How to Find Suitable Brand Deals for Influencers

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Consider you’re sitting down to create a brand-new YouTube video. You have a killer idea that you know your audience will love. But before you can get started, you find yourself sidetracked by a challenge you didn't foresee: how to get sponsored on YouTube. You're not alone. Many aspiring creators want to know how to attract brand partnerships to focus less on making videos for "free" and more on creating content that excites them and gets them paid. If you're among them, you're in the right place.

This guide will help you unravel the mystery of brand deals for influencers, enabling you to achieve your goals and go viral through influencer marketing services.

Brand partnerships can help you achieve your objectives faster, and Aha Creator's solution for influencer marketing can provide the tools you need to succeed. Their platform helps aspiring creators attract brand deals to achieve their goals faster, streamlining the process for influencers and businesses.

How to Find Suitable Brand Deals for Influencers

Brand Deals for Influencers

1. Use Aha Creator

Aha Creator simplifies brand agreements for content creators. We take care of the tough negotiations for brand deals, so you receive fair compensation for your influence. Our matching system pairs creators with relevant brands, boosting the chances for successful collaborations. Join our waitlist today! We’ll work to connect you with partnership opportunities that align with your content and values.

Brand Deals for Influencers

2. Develop Your Brand, Niche, and Content Style

Establishing yourself as a creator is crucial for landing brand sponsorships. Start by experimenting with content formats and platforms to find your preferred style. Be consistent with your topics and establish a posting cadence. Building an audience begins when you see your voice as a creator and followers learn what to expect from you. For instance, Emma Chamberlain’s rise to fame came from her authentic, quirky, and humorous approach to vlogging. Her distinct style and personality helped her carve out a niche in the lifestyle space. Once she established this brand identity, brands like Louis Vuitton began reaching out, knowing that her audience aligned with their target market.

3. Learn as Much as You Can About the Influencer Industry

Familiarize yourself with the workings of influencer marketing. Start by learning standard terms and trends in the industry. Then, expand your knowledge to include usage rights, the importance of a contract, and the latest trends in content creation. This will come in handy when you begin to seek out brand deals.

Sarah’s Day is a fitness and wellness influencer who has built a successful brand by educating herself about the influencer space. She understands the importance of contracts, content ownership, and health and fitness trends. This knowledge has helped her maintain a professional reputation and build long-term partnerships with brands like Lorna Jane and Kora Organics.

4. Organize Your Portfolio

After establishing your brand, collect and organize your work in a portfolio or media kit to be ready to contact brands. Create an organized portfolio of content examples and a media kit or influencer rate sheet that lists your key social media stats, audience information, services, and pricing for sponsored content. This overview of your work allows brands to easily view the kind of creator you are and decide whether you are a good fit for a brand deal.

Many influencers who collaborated with Daniel Wellington first presented their work through organized portfolios and media kits. Influencers highlighted their engagement rates, audience demographics, and examples of past content to show their value to the brand. A clear, concise portfolio helped these influencers land brand deals quickly and professionally.

Begin by sharing the brands you are most passionate about on your social media platforms. Tag the brands and engage with the brands’ content. This shows potential future partners that you are passionate about their products and will represent them authentically. For example, a makeup influencer, James Charles, started sharing products from brands he genuinely loved, like Morphe, even before he landed paid collaborations. By tagging the brands and engaging with their content, he attracted attention from these companies. His authenticity led to a long-term partnership with Morphe, where he co-created a makeup line.

6. Reach Out to Brands

When ready, contact brands directly on social media or through their website contact forms. If you find a brand’s influencer marketing manager on LinkedIn, contact the person to ask about a potential partnership. Carmen Hamilton, a fashion and lifestyle influencer, started reaching out to brands directly when she began her influencer career. By finding the right marketing managers on LinkedIn, she made professional, personalized pitches, which led to collaborations with brands like Mecca and Zara. This direct outreach helped her get noticed before brands were actively approaching influencers.

