way to show the type of people that you’re attracting. And then number two, actually, I guess we’re on number three is your highlights, this is really important. I want you guys to assess your highlights. Number one, if you don’t have any, we want to add some but number two, go through yours and make sure that they are in alignment with what you want to do, which is working with brands and in my example, are going to be brands in the beauty industry. And if you have things on there that are kind of random and don’t fit that, I would just go ahead and take them out, you can always add them back in. But we want to use these highlights to showcase how good you are on stories, because a lot of brands want to work with you. And they want you to create story content. And so as you guys know, stories disappear in 24 hours. And so one day you might be like on your game and your stories The next day, you might not even be on stories. And so a brand is always going to go look at your highlights to see your work. And so this is a great place to showcase your very best work. And so looking back on those five to 10 brands that you wrote down, I want you next to think about the type of content that a brand would want to see you do and the type of content that you would want to see an influencer do if you’re the owner of that company. And so let’s just give the example of like the Dyson air wrap because I know a lot of people are using it, I want one. I if I owned the Dyson air wrap company or if I was the influencer person that’s hiring influencers, I would want to see my influencers doing tutorials all about it, I would want them explaining the product in detail. I’d want them showing people how it works. And I would want them to show people in real life experience like how their hair looked before and how it looked after. So they can show how amazing Our product is. And that is going to explain a product way more than just a picture of you holding it up and smiling. You know what I mean. And so this is really where you can let your skill set shine, and talk about products in your highlights. And so maybe Dyson is a product that you want to pitch. Well, you don’t necessarily have to go out and buy the Dyson and use the Dyson. But think about a similar product, maybe a curling iron or something that has to do with hair and do a tutorial really in detail where you’re really promoting the brand. You’re talking about how amazing it is. And you’re showcasing the product and showing people different ways that they can use it and why it’s such a great purchase. And a brand is going to see that and be like oh my gosh, I need this person to talk about my product. And so those are the things we want to put in your highlights. So think about those five to 10 brands that are your dream brands. And think about a way that you can show each of them an example in your highlights and I want you to go and create that content and start adding it to your highlights. So one thing I will say is it’s going to be a little bit of pre work, but I promise you guys it’s so worth it because by the time we’re done with all of these little things, your profile is gonna look like you have so much experience as an influencer, even though you’ve never actually partnered with a brand or collaborated with one like officially. Okay, the next thing is obviously Leave your feed. So we want to make sure your feed looks like you’re a beauty influencer. So a lot of people that maybe are just getting started, maybe you haven’t even really started creating content that’s within your niche. Maybe you’ve previously just used your Instagram to show your family and show your kids and kind of just random stuff. Well, if that’s you, I want you to again, think about your five to 10 10:25 dream companies that you want to work with, and then think about content that you would want to see on your feed, or that they would want to see on your feed. And a great way to kind of look at this is go find influencers that are kind of doing what you’re doing, and get some ideas from them, I don’t want you to copy them, no one wants to be the same as somebody else. And no one wants to follow 10 of the same people. So just get ideas, and then create your own type of content from those ideas. And really fill your profile with a few posts that really showcase your niche. So obviously, if I want to be in beauty influencer, I’m going to have posts of makeup looks of hair looks about products, and you know, really showcasing what I can do as a beauty influencer. And don’t feel like you need every single post to be like that nobody wants to follow somebody that’s always selling a product and every single post. So you can sprinkle in some pictures of your family still, but predominantly, I want you guys to post within your niche. And also within, you know, talking about products or doing tutorials or giving value within your niche in most of your posts. And that’s really how you guys can first clean up your profile. Okay, the second thing I want you guys to think about is the skill sets that a brand would want to have. So when I’m thinking about hiring an influencer, depending on what type of content or what type of collaboration we’re looking for, we’re going to be looking for certain types of skill sets. And there’s an easy way for you to kind of figure out what a brand might need. So for example, if there is a company that I’m going to pitch, and I see that they don’t have a lot of content on their own Instagram, then I can easily assume that they probably need more content. And so if I can showcase my photography skills, and my content creation skills and pitch them, like, hey, look at how great of the content