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Hey There Creators,

Most full-time Content Creators earn the majority of their money from sponsored content in one way or another.

Even creators with less than 10,000 Subscribers or Followers are finding their way to full-time Creator status and income by doing UGC Content, working with brands, and becoming ambassadors.

But the reality is that most of you doing this are approaching brand deals wrong and waiting for it to just happen for you, and in today's community newsletter, we are going to give you a quick guide on better brand deals and finally correct those mistakes.

Also, be sure to Watch a Complete Monetizatoin Guide to Brand Deals and UGC Partnerships from my Monetization Monday weekly live streams!

66% of Creators Made Most of their Income from Brand Deals

​The 2024 Creator Economy Report from Kajabi provided some data points, such as the fact that in 2022, most Creators made the majority of their income from sponsored content.

While Brand Deals are a huge part of monetization as a content creator, most Creators don't have a long-term strategy for brand deals and constantly have anxiety about whether or not they will find enough sponsors. I teach a different approach to this, in terms of becoming a UGC Creator (User Generated Content). Even if you're a smaller content creator you can make a full-time income with UGC partnerships if you have the right qualities.

If all you bring to the table is "VIEWS" that is all you will ever be judged on, and the only lever you have to negotiate with.

And this is the main reason that many if not most content creators are underpricing themselves and getting taken advantage of in their negotiations.

Consider this... if a brand says they don't care about you reach or audience size what else do you have to offer and can you do for them?

Because most Creators look at their value only through the lense of views and vanity metrics they feel this is all they have to offer, and the only thing that a brand cares about.

One of the most imporant things I teach Creators is how to value themselves and their content from a business perspective. If the brand needed to film a spokesperson or use a model that has an authentic success story for their brand, they are not going to pay that spokesperson or model based on how many likes the ad gets on social media...

A model, extra, spokesperson or presenter is paid a day rate for not only their time and labor, but for the licensing of using their Name, Image and Likeness (called NIL).

Since the content is being posted on the brand's social media accounts and/or used in advertising, your follower count or engagement is not the key selling point or that meaningful to the brand.

It could be a way to get on their radar and get their attention for a potential partnershp, or impress them if you do the outreach first. But beyond that it's not really going to make a difference if you aren't the right voice or look to represent them in the campaign.

Another aspect of this is that small creators who have outsized production value or the right story, or even the right look, can get long-term opportunities to be one of the faces of a brand or even multiple brands. This opportunity to earn is overlooked because the culture of the Creator Economy focuses on views and audience size, instead of other forms of value that Creators can bring to the table.

If you'd like to work with me 1-on-1 specifically around coaching when it comes to Brand Deals and Sponsored content, you can reach me here.

Sponsored by Kajabi​ Start Monetizing Membership Websites When my tutorial and tech content finally reached 100,000 subscribers on YouTube in 2016, I wanted to pivot and start helping other creators. I started getting emails from other Creators with questions asking me for help, so I decided to start taking 1-on-1 Coaching Calls. Eventually, these ended up turning into weekly group calls, too. In late 2017, I needed a solution beyond a simple landing page on a clunky WordPress website and a link to PayPal. I decided to launch Awesome Creator Academy using Kajabi, which, aside from Sponsorship, is my most lucrative and reliable revenue stream. It allows me to offer Coaching, a Membership Community, and $99 Digital Products. Within the last 6 years I've earned $600,000 in revenue on Kajabi, not having to do a 70/30 revenue share with the platform (like YouTube Memberships, 50/50 on other platforms) and delivered for over 3,400 customers! Suppose you're a Creator who wants to grow a sustainable online business and offer more than free content. In that case, Kajabi makes this easy with no-code tools for your website, built-in email marketing, and AI tools that make it simple for first-time online business owners to launch. Want to learn more? Watch my $5000/month Membership Blueprint video on building and scaling your paid membership community with 100 True Fans!

