How To Get Paid Brand Deals On Instagram
Instagram is a fun place to share ideas and connect with new people, but as an Influencer or Creator, knowing how to get paid brand deals on Instagram is a huge step in monetizing your influence and the content you create. The great news is that these deals are happening—and the industry is growing daily—so there’s money to be made. While there are tons of brands and companies looking for Influencers and Creators to work with to promote their products and services, you still need to stand out in the crowd and have a good strategy in place to land the deal.
At Sidewalker Daily, we help Influencers and Creators build their businesses and learn how to get paid brand deals on Instagram. We also work with brands on their Influencer marketing campaigns, so we see firsthand what brands look for when they’re searching for Influencers and Creators. We want to let you in on the strategies that help brands determine who they want to work with—and pay—to promote their product. In this post we’re going over how to get paid brand deals on Instagram and tips on ways to keep getting them!
The Two Main Ways To Find Brand Deals On Instagram
Before we get into more specific details about becoming an Influencer that brands want to pay, let’s take a step back and talk about the two techniques that actually make this possible.
Essentially, there are two main ways to get paid partnerships on Instagram. The first way is by responding to inbound requests. The other is by actively pitching to brands. In each and every partnership situation you’re working within one of these categories and it’s important to know what each of them means.
While you might not think it matters too much, there’s a reason we bring it up. If you want to successfully get paid partnerships on Instagram, the approach and strategy that you use will change based on each scenario. To explain what exactly we mean by this, let’s break down the two methods further:
Responding To Requests:
In these situations, a brand has sent you an email or Direct Message with a request because the brand noticed you and are interested in working with you. You would then convert the request into a paid deal.
Actively Pitching To Brands:
When you actively pitch to a brand, you did your own research and then reached out to them with your ideas. You are selling yourself as someone to help support their campaigns and promote their brand.
Think about it from a business perspective. (Because you are a business!) Inbound requests are technically considered “warm leads” because these are the people who already know who you are and they already like you so much so that they decided to reach out to you. Ultimately, these are not as difficult to turn into a partnership. The brand has already shown interest, which means you actually have leverage to respond back with a really cool idea and pitch so that you can get paid for working with them.
On the other hand, active pitching is like making a “cold call.” The brand may not know who you are, and they most likely haven’t been eyeing your Instagram feed in the same way someone reaching out to you first would have. What this means is that you really have to sell yourself and let the brand know that you genuinely love what they do through a customized approach. If you send a blanket template to 30 companies, they’re going to know it.
One more note before we move on:
Just because you’re cold pitching, doesn’t mean that there’s no way for you to “warm it up!” Let a brand know that you’re there by interacting with them on social media BEFORE you send a pitch to them. Engage with their content, and if you end up messaging, ask them for their contact and say you’d love to send them some collaboration ideas. It definitely can’t hurt for them to be expecting it!
6 Tips: How To Get Brand Deals On Instagram
Now that you know the two routes for discussing partnerships with brands, we want to share some of our favorite tips for getting these paid brand deals on Instagram. These ideas will help you get started so you can truly begin to monetize!
1) Work With What You Know
If you have already worked with a brand in a paid capacity, you have a huge leg up with them. In fact, you SHOULD be going back to them time and time again. If they’ve paid you once, they can pay you twice! Working on the brand side, we see this all the time. Brands feel comfortable working with the same Influencers and Creators on subsequent collaborations, especially if they provided really good, quality work. Some of the Influencers we coach want to work with lots of brands—which we totally understand—but rapid fire pitching to new brands without thinking about who has already paid you leaves money on the table.
2) Make Pitches Personal And Meaningful
Like we said earlier, brands know when you’re copying and pasting a template as your pitch method. Using a template to get an Instagram sponsorship might actually hurt you because the brand won’t feel special and is unlikely to believe that you authentically want to promote their product.
We work with brands on their campaigns all the time, so we can tell you this with confidence. Receiving a message that has clearly been copied and pasted to many other companies never makes people on the brand side feel good! Include the specific reasons you want to work with a brand and give some indication that you genuinely like what they’re doing.
If you’re not sue what to say in your pitch emails, we walk through our exact strategy in our Pitching To Brands Mastercourse and also include over 80 pitch examples so you can learn from them and because an expert at crafting the perfect pitch.
