How to Get Brand Deals as a Small Youtuber

How to Get Brand Deals as a Small Youtuber #Nanoinfluencer #Microinfluencer #Youtubestrategy – Powered by Happy Scribe

This is Fei from Feisworld Media I’m excited about this series where I’ll get to talk to you about brand deals for small YouTubers that’s right. I think there’s a huge potential for YouTubers to take advantage of brand deals and guess what? It’s a two way street. What works for you actually also works really well well for these brands and I’ll explain to you why today we’ll cover some of the basics but also at a high level everything you need to know about how it works and the question is do you have to wait until you become a monetized channel or do you have to be a huge channel in order to take advantage of brand deals? The answer is no.

You can proactively reach out to brands way before you get monetized and certainly there isn’t a fixed number of subscribers you need to have in order to create branded videos. Hey, if you liked this video, make sure you hit subscribe button. I’m going to create and dissect a lot of the misconceptions of what brand deals are and how you can take advantage of it right away. Quick shout out to YouTuber Kit a brand new digital product we launched which provides a full suite of dozens of systems, plans, templates you can use right away be sure to check it out link in description below there’s a special discount just for you guys who are watching this video. Well, let’s dive right in.

First let’s talk about what is a brand deal and what is a sponsor video? A brand deal is a collaboration and partnership between a creator and a brand some branded content is really obvious for YouTubers to shout out sometimes can even feel unnatural but YouTubers who have done it for a little while, they create this seamless experience and you don’t even notice that it’s a branded content. Now there are multiple types of sponsor videos but they’re going to be two of them you experience most frequently. One is called a shoutout or mention simply means that you have to mention the brand but this entire video is not about the brand or the product. It is a short segment you include at the beginning or middle of the video where you talk about the brand.

You have seen probably plenty of those examples on YouTube and what’s neat about these type of mentions is obviously it’s easier to produce but also it doesn’t take over your entire video. You still get to talk X, Y and Z whatever you plan to do. Fully integrated videos are videos dedicated for that service or product or whatever the brand wants you to talk about for the entire duration of the video. For Phase World we have done a number of these videos to talk about like a personal finance app, how it works. Let’s see I also talk about software a lot so I’ll conduct a tutorial.

A walkthrough. An honest evaluation of what I think and how it applies to YouTubers podcasters a lot of small YouTubers or micro YouTubers let’s clarify meaning creators with fewer than 1000 subscribers well that’s a lot of us for small YouTubers it’s not just 100K you could have less than 10,000 followers even less than 1000 followers I’ll tell you now why it works so well for brands the reason is people’s mindset is very different on YouTube people are here to learn and to absorb so the content tends to be evergreen it means that something you create this week could go on and be meaningful next week. Next month or the next five to ten years even that’s just incredible compared to the very short lifespan of social media content in general now. Another really important reason is the production cost of creating videos is really high and there are a lot of politics involved I personally come from business consulting and marketing so I can tell you that even a 15 2nd. 32nd commercial could take months to actually produce now brands actually hate that they may not have the internal resources to create these videos and even if they do.

Working with YouTube creators can be awesome because you cut down the timelines they have a fresh face who is ready to speak to the camera with their personality and thirdly guess what? You bring your own audience smart brands will choose to work with small to very small YouTubers not only is it costeffective they get to reach precisely the niche audience they want to reach now let’s talk about there’s something in it for the brand there’s something in it for the brand but there has to be something in it for you number one yes you’re supposed to get paid in the next video I’m going to talk to you about how to charge. How much to charge but for now understand why it makes sense to you not just getting paid but you get to choose the brands you want to work with let’s say if three to five brands reach out to you or you proactively reach out to them and you hear back from one on one of them but then after a while you look at the agreement. The NDA in the contract. The payment terms you realize that’s not really the right fifth week you are allowed to say no there are a lot of big YouTubers with millions of followers how could you possibly compete with them as a small YouTuber?

