Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Brand Deals: 5 Things I learned 2.5 Years In
86 Plays3 months ago
If you’ve ever felt unsure about gifted collaborations, paid partnerships, influencer marketing, ROI (return on investment), deliverables, or how brands actually choose creators — this episode breaks it down clearly and practically.
Lauren shares the five biggest lessons she’s learned about brand deals, including why engagement matters more than follower count, how platforms like LTK and Mavely factor in, how to spot fake brand emails, when Amazon seller collaborations make sense, and how to protect your boundaries.
She also shares exactly what she would do in the next 30 days if she were starting today.
This week’s Sister Shoutout is Maryglenn Blanks @money.savvy.mama. Be sure to check out her amazing content and give her a follow.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Influencer Sisterhood
00:00:06
Speaker
Hey, I'm Leslie. Hi, I'm Lauren. And we're the Influencer Sisterhood. Your weekly coffee date for real, unfiltered conversations about life as a midlife influencer.
Solo Hosting by Lauren
00:00:17
Speaker
Welcome back to this week's episode of the
00:00:25
Speaker
this is safe space where all influencers belong so grab your drink get comfy welcome to this sister true let's dive into this week's
00:00:40
Speaker
welcome back to this week's episode of the influencer sisterhood This week, it's just me, Lauren, taking over the mic. We've been taking turns doing solo episodes, each of us diving into something we've personally experienced and navigated inside this business.
Content Creation Recap
00:00:58
Speaker
Last week, Leslie walked you through content creation basics, simplifying your setup, understanding your niche, building content pillars, and staying consistent, and even beginning to think about monetization.
00:01:13
Speaker
And today, we're going to move on to the next layer. And that's brand deals. Not the glamorous version, not the Instagram highlight reel version,
00:01:25
Speaker
but the real practical grown-up version.
Brand Deals Insights
00:01:29
Speaker
Now, before we go any further, let me tell you what this episode is not. This is not going to be masterclass in contracts. This is not going to be a legal breakdown.
00:01:42
Speaker
This is not going to be a complicated pricing workshop. I'm not going to tell you how many followers you have equals this amount of dollars that you ask for in a rate.
00:01:55
Speaker
That's not what this is about. There are so many rabbit holes we could go down when it comes to brand deals. There's usage rights, exclusivity, white listing, ad spend.
00:02:07
Speaker
We are not going to go into the weeds today. What we are doing today is we are going to walk through the five biggest things that I have learned about brand deals over the past two and a half years in this business. And I say learned intentionally because I didn't come into this knowing.
00:02:29
Speaker
I had to figure it out through experience, through trial and error, through saying yes, through saying no. so If you're brand new or if you've been doing this a year or two and still feel like you're winging it, one, you're not alone and two,
00:02:48
Speaker
You are exactly who this episode is for. I remember when I first started creating content, I didn't even know what a brand deal really meant. I just knew it existed. I didn't know what qualified me, if anything.
00:03:03
Speaker
I didn't know if there was a certain number of followers I needed. I had no clue what brands were looking for. I just knew there was such a thing called brand deals. and other creators had them.
00:03:22
Speaker
That's it. I remember opening DMs and wondering, is this legit? I remember getting emails and thinking, am I supposed to know what this means? So if you've ever felt like you're behind because you don't understand how this works, you're not alone and you're not behind.
00:03:43
Speaker
You're right on top. There's a difference between being behind and being right on time. So let's walk through the five biggest things I've learned. The first thing I've learned is that engagement matters more than follower count.
00:04:01
Speaker
From a brand's perspective, what matters most is not how big your account is. They're not looking mainly at your follower count.
00:04:11
Speaker
What they're looking at is whether your audience trusts you enough to act. And by act, that means buy something. When brands evaluate creators, they're asking themselves, does her audience move? Do they ask questions? Do they click on the links?
