How to Land a Brand Partnership as an Aspiring YouTuber
Living off YouTube is the dream.
Being sucked in the YouTube void and mindlessly watching hours of content is something many people did at some point.
With 2 billion logged-in monthly users and 500 hours of content uploaded every minute, YouTube is the most searched for website in the US and a true streaming revolution.
In 2005, no one would imagine that being a YouTuber could be a legit profession. Fast forward 15 years, American kids are ditching their parents’ childhood dreams of landing on the moon and instead they want to upload videos for a living.
Being a YouTuber myself never appealed to me, but after graduating from college, I was lucky enough to land a job which got me around influencers and local celebrities.
I was watching videos, reading blogs, scrolling on Social Media and reading comments. The best part was that I was doing these things anyway in my spare time. It was great.
My responsibilities included finding relevant influencers with the right audience for the brand I was working for, estimate potential engagement and impact, come up with product placement ideas, negotiate costs, handle the project, and finally, report everything back.
For the vast majority of YouTubers, brands partnerships the most profitable way of monetizing their channel. Ad revenue can contribute to your bottom line at the end of the month, but unless you have several hundred thousands of subscribers and views, it won’t mean much.
Here’s what I learned while working in this field and how you can start to monetize your channel as an aspiring YouTuber. But first, let’s talk about the current crisis and how it can impact your plans.
The Future of Brand Partnerships
Under the current global circumstances, no one knows how the face of advertising will look like once the economic crisis hits.
Many global brands already started to decimate their budgets under boardroom pressure, and this can sound scary for someone who is paying bills by working on the Internet.
But this shouldn’t be discouraging for you if you’re now starting your channel. To set the record straight — word of mouth and celebrity endorsements have been around since ever, and influencer marketing resides at the digital intersection of the two.
YouTube is too big to fail and brands will have to shift budgets around to continue to accommodate their digital plans.
Budgets spent on YouTube will probably decline in the next period, but they will vanish entirely. YouTube is too big to fail and brands will have to shift budgets around to continue to accommodate their digital plans, especially since consumers are spending more time online than ever.
I would argue this is the best time for creators to start out as tools and information are widely available online for free.
And if you plan to keep chasing your dream of becoming a YouTuber, here are some insights on how you can grow your following, build an interesting channel, and ultimately, build a nice revenue stream from brand deals.
The Key Attributes of Succesful YouTubers
Although success can be highly subjective, people who are making a living out of their content and can truly afford to live the life they want are ultimately the ones who won the YouTube lottery.
But the thing is, it’s not a lottery at all. It takes more than looks, charisma, or pure luck to make it.
Here are some aspects you should pay attention to if you’re an aspiring YouTuber:
#1. Consistency Will Help You Climb the Mountain
Brands will never work with YouTubers who are not 110% committed to their work. You can be brilliant, but if you only upload once a year, you will never make it on the shortlist. Like everything good in life, this isn’t going to be easy, and you’ll have to compromise a lot.
A way to make everything more manageable is to create a routine. Decide on the frequency of your videos and do your best to meet your deadline. This will set you apart in the crowd and help you score a lot of points when trying to land a brand partnership.
#2. Being Vulnerable is a Superpower
Authencity is a word which marketing people love. Ever since influencer marketing started to make waves in the corporate world, everyone began to obsess about it and use it a bit too much in their pitches to the management.
This is how brands justify spending a ton of money on YouTube advertising, even if most will not admit it. The reasoning behind is crazy simple.
Brands want to work with people who have loyal followings. And being true to yourself is a sure way to find your tribe.
By having the courage to put yourself out there and dare to be express your thoughts with honesty, you’ll most likely find other like-minded people who had the same problems and can recognize themselves in your story.
And while not all successful YouTubers expose their private lives on the Internet, most of them are not afraid to speak up and be vocal about the things they believe in and this is precisely why people press that Subscribe button.
#3. Invest in Your Craft
Not everyone on YouTube went to film school. And while you don’t have to be a brilliant filmmaker such as Matt D’avella to be a successful creator, you have to put in the necessary work of learning how to produce high-quality content.
Editing skills are no joke, and it takes imagination and surgical precision to make a good video out of hours of material. No one was born a camera in hand nor woke up to know exactly what they have to do. It takes practice, tons of screws up, and hours of frustration to learn how to master the art of it.
