Influencer Brand Sponsorships + Partnerships: 3 Steps to Secure Them Now and in 2021

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In this post you’ll discover exactly what is working and not working for brand partnerships and sponsorships right now and in 2021 and beyond. 

The landscape is changing for brands and influencer work and it will continue to as the days and months go on. If you’re still operating in your business like you have been in the past and you’re noticing things are breaking down, not working as well, and possibly even work drying up…then it’s time you look for the opportunity. 

It’s important as a CEO and a business owner to look at trends and study what is working well and where you can make tweaks and if things aren’t working as well, it’s time to take an objective look and see where you can make some improvements. Yes, there has been A LOT of changing this year and it will continue, so why not choose to look for the possibilities and opportunities that are out there for you, instead of living in fear?

These are the trends that I am seeing among my clients and my students and I’ve also incorporated years in the food industry, running Blissful Eats. 

I’m sharing my observations and experiences and as a disclaimer, you always have to do what’s right for you and your business. Experiment, test strategies out, try new things. 

Business should be fun. Business should be an experiment and we should really stop taking ourselves so seriously. While I’m going to be sharing what I’ve noticed in sponsorships and partnerships, I want you to just take a look at what’s working and be willing to let go of what is not working. 

If you’re like most, you feel change can be scary  and it’s uncomfortable  and really truly that’s where growth is. Lean into the uncomfortableness and take a leap, try something new and see what happens. 

3 Steps to Securing Brand Partnerships in 2021 and Beyond

Tip 1:  If you make money right now from sponsorships, it’s time to start to talk about your partnerships for 2021 and beyond with the brands.

You may notice that some brands aren’t ready to have conversations about the end of the year or 2021 right now. And some brands are really not sure what to do or what direction they should be going in right now. This may result in them not wanting to get on the phone right now, or them not even answering your emails or getting back to you. 

Step into the shoes of what the brands that you want to work with are going through right now.

Ask:

• What are their biggest problems right now? 
• What are they experiencing right now in this very moment?
• What are the thoughts running through their heads?
•  What are their meetings about right now? 

For brands right now, a lot has actually been canceled. When we had our food business, Blissful Eats, when we were doing business, we got our business by doing grassroots outreach. We would walk into stores and talk to managers. I would go meet the people, working in the stores.  We would also go to food shows. We would also do a lot of in store demonstrations. We would go to Whole foods and hand out our food. We would give out samples constantly. 

This means for many brands, they’re not meeting and getting to go face to face with food stores, supermarkets, grocery stores right now. And we can’t really do live events right now. 

If brands you’re working with relied on live events to get their product out there right now, then everything has stopped. What are they doing instead now? This has left a ton of brands floundering right now and unsure of the direction that they should be headed in. 

A lot of the marketing and business strategies and tactics that we’ve known to be true in the past are breaking down right now. What does that mean? If you’re willing to look for it, there is a huge opportunity right now, but you have to be willing to look for it.

Tip 2: Look for the opportunities here to help with marketing.

Look for what problems you can solve and how can you help and how can you serve? If you’re an influencer who has been doing sponsored work or even wants to get into sponsored work, this actually is your biggest opportunity to help brands. 

Here’s what I’ve noticed you cannot keep running packages and partnerships like you have been doing it and you cannot come from a place of being a typical”influencer”. Your biggest opportunity right now comes in the way of being a marketing consultant. 

Now you may be sitting there saying, what do you mean? I am not a marketing consultant. I am just a blogger. I’m just an influencer. I’m just a content creator. Here’s the thing as a blogger and as an influencer, as a content creator, you have done many things, many things that you have labeled under the umbrella of blogging. Those are also known as marketing. 

You are a pro at organic reach, at content creation, at building an audience. at nurturing your audience. Now it’s time to step into and show off your expertise and really look at brands and see how you can help and serve them possibly in a different way. 

Tip 3: Create a simple marketing system. 

What we teach inside the influencer intensive is that you must have a simple system to go from content to sales. This is the same thing for brands, you can actually be the marketing bridge for them because most food brands have never done this. They have relied on the grassroots. They’ve relied on the influencers to use their channels, to publish their content. But we can’t just rely on influencer channels anymore. Food brands have to get people to their website. They have to get people to their Instagram and Facebook channels. They have to drive sales on their own. How can you facilitate this? How can you help them drive sales? You can snap your fingers and turn into a consultant and help them set up these systems. Sure. You can use your channel. Sure. 

Learn what is the end goal for brands. Is it sales? Figure out how you can work with what they’re doing now and bring them in a new system so they can build their community, build their audience and drive more sales. 

What I’m seeing is that the influencers who don’t do this, the influencers who continue to run in the old model, it is my prediction that they will continue to struggle. 

I have heard from our clients from a range of audience sizes and a range of brand packages that brands are floundering right now they’re frustrated, they’re overwhelmed. They don’t know which way is up. 

• How can you serve them in a different way than you’ve been doing it before? 
• How can you shift? How can you look for the opportunity? 
• Ask yourself this question. If you’ve been a pro at growing your email list, how can you help brands do that? 
• If you’ve been a pro at organic content and getting people to respond to you, how can you help brands do that? 

It’s all about building relationships and driving sales. Think about how you can shift to be a marketing consultant using influencer channels. 

Position yourself as a marketing expert, not just an influencer, focus on solving problems. 

Three Steps to get brand partnerships as an influencer:

1. Ask How can I solve the problem brands have right now? 
2. Show your people and the brands you work with, how you are different. 
3. Create a simple system. Learn the system which we call the simple content system, which is what we teach. 

The Simple Content System: Learn the system to go from four signature pieces of content to lead magnet to sale for digital courses, memberships, and brand partnerships. 

Why does it work? Because you’re building your email list, building your audience and your followers. You’re building building authority and getting more visibility.

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