00:04:30
Speaker
Do they buy? Do they come back? Because those actions are what create revenue. And that's what matters to the brand. There are oftentimes situations creators who make a lot more money with a much smaller audience than others. Some people may have hundreds of thousands of followers and make less money than someone with, say, 80,000 followers. Followers do not equal dollars, and brands know that.
00:05:01
Speaker
Here's where this becomes important. Whether a brand is gifting you something or paying you, They are investing. If they're gifting you something, if they're sending you a product, that product costs them money and they expect that you are going to generate enough sales to make that money of the cost of that product back plus some. What they are hoping for is what they call a return on investment.
00:05:31
Speaker
ROI. If they send you a $200 item, they are hoping that your audience generates more than $200 in sales. If they pay you $800, they're hoping that campaign generates significantly more than $800. That's really not emotional. It's just business.
00:05:55
Speaker
It can be scary. I'll be honest. It can feel really hard Like, can I do this? But that's where these gifted opportunities make a difference. Because when you are gifted something,
00:06:11
Speaker
and people buy and you have the analytics that can support that. You can screenshot and say, this is exactly how many people bought an item similar to what you just sent me. Or this is how many clicks it got. This is how many comments. This is how many views. And
Handling Collaborations
00:06:30
Speaker
engagement means more than just views.
00:06:32
Speaker
Are they actually doing something when they view your content? Are they doing something with that content? Engagement is what makes that return possible. It is not the follower count.
00:06:44
Speaker
It is has to do with trust. And trust is what comes when people have behaviors as your azure followers They exhibit behaviors that are repeatable, they are predictable, and you can prove that through your analytics to a brand. That's what brands want to see.
00:07:04
Speaker
I remember one time when my account wasn't very big, but my DMs were active. Women were asking me questions about sizing or they were asking for links.
00:07:17
Speaker
Then they would sometimes come back and say, oh, man, I bought that size that you told me about and it fits so much better. I'm so glad I asked you. That's when it clicked that it wasn't just about how many people were watching. It was how many people were responding.
00:07:34
Speaker
And brands pay attention to that, too, because that is what makes you have influence. And influence is what it's all about.
00:07:45
Speaker
Let's normalize something. Gifted is normal and strategic. In the beginning, most collaborations will be gifted.
00:07:56
Speaker
And that's not a failure. That's just your foundation. Gifted collaborations are strategic because they give you practice. They give you content.
00:08:09
Speaker
And then they give you proof. Every single reel you do that is from a gifted piece of clothing or a gifted beauty item or a home good or even like a treadmill. Every gifted reel that you make becomes data.
00:08:27
Speaker
You can look and say how many saves, how many comments were there on that, how many clicks, how many sales were generated. That is what builds your credibility. So when a paid opportunity comes along, you're not guessing.
00:08:42
Speaker
You're actually saying, hey, here's what I've done. Here's how it performed. Here's how my audience responded. And here's the thing. Treat your gifted collaborations as if they are paid collaborations.
00:08:59
Speaker
That's
Identifying Scam Emails
00:09:00
Speaker
how they turn into paid collaborations. And that's where your power is. Now, let's also talk about emails that you're going to be getting versus Amazon seller emails. There is actually a difference.
00:09:16
Speaker
You're going to get emails, lots of them, and some of them are going to feel really flattering, like over the top, right? Like love bomb fought flattering. You are the next big star. um And it's typically going to come from an email that's, let's say, for example, let's use anthropology. Anthropologycollab at gmail.com.
00:09:38
Speaker
It's likely fake. Likely they are going to promise to give you monthly payments, 10 items for six months, and it's going to generate this amount of money. And and we want a long-term partnership.
00:09:52
Speaker
And you know what? It's not from the brand because you probably just showed an item from Anthropologie and they noticed the scammers and they send you something And they're like, oh, she shows anthropology. So now they're going she's going to get an anthropology collab email and it's going to outline those certain things.
00:10:13
Speaker
And at the same time, you're likely going to also get an email from Steve Madden collaboration at gmail.com because the shoes you were wearing were Steve Madden. And you're going to think, wait a minute, this is the exact same email.
