How I Landed Big Brand Deals Before Having 10K IG Followers

Everybody in the blogging/content creating/influencing world wants to know how to work with brands. Because lets be honest, while we all love what we do, we would like to make some money while creating all of this content. The good news is that you don't need a ton of followers in order to land brand deals. And yes, having a large following certainly helps but it is not necessary.

Before hitting 10,000 followers on Instagram we landed our biggest deals ever with Ashley Furniture + Lowe's Home Improvement. These two were a huge deal for us. Today I'm going to let you know what we did to position ourselves to get these types of deals. Get ready to take some notes!

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1. Design an Instagram account that attracts brands. Lucky for you we have just released a class that will tell you how to get your Instagram brand-ready. In order to get noticed in a sea of Instagrammers with hundreds of thousands of followers, you have to be different. In the class we outline the most crucial steps, to get you noticed.

We discuss:
 - How to analyze your pictures and figure out what is and isn't working
 - How to grow organically and honestly
 - Tips for finding your personal editing style
 - How to attract the attention of brands you love
 - What information needs to be in your profile
 - How to create next level content + increase your engagement
- Additional helpful resources

If any of this interests you, you can buy The Art Of Instagram here!

2. Create amazing content. We discuss this at length in the course, and the general gist is that you should be posting content that is exceptional enough that your favorite brands will want to repost it. If you don't have a huge following, this is the #1 way to stand out from the crowd. You cannot have average content and a small following and land brand deals.

3) Register with influencer platforms. There are a zillion platforms for you to register with that allow brands to find you. This was the first step in Lowe's finding us. First, they found our info on Influence.Co and then they went to our Instagram + blog. The last part of that is crucial. If we would have had a lame IG, then we likely would not have landed this deal. So it's great to be found, but when the brand digs deeper, will they like what they see?

4. Post content to relevant sites. This is very niche dependent. We submitted a house tour on Apartment Therapy which is how we started the relationship with them which led to the Ashley Furniture deal. We also submit our DIY projects to CraftGawker. When you are in this business you have to think outside of the box, so figure out websites + blogs that will let you submit content to them. This is a great way to open doors and get you noticed.

5. Contact Brands. This is not the easiest way to land brand deals, but if there is a brand you've always dreamed of working with- this may be how you can do it.

Some tips:
 - Do your research and try very hard to find out the right contact person. If you can email them directly, then your chances improve greatly.

- Be humble. Remember that brands don't care about you, they care about their brand. It's best to tell brands what you love about them first and then tell them why it would be great for them to work with you.

- Tell them what you can do for them.

- Be reasonable about your expectations. Maybe getting them to send you free product or even getting a discount on a product is the best you can get. If it's a brand you love enough, then this could be worth it to get into the front door.

So I hope from this post you understand that you can absolutely work with brands and make good money before ever hitting 10,000 Instagram followers. I think people think that's a magic number, but really, it's just a number. To find out more on getting your Instagram in brand-worthy shape, check out our class here.

If you would like to see more posts like this, make sure to join our e-mail list!

-Casey