How to Negotiate Brand Partnerships: 11 Essential Tips for Travel Bloggers

looking for negotiation tips for influencers?

You’ve come to the right place! As a seven-figure blogger, I’ve entered into my fair share of brand partnerships — some good, and some not-so-good.

Either way, I’ve learned a lot about the process, and I’m about to spill the tea on how to successfully negotiate brand partnerships (so that you don’t make the same rookie mistakes I did 🤦‍♀️).

In this post, we will look at 11 key steps for influencers to use during the negotiation process.

Next, we’ll dive into what makes paid brand collaborations successful, and end with five different partnerships you need to look into ASAP.

By the end of this article, you’ll know how to negotiate brand partnerships as a travel blogger (and earn more money from them). Ready to dive in? Let’s get to it!

11 Key Steps on How to Negotiate Brand Partnerships for Bloggers

1. Know Your Worth

Did you know businesses can expect a 960% return on investment (ROI) from influencer marketing?

Influencers are a powerful and effective resource for brands, and more and more companies are making room for this marketing trend in their budgets.

But that doesn’t mean brands won’t try to lowball their offers and get more bang for their buck from content creators.

You don’t want to be taken advantage of, especially when starting out.

However, as TikTok influencer Michelle Bellexo shares, that can be tough to avoid.

That’s why the first and most important step in negotiating partnerships with brands is to know your worth. You, and what you offer, are valuable.

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

2. Agree on the Deliverables

The second step to negotiating brand deals is to agree on the deliverables, which are the things you need to “deliver” to hold up your end of the deal.

So that both sides are very clear on the deliverables, the key to this step is all about asking good questions 🤔 For example:

1. What deliverable does the brand expect?
2. How many Instagram posts, Instagram stories, and/or reels do they want?
3. Do you need to write a blog post for them as well?

When brands present their expectations, ensure you’re not underselling yourself. This is your craft, your platform, and your audience.

It is essential that what they’re offering aligns with the effort and reach you’re providing.

It’s not just about numbers but the quality and influence you bring to the table.

An excellent question to prime your negotiation skills is: What flexibility do you have as a brand regarding the deliverables or the budget?

If a brand isn’t able to increase its budget, you may be able to reduce the number of deliverables.

If they want something with a fast turnaround time, it’s 100% okay to ask for an influencer rush fee.

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

3. Negotiate Usage Rights

When diving into influencer partnerships, one key aspect that often gets overlooked is usage rights.

Simply put, usage rights determine how and where a brand can use the content you produce.

Ask yourself: Will the brand be using your content for their social media only, or do they plan to feature it in ads, newsletters, or even offline promotions?

When negotiating usage rights, always clarify the duration. Is it a month, a year, or indefinitely?

Also, don’t forget about exclusivity. You might want to ensure you’re not tied down from collaborating with similar brands soon after.

If a brand isn’t budging on its budget, consider narrowing the usage scope. Maybe allow them to use your content only on specific platforms or for a limited time.

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

4. Share Your Stats & Show Value

A key way to negotiate influencer brand collaborations is by sharing your stats.

Instagram is a popular metric for brand collaborations, but TikTok media kits and other social media platform stats are also standard.

🖥️ create a media kit

Show brands what makes you valuable, what makes you stand apart, and why working with you is a great move.

Create a media kit to showcase your average followers, engagement rate, reach, and impressions. 

You can include a brief About You blurb, mission statement, partnership opportunity ideas, and social media handles.

Remember to include demographic information on your audience, including age, gender, and location.

Canva has multiple media kit templates — these are really great inspiration for how to negotiate with brands as an influencer templates.

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

5. Pitch Package Options

The fourth step in how to negotiate with brands as an influencer is to pitch package options.

Create bundles with discounted rates to encourage brands to work with you.

The idea behind how to negotiate a business partnership is to put together multiple deliverables to create a campaign the company doesn’t want to decline.

If you offer multiple packages at different price points, it enables you to meet the needs of various clients.

This mutually beneficial approach guarantees you more revenue and comes across as strategic and thorough to the client.

Some clients might not be interested in one package aspect, but you can overcome this by agreeing to a swap.

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

6. Be Prepared to Justify Your Rates

When the time comes to negotiate brand collaborations, you need to be able to justify your rates 💰

Hard numbers will help new clients decide whether or not your engagement and reach match their marketing goals.

In addition to the stats in your media kit, you can also include things like:

• How much your account and following are growing
• How much content you post weekly
• The average number of likes and/or comments you get on your posts
• Case studies of successful brand collaborations

Case studies can be an especially powerful method of landing brand deals. Just remember to include as many numbers as you can, like:

• How long the campaign lasted
• Stats from before and after the campaign
• Concrete data on how you helped the company meet their goals
• Testimonials from the brand you worked with

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

7. Don’t be Afraid to Negotiate

Going back and forth with a brand about rates, usage rights, deliverables, deadlines, exclusivity, and more is all part of collaborating.

