Do you want to know how to get sponsored on YouTube? You can double or triple your income with sponsored posts. Advertisers want to reach the 2.68 billion people on the platform, and if you mention the brand in your content, there’s no way for a viewer to ignore it.
Even small channels can land sponsorships.
There’s a good chance that some of the channels that you watch with just a thousand or two subs will have sponsorships. If you’ve heard of micro-influencers or nano-influencers, real brands are paying for their sponsorships.
We’re going to show you exactly how you can get sponsored on YouTube in 2024.
1. Make Sure Your Channel is Ready for Sponsors
Sponsors want you to be professional. You’re partnering with a brand, and they will do everything in their power to protect their name. You need to begin prepping your channel, and you need to take quite a few steps to be ready for sponsors.
Make Sure You Have a Strong Personal Brand
Create a personal brand. Period. You only need to look at Elon Musk or Mr. Beast to learn how powerful personal branding is for your online reputation. You need to make your channel into a personal brand.
How do you do this?
Talk about your channel. Educate. You’ll want to do the following to turn your brand from an amateur to a professional:
- Audit. Yes, you need to 100% audit your brand if you want to fix anything that you may be doing wrong. Every brand needs a clear message, and this means that the following elements all need to be on-brand: thumbnails, video titles, banners, and descriptions.
- Quality. Up your quality game. You wouldn’t shop at Nike if you purchased $150 shoes, and they ripped the first day, right? You need to invest in your editing, videography and even banners. You don’t need to spend a ton of money, but be sure that you’re maximizing the possibilities of the equipment that you do use.
You want people to automatically know your face and brand when they see it. If you have a favorite YouTuber, go to their channel and see if you immediately know who it is from the banner, description and thumbnails.
If you do, they’re killing their branding.
But you also need to work on your trailer because it’s a missed opportunity for so many channels that I come across.
Create a Trailer for Your Channel
Your channel has a trailer – use it. Trailers can help you introduce yourself to the world, and they don’t need to be long and drawn out. Create a trailer that explains:
- Who you are
- What videos people can expect to see
- Leads them to a playlist of videos to watch on your channel
2. Focus on Increasing Your Views
Subscribers matter, but views are so important for getting sponsorships. You can quickly get 1,000 views on YouTube, but you’ll need more to get a sponsorship.Â
How do you get more views?
- Create thumbnails that entice people to click on your videos
- Focus on writing very catchy titles
- Create quality content (more on that soon)
If you have a following on other social platforms, promote your videos on them, too. A small increase in views can go a long way towards getting a sponsorship.
3. Work on Your Pitch
Your pitch can help you open the door to sponsors or fail terribly. Working on your pitch is crucial to impressing the right advertisers and having them give your channel a try for sponsorship.
If you have a great pitch and impress the right people, it can even lead to repeat sponsorships for your video.
Build a Pitch List
Want to increase your YouTube Pay? It’s time to start building out a pitch list. Your list should include sponsors that you want to try securing for your channel. Unfortunately, you might never be offered a sponsorship if you don’t ask.
You need to get on the radar of sponsors, and you can do this by:
- Reaching out to brands you use or review
- Finding brands that your audience may buy from
A great idea is to create a spreadsheet with information on:
- Does the brand market on social already?
- What’s the brand’s audience?
- Who did you contact?
- When did you contact them?
- When did you follow up?
Create a list of dozens of potential sponsors who may be interested in working with your channel.
Craft a Killer Pitch
You have a pitch list. Now, it’s time to actually start crafting your pitch. Where do you begin? Start by focusing on the value that you offer and how that value will benefit the brand.
Many creators make the mistake of making their pitches all about themselves, but this needs to be about them.Â
Brands only care about reaching their marketing objectives, and it’s your job to tell them how you will help them achieve that goal.Â
When creating your pitch, consider touching on the following:
- How your audience is similar to theirs. Mention examples of your organic content.
- How your channel is relevant to other campaigns they’ve previously run.
- Proof. Show them how you’ve helped other brands.
- Their pain points.
Take your time when creating your pitch, and try creating different variations to see which ones produce the best results.
4. Create Your Media Kit
One important thing that every serious YouTuber needs to do is create a media kit. It may sound ridiculous and it may be the last thing you want to make, but it will really make your channel and brand look professional.
A media kit is a one-page document that gives brands key information about your channel.
And here’s the great thing – tools like Visme and Canva have pre-made template kits that you can customize and use. Using a template will save you time and help you maintain a professional image.
What should your media kit include?
- A description of you and your channel
- Your metrics, like your average views, number of subscribers and engagement rate
- Your viewer demographics, like their age, gender and geographical locations
- Your contact information, including phone number and email
If you already have a few sponsorship deals under your belt, you can add these to your kit as well.Â
Many creators also include their rates in their media kits, but that’s a personal preference.
Take the time to make your kit look professional. Remember that you’ll be sending it to potential brands for sponsorship deals, so you want to create the right image.
5. Join Influencer Agencies
Influencer agencies can also help you connect with sponsors. Brands with big influencer budgets (i.e., the brands you want to work with), typically use these specialized agencies to source creators.Â
There are many agencies out there, but some of the most popular ones include:
One advantage of joining an agency is that the collaboration will be handled by the platform, so you can be sure that you’ll get paid.
Just keep in mind that influencer marketing agencies will likely have requirements that you’ll need to meet in order to join. They may need to review your YouTube channel first before approving your account.
Finally, Focus on Quality Over Quantity
If you want to attract sponsors, then you need to put your best foot forward. Brands won’t associate themselves with your channel if you’re not creating high-quality content.Â
High quality goes beyond your topic, message and delivery of your content. You also need to make sure that you’re using decent equipment and focusing on your presentation – lighting, audio quality, editing, etc.
Creating quality videos takes time – a lot of it. Instead of trying to jam your channel with content that’s “meh,” dedicate more time to creating fewer, quality videos.Â
Brands will be more likely to reach out or respond to your pitch if your video content is top-notch.
