How I Landed a $450 Brand Deal on Substack as a Small Creator [The Complete Breakdown]
A behind-the-scenes look at my first Substack sponsorship, including the exact emails, my Substack media kit, takeaways, and my next steps to attract more partnerships.
At the end of May, a free subscriber reached out via a personal message on Substack, introduced themselves and made me an interesting offer.
It was the person responsible for brand marketing at a company and online platform I was familiar with. And she wanted to discuss a sponsored newsletter feature with me as this could be a good fit for my audience.
At that point, I had around 215 free subscribers for my publication The-2 Hour Blogger. And I had been using the platform consistently for 2 months.
I was new, still figuring things out, and just a small Substack creator.
And yet, a brand reached out of nowhere, and offered a paid partnership.
Long story short, in the beginning of June my invoice for $450 was paid (in advance, as that’s one of the conditions I work with), and soon after that the post I wrote for them went live on Substack.
Below, I’ll share with you every little detail involved in that collaboration, including:
the brand name;
the exact messages and emails we exchanged;
what I did right away after they asked for my pricing;
my Substack media kit with the packages I offer and what each costs;
the post I wrote for the brand and how the links were included naturally;
the edits they requested;
and anything in-between.
After reading this article, you will:
Be more confident that you too can get paid by brands even as a small Substack creator;
Make a few changes to your publication, profile and Substack strategy so you can attract brands;
Understand what actually goes into a paid partnership like that;
Have the chance to contact this exact brand (if it’s a good fit for your audience);
Re-think your Substack monetization strategy (or create it for the first time);
Understand how sponsored blogging + newsletter monetization work and how it can easily be applied to Substack.
I will also analyze why that brand may have chosen me for a paid collab, and what actions I had taken in those 2 months on Substack that potentially led to this opportunity.
In addition, I’ll tell you my next steps - how I want to keep growing my Substack and optimize it further for bigger and better brand collabs.
Table of Contents:
The Backstory
The Timeline
The Deal at a Glance
My Substack at the Time
The Exact Emails and Messages
My Substack Media Kit
The Sponsored Content
Why They Chose Me
What the Brand Probably Didn’t Care About
Your Brand Pitch Email Template
Takeaways
Lessons for Small Creators
My Next Steps to Attract More Brand Partnerships
The Backstory
I’ve been blogging for 10 years now and earning mainly from sponsorships, so I knew a thing or two about that kind of work already. This definitely helps.
If I was a total beginner, I probably would have been paid much less, would have thought this is too good to be true and not moved forward with the collab, let imposter syndrome get in the way, or sabotage the deal because I wouldn’t know what to charge or say and how this works.
Don’t let any of that stop you. Things are pretty easy, especially when the brand reaches out to you. You can simply follow the steps they suggest and let this first deal be part of your learning process. Later, you can use it as an example of a brand you already worked with when pitching others yourself.
So, back to my story.
I knew how sponsored blogging works and have had hundreds of deals with brands for my WordPress blog. There are plenty of similarities for Substack as it’s both a blog and a newsletter (2 in 1, which is pretty awesome).
There are no strict rules as to what you need to charge or how such a collaboration has to go.
If the brand is big, they already have a process for that, will onboard you, share their payment policy and the next steps on your end (because they’ve worked with many other creators and have a workflow).
Another thing I want to mention here: I’ve actually worked with that same brand on my blog Let’s Reach Success, but this had nothing to do with them discovering me on Substack.
As mentioned, it’s a big company, they work with many creators. My blog is a platform with good domain authority so they stumbled upon it and reached out to me some time ago. We worked on a sponsored article, it was a one-time thing.
Now, they did the same on Substack, where I’m a nobody yet, and I find this pretty cool. Because it proves what I’m teaching - that you can monetize with brand deals even with a small blog or Substack. That small creators, when positioned well and with a clear niche and good content, can be approached by sponsors. And that you can earn from your Substack before you have a few hundred subs.
Also, it’s a fun example that you never know where your first revenue will come from.
This is a beautiful story that repeats itself for me. Back in the days, when I knew nothing about blogging but was already publishing consistently, a brand reached out and offered to pay me $100 for publishing an article on my site.
That’s when I learned about sponsored blogging and I’ve been mastering it ever since. I learned so much through trial and error, that I started teaching this as a business model.
I even have a course about it - The Blog Sponsorship Boss - which has helped bloggers earn from their sites.
Now, I teach that on Substack, while doing it myself at the same time.
So that’s the quick background story I wanted to share with you.
Now, let’s get to the main part of this article, where I share the exact details of this brand deal, what steps I took to make the most of it, which elements of my Substack strategy might have contributed to landing this opportunity, and what you can do to get the same results.
But first, here’s how everything unfolded.
The Timeline
May 22nd - Someone from the company reached out to me via a DM on Substack.
May 24th - I replied (didn’t even see the message before that).
June 1st - She shared more info + the draft brief, and suggested to continue via email as messages can get lost on Substack sometimes.
June 2nd - I emailed her with my rates + blog post ideas.
She agreed with my rates and picked a package from my media kit.
She provided payment details and I sent the invoice.
We agreed on an article topic and I shared the outline.
June 4th - I sent her the article draft.
June 11th - She loved it and left some small comments + updates to the post.
June 19th - We finalized the details and I scheduled the article for publication.
The whole process took longer because her answers were delayed (she was on a sick leave for a while, and also not in a rush to speed up the collaboration, which is totally fine, of course). Mentioning this as normally, these partnerships can happen much faster.
The rest of this guide is for paid subscribers because it’s exclusive information. You are free to copy my approach to anything, to even contact the brand yourself (if it’s a good fit for you!). I will even give you an email template to use for that.
In the comments, paid subscribers can ask any questions related to this, nothing is off limits.
So, let’s dive in.