that I’m making is, I can do the same thing for you and help you out where you’re kind of lacking. Or maybe they just launched a new product, and they need people to talk about the product and let people know that it even exists, well, then that’s something that you can, you know, pitch them. So a few things you guys can think about is what skills can you showcase that the brand might be interested in, and not just what the brand would be interested in. But if you already know like, You are amazing at photography, I want you to double down on that I want you to show off your photography skills so that any brand will be like, wow, I need to work with her or him. Because their photography skills are just so amazing. Or if you do drone photography, like that is so cool. And that’s something that not everyone can do double down on your current skill sets and really emphasize those on your profile and in your pitches. Another thing is, what examples Can you show? What features can you share? What benefits can you share? And what expertise Can you show? So another thing, if you’re an expert in something, like maybe you’re an expert in writing, or you went to school for writing, I want you to really showcase your writing skills. If you’re an expert in fitness, and you want to pitch like fitness brands showcase how much of an expert you are, because that gives you a little bit more credibility, if you know what I mean. And so there’s so many things that we can pitch to a brand. That doesn’t just have to be like, Oh, look, I’ve already collaborated with the brand. That’s why I’m great. Like, yes, it’s 13:50 great to see examples of collaborations. But again, there’s no difference between a paid collaboration and just you talking about a product, it’s the same exact work, there’s so much more to it like your skill sets, the way you talk about products, your writing skills, your expertise. I mean, maybe you’re great at doing tic tocs like brands want to get on Tick Tock so double down on what you are really good at and show more of those examples. Okay, I want to talk a little bit more about actually showing examples. So what I would number one suggest that you guys do is just talk about products and things that you already own. I don’t want to go out going out and spending a ton of money to try to talk about products that are trendy or that you see other influencers talking about. You don’t need to do that. And the best way to talk about a product and really, you know share how much you love it is talk about something that you already use and already love because you’re already going to be passionate about it because you have experience and you’re obviously already a customer which is great. But number two is if you guys want to really have some experience under your belt because I know some of you guys, no matter what I tell you are still going to be nervous. Then I would just start pitching brands to talk about their products for free. See if they’ll send you the product and collaborate with you free of charge. And then you can use those collaborations and those people as references, to then pitch brands for paid collaborations in the future. So if you feel like you’re lacking, there’s always a way to gain experience before you go out and pitch, if that’s something that you’re really, really worried about. But I want you guys to know, you can pitch without experience, it happens all the time, and everyone has done it. Another thing is that if you guys want to start earning some money, while you’re practicing, pitching, or sorry, while you’re practicing talking about products, sign up as an affiliate in an affiliate network like rewardstyle, and like to know it, or Amazon, or anywhere that you can be an affiliate, and when you talk about a product, you can promote it and then earn a commission on anyone that purchases it. And it’s also a great way to test your sales skills, see how good you actually are at selling. And then you can use that data to also show a brand. Because again, a brand’s number one goal is to get new customers make sales and grow their business. And the only way they’re going to do that is by getting sales. And so that’s obviously something that’s very, very important to them. And so if you can actually show examples of how great you are at sales, or how you’ve, you know, like gotten them sales, you’ve given them new customers. And you guys, something else I want you guys to understand is that when you gain a brand new customer, especially with my example, being a beauty influencer, let’s say I got a new customer for a foundation brand. I know when I find a good foundation, the one I’ve been using, I’ve been using for like two years, and I have to reorder it every three months. So now that I’ve given this brand new customer, they’re not just making money on that first initial sale that I got them, they’re now getting that customer to repeat order every three months. And so that is so valuable, especially to a brand that sells something that people buy on a recurring basis. So I want you guys to remember that. And if you can show how many new customers you got for like a brand that you were just talking about. Or even another thing I’ve told you guys before is take a screenshot if people are responding really well in the comments or in, you know your DMS, and they’re like, Wow, thank you so much for sharing that I’m going to go purchase that. Put that in your media kit, it shows that you have a knack for getting your audience excited about the things that you’re talking about. And that’s what a brand wants to see. So in your media kit, this is where we want to give examples. And this is another thing that I get asked