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My INSIDERS Guide to Brand Deals and How I Earn Over $100K a Year from Sponsored Content

YOU'RE DOING BRAND DEALS WRONG
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• Prospect - Make a Dream List of at least 20 Brands You WANT to work with that are ALIGNED to your audience and your values
• Position - Put yourself in a position to be an attractive partner to these brands and research Creators who have worked with them
• Package - Build a Media Kit that conveys what you have to offer and the opportunties you have for partnerships
• Pitch - Reach out to brands nad present your ideas
• Price - Negotiate your rates and the conditions for your partnership with brands, pay attention to the details of the contract
• Produce - Deliver the assets as promised in a timely manner and be professional in every interaction with the brand
• Repeat - secure long-term repeat business and referrals and if you can recommend other people that are easy to work with in your network for opportunites they are a great fit for

Most Creators are making the mistake of waiting for brand deals to come to them and not pursing brand partnerships that fit their values.

You need to stop wasting your time going through emails from brands you've never heard of that sound sketchy, or hoping and praying that one day a brand notices you and offers you your dream collab.

But if you prospect brands and you can secure MULTIPLE partnerships with brands for reasonable amounts of money (based on how many deliverables they need instead of your audience size) then you earn $100,000 a year with brand deals alone.

To help you better understand this and why it's not far fetched a pipedream, lets say you create a package that is $2500/month to work with you, and that it has the following terms:

• 6 Month Contract with Category Exclusivity
• 2x Monthly Long form videos or live streams with brand shoutouts
• 2x YouTube Community Tab Shoutouts w/Link
• 1x Monthly Short form video for your platform
• 1x Monthly Short form video on the brand's platform
• 1x Long form video on the brand's platform
• Social Media Amplification

That is not an absurd amonunt of content and you would need to make content anyway, this compensation is also reasonable even if you're a smaller content creator under 20,000 in audience size.

This deal is worth $15,000, if you can renew this deal and they are happy to work with you again, it's a $30,000 deal.

Securing 3-4 Deals like this gives you over $100,000 in revenue and there are other opportunities to moneitze such as Ad Revenue, Donations, Memberships and Affiliate Links.

If you're Creator with a larger audeince you can clearly negotiate for even higher rates across 3-4 long term relationships, which is what I currently do within my own brand. By relying on the other things I offer in value I don't have to concern myself primarily with overall views although you want those to be reasonable.

Consider that access to Email List Sponsorship opportunities is incredibly valuable to brands.

You may wonder how that pricing model can be divorced from view performance. This is a reasonable rate if you even just use industry standards across the time scale of how long it takes to produce and edit the average video for a content creator. Most content creators still have an employee mentality and think of the vlaue of their time based on the wage scale of their last job, instead of the scale of their skillset.

They also aren't pricing in the opportunity cost of turning down work from competitors to offer category exclusivity, or even the value of their own reputation risk by lending their credibility to brand, or the value of their day rate as a perfomer and not just an editor and producer.

CREATING MORE RESOURCES FOR YOU

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We've been trying to create more resources for you at Awesome Creator Academy to build the ultimate Creator Education Business. This includes our library of articles and videos to help you become a full-time content creator.

Check out our Academy Member Pro Group! We offer 2 Office Hours Sessions Every Week.

As long as you are a paying monthly member, you will have access to all of our current and future digital products and courses!

On top of that, you will be part of a community where you can get feedback and accountability partners!

CREATOR NEWS AND UPDATES

Here are some great videos and other content #TeamRoberto has for you!

• 🎬 Watch: How to Stand Out on YouTube in 2024
• 🎬 Watch: How YouTube Shorts Collabs Work​
• 🎬 Watch: 7 Biggest Social Media Trends of 2024​
• 👀 Read: How Many YouTube Channels Have 10M Subscribers​
• 🎧 Listen to: My Million Dollar Weekend Interview with Noah Kagan ​
• 🎧 Listen to: My Interview on The Funded YouTuber Podcast​
• 🎬 Watch: How to Find Your Audience on YouTube in 2024​
• 👀 Read: YouTube CEO Neal Mohan's 2024 Letter ​
• 👀 Read: YouTube Going All in On AI Tools​
• 🎧 Music to Help You Feel Less Stressed​

Have A Question and Need a Quick Answer? ➡️ HMU on Twitter​

[Some of the links mentioned are affiliate links and if you purchase with them I receive a small commission at no additional cost to you.]

SUPPORT FOR CREATORS

If you have more questions, I will respond the fastest on Twitter. I frequently check Tweets using #AskRoberto, and I host Twitter Spaces each week where you can ask questions on different topics.

Ask Me Anything @robertoblake​

Stay Awesome! -R