Today we are going to be talking about brand partnerships.
During my career I’ve had the pleasure of working with really great brands and it has been an exciting way to increase my reach and sharpen some skills.
Before we get started, let’s talk about what I mean when I say brand partnerships. Other business owners may have different things that they qualify as a brand partnership. How I qualify this is a relationship between a creative small business and a larger brand where you are able to bring your unique skills and viewpoint to serve a bigger brand. For me, this usually centers around illustrations, since that is my speciality. And this doesn’t always look the same for each brand I work with. Some of these opportunities came up because of the limited travel and shutdowns that came with the pandemic. So I’ll go over a couple of projects, how I got introduced to the brand, what the project consisted of and how you can replicate this in your own business.
My key takeaways from this episode:
1. be tenacious and be committed to the long game: you can’t give up if the first couple of ideas of a collaboration don't work out.
2. brainstorm and figure out how best you can serve the brand
3. be crafty and do a little bit of detective work when it comes to getting a brand’s attention
4. showcase the work that you want to do on instagram or your website
5. try to stay top of mind - when you start a relationship with these brands, make sure to keep them on your radar