a lot is, well, how do I create a media kit if I have no experience, same thing I just told you guys about. So if you’re implementing everything I taught you in the beginning of this podcast, and you’re posting content, about products and about brands, I want you to screenshot it and put it in there as examples. And you can show the pictures of you with the product, the links to maybe igtv you did or your highlights, or even like a screenshot of the caption, because that’s what you’re going to be doing for the brand. They just want to see examples. And 18:09 that is exactly what I want you guys to put in your media kit. Again, I want you to get rid of the idea. That experience means you got paid experience just means you have experience. So if you have experience talking about a brand and talking about a product, you have experienced the same as somebody who got paid to do exactly that. So last thing I want to talk about, is to never point out any negatives, a lot of times I see new influencers, they’re pitching a brand for the first time. And they’re like, I know that I’ve never worked with a brand or I know I don’t have a lot of followers. But I think that I still would be great. Here’s why you never want to point out the negatives like that. Even if you don’t have experience or whatever you might think you need to tell a brand. Never point out the negatives, you only want to point out examples of your strong shoots of your of your strong suits, I cannot talk today of your skill sets all the positive information about yourself. And if they go look at your profile, and they think you don’t have enough experience, and that’s on them. But you don’t need to point it out. You just need to pitch yourself and pitch about all the great things and all the reasons why you think it would be such a benefit to the brand that you’re working with. And I really want you guys to remember that this is all about the brand. I know a lot of times we think a brand just wants to hear about us. But you need to give examples about what’s in it for the brand. At the end of the day. The only reason a brand is hiring an influencer is because they think that they can bring them value. And so you got to point out the value. So when you pitch them with quote unquote, no experience, you’re going to show them examples. You’re going to show them your skill sets, and you’re really going to paint the vision for them about why you would be a great partner for that brand and why they should work with you. That’s it you guys I know this is a huge block for so many of you guys, but I really wanted to break it down and show you how you can work around it, how it really does not matter. And give you the example of a job. Like I said, we all start somewhere. And so this is absolutely no excuse for you not to chase your goals and not to start pitching. And just a reminder, you guys, when you’re pitching a brand, you’re emailing them, the worst that’s gonna happen is they say no. And if they do say no, and they don’t give you any feedback, I would say, Hey, thank you so much for getting back to me, do you mind sharing Why you didn’t move forward with a collaboration with me, I would love to learn what I can improve on, or what you guys are looking for. And odds are, they’ll write you back and be like, Hey, we loved you, we just thought you needed x, y, and z. Now you have valuable information from a real brand that you wanted to work with on what you can do to improve so that next time you pitch them in the future or another brand, you can make sure that you’re working on those things that brands are looking for. And so this is all part of the process, it’s a learning curve, you’re not going to get every single pitch that you send, especially in the beginning, but you’re not going to get any if you don’t pitch at all. And so just think of this, like a learning experience. I promise brands don’t bite, they’re very nice. When they decline you if they do that just reminded me. Another example I want to give you guys is again, thinking about like a regular quote unquote, job. When you apply as a newbie or someone that has no experience, you’re obviously not going to make as much as the person that’s worked in the industry for 10 years. And so you might not make as much as you want to in the very beginning. But as you learn as you grow as you get experience working with brands, you’ll start getting confidence number one to ask for more money and to you’ll have a valid reason of why you deserve more money because you have that experience. But again, you’re not going to get that experience until you start. So I want you guys to start pitching. If you need help with pitching, I highly suggest you guys check out number one, the free webinar on how to land paying brand deals and make money as an influencer with any sized following. And I truly mean that if you guys didn’t hear my podcast episode, one of my students has been landing brand deals with less than 300 followers. And you guys can absolutely do it too. So go watch the free webinar, I’ll put the link in the description. And then if you guys really want to make this happen, I highly suggest you jump into lambda brands. And if you have any questions email me, I’m actually taking 15 minute calls with anyone who has any questions about our courses or how I can help you reach your goals. So make sure you guys email me. I would love to chat with you and see how we can help you reach your goals. Thank you so much for listening. If you liked what you heard, it goes a long way if you could take 30 seconds and leave me a five star review and share this podcast with your friends. Alright you guys, I’ll see you on the next episode.