Latest / Influencer Confidential / Creator Pitching Strategy: Beyond Brand Deals #292

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Creator Pitching Strategy: Beyond Brand Deals #292 · Influencer Confidential

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Influencer Confidential by Sidewalker Daily. My name is
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  Speaker 1: Nina Zeta and I will be your host. I love
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  Speaker 1: working with brands and influencers on all things business strategy.
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  Speaker 1: Are you ready to learn what it takes to work
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  Speaker 1: in this influencer industry and see behind the current Well,
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  Speaker 1: let's jump in. Most creators when they hear the word pitching,
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  Speaker 1: they relate it to brand deals, sponsorship, pitching, ugc those
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  Speaker 1: sort of things. And what I Am going to be
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  Speaker 1: doing is actually trying to get you guys to think
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  Speaker 1: about pitching totally different because pitching is something that you,
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  Speaker 1: as a creator and business owner want to do in
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  Speaker 1: your business. But it does not only have to be
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  Speaker 1: for brand partnerships. There are so many different ways that
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  Speaker 1: pitching can grow your business. And I'm really actually excited
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  Speaker 1: to launch a series that I'm going to be breaking
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  Speaker 1: down pitching in a whole new way like you've never
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  Speaker 1: heard it before, a series with different episodes in it,
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  Speaker 1: so that you guys can really take this concept of
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  Speaker 1: pitching and apply it to your business in a truly
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  Speaker 1: impactful way. So let's start with the basic definition. Pitching
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  Speaker 1: is the act of reaching out to a decision maker
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  Speaker 1: in a brand or a company, or potentially someone else
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  Speaker 1: to propose some sort of partnership or collaboration. At its core,
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  Speaker 1: pitching is just sales, but through relationship building. Now we
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  Speaker 1: have to first start with outbound pitching because this is
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  Speaker 1: the most common kind of pitching. Outbound pitching literally just
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  Speaker 1: means like you make the first move. Okay, you're the
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  Speaker 1: one reaching out first. You're the person that is initiating conversation.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe you're reaching out to a marketing director on LinkedIn,
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  Speaker 1: or you're sending a DM to someone an email to
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  Speaker 1: a brand. These are all examples of outbound pitches. When
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  Speaker 1: we think of formats. For example, for outbound pitches, like
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  Speaker 1: I said, this could be done in email, This could
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  Speaker 1: obviously be done in person. If you're doing in person
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  Speaker 1: pitching at conferences or events, this can be done via
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  Speaker 1: LinkedIn or dms. You know. This is again that's they're
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  Speaker 1: just different mediums. But when you hear me talk about outbound,
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  Speaker 1: it's you taking the move and you going first. Then
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  Speaker 1: of course there's inbound, which means the brand reached out
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  Speaker 1: to you first. This is a typical pitching, but it's
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  Speaker 1: still an inbound pitch. And I wanted to categorize that
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  Speaker 1: because as a creator, you're going to be getting lots
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  Speaker 1: of inbounds and your job is to pivot these inbounds
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  Speaker 1: and potentially paid or find a reason of how you
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  Speaker 1: can partner with whoever's reaching out to you. Other things
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  Speaker 1: you'll hear me mention a lot are like cold pitches.
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  Speaker 1: So if you hear me say the word cold, you
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  Speaker 1: know our cold outreach, it just means that you don't
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  Speaker 1: know that brand, you have no inside deal with them,
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  Speaker 1: versus like a warm pitch. Maybe there's some sort of
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  Speaker 1: connection there. You guys have common people on LinkedIn, you
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  Speaker 1: met them once at an event. You know there is
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  Speaker 1: this sort of backstory, So the pitch doesn't, you know,
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  Speaker 1: land cold so to speak, right, it's not like reaching
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  Speaker 1: out to someone who has never heard of you before.