7. Attend Influencer Events

Brands and marketers often attend influencer marketing and social media events as sponsors. If a preferred brand partner has a booth at the event, don’t be afraid to strike up a conversation. Networking can take you far in influencer marketing. Jackie Aina attended beauty influencer events where she networked with brands and other influencers.

She built relationships with makeup brands like Fenty Beauty and Anastasia Beverly Hills by engaging at events, showcasing her expertise, and becoming an advocate for inclusivity in the beauty industry. Networking in these settings helped her form relationships that led to significant brand collaborations.

8. Join the Marketplace

Create a profile on izea.com to start working with brands. Include a bio about yourself and showcase your best content. Link your social profiles to make your content and analytics more accessible to potential brand partners. Then, start pitching yourself to casting calls.

Micah Gianneli is an influencer who has used platforms like izea.com to connect with brands. She built a profile showcasing her best fashion and lifestyle content, linking her Instagram and YouTube channels, which allowed potential partners to access her analytics. Micah secured partnerships with brands like PUMA and Sephora by pitching herself through such platforms.

Influencer Marketing Automation

Platforms That Pay Content Creators

Social Media Influencer Partnerships

How Much Do Digital Creators Make

Influencer Brand Partnerships

5 Niches Commonly Used by Influencers

Influencer Engagement

How Do Brand Deals Work

How to Reach Out to Brands as an Influencer

Benefits of Digital Collaboration

Types of Brand Deals For Influencers

Brand Deals for Influencers

Sponsored posts provide a straightforward avenue for brands to partner with influencers. These collaborations involve influencers creating content about a brand’s product or service in exchange for compensation or free products. Sponsored posts typically include a disclosure such as #ad. Ideally, influencers promote brands they genuinely like and align with their values.

One of the most famous influencer partnerships was Kylie Jenner’s sponsored post for Pepsi. She posted a photo of herself sipping a Pepsi tagged with #ad in exchange for a significant fee. This simple but effective post reached millions of her followers, driving awareness for the brand. Brands like Pepsi often partner with influencers to create authentic content that reaches a broad audience.

2. Brand Ambassadors: Long-Term Influencer Partnerships

If you’re a brand seeking to build long-term relationships with influencers while boosting traffic and business, consider a brand ambassador. This influencer consistently represents your brand through their content over an extended period. Brand ambassadors align with your company’s values and serve as the face of your brand to your target audience.

Gigi Hadid became a long-term brand ambassador for Maybelline, consistently appearing in their campaigns and creating content around their products. As an ambassador, Gigi helped to boost Maybelline’s image, reflecting the brand’s message of beauty empowerment. The partnership was a long-term relationship, creating more trust and recognition with her followers.

3. Product Collaborations: Creating New Offerings With Influencers

Product collaborations involve partnering with influential individuals who appreciate your products. If an influencer has proven successful in driving business and increasing traffic, consider dedicating a product or product line to them. A product collaboration entails a brand joining forces with a famous influencer to create and launch a new product, service, or product collection.

This approach benefits influencers by giving them more recognition and a steady income. It also allows brands to have their products endorsed by a social media icon who genuinely supports their business. Product collaborations often seem more authentic due to their longer-term nature. Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty collaboration with LVMH is a standout example of a product collaboration. Rihanna, an influential figure in fashion and beauty, teamed up with LVMH to launch her beauty line.

The line aligned with her brand and filled a gap in the industry by offering products for a wide range of skin tones. This collaboration has resulted in significant success for both Rihanna and Fenty Beauty.

4. Influencer Gifting: A Budget-Friendly Option for Brand Awareness

If you’re a brand with a limited budget looking to raise product awareness, consider influencer gifting. This strategy involves providing influencers with free products in return for honest reviews. It’s an effective way to initiate a professional relationship with an influencer and assess the outcome. Although they aren’t paid, this arrangement benefits influencers by supplying them with free content creation products.

Glossier, a famous beauty brand, has used influencer gifting to raise awareness about its products. The brand regularly sends products to influencers in the beauty space, asking them to share their honest thoughts in exchange for a free product. These gifts are often posted on Instagram, helping to generate buzz and authentic recommendations.

