How to Get Your First Brand Deal With a Small Following

You get your first brand deal by showing a brand proof that your audience acts on what you post, not by growing your follower count first. Most small creators pitch themselves with a bio and a follower number, which is the same pitch every other small creator sends, so brands have no reason to pick one over another. What actually moves a brand is a short pitch backed by numbers: which links you have posted before, how many people tapped them, and at what time your audience shows up. That is a different kind of evidence than follower count, and it is evidence a creator with 800 followers can have just as easily as one with 80,000.

Why does follower count matter less than people think?

A brand paying for a placement wants one thing: a reasonable chance someone taps the link and does something after. Follower count is a weak signal of that, because plenty of large accounts have low engagement and plenty of small ones have an audience that reads every post and clicks. A creator with 2,000 followers who can show that their last three posted links averaged 90 taps each, with a third of those taps landing in a 90-minute window on weekday evenings, has handed the brand something it can actually plan a campaign around. A follower count by itself hands the brand nothing but a guess.

What should you actually send in a pitch?

Keep the pitch short and put the proof first, not last.

• One line on who your audience is and what they come to you for (not what platform you are on)
• A screenshot or short note showing clicks on two or three of your past links, so the brand sees real numbers instead of a claim
• The exact placement you are proposing: a dedicated post, a mention, or a card on your link in bio page, with where it sits
• What you are asking for: a flat fee, a fee plus product, or product only if you are just starting out
• A deadline for them to reply, so the pitch does not sit forever

Skip the long bio and the "passionate about content creation" language. A brand manager reading twenty pitches a week stops at the first one with a real number in it.

Where do you get those numbers if you have never been paid before?

You do not need a past brand deal to have past numbers. If you have a link in bio page, you already have a record of what your audience taps, because every link on the page gets its own click count. Pull up your stats page, screenshot the two or three links that got the most taps over the last month, and use those. If one of those links was itself an affiliate link, even better: you can show clicks and what it earned side by side, which is the same thing a sponsor cares about from a paid placement. For more on turning those numbers into reliable figures, see how to track affiliate links from your link in bio.

If you have never posted an affiliate or sponsored link at all, use whatever link gets the most regular traffic: a blog post, a YouTube video, a booking page. The point is not that the link made money. The point is that people tap what you tell them to tap, and you can prove it with a number instead of a claim.

Worked example

Say Priya runs a small page about budget home organizing, with 1,400 followers and no past brand deals. She wants to pitch a storage container brand. Instead of a generic "I love your products" message, she pulls her last 30 days of stats: her Container Store roundup link got 61 clicks, her pantry-labels affiliate link got 48 clicks and earned a small commission, and both spiked on Sunday evenings, which matches when her audience plans their week. She sends the brand a four-line pitch: who her audience is, those two numbers with a screenshot, a proposed single post with a tracked link to their new product, and a flat fee of $150 since this would be her first paid placement for them. That pitch gets read in full, because it answers the only question the brand actually has: will people tap this.

What happens after they say yes?

Set up the deal the same way you track everything else on your page: one link, one purpose, one place to check how it did. On Briklyst, mark the new link as a brand deal rather than a generic link, so it shows up as its own row on your stats page instead of getting lumped in with everything else. That gives you an exact number to report back to the brand when the post comes down, and it gives you your next pitch's proof already built in. Each deal you run this way makes the next pitch stronger, because you are no longer asking a brand to take a chance on a stranger. You are showing them what the last one did.

What should you ask for if you are brand new?

Start lower than you think, and negotiate from there rather than walking away. A flat fee of $50 to $150 for a single post is a reasonable ask for a creator with no paid history and a modest but real audience, and product-only deals are fine for your first one or two if the product is something you would use anyway. What matters more than the number is tracking the result and asking for more on the next pitch once you have a second number to show. A brand that paid you once and saw it work is an easier sale than a brand you have never worked with.

FAQ

Do I need a media kit before I pitch my first brand deal?

No. A one-page PDF is nice to have eventually, but your first pitch only needs two or three real click numbers and a one-line description of your audience. A formal media kit matters more once you are pitching several brands at once and want something reusable.

Should I disclose a brand deal the same way I disclose affiliate links?

Yes. The FTC's disclosure rules cover any post where you were paid or given free product, not just affiliate links that pay a commission. See do you need to disclose affiliate links in your link in bio for what a clear disclosure looks like, and apply the same standard to a sponsored post.

What if my page has no past sponsored links to show a brand?

Use your best-performing link of any kind, affiliate, your own product, or just a popular blog or video link. What a brand wants to see is that your audience taps what you point them to, and any link with a real click count proves that, paid or not.