You may receive messages about potential collaboration opportunities asking for your media kit. You’ll want to respond promptly to the offer, but what happens if you don’t have your media kit ready? You might even be wondering, what is a media kit?
Media kits are extremely popular in the influencer and blogger world. They help brands understand more about influencer’s audiences and decide who they want to work with for a campaign. Plus, brands will often keep them on file for later campaigns.
However, many athletes do NOT need a media kit. This post will explain how you can successfully land deals with or without a media kit!
What is a media kit?
Media kits usually include several elements about you and your online presence.
- A photo of you
- A quick about section
- Your social media handles
- Number of followers on each platform
- Audience demographics (gender, age, location breakdown)
- Examples of previous brands that you have successfully worked with
Media kits are usually put together into an aesthetic PDF and may look something like this…
Building a media kit is a fun opportunity to show off your stats and personality. However, media kits have several drawbacks.
Why you don’t need a media kit for NIL deals
Every time you gain followers on social media, you’ll have to update your media kit. Talk about annoying extra work and wasted time.
Plus, you can share all of the information a brand needs via a simple email and your social media presence (which they’ve probably already seen).
Overall, athletes are a special breed of influencer. Influencers often bring more content creation experience to the table, but athletes have a few secret weapons: their athletic performances, university ties, and loyal sports fans. Media kits don’t reflect these benefits you’re bringing to a campaign. You could build a media kit with all your sports feats, but it might confuse brands and would also need constant updating.
If I don’t have a media kit, what do I send instead?
You have a few different options for responding to a brand that asks for your media kit. You can…
- email them your current rates
- share a link to a dynamic media kit
- tell them you price sponsorships on an individual basis & ask for their budget
Send them your current rates
Email how much you want to charge for the particular partnership. You’ll want to price high enough that you would be ecstatic about the partnership, but not too high that it would scare the brand away.
Not sure how much to charge? Check out our rate calculator or read more about pricing.
When a brand asks for my media kit and rate card, I usually like to phrase my response like…
Recently, I’ve been receiving around the following investments per post…
- $X – $X per Instagram Reel
- $X- $X per Instagram Photo
- Etc.
I am happy to send over any demographic or additional information you may need.
Let me know your thoughts! I look forward to hearing from you.
This approach makes your rates sound credible. It gives the brand the information they need and invites them to share more about details about the campaign.
Share a link to a dynamic media kit
Dynamic media kits help solve the constant increasing follower count “issue.” Websites exist that continuously update your social media demographics. Mediakits.com is a fabulous option. Create an account and link your social media handles, and you’ll have one link that shows the key analytics for all of your social media accounts! You can show off your recent posts too.
If a brand wants to see your demographics across platforms, you’ll be able to easily share the most up-to-date information with one click.
Tell them you price sponsorships on an individual basis & ask for their budget
Drawback: This might frustrate brands because they’re in a rush to get their campaign started and want to quickly hear your rates. They would rather not keep emailing back and forth.
Benefit: Since you may not know the brand’s budget or campaign goals, it’s usually better if the brand throws out the first offer. This way, you can avoid leaving money on the table and get the negotiation started.
Example message: copy-paste from negotiation.
With this approach, you’re starting a negotiation. Learn more about negotiating NIL deals.
Now, go get an NIL deal!
Not sure how? Read more about how to get NIL deals.