Invest in your skills, upgrade your gear when you have the chance and financial resources. Brands will be more open to working with you if they see you are investing time and money in your YouTube career.
#4. You Need a Niche
And as overrated as it seems, it works. And it’s true for making videos, writing, or anything else in life. You cannot be a specialist in everything you do. Pick one main niche and two secondary ones.
If you have multiple passions, you don’t have to start a channel for each. Instead, you should try to see how they can blend in harmoniously. If they aren’t, then you might want to prioritize one over the other.
Not all niches are built the same. And this will ultimately impact you, in the long run, if you want to make a living out of it.
To put things into perspective, if you aim to make money out of ad revenue, keep in mind that the CPM is higher in the personal finance niche than in fashion. In regards to brand partnerships, chances are you can more easily work with clothing brands than with banks.
Take a step back and think about all the aspects. But ultimately, your channel should be about the things you are passionate about. You shouldn’t ignore your calling for the sake of money. If you go into YouTube only for the financial gains, it will show and no one will stick around to see if you’ll make it or not.
How Brands Design Their Campaigns
There are many ways in which brands engage with content creators, but here are the most popular routes brands often chose:
- Product unboxings
- Product reviews
- Special deals & discount codes
- Brand ambassadorship
- Product launches
- Giveaways and contests
- Commercials
- Content development
Two brands which are heavily investing in their influencer marketing programs are SkillShare and Squarespace.
Both are using a combination of product review and free trials or special offers by providing YouTubers with discounts codes and asking them to talk about how they use the platforms.
They have partnered up with at least a dozen creators with followings ranging from 50,000 subscribers to 2+ million subscribers. And they are not the only ones doing so.
These brands are not putting their eggs in the same basket by working with a handful of creators. And over the last couple of years, this has become the norm. Here are the reasons behind their decision:
- To extend their reach across different niches and target different segments of potential customers. This means working with creators across several industries to tap into different audiences.
- To ensure multiple touchpoints with the same group. If you hear their message more, you are more likely to click that link eventually.
- Finally, to benchmark YouTubers against each other and determine which one drives the best results, across several metrics.
In a world in which brand awareness has become almost a buzz word, shamelessly used by everyone in meetings, performance metrics are preferred by every (good) marketer out there.
So, don’t be surprised if they will do their best to track everything you do and ask for stats and print screens. They are simply trying to justify the dollars they’ve invested in you.
Starting with engagement metrics (likes, comments, shares), overall sentiment (are people hating the brand down in the comments section?), and ending with CTR (click-through rate) on a link or number of new sign-ups/products buys, most actions can be precisely tracked in 2020.
You need to be aware of these aspects; this is just the way the industry works. But even if you start to feel the pressure of rising to some kind of expectations, as a content creator, you shouldn’t obsess too much about numbers.
Focusing on your job of developing the greatest content you possibly can is enough. Let the brand do the measuring and obsess about the stats. Your role is to deliver their message to your audience, but there is only so much one can do.
The chances are they will tell you if something is not right. More than that, you will know from the very start if their plans and your plans are not 100% matching and you should be able to walk away. Always remember:
This is your channel, your universe, your rules.
Don’t give yourself a bad time about failures, move on, next time it’s going to be better. And as long as your audience is supportive of you, that’s all that really matters.
How to Land a Brand Partnership
You have put in thousands of hours of work and you are ready to monetize your effort. Well done you.
Some ways to help you get started:
- Reach out to brands which you use every day and genuinely want to talk about. Be friendly, ask if they are building their influencer program or if they are open to collaborate. Chances are you will get one positive answer out of 10, so be ready to bounce back from rejection and move on. You’ll find the right partnership eventually.
- Network at industry events and meet people who know other people who can help. This will not be a very straightforward way, but it will help develop your network, and it’s a great way to put yourself out there and talk about your work. Don’t be salesy; focus on your passion rather than trying to pitch yourself in every conversation.
- Interact on social media to get on the brand’s radar. Find the relevant people who work there and handle marketing or public relations. Send them an invite or drop them a quick line to find out more about their influencer marketing plans.
The road from 0 to 100 subscribers can feel very long and bumpy. And the harsh reality is that you are the only one truly believing in your dreams of making a living off YouTube.
As an avid YouTube consumer, the only advice I can give is this:
Buckle up, and don’t give up.
We need more engaging content. There is plenty of room for aspiring video creators. It’s not too late to start today.