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  Speaker 1: And the reason pitching can be so valuable in your
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  Speaker 1: business is because it can unlock so many opportunities, and
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  Speaker 1: that's what the series is going to be covering, Like,
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  Speaker 1: think about reaching out to other creators in your niche
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  Speaker 1: that you can can partner with, or potentially pitching yourself
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  Speaker 1: to speak on a podcast and position yourself as an
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  Speaker 1: authority or an expert. Maybe you're pitching the media. You're
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  Speaker 1: looking to get more press and eyeballs on your brand
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  Speaker 1: or some logos for you to include in your media kit.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe you're pitching audience swaps so that you and you know,
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  Speaker 1: whoever you're trying to swap audience with can share your
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  Speaker 1: audiences and grow together. Right, rather than paying ads, you're pitching, hey,
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  Speaker 1: let's do an audience swap. I think that what I
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  Speaker 1: want every creator in the sidewalker community to do is
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  Speaker 1: realize that you guys are in control of your business
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  Speaker 1: destiny in terms of like the effort that you put
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  Speaker 1: into things right, so you can't just sit and wait
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  Speaker 1: for business to come to you. And when I say business,
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  Speaker 1: notice I'm not just saying brand deals, right, you have
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  Speaker 1: to take this initiative. This has to be a muscle
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  Speaker 1: that you build in your business. And sometimes, you know,
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  Speaker 1: I have creators in my inner circle that like, I'm
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  Speaker 1: pitching brands. Nothing's working, Like what do I do? And
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  Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, you need to like dust it off,
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  Speaker 1: put it down for a second. Let's put it down
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  Speaker 1: this week, and let's pitch something else, right, And I
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  Speaker 1: think that's a big eye opener till a lot of
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  Speaker 1: my people are like, wait, what, pitch something else. I'm like, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: Like pitch yourself. Some podcast sponsors, pitch other influencers in
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  Speaker 1: your city, you know, connect with them, like pitch pr
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  Speaker 1: people to meet with them in person, you know, pitch
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  Speaker 1: yourself to be a speaker at an event. And I
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  Speaker 1: think that's just such an important mindset to have as
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  Speaker 1: a creator because remember, you guys are businesses, and if
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  Speaker 1: you're just like a one little trick pony and you're
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  Speaker 1: just only pitching brain deals, but you're not thinking about
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  Speaker 1: your business in a bigger way of how you're going
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  Speaker 1: to actually make the sustainable make money, you are leaving
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  Speaker 1: money on the table. So the way I want to
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  Speaker 1: think about pitching in general, I want to categorize this
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  Speaker 1: into different buckets. Okay, there's the networking bucket. Okay, there's
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  Speaker 1: the growth bucket, and there is the financial bucket. And
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  Speaker 1: for the purpose of this series, that's where I'm going
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  Speaker 1: to be explaining the different types of opportunities and partnerships
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  Speaker 1: that fall within them. So let's start with networking. Networking pitches,
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  Speaker 1: these help you build relationships with other people. I cannot
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  Speaker 1: tell you the amount of times I have seen a
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  Speaker 1: creator be like, oh, I got this brand partnership because
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  Speaker 1: so and so got an inbound and she can't take it,
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  Speaker 1: so she's giving it to me again. In order to
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  Speaker 1: get those sort of opportunities, you need those sort of friendships.
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  Speaker 1: So networking style pitches help broaden your friendships, but also
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  Speaker 1: like just business opportunities in general. When I think about
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  Speaker 1: networking style pitches, to me, these are a big part
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  Speaker 1: of my business. I do this every single week here
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  Speaker 1: at Sidewalker Daily. I'm constantly trying to meet other people
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  Speaker 1: in my industry, other course creators, other entrepreneurs, coaches, Like
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  Speaker 1: I'm doing virtual coffees all the time because I feel like, again,
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  Speaker 1: you know, if you're working from home, or if you
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  Speaker 1: have a home office, or even if you're going to
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  Speaker 1: the office, like so much a business is like who
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  Speaker 1: you know or who you're connected to. So that networking
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  Speaker 1: pitch is something I always allocate time for during my week.
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  Speaker 1: So think about this is like reaching out to other
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  Speaker 1: creators you know, or someone that's in your hometown, someone
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  Speaker 1: that's in your industry. I don't do a lot of
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  Speaker 1: in person networking unless I go to events and I
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  Speaker 1: do have those in my budget, Like I go quarterly
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  Speaker 1: to different events and that is something I actually put
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  Speaker 1: money aside for in our company, so I can go
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  Speaker 1: network in person, because I think networking is so important.
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  Speaker 1: But with Zoom and you know, Google Meet, the world
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  Speaker 1: has changed. You can literally pitch a creed or in
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  Speaker 1: your industry in a different city and you guys can
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  Speaker 1: get on a Zoom coffee and just you know connect.
