HOW TO GET AWESOME BRAND COLLABORATIONS

Think of your favourite brand. Now think of receiving an email from someone at their marketing department, telling you how much they love your blog and they would like to collaborate with you. And not only are you getting free stuff, they are even willing to pay you to write about them! How cool is that? I’ve been blogging for over two years now and have done quite a few brand collaborations. It’s pretty awesome to be recognized by the brands you love and work on unique content for them. Here are my tips & tricks for landing a collaboration yourself.

Stay consistent
Before you think of collaborating with a brand, make sure your content is consistent. Be your own worst critic! Work on your photography and writing skills, always proof read and make sure your blog lay-out looks professional. Post quality content on the regular so your homepage is up-to-date. You might have to work out a schedule if you lead a busy life. Something I’m totally failing at, but oh well 😉

Keep it personal
When looking for brands to collaborate with go for the brands you already love. This makes it so much easier for you to understand what the brand is about, thus making it also easier to tell your audience what you love about them. This also means not always accepting collaborations just because people will pay you to write about them. Your audience is one of the most important parts of your blog and you want to keep them entertained and most importantly, coming back!

Connect on social media
First of all make sure you follow the brand on social media. If you’re featuring a product of the brand, tag them. See if they have an ongoing campaign with a special hashtag you can use. Most brands have a person or team working on social media and if they see your name – and beautiful images, obviously – popping up every once in a while you might be top of mind when they’re looking for blogs to collaborate with.

PR Agencies
Find out which PR agency represents the brands you love and make sure you introduce yourself so they know about you. If they add you to their press list, you can mention that your interested in collaborating with that brand you love. Understand that this is all about making a connection between the brand and your readers and not about you getting free goodies. Be sure to attend the events a PR agency invites you to, this can be a great opportunity to chat to someone representing your favourite brand and leave a good impression with them.

Know your Unique Selling Point
So, obviously you started blogging because you love it. But since there are a lot of blogs out there for the exact same reason this does not make you unique. Think about it. What are you actually selling to a brand, what’s in it for them? What is your USP? Maybe the topic you blog about is unique, or maybe it’s your audience. Whatever it is, make sure you find out. Dive into Google Analytics. In my case my style is really colourful and I love wearing prints. This is what sets me apart from my fellow Dutch bloggers and this is why brands come to me. Of course it also helps to have 38K followers on Instagram, but this is never the main reason why I get collaborations.

Have a great ‘about’ page
The first time a brand will get in touch with you blog will most likely be… on your blog! That’s why it’s important to have a good about page. An about page is one of the most visited pages on your blog, so make sure to introduce yourself properly. As they say, you only have one chance to make a first impression. Give all the details a company might possibly need before deciding to get in touch with you. So not only talk about why you decided to blog, but also tell them about your USP, or maybe even throw in some stats if that’s your thing. It’s always a good idea to have a look at what other blogs have put on their about page in order to write your own. Curious about my about page? It’s right over here.

Make it easy for brands to get in touch
Kind of a no-brainer, you would think. But as a girl who works in online marketing I sometimes contact bloggers about collaborations and it can be quite hard to find their email addresses. So add a contact page on your blog which has your email address and maybe even put it on your about page, like I did. If you have a large social following it will be a good idea to add it to your bio on social channels.

Or… get in touch yourself!
If your plan is to make it big and you’re already creating quality content, it’s definitely not the time to sit around and wait for brands to email you. See if you can find out the email address of the press/marketing department of the brands you love and approach them. Think of it as sending a cover letter and introduce yourself properly. Again, first impressions count and all contacts you make during this blogging thing are really important. So no emails saying ‘hi, I’m a blogger, give me free stuff’ 😉

Create a killer media kit
So now that you’re getting professional about this blogging thing it’s a good idea to create your own media kit. Think of a media kit as your resume, which you’ll send along with that cover letter I mentioned in the paragraph above. Your media kit will be a short presentation of you, everything you blog about, your stats and brands you may have already collaborated with. I haven’t written a post on the subject (yet), but I thought this one by Coco Chic was quite good.

Now I’m sure there are loads of other things you can do to get that collab. If you guys have any ideas about this yourself, I would love to hear them!

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