Are you ready to navigate through the wild and wonderful world of brand deals? Buckle up and grab your favorite caffeinated beverage because I’m spilling the tea on what it takes to successfully take a brand deal from start to finish. As a photographer and traveler with a global audience of over 120k, I’ve had my fair share of content collaborations. Each one that I take on is made easier with the help of Bublup, a mobile and desktop app with organizational superpowers. You can think of Bublup as your trusty sidekick on your influencer adventure. It will help you organize research, streamline your outreach efforts, and keep track of the brilliant ideas that pop into your head at the most inconvenient times (I’m looking at you, 2 AM). It also allows you to create impeccable portfolios in a pinch and, lastly, hand over your deliverables quickly and impressively. Get ready to turn your passion into profit as I take you through my process, step by step.
1. Organize Outreach & Info
The foundation of any good brand deal is organization. If you’re researching different companies, sending pitches out left and right, and trying to evaluate the offers hitting your inbox, it can be hard to keep things straight. To help streamline this information, I created a “Collaborations” folder in Bublup and created subfolders for the different stages of the collaboration process.
Potential Collabs – brands I want to reach out to or brands that have reached out to me that I’m not quite ready to work with yet. I then create subfolders for brand categories. For example: travel brands, hotels & Airbnbs, restaurants, fashion, etc. Then, within the appropriate category, the brand gets its own folder.
Pitched – brands I emailed or brands that reached out to me. All initial correspondence and notes can live here until a deal is confirmed (or they ghost you, in which case a ghosted folder can totally be a thing.) Remember, you can forward emails, save screenshots, important links, or literally any media type at all.
In Progress – Move a brand folder into this folder once you’ve come to an agreement and are working on the content. You can use Bublup’s checklist feature to help stay on top of your deliverables and create a schedule for yourself.
Completed – Once a brand deal is done, it can be moved into this folder. The contents of your “completed” folder should be a great resource for whipping up a portfolio!
Pro Tip:
Create a folder for your media kit, portfolio, or other important documents. They can be shared easily with a brand via Bublup’s shareable link feature.
2. Brainstorm/Curate Inspo
Once you’ve got a brand deal in the works, Bublup is a great digital space for brainstorming, creating mood boards, and saving inspiration. It’s the ideal place for doing so because you can save links from various social media platforms, photos that you’ve taken, videos, or even half-formed thoughts in a note. They all can be saved side by side to help flush out your next big idea.
Maybe you’ve seen some great videos on Instagram that you’d like to put your own spin on- simply copy and paste the links in a folder so you don’t lose or forget them! Or maybe you’ve gathered a bunch of images from Pinterest that you want to recreate for a campaign- save them in a folder and put the folder into gallery view for a picture-perfect mood board.
Keep in mind that inspiration can always be shared- all you have to do is invite others to your folder to collaborate or get their feedback on your ideas.
3. Create Customizable Portfolios & Pitch Decks
If you’re in need of a polished portfolio or pitch deck, Bublup can help with that, too. For example, I pitch to hotels and Airbnbs the most, and am able to put together pitch decks and portfolios in a matter of minutes. If I’m pitching a luxury hotel, I save my best luxury shots in a folder and create a Roll – an instant website that displays all of my content beautifully. With a few customization tweaks and a classy theme like Seabreeze, I have the perfect portfolio. If I want to send more than just examples of my work, I can add notes with intended deliverables and schedules, data from past successful campaigns, screenshots of my social insights, etc. for a more detailed proposal.
If you want to dive into the ins and outs of Roll-making, check out Bublups Rolls page here.
4. Send Deliverables
Once I’m happy with my content, it’s time to send it over to the brand. In the past, big photo and video files made this process difficult. Now when I want to send deliverables, I do one of two things:
1. Put all the content in a folder, create a Roll, and then send that Roll link to the brand. They can download the content directly from the Roll and easily share it within their company.
2. Put all the content in a folder and invite the brand to join the folder. They don’t even need to have a Bublup account! They can download the assets directly from the folder hassle-free.
Pro Tip: Consider adding screenshots of important statistics or positive comments on social media to illustrate the campaign’s performance.
Another Pro Tip: Ask for a testimonial or review. If it was a smooth collaboration, ask the brand to leave you a testimonial! If they send it by email, forward it to the folder for future reference, or if they have editing rights to your Group Folder, they can add their rave review as a Word document or a note.
In Summary
It’s time to put your newfound knowledge into action and lock down some amazing brand deals! Remember, mastering brand deals requires a combination of creativity, strategy, and a heavy dose of organization. With Bublup as your trusty sidekick, you’ll be able to tackle any challenge that comes your way. So go forth, armed with your new arsenal of Bublup-boosted skills. Best of luck and happy influencing!