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  Speaker 1: And I think people don't do this enough. They feel awkward,
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  Speaker 1: they feel weird. But when you approach these pitches, which
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about later on in the series,
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  Speaker 1: but when you approach these friendships from a place of
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  Speaker 1: like serving people and helping people in their businesses, people
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  Speaker 1: want to come back and build those relationships with you.
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  Speaker 1: The next style of pitches, we're going to call them
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  Speaker 1: growth pitches. So growth pitches are pitching activations or things
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  Speaker 1: that are going to help you grow, not necessarily financially.
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  Speaker 1: It could lead to a brand sponsorship, but they're going
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  Speaker 1: to help you grow. So think of yourself doing like
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  Speaker 1: a guest's appearance, a workshop. You know, maybe you're pitching
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  Speaker 1: to be on a podcast, maybe you're pitching press, you
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  Speaker 1: want to be featured on this article. You are growing
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  Speaker 1: your audience, you are getting new eyeballs to fall on you.
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  Speaker 1: These are growth pitches, and again, I don't see enough
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  Speaker 1: creators doing this. I was talking to my inner circle
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  Speaker 1: a couple days ago and this one girl's doing this
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  Speaker 1: really cool thing going to all fifty states and there's
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  Speaker 1: like a really great story around it, and I was like,
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  Speaker 1: you should pitch this to the media, like it's really
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  Speaker 1: newsworthy and exciting. I don't want to share what she's doing,
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  Speaker 1: but trust me, it was really cool. And she was like, oh,
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  Speaker 1: I never thought of that. And again we're always just
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  Speaker 1: conditioned to pitching brand deals, but like she's like, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to go pitch the local TV market and
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  Speaker 1: like pitch press. Those are growth styles of pitches and
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  Speaker 1: I really want to dive deep into those in this series.
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  Speaker 1: And then obviously, financial pitches. These are the money makers, right.
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  Speaker 1: This is when we're going in and we're pitching something
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  Speaker 1: that is money. I'll give you an example. A growth
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  Speaker 1: pitch could be like an email swap, right where we're like, hey,
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  Speaker 1: I'll swap emails, or let's do stories on each other's
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  Speaker 1: pages and help each other grow whatever, it's like very
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  Speaker 1: growth driven, whereas like financial pitches, this is maybe when
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  Speaker 1: you're maybe pitching someone a paid gig, right, a paid speaking,
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  Speaker 1: a paid brand partnership, you are pitching yourself as a
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  Speaker 1: service provider, as a business, and obviously brand deals. What
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  Speaker 1: we have spent the last ten years teaching our financial pitches,
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  Speaker 1: but I really wanted to open the creator's mind to
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  Speaker 1: networking style pitches and growth style pitches because these are
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  Speaker 1: going to affect your business and have long term impacts. Now,
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  Speaker 1: of course, if you're someone who is as obsessed with
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  Speaker 1: brand deals and that style of pitching, and that's something
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  Speaker 1: you want to just jump right ahead and go ahead
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  Speaker 1: and check out a free training that we have. It's
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  Speaker 1: available for you guys to actually watch right away. I
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  Speaker 1: include the link in the description. This is our free
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  Speaker 1: how to land paid brand deals training. You are going
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  Speaker 1: to love it. I share pitch examples, I share media kits,
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  Speaker 1: and it's really really helpful. So you can go ahead
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  Speaker 1: and watch that if you wanted to skip ahead and
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  Speaker 1: just really dive deep in all things brand partnerships. Now,
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  Speaker 1: I spoke a little bit earlier about how pitching should
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  Speaker 1: be a habit. Now let's just say you've categorized your
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  Speaker 1: pitches into network pitches, growth pitches, and financial pitches. Sometimes
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  Speaker 1: people will be like, Okay, how many do I pitch
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  Speaker 1: of each? And there's really no set way. It really
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  Speaker 1: depends how your brain works. I have creators that are like, Okay, well,
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  Speaker 1: this week, I'm going to pitch five brand deals, I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to pitch you know, five podcast opportunities, and I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to pitch five other creators in my niche because
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  Speaker 1: they like to swap things up and it helps their
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  Speaker 1: brain just jump from different style of pitch. On the
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  Speaker 1: other hand, I'll have creators that are like, no, this week,
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  Speaker 1: I'm pitching you know, twenty brand deals. Financial next week,
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  Speaker 1: I'm pitching twenty creators in my hometown in my study
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  Speaker 1: that I want to network with and connect with. Boom
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  Speaker 1: only that week is allocated to those twenty pitches. The
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  Speaker 1: following week they're like, I'm going to be pitching you know,
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  Speaker 1: podcaster medias or conferences that I want to speak at.