5. Affiliate Marketing: Earning Commissions on Sales

Affiliate marketing collaborations occur when brands supply influencers with tracking links or codes for their products, rewarding them with a commission for every sale generated. While brands typically gift their products to influencers in return for their content, they may also offer extra compensation or bonuses. In this scheme, influencers join as affiliates, sharing links to the brands’ products and services.

Many influencers use the Amazon Associates program to earn commissions by sharing links to Amazon products. For example, an influencer might create a blog post or Instagram story showcasing their favorite home décor items and include Amazon affiliate links. Every time someone purchases through those links, the influencer earns a commission, making it a mutually beneficial partnership for both parties.

Social media takeovers allow influencers to represent your brand authentically by showcasing their unique voice, thereby connecting with your audience differently. A takeover involves an influencer announcing to their followers that they will manage your account for a specified duration, often daily. During this period, they promote your products, enhancing their brand recognition and offering your brand an engaging advertising medium.

The influencers can be compensated either monetarily or with products. L’Oreal has often collaborated with beauty influencers for social media takeovers, where an influencer takes over the brand’s Instagram for a day. For example, L’Oreal had influencers like NikkieTutorials host a takeover, giving their followers an inside look at the brand while promoting new products. These takeovers helped L’Oreal engage with younger, digitally-savvy audiences while authentically showcasing their products.

7. Giveaways: Boosting Engagement for Brands and Influencers

Giveaways can be mutually beneficial for brands and influencers. They enable influencers to enhance engagement and follower count while brands gain increased recognition. In giveaways, influencers encourage their followers to participate in a challenge or contest to win free products from a brand. This could involve joining an email list, tagging a friend, using a brand-specific hashtag, or following the brand’s account. The brand typically supplies the prize and may compensate or provide products to the influencer.

Daniel Wellington frequently partners with influencers to run giveaways. In these giveaways, followers are encouraged to tag a friend, follow the brand, and share the post. The influencer gains engagement, and the brand gains new followers and visibility. These giveaways are a popular way for smaller brands to build brand awareness, especially in the early stages.

8. Virtual Events: Live Sessions for Real-Time Engagement

If you seek collaboration that boosts brand exposure, consider virtual events. These are opportunities for influencers to represent a brand on platforms like Instagram, Twitch, YouTube, and Amazon Live, showcasing products to a vast audience. Live streams offer the flexibility for audiences to join at any given time. Influencers can also host these events on the brand’s page.

This allows followers and customers to witness influencers’ genuine reactions to products, potentially increasing the follower count and engagement for brands and influencers. Influencers frequently host live streams for Amazon Prime Day or other events, showcasing products for special discounts. For example, influencers on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, or Amazon Live present products, answer questions, and share honest reviews in real-time, offering their audience an opportunity to shop while engaging with the influencer.

9. User-Generated Content: Genuine Collaborations With Your Customers

User-generated content (UGC) is a highly effective form of social media collaboration for brands. UGC collaborations involve social media users or customers creating content for a brand, which the brand uses in its marketing efforts or on its social media channels. In authentic UGC, the creator is sometimes compensated, but the brand seeks permission to use the content.

However, some creators request payment to produce UGC that brands can use. Starbucks encourages user-generated content by featuring customer photos in its social media campaigns. Fans of the brand often share their images of their Starbucks drinks, and the brand re-shares these photos on its official channels. While the creators aren’t always compensated, the brand boosts authenticity and engagement by showcasing real customers using its products.

10. Sponsored Blog Posts: Content Marketing for Influencers and Brands

People often use social media platforms for shopping and finding trending products, but many also visit blogs for in-depth information about brands and their offerings. Sponsored blog posts can generate revenue through affiliate income, monetary compensation, or free product exchanges. Blogs enable brands to enhance their online presence and improve their SEO through links from sponsored content.

