Pitching to brands can get overwhelming when you don’t know where to start and you don’t know what to say. But I’m here to help you navigate the common collaboration email pitches, what makes them unique, as well as tips on how you can stand out and go above and beyond. Because if you really want to work with brands, you have to make every intention to connect and build a relationship with the brand long-term. Here are the 3 effective collaboration email pitches you can try to land your next brand collaboration.
The most effective collaboration email pitch you can create in your creator career is the campaign pitch. This is one of the easiest ways to land brand collaborations because you already know that there is work available and brands are casting for their active influencer marketing campaign. Think about it like a job listing and you are sending an application, hoping to be a top contender. This is typically found in influencer platforms or if you are in the mailing list for PR agencies.
If you are looking to stand out on a campaign pitch, here’s what you should include:
The seller here is your specific idea. The more creative and the more aligned you are with the goals of the partnership, the better your chances of landing the job. It also helps when you want to share a personal connection with the brand because brands love hearing authentic stories!
Another collaboration email pitch that I love sending brands is an idea pitch. If you have a unique project that you want to execute, and you want the brand to help sponsor it, you can create this proposal-type email. Maybe you are traveling to a unique destination and you want to create content to help the brand promote their new products in their marketing materials. Or maybe you’re hosting a free masterclass and you want to integrate the brand as part of the class material.
Whatever your unique idea is, on top of sharing the idea on an email (hint: it’s similar to the campaign pitch), you can take it up a notch by creating a presentation (maybe you can also record yourself doing the presentation to get your point across better) and hopping on a call to discuss the details of your ideas.
Brands love to explore this kind of collaboration email when your idea is unique to them and when you are thinking outside the box. This kind of collaboration is very helpful for brands who have a flexible marketing budget because you are essentially adding the planning stage onto your plate.
And if you want to impress the brand even more, this is a tip you may not hear from most influencer and social media coaches: brands love working with a professional creative. It makes their job easier when you are assertive, resourceful and organized. When the brand wants to proceed from this idea pitch, try taking charge and setting up the entire partnership yourself using Lumanu.
Lumanu is a platform that helps creators and brands organize their brand collaborations easily. With Lumanu, you are able to set up the entire collaboration, along with all the documents you need, in one space so you don’t need to constantly dig into your email for information and lose time, or take up space in your cloud for your deliverables. You and the brand can both document details like due dates, captions for approval, or creative instructions to help you and the brand stay organized and collaborate with clarity.
You can upload contracts, content guidelines, and the deliverables that the brand can review. Once the collaboration is complete, you are also able to upload the invoice through Lumanu, where you can set up your bank account in the platform to get paid. And one of the nifty features I love most about Lumanu is their EarlyPay program where you can get paid instantly, instead of waiting for the NET-30 or NET-60 we all dread as contractors.
I’ve been using Lumanu for over a year, and a lot of brands and PR agencies already use this platform because it makes communication so easy and reliable! Once you start introducing this with brands for your collaborations, brands will want to work with you more and more because of the increased professionalism. Professionalism builds trust and repeat clients because there is less risk with working with you. Try Lumanu for yourself with the code Naohms and see how it changes your collab game.
One effective collaboration email pitch that is the simplest to learn, especially if you are brand new in the influencer marketing industry, is the introduction pitch email. It’s my most recommended email to write when doing cold outreaches because it focuses on building the relationship first before looking for a business exchange with a brand. Keeping the email as simple as
Hi [BRAND], this is what my platform is all about and I’ve been a huge fan of your products because [REASON]. I would love to know what your goals are as a brand and how you typically work with influencers.
The idea is really that simple. By taking out the expectation of landing a brand partnership out of the equation, the brand is more receptive in exploring the possibility of working with you and getting to know who you are before talking shop. It takes the pressure off because you’re making the intention more about the brand rather than what you can get out of it. The less you’re trying to convince the brand to work with you, the better your chances to create a relationship. And how typically a collaboration becomes its by-product.
The introduction pitch is also the kind of email that you can send a brand year round. You don’t have to wait for a specific campaign or have an idea to reach out to the brand.
If you want to know what this introduction pitch should look like, I created a collaboration email template for you to start with, on me! Learn the exact process I use that gets me 72% more responses from cold brand contacts.
Pitching to brands doesn’t have to be overwhelming and intimidating, but you do have to create intentions before proposing to work with a brand. As a business of influence, it’s so important to connect instead of looking at collaborations like a transaction because people do business with people. Let’s bring the human aspect back into influencing!
FTC Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Lumanu, but my thoughts about the service are my own.
Download my Handy Dandy Pitch Email Sequence to learn the simplest method for you to reach out to brands you want to work with, and increase that response rate by up to 72%!