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  Speaker 1: Really depends on how you want to mix it up.
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  Speaker 1: There's no right or wrong way. I personally like to
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  Speaker 1: just put the horse blinders on and choose one category
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  Speaker 1: and just do that category for the week. But I
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  Speaker 1: also understand the need to like swap things up so
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  Speaker 1: you can choose from these buckets and decide what your
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  Speaker 1: frequency is going to be. But just know that pitch
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  Speaker 1: is a numbers game. It is so very important to
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  Speaker 1: have that weekly cadence because when you kind of give
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  Speaker 1: up on a week, it's hard to track and realize
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  Speaker 1: your growth. Right. So Outsidewalker, we're always saying, pitch forty
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  Speaker 1: brands a month, pitch sixty brand a month. The reason
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  Speaker 1: we have these numbers is so that we can see
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  Speaker 1: and work backwards like, okay, well it's going to help
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  Speaker 1: us project our income. We're going to be able to see,
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  Speaker 1: you know, how many people are opening these emails and
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  Speaker 1: what type of partnership opportunities we're getting. One thing I
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  Speaker 1: can guarantee you is this, if you put love and
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  Speaker 1: effort into your pitches, not AI slop copy paste, but actually,
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  Speaker 1: you know, put love and effort, not writing every single
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  Speaker 1: one each time, but having you know, a well thought out,
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  Speaker 1: well research pitch. Regardless if you're pitching you know multiple
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  Speaker 1: and one category, you're just choosing fifty in one category
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  Speaker 1: and doing that, it's going to open doors for you. Right,
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  Speaker 1: A universal law is like when you put effort into things,
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  Speaker 1: the universe confirms those efforts. So don't think of this
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  Speaker 1: as a race. It is a marathon. But pitching is
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  Speaker 1: a muscle that the creators who do this weekly in
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  Speaker 1: all three buckets are the creators that are succeeding. Now,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes you know when you think about weekly pitches, I
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  Speaker 1: did just want to mention our substack at Sidewalker Daily
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  Speaker 1: is called the paid Creator and we send out three
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  Speaker 1: brand opportunities every day to your inbox. So if you're
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  Speaker 1: someone that's just like Nina, tell me what to pitch
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  Speaker 1: and I'll do it, go ahead and check out our substack.
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to include that link below. We, like I said,
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  Speaker 1: give you guys three opportunities a day from UGC or
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  Speaker 1: brand launches or things that we're stumbling on so that
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  Speaker 1: you can look into them and actually pitch those brands.
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  Speaker 1: So I think that's a really good headstart if that's
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  Speaker 1: something you guys are looking for. So next episode, we
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  Speaker 1: are going to start off in a deep dive with
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  Speaker 1: one of the easiest styles of pitches that you can make,
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  Speaker 1: which is within the networking bucket, which is pitching another creator,
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  Speaker 1: So you're going to want to make sure you subscribe
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  Speaker 1: to our channel because this next episode is going to
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  Speaker 1: dive deep and help you meet friends with other creators.
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  Speaker 1: And trust me when I say, the more people you
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  Speaker 1: have in your corner advocating for you, saying your names
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  Speaker 1: and rooms when you are not there, this is a
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  Speaker 1: type of pitch that I love, that I know works
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  Speaker 1: and is going to eventually affect your bottom line because again,
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  Speaker 1: relationships mean everything in this business. So I am so
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  Speaker 1: excited to share that with you in the next episode.
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  Speaker 1: I can't wait for you guys to join me and
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  Speaker 1: I'll see you guys then. I hope you enjoyed today's episode.
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  Speaker 1: If you did, make sure to rate, review, and subscribe
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: to our show and visit Sidewalkerdaily dot com for more
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: resources on all things influencer, marketing and social media. Until
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: next time,