The New York Times often publishes sponsored blog posts in collaboration with Audible, recommending audiobooks and providing links for readers to subscribe to Audible. These blog posts include a review of the service and a link to Audible’s subscription page, generating revenue for both parties. Such partnerships help brands reach readers through trusted sources, boosting SEO and driving traffic.

Aha Creator: Your Ticket to Brand Partnerships

Aha Creator streamline brand partnerships for creators. We handle the heavy lifting of brand deal negotiations, ensuring you get fair value for your influence. Our matching system helps pair creators with relevant brands, maximizing the potential for successful collaborations. Sign up for our waitlist today, and we'll work to connect you with partnership opportunities that align with your content and values.

Benefits of Brand Deals for Influencers

Brand Deals for Influencers

1. Unlocking Greater Earning Potential

Brand partnerships can provide influencers with much higher earnings than ad revenue alone. Influencers can negotiate compensation based on several factors, including audience size, engagement rates, and the value they can bring to the brand. This allows them to earn more for their content and efforts.

2. Diversifying Income Streams

Relying solely on ad revenue ties your earnings to fluctuating ad rates and viewer behavior. Brand deals offer an opportunity for diversification, ensuring that income is not dependent exclusively on ad revenue, providing a more stable income source.

3. Enjoying More Control and Creative Freedom

With brand deals, influencers have more control over the content they produce. They can integrate the brand message organically into their videos, maintaining creative freedom and authenticity. This leads to more engaging and genuine content for their audience.

4. Creating Personalized and Relevant Content

Brand deals often involve products or services that align with the influencer’s niche and audience. As a result, the content feels more relevant and valuable to the viewers, leading to higher engagement and a more positive response.

5. Strengthening Audience Connection

Genuine brand partnerships can strengthen the relationship between the influencer and their audience. When the influencer promotes products they genuinely believe in, it enhances trust and credibility with their viewers. This trust can lead to higher viewer loyalty and a more engaged community.

How To Pitch Brands As An Influencer

Brand Deals for Influencers

1. Use Aha Creator

Aha Creator makes connecting YouTube influencers with brands easy and efficient. For creators, Aha does the heavy lifting of negotiations to ensure you receive fair value for your influence. Their matching system connects YouTube creators with brands aligned with their content and values. Sign up for the waitlist today and get discovered by brands looking for creators like you.

Brand Deals for Influencers

2. Post About the Brand Organically

Before reaching out to a brand for sponsorship, consider organically posting about them on your Instagram. This is important and will show the brand you are genuinely interested in their products. If you own any of the brand’s products, share a post on your feed and tag the brand in the caption. You should also share a few stories and tag the brand in those. If you don’t own anything from the brand, look for a recent post on their feed you can share with your stories and tag them. Bonus points if you explain why you love the brand or product so much. This organic content will showcase your dedication to the brand, making you an ideal collaboration candidate.

3. Make Sure You Fit the Brand’s Aesthetic

When you reach out to a brand, they will evaluate you to see if it makes sense to work with you. Ask yourself if your vibe matches the brand’s vibe. Take a moment to compare your aesthetic, style, and values to the brand you are reaching out to. Do they feel aligned? It’s imperative to be aligned if you are a smaller influencer because it will give you a competitive edge and make you more enticing to the brand. But don’t completely alter yourself or your content to fit every brand’s vibe you’re reaching out to. It’s essential to show up as you are and do so authentically! The brands you reach out to should feel like they would smoothly fit into your brand on social media.

4. Engage With the Brand Before Reaching Out

Here’s a tiny but mighty potential move to do before you reach out to a brand: engage with the brand’s Instagram account in as many ways as possible. What better way to show your commitment to a brand than showing the brand some organic love? Comment on their recent posts, post their product or Instagram posts on your stories with a tag, and don’t be afraid to send the brand a little love in their DMs. (I always like DMing them, saying something like “Om,g I love your clothes!! I just wanted to send you some love!! Take care!) You could send a compliment or even respond to their Instagram stories. The idea here is to show that you love the brand, organically engage with it, and have initiated a relationship with it.