Think for a second. Change your mindset it is much more expensive for brands to go after big to huge YouTubers the bigger the content creator the more difficult it is to negotiate it’s not just money factor but also bigger creators can demand certain formats a lot of control which the brands may or may not jive with but as a smaller YouTuber you can be more flexible. You can experiment more those are the benefits of being a smaller creator I noticed a lot of startups love working with small YouTubers. Their budget’s a little tight, but they’re creating something really groundbreaking the world has seen, possibly for the first time. You can be their partner for that.

How cool is it? Next, let’s talk about how to make these engagements better over time. Here’s something that might inspire you. You don’t have to create a single video for a brand. Sure, at the very beginning, if you’re working with a brand for the first time, chances are they want to just test the water and sign a contract.

To work on a single video with you, it’s exciting, but at the same time, it’s also very time consuming because when you negotiate work with a brand for the first time, you have to sign contracts. There are a lot of emails back and forth. So creating a single video, especially the first one, is actually very costly to you and for them. So that’s when I step in and say that I love creating a series of content. When you think about it right, whether it’s software or products or services from a brand, it’s really hard, ineffective and boring for your audience too.

They might want to just look at the 101 how to get started content. They want to learn more as they warm up to the first video. As soon as the first video concludes for me, with this particular brand, I immediately reach out to them and ask them if they want to collaborate on a series of videos. By the way, it doesn’t hurt for you to pitch this right away, even during your first engagement, to say, this is something I want to do in the future and it’s okay for us to create a first video. What do you think?

The answer is almost always yes. The brands love it when you’re just as invested and interested as they are. Next, let me give you just quick three tips on how to proactively reach out to brands. Number one, look at the products you already use. Think about your channel, what it’s about, what you focus on, and brands that are going to be attracted to your content.

Now, for me, based on software, I’m a YouTuber and I’m a podcaster, let’s say, which were both true. I love reaching out to TubeBuddy, which is an analytics tool I use every day already. Then, for podcasting, I have done a ton of audio related software, audiograms transcription software, which has gotten pretty popular. Now, second idea is that if you’re not so sure, I don’t know, some of these brands are really big, right? If I reach out to Squarespace or Zoom or Google Hangout where they respond, chances are probably not.

You don’t want to immediately target brands that are too big, too popular, too much money already, because more likely than not, they want to work with really big no YouTubers. With that said, you look at a brand such as Philips hue where they’re very popular, yet they work with YouTubers all the time. So it is worth a try. But just like applying to colleges, when you decide to work with brands, you don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket and have that one basket being huge brands, you want to reach out to relatively big brands, mediumsized brands, as well as small and even startup brands. The third idea, by the way, is to look at other YouTubers, not just any other YouTuber, your competitors channels and YouTubers that are in competition with you.

Then you can check out their sponsors and see if you want to reach out to them as well. One thing to note is that you can go after other YouTubers sponsors exactly as they are or you can go out to their competition. So for instance, there are a lot of live streaming tools. So if someone is already producing videos for stringyard, maybe you can pitch yourself to Restream or other similar competitors. You’re probably thinking now how do I actually stand out from the competition?

Okay, Faye, I heard that you said I’m not a big YouTuber, I’m a small YouTuber, I can go after these brands. But there are other small YouTubers who have seen this video who are already on their path of going after these brands. I want to go after as well. You can proactively create videos even before you reach out to these brands. That’s right.

I’m going to say that again. If you have identified tools or brands or services that you really enjoy you want to explore, you can proactively create a video launch on your channel with the right keywords. Nice looking thumbnail, right? Then you connect with the brand. It is really hard for them to say no.

At the very least you get a response from them. Look, not every brand is ready to work with a YouTuber. It’s still kind of a new thing. But you can proactively help these brands realize why they should work with you and what the process is like. In my upcoming videos, I will show you stepbystep how to make it a reality.

If you want to learn more details and get ahead of your competition as small YouTubers getting real big brand deals, make sure you check out YouTuber Kit. I have a special offer just for you guys. Thanks so much for watching. This is Faith from Feisworld Media. I love creating content and I love working with creators.

Leave a comment. Let me know what else you would like to learn about brand deals. Share with this community what you have learned as a content creator, all the tips and tricks that worked for you. So much love and I’ll see you in the next one. Bye.

You.