We wanted to share a couple tips and tricks with our readers that might help you when pitching to brands or to agencies like us. We have some key things that we look for when we review your applications for each campaign and also when we check past sponsored posts to determine if you’re a good fit and we thought it would be helpful to share those with you. We really hope you’ll take the time to read over them as we feel they are really important to the process.
1. YOUR PITCH!!
This is your moment to shine. Tell us how you would talk about the brand in a fun and unique way for your audience that will authentically bring the brand to life and create a call to action from your readers.
Here are some great examples:
- Instead of saying “I love jimmy dean and since I’m a mom on the go these will fit perfect in my routine!” ….
- We would love to see something more detailed like “To me, a perfect Sunday is cooking up brunch with my boyfriend, and enjoying it together either on our roof deck or cozied up inside together. I’d do a Sunday Funday brunch shoot with these Jimmy Dean sandwiches in my little SF home!?”
- Instead of saying “I am a sharpie fanatic, I own ten of every color! My readers would love to see me create something with sharpies!”…… We are looking for some detail of exactly what you will be making to showcase sharpie “I have been wanting to update my boring cream pillows on my living room couch and since gold is a hot accent color right now, I’d show how easy it is to do a 5 minute make over using gold metallic sharpies and a ready made stencil. I’d add in some other gold accented goodies that I picked up while at Target shopping for my sharpies to make for a beautifully styled shot”
2. YOUR POST:
Did you know that your Disclosure statement {here at Pollinate we require you to include at the top of your post} lets people know that the post is sponsored content? Well it does. So when we read your sponsored posts, we’re looking for how you transition from that disclosure into your natural, story telling voice to talk about how the brand fits into your everyday life. Here are some examples:
- I was feeling inspired by this pin I found on pinterest and wanted to put my own spin on this project…”
- I never buy cereal at full price, $4 for a box of cereal is just crazy! Imagine how excited I was when I found out Post was on sale at Walgreens for just $1.99. I can’t resist a good sale so I bought 2 boxes for breakfast and 2 to do some experimental baking with. Look at what I came up with!
We really want to avoid using phrases like: “I was so glad when so and so brand asked me to review….” or “When Pollinate asked me to be apart of the campaign, I jumped at the chance.” The disclosure lets people know you’re working with Pollinate on this campaign, now go to town showing off your writing skills and your photography skills too, of course.
3. COMMUNICATION:
If you’re bumping up against a campaign deadline, don’t make your Project Manager chase after you asking why your post isn’t publish, email them first. We have always believed in an open line of communication and helping you to problems solve any situations along the way, but us having to chase you down with emails and phone calls leaves us feeling that you’re being unprofessional and could effect you being selected for future campaigns. The bottom line is that we promise our clients a certain number of posts for each campaign, and we’re required to deliver that and if we can’t reach you, we will be forced to replace you and we don’t want that to happen, right? This also holds true when working with brands or anyone else, when in doubt it is better to over communicate than under!
4. REPORTING FORM:
Fill that form out in a timely manner friends. We use that form to grab payment information as well as promoting your posts. If you don’t fill it out in a timely manner it can delay your payment and it means that you could miss out on having us promote your posts on social media.
If you have any questions about crafting a great pitch or writing an authentic post leave us a comment and we’ll do a part two blog post!
Thank you for sharing, we all need to think outside of the box when submitting requests or making a pitch and these are great springboards.
So for our posting time, I’ve just always scheduled mine for right at 9am. Is it better to get them up sooner than that in the morning?
Love this; concrete examples are so helpful.
Absolutely great tips to heed when replying to pitches or creating your own from scratch!
Love it! *virtual hand raised*
I vote yay on a part two!
I’m guessing others were in a hurry to write the pitch. That’s why the forgot to comment. Lame!