How to put together a Media Pack

How to put together a Media Pack

Oh my, this post has been long awaited but I finally have had time to go through and make sure all the info in this is concise and helpful. If you have read my other posts in this series; How to set up a blog, and How To make money from blogging then this is the next stage for you. How to put together a decent media pack to start approaching brands. I will link a few good online versions at the end of the post so you can get a clearer idea. 

I have used 2 visual looks for a media pack, a short PDF magazine layout and a simple one page 'rates card' layout. At the moment I use the latter, I will go in to pros and cons a little later. So what do you need to include in your media pack? 

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Who you are - I appreciate it's hard to sell yourself, and whilst you don't need to talk yourself big it is important to give a brief overview of who you are and what your blog is about. If you are approaching brands then this section should be quite beefy. If brands are now contacting you then you can keep this a little shorter as they obviously know who you are and they most likely just want your stats.

What you've done - this is where you summarise your portfolio, brands you've worked with, where you have been featured, content you have created, awards you've won etc. If you are just starting out you may think you have little to nothing to put in this section but that is not true. You can use this section to layout your blogs brand and style, images of content you've created, instagram images you're proud of, subjects you write about, features you're interested in. 

Your stats - this has changed majorly since I first started. Back in the day it was always about blog hits. Now it's all about social media influence. I personally think this short sighted and I think it will come back round to blogs but for now you need to lay out alllll the stats:

Page views - I usually do a monthly average. 

Unique visitors - again, a monthly average

Social Media Reach - Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, Pinterest, Snapchat...whatever you want to include. You can combine for a more impressive figure or lay them out separately. 

It is also good to include a little bit about your audience and who you target. You can find this out via Google Analytics but if you can, carry out a little survey of your readers. I usually use Survey Monkey. You can also use something called Quantcast, it's free but takes a few days to start tracking your audience. 

If you are new to blogging then you may want to do a bit of extrapolating of your figures, give brands your projected reach for the coming months. Last month you gained 300 instagram followers...by August you will have XXXX amount. Use % to explain your growth. Make sure you have your instagram set to business profile as you can see all your stats/reach in there. 

Your rates - I explained in the money post what you should and could be charging. This is where you lay out how a brand can work with you and what it will cost. This could be sponsored blog content, paid for advertorial on instagram, Youtube videos, what ever you and your brand are doing. Keep this section short and sharp. (If you need help just email or message me on insta).

For So You're Getting Married I have sponsored blog post packages, 1 post. 3 posts, 6 posts. A social media package and then I have a bespoke option. I don't have anything for Simply Weekend...yet. 

Testimonials and contact - It is great to get some good words from brands you've worked with but not necessary. All you need to close with is your contact information, tell them you are looking forward to working together and sit tight!

Now what? OK so you have probably opened a word doc and written all of this info out. How will you make it look good? I saved all of my pages as PDFs then put them together on issuu. It is an online magazine format, you can then simply send brands the link. You can also download it to send as a document. I couldn't find my old media kits, but I did find a 2014 look book so you can see how it works. Also here

I think a magazine layout works best for a media kit. You can add lots of images, icons and make things stand out. You can add links to blog posts, insta images or email addresses. It takes more effort but I think it looks a lot more professional. Have a look at these: 

GQ

Country & Town House

The Lady

I have a rates card. It is a simple 'piece of paper' that details my current stats and what I am charging for blog posts or social media coverage. The reason I find a one page edit better is because my stats change so much, as does the industry and it's easier for me to edit every few months. As long as you have "stats as of XXXX' there is no issue. 

If you are solely instagram based then I would still put together a full media pack, show your social identity, the brands you like, the overall feel of your feed and how a brand can collaborate with you. Quite often a brand will contact and you will work together on what kind of instagram content you could do, other times you have to contact a brand and say 'hey, I really like you, I think we would work well together' and just see what happens. This will be the next blog post; how to approach brands. 

If there are any other questions please ask and I will answer! I will be answering DMs all about this on instagram from 1pm tomorrow. Something is niggling at me, I feel like I have missed out stuff so may edit this as the day goes on and you ask questions. 

Good luck!