You can get a first brand deal with a small following by treating it as a four-week outreach project instead of waiting to be discovered. Choose 20 brands that already fit your audience, prove one real number, send short pitches, and set a flat fee you can defend.
TLDR: Spend week one choosing 20 brands, week two building a one-page proof sheet, week three sending pitches, and week four following up and quoting. If your engagement rate is above the Instagram median of 3.1% in Mydrop's data, that single number is worth leading with.
Week 1: pick 20 brands that already sell to your audience
Skip the household names. They answer agencies, not individuals. Aim for brands that are small enough for the founder or the one marketer to read your message.
Look in three places:
- Products you already use and have mentioned unprompted. These are the easiest pitches because your content already proves the fit.
- Brands your followers tag or ask about in comments and messages.
- Smaller competitors of the brands you like, since they usually have less reach and more reason to want yours.
Write them in a list with the contact route, the product you would feature and why your audience would care. If you cannot say the last point in one sentence, drop the brand.
Week 2: build a one-page proof sheet
A media kit with ten pages is unnecessary. One page is enough, with five things on it:
- Who your audience is, in one line (age range, place, what they care about).
- Your engagement rate on your last 20 posts.
- Two of your best posts and what happened on them.
- Two ways you could feature the product.
- How to reach you.
On number two, benchmarks help you decide whether to lead with it. In Mydrop's data, the median engagement rate was 3.1% on Instagram and 3.0% on TikTok, and the middle half of Instagram posts ran between 1.1% and 6.7%. If your rate sits above the median, say so plainly.
If you use a bio link, a link-in-bio page can host the proof sheet so a brand sees one clean page. Your own analytics give you the engagement figure without doing the math by hand.
Week 3: send 20 pitches in short, specific form
A good pitch is five sentences. For the full email template, see how to land a first paid brand deal under 5,000 followers. The shape:
- A one-line opener that names the product and what you noticed about it.
- One sentence on your audience and the number.
- One specific idea for a post or a short video.
- A link to your proof sheet.
- A clear, small ask: "Would a quick call this week make sense?"
Send five a day instead of twenty in one sitting, so you can fix the wording after the first replies.
Week 4: follow up once, then quote a flat fee
Most replies come after a nudge. Wait five days and send one short follow-up. Do not send a third.
When a brand asks your price, answer with a flat fee per deliverable, and say what is included:
| Part of the quote | What to write |
|---|---|
| Deliverables | One Reel or TikTok, two stories |
| Revisions | One round |
| Usage | Your account only, or the brand can reuse for a set period at an extra fee |
| Timeline | Draft in 5 days, post on an agreed date |
To set the number, add up your hours of work, multiply by the hourly rate you want, and add a premium if the brand wants to reuse the content. Asking "what budget do you have for this?" first often gets you a higher number than guessing.
Gifted first is fine, with a limit
If a brand offers product only, say yes when you would have bought it anyway. Cap it at one gifted collaboration, then explain your paid rate for the next one. Our 10 questions to ask before working with a brand covers the contract and payment points to settle before you start.
Run the posts through a scheduler so a deal date never slips. Mydrop's creator tools cover scheduling across platforms in one calendar.
Next step: open a note and list 20 brands today, one line each on why your audience would care. That list is the whole of week one.
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