I’m going to attack this from two angles, my experience as a brand identity developer and also as a content creator (influencer). I hope it comes out the way I’m imagining it too, but this will be more from an influencers angle & hopefully overlaps into the business.

Research

90% of proposals get turned down because when most influencers pitch to a brand they only consider things like what platforms they’ll post the content, which mediums they’ll use, how they plan to style it, or what imagery they might use, this isn’t a bad approach. As cool as you could make a brand look, what problem are you solving? This is where research comes in, knowing a brand means understanding their history, journey and also identifying what challenges they face and how you as the creator can solve that through brand placement, reach, awareness, visibility, or talk-ability. Whatever it is, you’ll need good research to back it up.

Research also protects you as the creator from investing time & effort into a proposal or concept that might not work because you get to understand the brand, where it is, what it needs, who’s their audience and if you & your audience are a good fit for them.

Concept

The brand understands that you’ve identified the gap. Your concept is the “solution”. This is where you sell the beautiful idea and define how this concept/idea will solve their problem, Aside from making them look cooler. The concept needs to be accompanied by perception when selling an idea you shouldn’t think that those you’re selling it to will understand it the same you do. Maybe create a mood board that will have the color scheme, type of imagery + look and feel you’re aiming for.

Tools

Don’t expect the brand to guess what you’re going to use to execute your concept. Type down which social media platforms and mediums you’re going to use. You also want to differentiate yourself here (if you can). I have a Twitter. Instagram. Website & Podcast. All of these four platforms can be used for my content work, finding a way to use them for a concept shows the brand I have more “value” to offer compared to someone that just pitched with executing their idea say… on Instagram alone.

Yes, that person might have a larger audience on their Instagram compared to all my platforms combined but the key here is variety, your audience uses and consumes content on each of their platforms differently, so variety in terms of platforms can come in handy. Also offer variety in how you’ll execute your idea on each platform, what works for Insta might not work for twitter or Facebook.

ROI (Return On Investment)

What is the brand getting for investing in this concept? With this section, I usually have all the rewards written down and I also pull all my platform analytics to support it. This shows the brand I know what I’m talking about but above that, I also understand my audience, my platforms and how best to place their brand, product, or service.

Costs

Have a cost sheet attached to your proposal, I break it down according to platform and content piece. E.g For Instagram I would have a cost per post (image) post (video) than for my stories id have a cost for post and post with a swipe uplink. Breaking it down in this manner shows the brand exactly what they would be paying for and how these content pieces are different, remember as a creator your process for creating imagery and video are different. You’re a business, not just a creator so consider the value of your process and execution.

Timeframe

I think this is an important factor to add especially if you’re pitching for a long term partnership. This section will also dictate the cost because you will either create a package that has a set fee per month or base your costing on individual content pieces within the time period.

Bonus Guideline

Introduce yourself and well… flex a bit. Let the brand know who you are, what you do, who you’ve maybe done it with and why you’re speaking to them, do you have a story of how you use their product/service? How it’s relevant and why your passionate bout it?. Put it in there as the ice breaker, have this section right at the top as the opener to your proposal. Make the document look decent, you can’t be a creator and send proposals that lack imagery and color. The presentation also plays a role. Goodluck.