Hopefully, you’ve already implemented my first 3 tips from part one of the How To Score Free Stuff With Your Blog to celebrate the upcoming launch of Rockstar Blogging! If not, be sure to go check it out!
Okay, so you know what gifts or items you’ll need for the upcoming holidays, but who shall provide the freebies? This is where it’s important to do your research ahead of time to come up with a list of companies that are blogger friendly or could use a little extra promotion. For every item that’s on your list, know you may have to do reach out to a few different providers of that product.
So, for instance- if Grandma loves candles, you may not be able to score her gift with the first “candle company” that comes to mind. Instead, see if there are not only a few different brands you could reach out to, and then, a few different sites that carry those different brands. There are some tips and tricks to find blogger friendly companies, but even with the best advice I can give you, know you will have to spend some time in both research, and sending emails.
Be flexible in your gift ideas- you may not be able to score the exact thing you wanted or needed, but you can find something similar, perhaps with a lesser known site or brand. When you finally make that connection for a review/giveaway, it will be awesome and you can get either a goodie for yourself, or to gift to a friend for totally free- that feels awesome!
While I advise you create a media kit with all of your social media, traffic stats and personal info to send to PR Reps and companies you want to work with, that’s not always necessary- so don’t freak out. For now, collect your information, put it together in an easy-to-read paragraph and have it ready when you hear from someone that wants to send you freebies but needs more information about your traffic, social media reach, and audience demographics.
Even if you don’t set up a full-blown media kit (which I talk about at-length in the guide) knowing your worth and what you have to offer in terms of stats & reach is key to making connections and scoring freebies. Before a company sends you anything for free they will want to be sure you know what you’re talking about, and that sending you freebies is worth their investment. Even having a simple paragraph to copy/paste in an email with your stats, rates & demographics is key to scoring free stuff for reviews & giveaways!
When I first started reaching out to brands (or they reached out to me) all I had was a simple reusable snippet I would email over if they asked for my stats and traffic. I would update it at the beginning of every month, and once my blog started to get popular, it was a great record of how much it had grown!
So, you have that Freebie Gift List mentioned in part one right? You know exactly what you’d love to score for Dad, Grandma, Mom & Sister for free for the holidays using your blog. This is when you write a standard pitch email that you’ll send out to score the jewelry for mom, candles for sister, picture frames for grandma with a few key companies that sell those products.
Keep your pitch email short and don’t overshare on the first email. Only Include your URL, A bit about yourself and of course, why you’re contacting them in the first place (To do a review & giveaway for the holidays). Also include a quick sentence about how working with you will help their brand, etc.
You can find out who to pitch by going to a brand’s “Contact Us” form and using the generic contact form, or emailing their marketing department directly. Know that you won’t hear back from everyone, or some company’s won’t have the budget to send out free product, that’s OK and it’s why you may have a list of several gift ideas for your family and friends and several companies in mind to work with, it’s also why you need to start 2 months in advance!
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Loving your tips on getting freebies!! I’m going to start working on this pronto!! So excited for your e-book 🙂 Keep rockin’ it!
Thank you so much!!! I’m thrilled you like the articles- I put a lot of time into them since I know that blogging can be overwhelming for people, I want to help!
I firmly believe every blogger can be a rockstar and snag free product & sponsorships, some just need to learn the tools of the trade to make it happen.
You made my day Ashlee! xoxo
Sending this to my sister in law who blogs…maybe she’ll score me something shwweet!
Haha, I think she could… thanks for passing it along 🙂
Man I wish I could dig in and start contacting companies right now – I just started seriously training and would love some new clothes, or Christmas gifts for the fam, but my blog got totally neglected in my move. Can’t wait to start on all this!
Haha, that’s what happened to me when I moved from Chicago to Cali, but we’re at the perfect time right now to start thinking about the holidays if you want freebies..that’s why I was determined to launch at Halloween so there would be over a full month to reach out and get your Xmas gifts for free!
Give yourself some time to get adjusted and dive in, you can do it, there’s so much opportunity!
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