00:10:28
Speaker
Yeah, it is because it's copy and paste and it's all a scam. Don't waste your time. Don't investigate it. Just delete it. If it were an actual brand like Anthropologie, it would come from their official kind official company domain or more likely through a platform like LTK or Mavely or Shopmine.
00:10:50
Speaker
That's just how it works. It's not going to come from Gmail. And here's the thing. We all get them, especially in the beginning. So I know it's exciting. I know initially it like your heart starts starts racing and you're thinking, oh my God, oh my God, look, somebody so noticed. And this is amazing. I love anthropology. And the reality is it's not true.
00:11:09
Speaker
That that doesn't mean you will never get one that's not true or get one that is true. You will. You just got to keep going. It's just not going to be that. way I mentioned earlier scam emails versus Amazon sellers.
00:11:21
Speaker
Amazon sellers are different. Their emails and sometimes their Gmail or often they are and they really look messy and unpolished. Typically they do.
00:11:33
Speaker
It's normal. They are most often legitimate. And here's the thing. Don't just discount them because they can be incredibly powerful stepping stones. They give you lots of opportunities for practice. They give you an opportunity that's low pressure to negotiate um what type of content you're going to create. um You can practice if they want to have you send it to them ahead of time. You can get in the habit of doing that. So when you do get a bigger collaboration with a bigger brand, it's not the first time you've done it.
00:12:09
Speaker
OK, and it also gives you proof because you can show what that content actually did. So don't just automatically dismiss them. You don't have to accept them all, vet them, but don't automatically dismiss them. For many creators, myself included, they were that's where the actual early proof and confidence for me began. Now let's go
Professional Practices for Influencers
00:12:31
Speaker
into number two.
00:12:32
Speaker
The second thing I've learned, make it easy to hire you. Here's the thing. Brands scan quickly. And this is what I mean. You need to have an email that is a professional email that shows in your, say, Instagram bio so that a brand, someone who works finding influencers to work with for a brand, they scan through so many people's profiles. If they don't immediately see how they can contact you, they move on. Period. Period.
00:13:08
Speaker
You need to have a professional email, which should typically be, say, your username at gmail.com or something like that. Not something cutesy, not what you've had forever, not your personal email. It really should be branded with your business influencer account. It needs to be visible in your bio. It doesn't need to be hidden.
00:13:30
Speaker
It doesn't need to say DM me for collabs. And let me talk about this, about DMing. Brands, especially Amazon sellers, will likely DM you initially.
00:13:41
Speaker
Do your best to move those out of your DMs and into an email. And all you have to do is simply say, hey, would love to talk with you about this. Please send email me this request at and give them your email address. Because what I have learned is that those DMs can get so bogged down and you lose them. You lose track of them. You don't know who sent you what.
00:14:06
Speaker
It is so much easier to stay organized. And I am not by nature an organized person. It is so much easier to stay organized when you have it coming too one email.
00:14:17
Speaker
Another thing that matters, that is a small detail that matters more than you think, in addition to your actual email, is to tag every single brand you wear. I mentioned it earlier that sometimes that's how you end up getting the scam emails, but that's okay. Every single brand you wear, you need to tag because brands also monitor who's tagging them.
00:14:41
Speaker
Some of my earliest opportunities came simply because I tagged something that I genuinely loved. That visibility matters. It's also pretty exciting the first time you get a like or a reshare on a brand's in a brand stories because they see that you tagged them. That's super fun. I still get excited about that today.
00:15:03
Speaker
Okay, so let's talk about the third thing that I've learned. Positioning matters. What do I mean about that? Well, For brand deals, brands allocate their budgets across multiple platforms. And remember, most brand deals come through platforms, right? Like LTK, ShopMy, Mavely, Amazon.
00:15:28
Speaker
It's not coming from a one email straight to you. It's just not. It's usually going to come through a platform. And different brands prioritize and allocate budget funds for influencers across different spaces.
