The idea of contacting companies to work with can seem a bit daunting for new bloggers. The feeling that there is no way they would want to work with nobodies or that you don’t have any reach at this point. This is a totally normal feeling, but not necessarily true. Companies really do want to work with a variety of bloggers even if they are new or well established. New bloggers haven’t built those relationships with competing companies that well established blogs may have already done. The point I am trying to make is to not feel bad or be scared of personally emailing companies to work with them.
I spent a few weeks really contemplating the idea of emailing companies to work with and at the end of day I decided what is the worst thing that could happen. I thought it might hurt my feelings or kill my momentum if a company basically told me to eat a rock, but really….it does neither. There is a split second feeling of, “hey that sucks,” but you just move on and delete the email. There isn’t anything you can do about it other than make a note and perhaps email them again at a later point in time. If they seem interested but just not at this specific moment, you could email back and ask if they are looking for certain criteria for the future or if there is something that you could work on to possibly open up a relationship further down the line.
Don’t contact companies that you really like just so you can get free product. The email trying to explain why you should review their product seems desperate and I am sure they can tell. Genuinely work with products or services that fit the style of your blog and the demographic of your readers. Your readers can tell when you are doing something just for the sake of a sponsorship.
The first company that I emailed to work with, I was really excited about. I emailed them and received an email right away saying to contact a specific person. YES! That is a good sign, right?! Yeah I have not heard back from them at all. Since then I have been batting about .500 on rejections and companies accepting my proposal.
What to include in your proposal email:
Media Kit – I attach this with an updated media kit as of that day with stat information. If you are looking to create a media kit, I created mine very easily on Canva.
Your name and blog title – This seems obvious but can be easily overlooked in the excitement.
How did you find out about that company – social media? magazine? friends or family?
What do you offer as a service? – sharing on social media? blog posts? email newsletters?
Why working with that company would be a great fit for your blog – similar interests? mom related products?
Do they have a coupon code or referral code to use – If they accept your proposal, make sure to ask if there is an expiration date.
Thank them for their time and hopefully working together in the future
Contact information – email and phone (depending on the company).
Try to keep the email short. That is why I attach my media kit. If a company is interested, they will view the media kit. If they are immediately not interested, they won’t even finish reading a long email let alone the media kit. Try to make it short and sweet but still be thankful for their time and excited about possibly working with them.
If they do accept your offer, make sure to lay out any rules that you have, but also double check what guidelines they have as well. Many companies nowadays are requiring information to be shared on different social media platforms or to write specific word for word bits of information.
If they do not accept the offer, ask if they have an affiliate program that you could join. If you don’t want to ask them, you can go search for them at different affiliate networks such as shareasale.com or Rakuten Linkshare. Once you find them, you could reply back again stating that you applied to be an affiliate to show them that you are really still interested.
Don’t be scared of rejection because whether you like it or not, it is going to happen. It will build up your confidence as a blogger being able to make those contacts. And who knows, if you hustle enough, they might be contacting you in the future!
this post does contain affiliate links
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