Brand Deals – Major Factors to #GetSponsored

Are you a YouTuber, streamer, podcaster or some other kind of creator? Do you do your creative work on the side but dream of making it a source of income or even your full time job?

Many people pursue this goal, but very few succeed, and it’s not for a lack of hard work or talent. It’s often a lack of knowledge of how to navigate the industry and how to market yourself to a community and to companies.

I’m Andy, experienced with industry insights to help creators close that knowledge gap and get sponsored! I’ve done multiple rounds of onboarding new partners at my current position with AVerMedia, and there are things I’ve noticed that make some creators more successful than others when it comes to brand deals.

Today’s post will discuss some extremely important factors that companies look for in influencers they might want to sponsor:

• Fit
• Content Quality
• Consistency
• Community

Keep in mind every company is different and will have different standards, but these apply in many cases!

Watch the video below, read the blog for reference, or both!

Fit

What does it mean to be a fit for a company?

Frankly, “fit” means different things to different companies. I can’t give you every possible area to consider, but we’ll go over a few major things to think about

Are you brand appropriate?

Content for all ages likely wouldn’t get sponsored by an adult brand, while content for older viewers wouldn’t get sponsored by brands for kids

Basically, is there anything that would put you wildly off base for this brand? Would your audience be confused seeing this brand on your channel, and would the brand’s customers be confused seeing you promoting the brand?

Like, if you have a very mature brand, it’s unlikely that a brand like Nintendo would view you as a good fit, however, you might be perfect for a brand like Adam and Eve. Similarly, if you’re a travel vlogger, you might not be a great fit for, let’s say, furniture or bulky hardware, but you might be a great fit for travel-sized vitamin supplements, a small camera, or a trip booking company.

Think about your message, style, or content, and examine if it aligns with something about the brand or its products

If you’re a TikTokker who only uses your phone and makes outdoor content, you probably wouldn’t get offers from a gaming peripherals brand but might be a great fit for a shoe or clothing brand

If you’re a gaming streamer, you might be a great fit for that gaming peripheral company but less of a fit for an outdoor-oriented brand

In this case, it’s basically a match of values, subject matter, or some combination of these. People sponsored by VPNs generally promote privacy themselves, people who work with gaming hardware companies are generally gamers themselves.

Just as much, a company should be a fit for YOU.

If you feel negatively about or don’t connect with their products, services, or even something they stand for, it’s better you preserve your integrity.

I recently spoke in a Twitter space discussing this topic hosted by streamer @KDotDaGawd, and someone asked if their activism would be a turn off for brands. My honest answer was that yes, some brands would probably avoid politically active folks… but in that case, would YOU want to represent a brand like that? The brands that DO align with you will often give you much better opportunities in the long run – Nike had one of their all-time most profitable campaigns after partnering with Colin Kapaernick. He stood for something, and Nike chose to actively stand with him. If a company won’t at least accept your message, you’ll be better off pursuing other avenues.

And you’ll have more avenues when you maximize your…

Content Quality / Skills

More than anything, your content should be good. I see a lot of people try to get sponsorships before they try to make good content. Good content begets sponsors, but sponsors won’t make your content better. Earning sponsorships might give you the freedom to spend more time making it better, but if your content is lacking in its fundamentals, focus on improving that before you seek sponsors.

Lots of creators are so good at what they do, that the sponsored segment itself is worthwhile content! Look at the classic Game Grumps Crunchyroll ad, any or ad Daniel Thrasher does. Your sponsored segments CAN just be ads, but these are examples to show that good content should come first

There are also cases where people with amazing content but not too many followers get sponsored. One creator I follow, Big E, discusses this in one of his videos. He focused on the craft of storytelling, and despite not pulling in many views at the time, he got a huge sponsorship deal because his content quality made him a perfect fit to essentially make a short film for the company.

And on that note, content doesn’t have to be your own videos. Can you take good photos? You can do that for companies you want to work with! Companies LOVE user-generated content! Are you technical? I have worked with partners who have gone on hiatus from creating, but have contributed a LOT by helping test products.

This is deviating from the category being “content,” but the point is, if you have valuable skills, you can get more sponsorships and partnerships than you think, even if your numbers are low.
And you can showcase your amazing content and skills with…

Consistency / Professionalism

Consistency of course applies to having a regular schedule of content and consistently keeping your online presence alive, but that’s not the only thing.

It also refers to your professionalism – will you consistently reply within a reasonable amount of time when brand reps contact you?

Will you consistently do what you say you’re going to do at the time you say you’re going to do it?

Do you give expectations for what to expect in your deliverables, then consistently deliver, if not over-deliver?

Consistency refers not only to your upload or stream schedule, but also the way you go about your work and communications. Companies will prefer the creator who consistently gets shit done with a medium following over the creator inconsistent in their communications and deliverables with a huge following

Of course life happens, and you shouldn’t push yourself too hard all the time for the sake of consistency, either in content or professionalism, but it matters!

Consistency and regularly showing up for whatever you do is one major way to build this next factor,

Community

Some sponsorships might pay you to provide high-quality content no matter your follower count, like with Big E, but most sponsorships and partnerships are looking for advertising access to your audience.

This doesn’t just mean having the most followers. I’ll discuss this further in a different post, but there are also things like engagement, demographics, things like that.

Who is your community?

What do THEY value?

Your community can determine a lot about the best projects for you.

Are you under 5K followers but have a SUPER engaged audience that talks tech all the time? You might be a perfect brand partner for a tech brand, especially if it’s a product partnership with an affiliate program to drive sales.

Do you have 100k followers, get consistent views, but fewer engagements per view than the creator with 5K followers? You might be perfect for a brand-awareness sponsorship.

We’ll be covering types of brand deals in our next post, and these are just examples, but that is to say, because advertising access to your community is a huge part of sponsorships and partnerships, it’s important for YOU to understand your community, your metrics, and what those metrics mean for advertisers – this will ALSO be covered in more detail in a separate video.

Let’s do a quick recap.

It’s important to be a fit for brands you want to work with, whether that’s subject matter, the medium of your content, your target audience, or a myriad of other factors. It’s JUST as important for a brand to be a fit for YOU.

Next, and honestly the most important thing – make good content, and constantly develop skills. And your content doesn’t just need to be what you post or broadcast to your audience – companies LOVE user-generated assets like high-quality photos, videos, and more.

Equally important, you need to be consistent. That can mean posting videos or streaming on a regular basis, but it also means consistently communicating with brand representatives and doing what you say you’re going to do, when you say you’re going to do it.

Last, know your community! Companies do deals with influencers largely to gain advertising access to their communities. Whether you’re advertising a small, engaged community with a niche interest relevant to a brand or a huge community that a brand can gain a lot of awareness from, understand your community, metrics, and what those mean for advertisers.

It’s my goal to empower creators to be better equipped to reach their goals, and I’m really happy to be at a place in my career where I’m able to. On the video, be sure to subscribe for more, leave a like if you learned something, and leave a comment if you have questions, suggestions, or more!