00:15:48
Speaker
And they may allocate more money towards influencers on one platform than they do on another. Now you may not know, and you likely won't know who's allocated what, where, but I can tell you that on something like Mavely, for example,
00:16:07
Speaker
It's a lot easier as a smaller creator, if you love to share, say, Walmart, you are more likely to have an opportunity to do some sort of campaign with Walmart as a smaller creator on Mavely than you would, say, on on LTK.
00:16:28
Speaker
I don't know about ShopMy. ShopMy is a little bit different. And they all have different requirements on when you can request gifted items. um They all have different requirements on who and how they pick influencers to pitch to brands.
00:16:48
Speaker
I just know from my own experience and from what I've seen with friends, for example, Walmart and other smaller create other brands, you have more of an opportunity as a smaller creator to get those opportunities with the bigger brands with somebody like Mabley. Hold me to that. I can just tell you in my experience, they are often noticed sooner there than on something bigger like an LTK.
00:17:12
Speaker
Not always, but often. So positioning yourself on a platform matters. And you can certainly put your content on multiple different platforms. And I highly recommend it. But really lean in to one if you want to try to reach a certain level where you are able to be able to do brand deals through that platform. I don't claim to know exactly what the requirements are for LTK to be able to do gifted and possibly um paid collaborations or
00:17:52
Speaker
ShopMy, how you move through their levels or Mavely. I just know that they all have different requirements if they have any at all. And just figure out where it feels most natural to you. And especially as a new creator, where you you just feel like you want to spend and invest most of your time.
00:18:14
Speaker
And stick with it because that way you can move through the different levels, the different tiers. You're posting more. You're getting more exposure on that platform. And then you have a better opportunity to be able to pitch yourself to brands. And here's another thing. Sometimes
Pitching to Brands
00:18:29
Speaker
opportunities aren't platform based at all.
00:18:32
Speaker
I'm not talking about a brand emailing you. This is something different. Oftentimes you may hear people say, you know, we I've been talking thus far about inbound opportunities. And what that means is brands reach out to you, right? They email you, they DM you, they reach out to you.
00:18:54
Speaker
But there's also something where you can pitch yourself to brands. And that can happen on platforms, like I said, but it can also happen outside of that. And let me tell you an example. Jennifer Ponson Designs.
00:19:05
Speaker
That is the very first brand that I ever worked with. And I had no plans on working with this brand. That was not what this was about. But I'll tell you, it happened. So at the time, I had around 5,000 followers.
00:19:19
Speaker
I had seen some of her beautiful pieces. um There were these beautiful coin necklaces. They were two different lengths and a beautiful um bracelet. And I had seen another influencer showing her items. And I was like, oh, and at the time I was really leaning very heavily into Amazon, showing a lot of looks for less, which of course I still do. But it was really, really beautiful.
00:19:42
Speaker
all I was doing because I was not on, i had not been accepted to LTK yet. I had been denied several times. So the only thing that I could link and get paid on was Amazon.
00:19:54
Speaker
So I was showing a lot of that, but I could not find anything that was as beautiful or would look like a look for less for her handcrafted, hand-designed jewelry. So I decided it was a little pricey. I decided to go ahead and invest. And I bought through this other influencers link. She had a discount code. I was able to get it at a little um discount.
00:20:14
Speaker
And when I got them in, i i i loved them as much as I thought I would, maybe even more. And I began to wear them daily. And I definitely wore daily because I had paid for them. And I knew i had paid a pretty penny.
00:20:26
Speaker
But here's the thing. I also knew people were going to ask me how they could get them because they were really striking. And if I wore them, I needed to be able to tell people how they could link them because it wasn't something that was available on LTK or any other platform.
00:20:42
Speaker
Even if I could link on LTK, it was not available. So I reached out to her in a DM because I wasn't really sure how to do that. And I said, hey, I just wanted to let you know I bought these items. I absolutely love them. And I have a feeling that if I start wearing them in um any of my content, people are going to want to know how to how to buy them.
