To pitch a brand as an influencer, start from the brand's goal instead of your follower count: work out what it is selling and to whom right now, show evidence that your audience is that customer, propose one concrete piece of content with a deliverable and an ask, and send it through the channel the brand actually reads. The worksheet and fit scorecard below turn that into a process you can repeat for every prospect.
Pitch in the shape of a brief
When brands use platform marketplaces they describe what they want in a structured way, and those fields make a good checklist for what your pitch has to answer. YouTube's Creator Partnerships page lists campaign goals, deliverables, talking points, calls to action and product information among the parts of a campaign inquiry. Meta's page on branded content projects says each project shows a description, the number of reels, posts or stories wanted, a posting date and the offered payment.
A pitch that answers those questions before the brand asks them reads like the start of a campaign rather than a request for attention. It also tells you what to leave out. A brand rarely needs your life story, a list of every brand you admire or a promise about results. It needs to know what you will make, for which audience, by when and on what terms.
Research before you write a word
Give each brand a short research pass. You are looking for one current goal you can attach your idea to.
- Check what the brand is launching or pushing now: a new product, a seasonal range, a store opening or an app feature.
- Look at the creator partnerships it already runs. Meta's Ad Library lists branded content posted with the paid partnership label on Facebook and Instagram, showing the creator, the brand partner and the post type.
- Read the tone of the brand's own channels and any creator or community guidelines on its website.
- Check whether the product falls into a restricted category. YouTube's branded content policy makes creators responsible for confirming that brands in categories like alcohol, gambling or financial services hold any Google certification required, and for setting age or country limits.
- Find the right contact, using the routes in our guide to finding brands to work with.
Stop researching when you can finish the sentence “Right now this brand is trying to…” with something specific. If you can't, park the brand rather than send a generic pitch you will have to follow up on anyway.
The pitch angle worksheet
Fill in one worksheet per brand. Each field becomes a sentence or two of the pitch, so if a field is empty, the pitch has a hole in it.
| Field | What to write | Weak version | Stronger version |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brand goal | What the brand appears to want right now, taken from your research | “I love your brand” | “You've just launched a refill range and are posting about cutting packaging waste” |
| Audience overlap evidence | Proof your audience is the brand's customer: analytics, comments or past results | “My followers love this stuff” | “My audience is mainly in [country] and aged [range], per my Insights screenshot dated [date]” |
| Content idea | One concrete idea that fits the content you already make | “I can create content for you” | “A week of switching to the refill, filmed in my usual morning-routine format” |
| Deliverable | Format, quantity and timing | “Some posts” | “One Reel and three stories in the week of [date], with a link sticker” |
| The ask | The single next step you want the brand to take | “Let me know what you think!” | “Could I send a one-page brief and rates for that week?” |
| Proof link | One link that backs the whole pitch up | Your full profile with no context | A labelled past partnership post plus your media kit |
The proof link matters more than it looks. A media kit built from dated analytics lets a brand check your claims in a minute, and a labelled past post answers the compliance question covered further down.
Score brand fit before you pitch
A quick score stops you spending research time on brands you shouldn't work with. Give each line a 0, 1 or 2 and pitch the highest scorers first.
| Criterion | Score 0 | Score 1 | Score 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Audience match | The brand sells to a different customer | Some of your audience fits | Your audience is the brand's target customer |
| Product use | You would not use it yourself | You would happily try it | You already buy or use it |
| Values and boundaries | It conflicts with categories you have ruled out | Neutral for your audience | It fits what your audience trusts you for |
| Platform rules | Prohibited as branded content on your main platform | Restricted, so it needs age or country limits | No special restrictions apply |
| Spend signal | No sign the brand pays creators | Gifting or affiliate activity only | Labelled paid partnerships are visible |
| Timing | Nothing current to attach an idea to | A general campaign is running | A launch or season your idea can hook into |
A zero on product use, values or platform rules ends the conversation whatever the total says. The other lines are a ranking aid for your time, not a formula that predicts a reply.
From worksheet to opening paragraph
Once the worksheet is full, the pitch mostly writes itself. Take the refill-range example from the table. The opening might read: “You've just launched your refill range and you're talking about cutting packaging waste. My audience is mostly people setting up their first homes in [country], and my morning-routine videos are where they ask me what I use. I'd like to film a week of switching to the refill, as one Reel and three stories in the week of [date]. Could I send a one-page brief and rates?”
Every sentence maps to a field: goal, audience evidence, idea, deliverable, ask. Nothing in it asks the brand to do research on your behalf, and the request at the end is small enough to say yes to without a meeting. Add the proof link underneath and stop there.
For a DM, cut it to the goal, the idea and a request to send details by email, because long messages from unknown accounts tend to be skimmed or filtered. For a marketplace application, put the same content into the platform's fields rather than a free-text essay, since brands there compare creators side by side.
Timing matters as much as wording. Brands usually plan seasonal and launch campaigns before the moment itself, so pitch seasonal ideas early, and if a brand says “not now”, ask when it plans the next one and note the date in your prospect list.
Email, DM or marketplace
The right channel is whichever one the brand reads. YouTube's brand deal tips suggest website contact forms, LinkedIn, X and Creator Partnerships, which shows how many routes are considered normal.
| Channel | Use it when | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| The brand publishes a partnerships address or you know who runs its creator work | Commercial email rules in the US, UK and Australia; the pitch email templates are built around them | |
| Platform DM | The brand is small, local or clearly active in its inbox | The ICO's business-to-business guidance counts social media direct messages as electronic mail under the UK's PECR rules |
| Contact form or LinkedIn | There is no public email but the marketing team is visible | Forms often land with customer service, so name the team you want in the first line |
| Platform marketplace | You qualify for YouTube Creator Partnerships, TikTok One or Meta Creator Marketplace | Each has its own terms and payment flow; compare them in our influencer marketplace comparison |
Pitches to other creators and to podcasts follow different logic. Use the cross-promotion outreach template for creator-to-creator collaborations and the podcast guest pitch template for show appearances.
Show the brand you will label the work
In the UK, brands are told they share responsibility for creators' disclosures. The CMA's guidance for brands asks them to explain disclosure duties in the contract, to check creators' posts themselves, and warns that a brand is at risk if it keeps working with a creator who repeatedly fails to label ads. In the US, the FTC's guide for influencers says disclosure is the influencer's own responsibility and tells creators not to rely on others to do it. The influencers' guide that CAP and the CMA published together, hosted on the ASA's website, sets out how to make it obvious that ads are ads.
So make compliance part of the pitch. One line such as “Paid content is labelled ‘Ad’ upfront and tagged with the platform's paid partnership tool”, plus a link to a labelled past post, answers a question careful brands will ask anyway. Label wording also differs between countries; the comparison in how to get brand deals shows what US, UK and Australian regulators accept.
Mistakes that sink a pitch
- Sending the same paragraph to every brand with only the name swapped.
- Opening with follower counts before the brand knows what you are proposing.
- Asking for their budget before giving them anything they could price.
- Proposing a restricted-category idea without saying how you will handle the restrictions.
- Attaching large files instead of linking a media kit.
- Promising sales, views or virality that you cannot control.
- Chasing so often that the brand stops opening your messages.
Limitations of this approach
A well-researched pitch improves your chance of a reply, but it cannot create a budget a brand does not have, and many brands send creator work through agencies or marketplaces with their own processes. The worksheet and scorecard rank prospects using your own judgement; they are not predictions. The regulator guidance is summarised here for general information, so read the full text for your country and get legal advice before signing contracts.