3) Diversify Content Within Your Niche
Instagram is a visual platform and in this industry, it’s can act as a type of portfolio of work. If you’re sharing photos they have to look good and we think that it also helps to diversify the style of photos you post when you’re looking to get paid. Still keep your content within your niche, but you can relate to more brands if you show off the range of your abilities and skillset.
Let’s say that you’re a beauty Influencer. If you only shoot and post selfies, a brand doesn’t get to visually see what you can do for them. On the other hand, if your feed is still within the beauty category but includes product shots, up close shots, and pictures of you holding a product, they can see more of what you have to offer in terms of integrating their product or service organically into your content. Diversifying your photo style lets brands know that you can create content within a niche, and that you’re capable of many different ways to do it.
4) Use Hashtags That Brands Are Using
Hashtags are one way that brands find Influencers and Creators to work with on their campaigns. They will go to the search bar and type in specific Hashtags based on their niche. This could be things like “#NYCblogger” or “#Houstonmomblogger. These Hashtags make it really easy for people on the brand side to find Creators to work with that match a campaign’s needs.
If you’re a Creator that’s trying to work with brands, then you need to be able to get discovered by them. Using the Hashtags that brands are searching can help. Do some research to figure out what they are and then use them in your Instagram strategy to connect with more brands.
5) Reach Out To Brands With Similar Audiences
If you’re pitching yourself as an Influencer, what you’re really offering brands is access to your audience. So you have a better chance of convincing a brand to work with you if their audience is similar to yours. We’re not saying it has to be identical always, but this is a great way to find brands that will want to work with you. Before you pitch to a brand, ask yourself who their target customer is…if it’s similar to the typical person who follows you, that’s a major selling point when pitching.
You want the brand to land on your Instagram page (or TikTok or YouTube channel, too!) and in a split second think that you match with them. Your pitch should be thought out and intentional—if they’re not in your niche and you’ve never posted any related content, they likely won’t think you’re a good match so your pitch will need to explain why you are.
6) BE PREPARED
We say this time and time again, but it’s that important! If you are trying to use your influence to get paid, then you need to treat yourself like a business. This means having the right materials to support you and set you apart from the rest. You need to have a media kit and you might even need to have other materials depending on where you are in your pitching game. There are several pitching materials you should know how to create if you’re serious about your business. This might be a proposal, a case study, or even a mood board. Prepare yourself for success by having these materials created and ready to go.
Knowing your rates is also a crucial part of getting paid by brands on Instagram. You need to know what your offerings are worth if you want to be able to communicate with brands and negotiate a paid deal. Even in the situations when you’re asking a brand what their budget is, you still have to know internally what your IG post is worth so that you can come up with a package that is fair for the both of you.
Take Your Instagram To The Next Level With Paid Brand Deals
Just by making a few simple shifts in your strategy, your potential for bringing in new brand clients on Instagram can grow exponentially!
If this post made you realize you have no idea where to start with designing a Media Kit or coming up with your rates, don’t worry we can help! Our Pitching To Brands Mastercourse walks Influencers and Creators through everything they need to know about landing paid brand deals. From our signature pitching strategy, detailed tutorials on how to create pitching assets such as a Media Kit, Case Study, Proposal etc., lessons on how to calculate your rates, and so much more, the Pitching To Brands Mastercourse will help you work with brands and make more money in your business.
Here’s a recap of how to get paid brand deals on Instagram:
1. Work with brands you already have a relationship with to establish repeat brand deals.
2. Make pitches personal and meaningful instead of using pitching templates.
3. Diversify the content style you post so brands can see the many different ways you can create content within a specific niche, industry or style.
4. Use Hashtags that brands are searching to get discovered more easily.
5. Reach out to brands with similar audiences to strengthen your chances of landing the deal.
6. Be prepared and professional with the right pitching tools.
Landing paid brand deals is more of an art than a science, but we hope these 6 tips gave you some good ideas to take with you as you grow your Influencer or Creator business.
And we’re always here to help if you have any questions or need specific advice—book a one-on-one coaching call with one of our experts and we’ll come up with a personalized pitching strategy to help you get more brand deals on Instagram.
