How to sell paid partnerships - even with a small audience
Feb 19, 2025
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Lex Roman, a talented newsletter writer and subscription marketer from Atlanta, shares invaluable insights on creating successful paid partnerships, even with a small audience. She explains the key differences between paid partnerships and traditional ads and stresses what NOT to do when proposing collaborations. Lex dives into the essentials of crafting a compelling partnership proposal and discusses how to determine fair pricing. Moreover, she emphasizes the importance of forging genuine relationships and the transformative power of collaborative marketing.
Understanding the distinction between paid partnerships and traditional ads is crucial for creating resonant offerings for sponsors.
Pricing strategies should reflect the value of services provided, incorporating tiered options based on expected return on investment for brands.
Effective outreach through existing networks and public social media posts can greatly enhance opportunities for securing valuable partnerships.
Deep dives
Approaching Partnerships with Intent
Creating valuable partnerships starts with a clear understanding of what offerings will resonate with potential sponsors. Lex Roman highlights the importance of identifying sponsors that align closely with personal expertise and audience interests, noting that her journey began after successfully advertising in a newsletter herself. By leveraging her background in marketing and tech, Lex transitioned into working with sponsors in a more collaborative way, ensuring that her audience's needs align with those of the brands she represents. Emphasizing the shift from traditional advertising to genuine partnerships, she has gained trust by advocating for products she truly believes in.
Evolving Offerings and Pricing Strategy
Lex's approach to pricing her partnership offerings reflects a keen understanding of the value she provides while ensuring her efforts are compensated adequately. Initially, her classified ads were low-cost and labor-intensive, leading her to set a minimum engagement price of around a thousand dollars to recoup her time and effort. She strategically crafted tiered pricing for short-term and long-term partnerships that take into account the return on investment brands can expect, allowing her to create compelling offers. This thoughtful packaging of offerings encourages collaboration while reassuring sponsors of potential value.
Utilizing Personal Connections for Growth
Effective outreach is crucial for attracting partners, and leveraging existing networks can prove beneficial in forging new relationships. Lex recommends reaching out to creators within personal networks who have firsthand experience with desired brands, facilitating introductions that could lead to fruitful partnerships. Additionally, she stresses posting one’s partnership desires publicly on social media platforms like LinkedIn and X, which can yield unexpected responses from interested parties. Engaging openly with fellow creators and potential collaborators can significantly broaden one's opportunities.
Building Trust through Authentic Engagement
Establishing trust is essential for successful partnerships, and Lex emphasizes her commitment to integrity and authenticity in promoting products she believes in. Her audience values her recommendations precisely because they know she thoroughly assesses products before endorsing them. Through her own experiences of endorsing brands, she has noticed not only a positive response from her audience but also tangible results for the brands she collaborates with. By sharing this perspective, Lex reinforces the idea that promoting genuinely useful products creates a win-win situation for herself, the brands, and her audience.
Creating Compelling Proposals
Crafting an engaging proposal is key to securing partnerships, and Lex's approach includes succinct yet impactful presentations of her offerings. She advocates for using direct communication methods, such as video, to personalize proposals and establish a connection with potential partners. By detailing her methodology and previous successes, she lays a foundation for trust and shows how her proposals can effectively meet mutual goals. Lex maintains that clarity in expectations and returns on investment in proposals ensures that all parties are on the same page, fostering cooperation.
02:00: The difference between a paid partnership and traditional ads 13:00: The most important thing NOT to do if you offer paid partnerships 14:00: The first 3 things to do if you want to offer paid partnerships 23:00: What to include in a partnership proposal 27:00: Partners aren't paying for what you think they're paying for 33:00: How (and why) to incorporate a video into your proposal 42:00: How to figure out what to charge for a partnership 47:00: The 3 most effective ways to attract partner leads