00:21:02
Speaker
Where would you like me to tell them to go to purchase them? And she responded with a link to her site, my own discount code. And then she told me she would pay me a commission on everything that came through that link or anything with my code.
00:21:18
Speaker
And I was like, what? It was a pinch me moment. And I felt like I had truly arrived. And I was so not expecting that. And you know what?
00:21:29
Speaker
To this day, those pieces are probably the most sold items that I have ever had. Ever. In two and a half years. And that is not an exaggeration.
00:21:41
Speaker
So here's the thing. Sometimes you position yourself or sometimes you build something organically or sometimes they reach out to you. All of those count. Okay, moving on to the fourth thing I have learned.
00:21:57
Speaker
Clarity protects you. So when a brand works with you, they send you something called a brief. And that basically is just some, it's usually created in like Google Slides or Canva or something like that.
00:22:11
Speaker
And it shows you basically exactly what it is that they want from you, right? The details. And you'll see a word like deliverable. And I really wasn't sure what that meant, if I'm being honest. So I looked it up.
00:22:26
Speaker
And basically, a deliverable is simply what you agree to create. So a reel is a deliverable. Stories are deliverables. Usage and where they can use your content, that's deliverable.
00:22:41
Speaker
And it's important that you understand up front exactly What you are agreeing to is in terms of how many reels, how many stories, where they can use your content for how long can they use your content. Sometimes they may ask in perpetuity and that means forever.
00:23:04
Speaker
And that's not something that you should just give away. Okay. So let me give you an example. One time I worked with a brand, it was a beauty brand, and i typically had not shown a lot of beauty stuff.
00:23:16
Speaker
And They gave me a very detailed brief, which to be honest, kind of freaked me out because it was the very first time I had been given a brief and I was like, what is this? Oh my gosh. And it was so overwhelming. And it was before chat GPT and I had no idea. So I was trying to figure it out.
00:23:32
Speaker
And they really wanted me to say specific things. They wanted specific angles shown. um It was something that was waterproof. So they wanted me to run my, my arm, put the mascara on my arm and then run it underwater and have a shot of that. And that was not how I typically showed content. Okay.
00:23:50
Speaker
it was a lot of work. Now they were paying me well, but it was a lot of work. I was being paid to create reel and a story. Okay. They were not allowed to have my content and use it for paid ads. That wasn't included in there. They were allowed for, they had allowed for two revisions, which meant I was going to send them the content. I had to send it to them ahead of time, which a lot of brands will ask for, for them to okay it.
00:24:19
Speaker
They want you to do something different. They send it back. And so we went back and forth through two revisions and that was fine. And then they came back and then they wanted me to reshoot it completely differently.
00:24:30
Speaker
A whole new concept. And I suspected so that they could use it someplace else. It just didn't make any sense. And I pushed back.
00:24:41
Speaker
because that was not what we had agreed upon. I had met my deliverables, I had fulfilled what we had agreed, and I had a right to say no. And I learned that boundaries are professionalism. I just learned that by having boundaries, it gave me the opportunity to be a professional and to know that I could say no and it was okay.
00:25:04
Speaker
and I still got paid.
Balancing Expectations
00:25:06
Speaker
Okay, we've come down to the fifth thing that I have learned. Brands want results. I know, I know, that doesn't sound very, very surprising. But the other part to that is they want results, but you need sustainability.
00:25:23
Speaker
So from a brand's perspective, they just want results. They want sales, they wanna have an impact, they wanna see movement, and that's fair. But from your perspective, you need to be able to sustain the work that you're doing because you're not just building a page for one campaign. So when you take on a campaign, you need to be sure that it's something that you feel good about, that is sustainable for you to do. Don't take on more than is reasonable in a period of time. And let me tell you an example.
00:26:01
Speaker
There was a time period where I took on a lot of small deals with Amazon sellers. And the money added up to a pretty good chunk of change, but it was a lot of little deals. And that was all fine, except I didn't realize the toll it would take on me. All the steaming, all the filming, all the styling, all the all the returning, all the everything that goes into making a reel.
