What To Include in Your Brand Pitch Email

Brand collaborations are a huge part of being an influencer. For full-time bloggers, brand partnerships can make up a significant chunk of their income. If you’re not yet at a point where you have brands reaching out to you, you should definitely get familiar with reaching out to them. Yup, we’re talking about pitching again!

If you want to work with a brand, sending them a well-crafted pitch email could be your ticket to getting free product or ideally working with them on a paid basis to create content.

If you want all of my pitching secrets including how to negotiate higher rates and easy ways to make a pitch stand out, check out my e-book Right on Pitch. In this post, we’ll go over what to do before you pitch, a basic outline for a brand pitch email template, and what you shouldn’t include in a pitch.

Before Sending a Brand Pitch Email

Now before you even sit down to write an email to a brand you should ask yourself if you’re in a good place to send a pitch email and get a yes from them.

As I think most of my blog readers know, I’m a big believer that you do not need thousands of followers to work with brands. It is absolutely possible to have successful brand partnerships as a micro-influencer.

But follower count aside, do you have a clear objective as a creator?

Are there one or two topics that you post about that your audience considers you an expert in? Do your social media profiles have a cohesive look to them and are you consistently posting great organic content?

Checking in with yourself and seeing if you’re covered in these areas will help put you in a good position to pitch.

Next, you’ll need to locate the right contact for a brand. Finding brand contacts isn’t always easy and sometimes you may just find a generic marketing email. Ideally you’ll want to find the email of a real person working for the brand. Some ways to find brand email contacts include:

• Look on the brand website for a PR, marketing or influencer relations email

• Go on LinkedIn by and search the brand name and either PR, marketing, or influencer relations

• Check on the brand’s Instagram page to see if there is a general email there

• Search in influencer Facebook groups or ask if anyone has that contact and if they’d be willing to trade for one of your contacts

• Last resort: DM the brand on IG and ask for a contact in marketing

A word about pitch templates

While a brand pitch email template can help if you’ve never written one, many influencers use them too literally. Some just swap words in [brackets] and leave everything else the same, word for word.

Brand reps notice this. Marketers and influencer managers often complain about receiving the same copy-paste email from multiple influencers.

So, I’ll provide a thorough outline for your brand pitch email. However, it’s up to you to write the main content and sell the brand yourself.

I promise it won’t take long. I’ll guide you, but templates can sound robotic and inauthentic. As an influencer, the last thing you want is a brand thinking that’s how you speak to your audience.

What to include in your brand pitch email:

• Catchy subject line – Include the brand’s name and make them want to click through.

• Quick background on you – For example, “I’m a former magazine editor turned fashion and beauty blogger living in NYC.”

• Get to the point – Let them know you want to collaborate.

• Be specific about your idea – Mention products, campaign timing, or where you’ll shoot.

• Why should they choose you? – Highlight audience demographics, brand passion, or unique content style in one or two sentences.

• Show them what it will look like – Share a recent example of organic content or a sample you could create.

• Social proof – Include follower DMs, swipe-up numbers, video views, or anything proving audience engagement.

• Link to your partnerships page – Avoid clutter; link to a page showing more examples of your work.

• Call to action/next steps – use a line to get them to respond like you’d love to hop on a 15 minute call to discuss if they’re interested or that you can provide a media kit with more details about your audience

While this sounds like a lot, try to keep it as short and to the point as possible with each of these points as one sentence, maybe two.

They will likely skim your pitch and if you plant one or two interesting nuggets in a short email they’ll catch on and either give it a more thorough read or reply to you right then and there.

What NOT to include in your initial pitch

I have two things that I would personally not send in your initial pitch email that I wanted to call out.

The first is your rates. When you send a brand your rates first, you might close yourself off from money they could offer. I usually try to get a brand to share their budget first. It doesn’t always work, but I can try.

If you quote $100 for an Instagram post, but they would have paid $700, you just lost money.

Next is your media kit. You should eventually share it, but avoid sending it in your first email. Attachments can trigger spam filters, so it’s better to wait. Instead, use it as a call to action to encourage the brand to ask for more info.

Final thoughts about brand pitch email

When it comes to pitching:

• Keep it short and sweet

• Make it about why this is interesting/helpful for the brand and NOT what is in it for you (the creator)

• Set a reminder on your phone to follow up a week after you send the email to show you’re proactive

  yours,

  Austen