How to pitch to brands as an influencer

Imagine sending a pitch you are proud of. The email is short and specific, the brand manager clicks through to a feed that looks like a magazine, your media kit opens in one tap, and two days later there is a reply asking for your rates. Pitching stops feeling like chasing and starts feeling like a conversation between two professionals.

The deals that simply arrive in your inbox are usually the ones brands offer everyone: a free product and a request to post. Pitching puts you in charge of who you work with. And a good pitch is less about persuasion than preparation, because by the time a brand manager reads your email, most of the decision has already been made by what they find on your profile.

Why pitch brands instead of waiting to be found?

Inbound offers tend to come on the brand’s terms. Pitching lets you choose partners that suit your niche, propose the kind of content you are good at and set the starting point for the fee. It also builds a track record: a few well-chosen partnerships make every later pitch easier, because you can point to work that already exists.

The trade-off is time and rejection. Many pitches will get no reply. That is normal, and it is why the targeting and the follow-up matter more than a clever subject line.

Which brands should you pitch?

Start with brands your audience would recognise you using without a deal. Good places to look:

• products you already buy and talk about without being paid;
• brands that sponsor creators similar to you in size and niche, which tells you they have a budget for it;
• smaller UK brands growing in your space, which often move faster than big companies and are more open to first-time partners;
• local businesses, if your audience is concentrated in one city or region.

Be honest about fit. A skincare brand aimed at teenagers is the wrong pitch for an audience of new parents, however good the product. Brands notice when a creator has thought about their customer, and they notice when they haven’t.

What do brands check before they reply?

Before answering, most brand managers open your profile. In the first minute they are looking for:

• A clear niche. Can they tell what you are about from your bio and last dozen posts?
• A consistent look. Recognisable colours, framing and type on covers and thumbnails suggest you will make their product look good. A planned feed, like the one our social media for influencers service keeps running, does a lot of quiet work here.
• Quality images and video. They want to imagine their product in your content. Dark, grainy or badly cropped posts make that harder.
• Engaged comments. Real conversations from real people matter more than a big follower number.
• Proper disclosure. If past partnerships are clearly labelled, it tells them you understand the rules. The ASA’s influencers’ guide points out that brands look for partners they can trust, because both sides are responsible for the ad.
• Somewhere professional to land. A simple site with a “work with me” page and a contact address helps, which is one reason we argue that influencers benefit from a website.

How to pitch to brands as an influencer: the email

Keep it short enough to read on a phone. A pitch that works usually has five parts.

1. A subject line that says what it is

For example: “Content idea for [product]: UK running creator, 25 to 34 audience”. Clear beats clever.

2. Who you are, in one or two lines

Your niche, your main platform and who your audience is. Lead with the audience, because that is what the brand is buying access to.

3. Why this brand

One genuine sentence: how long you have used the product, or what your followers keep asking about that the brand solves. Generic praise reads as copy and paste.

4. One specific idea

Propose a concept, not just “a post”. A three-part reel series testing a product over a month, a styled carousel for a seasonal launch, a tutorial that answers a common question. Specific ideas show you have thought about their goals and make it easy to say yes.

5. The next step

Link to your media kit, say you are happy to share rates for the idea (our guide to how much to charge for brand deals helps here), and suggest a short call. Then sign off. Don’t attach large files.

Who should you send it to?

A pitch to a general enquiries address often goes nowhere. Look for the person responsible for influencer, social or partnerships work, on the brand’s website, its press page or LinkedIn. Larger brands often work through an agency, and their posts with creators sometimes reveal which one. If a brand has a creator application form, use it, but a short personal email to the right person usually gets more attention.

How and when should you follow up?

If you hear nothing, send one follow-up about a week later. Reply in the same thread, keep it to two or three lines and add something new if you can: a recent post that performed well, or a timely hook such as an upcoming season or launch. If there is still no reply, leave it and try again in a few months with a fresh idea. Keep a simple spreadsheet of who you pitched, when and what happened, so you never chase the same person twice in a week.

What should you agree before you say yes?

When a brand says yes, slow down. Get the following in writing, even if it is just a clear email:

• deliverables: formats, number of posts, platforms and dates;
• approval: whether the brand reviews content first, and how many rounds of changes are included;
• the fee, payment date and how you will invoice;
• usage: whether the brand can repost your content or run it as an ad, for how long and where;
• exclusivity: whether you must avoid competitors, and for how long;
• disclosure: how the content will be labelled.

The ASA guide suggests reviewing any agreement to see what it says about making clear that ads are ads, and refusing to work with brands that discourage you from disclosing. It also notes that ISBA, which represents major brands, has published template contract terms that creators and brands can use. For anything high value or long term, it is worth having a contract checked by a professional.

What if a brand offers only free products?

Gifted deals can be a reasonable start with a brand you love, but treat them as a business decision. The time to plan, shoot and edit is real. Gifted content still needs labelling: the CMA’s guidance for content creators treats gifts as payment even when there is no obligation to post. And HMRC’s tax rules for content creators say the value of gifts you receive for promoting products counts towards your income. If you are unsure how that affects you, speak to an accountant.

A sensible approach is to accept gifted work only where it builds your portfolio in a direction you want, and to propose a paid version of the idea in the same reply. Pitching works best as one part of a wider plan, which is how we approach marketing for influencers.

What are the most common pitching mistakes?

• Sending the same message to fifty brands with the name changed.
• Leading with follower numbers rather than audience and ideas.
• Pitching from a profile that doesn’t look ready, with old or low-quality posts at the top of the grid.
• Following up too often, or not at all.
• Agreeing to unlimited usage or long exclusivity without realising what it means.

How we can help

We want you to feel like the creator brands are glad to hear from, with a profile that does half the pitching before you hit send. We began as co-founder Jack Cartwright’s in-house team, running the social media, videos and website his marketing pointed to. Through social media for influencers we keep your feed consistent and current, and report the numbers brands ask for. A clear brief, scope and fee are agreed before any creative work begins.

Sources

• ASA and CMA: Influencers’ guide to making clear that ads are ads
• CMA: Social media endorsements, being transparent with your followers
• HMRC: Tax rules for content creators