5. Have Your Media Kit Ready

Be on your A-game and have your media kit handy when contacting a brand. A media kit is the digital influencer resume you will attach to your email pitch. Then, shop the media kit templates so you can get started on yours pronto and skip the frustration of designing one. (Ain’t no influencer got time to learn another thing besides everything else they’ve already taught themselves!) These media kit templates are boostd, chic, and so incredibly versatile.

You can edit every aspect of them, drag and drop images, and customize them to fit your vibe perfectly or keep them as is. It’s essential to include your bio and contact information, an overview and snapshot of your social stats (hint: Later’s verified analytics report will help with this), and your community’s demographics—including where your followers are located, their gender, age, language, etc.

A breakdown of your blog or website stats (if you have one) Previous partnerships and testimonials Examples of how you’ve built brand awareness, driven conversion, or traffic in previous partnerships Your rates (it’s helpful also to have a separate rate card that you can send to brands who inquire specifically about your rates)

6. Craft the Perfect Subject Line

The inbox of the person receiving your pitch will likely be flooded with internal company memos, project briefs, and other pitches. So, your subject line is critical if you want your email to stand out. Make sure it’s short, concise, and direct. In other words, keep it simple. For example, a standard subject line format might look like [Brand Name] X [Creator Name] — [Detail About Pitch or Content Style]. In practice, it’d look like this: Later X Lizzo — IG Reel Partnership. You can also include a small greeting or emoji in the subject line to grab their attention.

7. Introduce Yourself

Building a genuine foundation is essential if you're looking for a long-term partnership; your pitch email is the first way to do so. The person receiving your email doesn’t need to know your whole life story, but it’s essential to paint a picture of who you are and why you’re introducing yourself. Try swapping out the typical blanket statement, “Our brands align, and I think this partnership would be a great fit,” for a few of your core values and how they complement the brand. TIP: Now’s a great time to hyperlink your top social media accounts!

8. Highlight What You Love About the Brand/Product

Brands tend to gravitate towards creators who’ve previously used (and loved) their product. Working with a brand you enjoy will make creating content more accessible and speak to your community about it. When brainstorming what to highlight in your pitch email, use these prompts to get started: Do their values and mission align with mine? Has the brand done anything specific that resonated with me?

What is my favorite way to use the product, and why do I love it? What is one thing I didn’t know about the product until I used it? Have I already created user-generated content about the brand? Have I noticed past collaborations with other creators that prompted me to reach out?

Tip

Focus on your shared values and why you’d be the perfect match.

9. Link Your Instagram and Media Kit

Next, link your Instagram and Media Kit. Remember, you don’t want to make the brand work to find information, so link it straightforwardly or smoothly in a sentence.

Example 1 (straightforward)

“My Instagram My Media Kit”

Example 2 (smoothly)

“You can find my Instagram here and I’ve included my media kit for you to take a deeper look into my platform.” Keep in mind the length of your email. If it’s on the longer side, consider the straightforward example. Choose a smooth example to show your personality if it's short.

Lastly, here's a tiny detail

I used to send my media kit as an attachment but recently started linking it directly to the email. This way, there’s a higher chance it won’t automatically deliver to their spam folder and won’t take up as much space in your Google Drive.

You should round out your pitch with a high-level overview of your rates, a call-to-action (CTA) to review your media kit, and an invitation to continue the conversation. While your rates will also be included in your media kit, including them directly in the email will make it easier for the brand to gauge whether they have enough budget for a partnership.

Are you new to setting your rates? Unfortunately, as the influencer marketing industry is still relatively new, there’s no universal one-size-fits-all pricing rule. Many digital marketers have historically adhered to the one cent per follower (or $100 per 10K followers) rule as a starting point. However, in recent years, Later’s influencer marketing team has noticed an increase of about $300-$500 per 10K followers. Our suggestion? Use these numbers as a baseline. TIP: Referring to resources like Clara for Creators and FYPM can significantly help set rates.