00:26:32
Speaker
the editing, the revisions for each single one. And I was doing so many of them that every other post basically looked like a commercial.
00:26:45
Speaker
And i was taking items that I didn't really love, if I'm honest, and it just didn't feel natural. And I thought, why am I doing this so that I can justify the the amount of money that's coming in, like it doesn't help me. I might be getting paid, but what is it doing to my page? People don't want to buy this. So my sales are down, which means people aren't clicking on it, which means my numbers are down and my analytics look bad.
00:27:15
Speaker
How does this make sense? It doesn't. So now I filter more carefully. big Biggest thing that you want to think about in terms of sustainability is with the deals that you agree to do, you have to think long term. You have to think about long term trust because it is worth more than short term money every single time. OK, lastly,
30-Day Action Plan for New Influencers
00:27:39
Speaker
i want to leave you with a final 30 day action plan. So if I were starting today, here is is here is exactly what I would do for 30
00:27:50
Speaker
In a nutshell, I would have a professional email. I would make sure it's visible in my bio. I would tag every brand that I wear. I would choose a platform and learn it well.
00:28:02
Speaker
I would reach out thoughtfully when I genuinely love something. I would focus on my engagement, not my follower count. I would focus on responding to every single comment and answer every DM.
00:28:15
Speaker
And I would create content like I'm already being paid. That's it If you do that for 30 days, you'll feel intentional.
00:28:27
Speaker
You won't feel lost. And that's where the shift
Sister Shout-Out and Episode Conclusion
00:28:30
Speaker
happens. I really hope that this helped you. And if it did, please let us know. i would love if you would download this, share it, subscribe, share it with a friend um and review, you know, all the things, all the things that we need to do for a podcast. I would love to know what resonated with you. If something helped, if something um sent off a light bulb, it would be, it'd be great.
00:28:56
Speaker
Okay, this is one of our favorite parts of the show. It's time for our sister shout out. Each week, we each share a fellow influencer who is standing out. We'll tell you what she's doing so well, why her content stands out, and why you need to hit that follow button.
00:29:13
Speaker
Because supporting each other is what the sisterhood is all about. And when one of us shines, it lights the way for the rest of us. And now we've come to one of my favorite parts of the episodes.
00:29:24
Speaker
the sister shout out. And this week, my shout out is someone I have been following really since the beginning of my influencer journey, because I didn't follow a lot of influencers before I started doing this.
00:29:36
Speaker
And I came across someone named Mary Glenn Blanks. Her account is Money Savvy mamma that's money dot savvy dot Mama. And for me, it was really elementary in the beginning because I wanted someone who was showing the same types of content that I did, and who was about my size and height. So I knew how it would look on me if I hadn't purchased it already. So she is the same height.
00:30:02
Speaker
We're about the same weight. We wear about the same size. We are not the same age. She is a lot younger than I am. But one of the things over time that I have learned about her account, she's really, really consistent. And another thing that I love is that she styles outfits Multiple ways. She'll take out items and style them multiple ways in one reel, but not in a way that seems excessive, not in a way that feels overdone. It's very difficult.
00:30:32
Speaker
it's very real and she doesn't do a lot of the, um, Instagram trends and a lot of really flashy transitions. It's very straightforward, very straightforward. And what I love is I think it just makes her so much more accessible. And another thing is she's just a really cool, a cool person. She was so kind to me in the very beginning. I mean, she still is, but when I got started, I don't know her well, but we have talked a couple of times. And even recently we have, um,
00:31:02
Speaker
But in the beginning, when I was just getting started and reached out to her and had some questions, she always answered my DMs. And you and I both know how important that is when you become vulnerable and reach out to somebody to ask them for some help.
00:31:15
Speaker
You really hope they answer you and you really hope that they do their best to help and be kind. And she always was. So if you're not already following Mary Glenn, I highly recommend we will put her account handle in our show notes and we'll see you next time. Bye y'all.
00:31:35
Speaker
See y'all next week. Thanks guys.