How to get sponsored on youtube for small channels
In this article I'll give you my secrets to getting brand deals that will make you tons of money on YouTube.
How to Get Sponsored on YouTube
First off, your channel has to be pretty big already or companies aren't going to see any benefit in sponsoring you. For reference, I got my first sponsor at 1,000 subscribers.
Then when you're at that point, if you don't already have companies in your inbox wanting to sponsor you, you have to do a little more work and reach out to them first.
To do this you'll need to build a list of emails and there's a couple good ways of doing this. The first way is to search LinkedIn and the company's website for emails into with keywords like marketing, PR, social media and etc.
But oftentimes I don't find any emails or I find generic emails that are likely to be clogged up with millions of messages.
So instead I like the second method better, which is to network with as many YouTubers as possible and just ask them for the email addresses of companies that they have been sponsored by in the past.
99 times out of 100 they'll say yes because they're nice and because there's an expectation that you would do the same for them.
After you've got a list of email addresses, you're going to send all of them an initial email. Keep this email extremely short and concise because nobody has time to read a four page essay listing every single little detail on why you want to work with NordVPN.
Obviously you'll want a template to base your emails off of, but make sure you're not just blasting the same email to a million different companies. They can usually tell that it's a copy paste email, and it's much more effective if you're specific as to why you want them to sponsor you. Also, don't let them know your rates up front, but I'll talk about why later.
Here's a template email for you, and here's an example of it in use. Before you know it, companies will start responding to your emails. But before I tell you what to do next, here's a basic rundown of how sponsorships work.
Basic Rundown of how Sponsorships
There are two main types of integrations on YouTube, ad reads and dedicated videos.
Ad Reads
Ad reads are the most common form of sponsorships on YouTube. YouTubers that include an ad read in their videos simply shout out a company or a product for about 30 to 90 seconds. You've definitely seen this before in a YouTube video.
Dedicated Videos
The second type is a dedicated video. These are where a creator will use a product or a service organically throughout an entire video, as opposed to just a shout out.
I did this with my first sponsorship using Hostinger. I pretty much spent the entire video making a website and then showed my audience how easy it was to use Hostinger to host it.
Ad reads are obviously a lot easier to create, but some companies only want to sponsor with a dedicated video, so you'll have to figure it out when the time comes.
You're probably also wondering how to come up with your rates. Luckily, it's pretty easy to get a ballpark. First calculate the average views for the videos on your channel, then multiply that number by 20 or 30 to get a pretty good estimate. This should be your flat rate for an ad read integration.
For a dedicated video, you can probably multiply this by three or five because you're giving the company an entire video of airtime compared to just the 30 to 90 seconds of an ad read.
Sometimes companies will also add on a percentage of profits from an affiliate link, which is nice, but usually makes you like pretty much no money when you're small.
So I wouldn't worry about this. If a company tries to only offer you an affiliate link, then it's definitely a bad deal for you. I would not take that. But now that you have your rates, you're going to respond to all the companies that have emailed you back.
Obviously thank them for getting back to you so quickly, and then ask for their rates for whatever integration you're interested in doing. Even if they ask for your rates first. Just pretend you didn't see this or ignore it, because if you ask and they respond with rates that are higher than what you were expecting, then you've just earned yourself some extra money. It might seem a little dumb, but this has actually worked for me a few times in the past.
Then you'll probably email back and forth a few times and eventually figure out all of the details. After this happens, they may want to send a contract over for you to sign. I'm not a lawyer and I'm not giving you guys legal advice, but I mean, obviously read the whole thing over and if everything's good, then, you know, go ahead with it.
If they don't send a contract over, this isn't totally unusual. I mean, I've worked with a lot of companies that won't send contracts, and I still have the emails as backup if I would ever need to use them. But if you want a contract, just ask for one and they'll send it over.
When that's all sorted out, you'll have to film the integration or dedicated video or whatever you and the company negotiated. I'll leave that to you. Then when that's done and into the final video you'll probably have to submit a Google Drive or unlisted video link to the sponsor so that they can review it.
They may ask you to make some revisions but when they give you the green light to post then post it and after you post email them your PayPal email or whatever you're using to get your money and then get paid.
A couple notes though before you go try this yourself. First in videos with sponsors, especially ad reads, you're going to notice little dips wherever the sponsor segments appear in your retention graph. It's unfortunate but it's normal and I guess that's just the cost of including sponsors in your videos.
Second make sure that you research companies before trying to get sponsored by them. It's really not a good look for you or for your channel if you go promoting some like pyramid schemes so be careful.
Third don't feel like you're selling out because you're taking a sponsorship. YouTube is hard and deserve to get paid for all the hard work you're putting into it. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
And with that, I wish you the best of luck. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments section.