That’s why it’s so important to know how to negotiate as an influencer.

It’s okay to negotiate the contract if the brand is offering low or unfair rates. Most brands are grateful for their influencer partners and expect you to negotiate.

The goal is to create a win-win scenario for both of you, including for hotel brand partnerships.

💡 Blogger Pro Tip: If you’re wondering how to reply when a brand asks for your rates, the best scenario is to get them to give you a number first. 

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

8. Know When to Say No

No matter how far into the negotiation process you’ve gone, it’s okay to walk away.

Some reasons to decline brand collaborations can include:

• Your gut is telling you to say no
• You’ve realized the client will be terrible, annoying, or difficult to work with
• You haven’t been able to reach an agreement on the budget, scope, or deliverables
• The timing isn’t possible or convenient

Although you don’t have to give a reason for saying no, it can be helpful for the brand if you provide a bit of insights on why you’re saying no.

With this info, they might actually be able to change their offer, and give you what you want or need.

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

9. Focus On Creating Long-Term Partnerships

Considering how much effort it takes to negotiate influencer collaborations, it makes sense to aim for long-term relationships.

It’s better and easier for you and for the brand.

In fact, according to Insider Intelligence, brands prioritize long-term collaborations over one-off projects.

Long-term stints guarantee more income and help the brand by making the campaign more effective with a higher ROI.

Most consumers need to see a product several times before purchasing.

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

10. Upsell by Including Other Platforms

Another strategic item to include in brand contract negotiations is offering to include other platforms in the campaign.

For example, if you have a social media account and a blog, you could include a blog post in the campaign.

This will help people find the brand through organic searches.

Using multiple platforms will ultimately give the brand a higher ROI and generate more buzz in several spheres.

The benefit for you is a bigger collaboration for which you can charge more.

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

11. Always Double-Check The Contract

There is no definitive guide to influencer agreements, but it’s always smart to read the fine print from the get-go.

Better yet, pay a lawyer to go through the contract for you.

Although contract terms, length, and conditions vary, every agreement should include six sections (see below).

If they aren’t there, request they be added because they’re essential to protect yourself and prevent expensive misunderstandings.

1. Specific Activities: This section outlines what content you are providing, noting all the specific requests for content and captions, and the posting date.
2. Usage Rights & Ownership: These rights determine where and how your content can be used and for how long. For example, the client may wish to use the content in paid ads, their websites, email newsletters, billboards, etc. Include an itemized list of usage rights in the payment section.
3. Exclusivity: An exclusivity clause covers whether or not you can work with other brands/competitors during the campaign.
4. Pre-approval: What is the process for getting your content pre-approved before posting? When does it need to be submitted?
5. Payment Terms: This section covers how much you will be paid, when you will be paid, and any conditions under which the client can revoke payment.
6. Endorsement Disclosures: This section details how to disclose your paid partnership to your audience (something it is essential to do even if it isn’t in your contract).

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

3 Elements of a Successful Brand Partnership

Now that you’re familiar with the world of brand partnerships, let’s dive into the formula for a thriving brand collaboration.

1. Create Quality Content

Quality content is the foundation of all great brand partnerships — as their brand image depends on it.

By and large, most brands would rather work with an influencer with a smaller following producing top-notch content who has great engagement.

Those things tend to be worth more than an influencer with 50 times more followers producing low-quality content.

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

2. Work With Brands That Align With Your Values/Niche

No matter what you do, you should never partner with a company that doesn’t align with your values and niche.

Trust is the foundation of influencer marketing and how to work with brands as an influencer.

It’s your responsibility to ensure you don’t violate the trust of your followers. 

As an influencer, you should only present products and services that will be useful and interesting to your audience. 

Also, ask yourself if you personally support the brand and like its products. Do your values and niche align? Have they made agreements with a diverse group of influencers?

If not, you should walk away.

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

3. Be Open & Transparent about Sponsored Content

Disclosure is a delicate but essential topic. It goes along with that all-important foundation of trust that we just talked about.

Being open and transparent about your brand partnerships and affiliate partnerships is a legal and ethical obligation.

What, how, and when you disclose information is important to investigate and consider in any brand partnership.

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

5 Types of Brand Partnerships

Now that we’ve discussed brand partnerships and how to master a successful collaboration, what kind of partnerships are there?

Let’s look at a couple:

1. Paid Press Trips

A press trip is an all-expenses-paid live-marketing trip to a far-off location — or even a local one.

Influencers on these trips often attend dinners, attend special performances, and enjoy the beautiful scenery, all while documenting the experience on their social media accounts.

Press trips often operate in one of two ways:

• Complimentary Experience: You’re invited to enjoy the trip free of charge, but there’s no additional payment. Essentially, the experiences and amenities become your compensation.
• Paid Collaboration: Not only is the trip free, but you’re also compensated for your time, effort, and the content you create.

Regardless of the arrangement, ensuring that what’s expected of you aligns with what’s being offered is crucial.

If a hotel offers you a one-night stay but expects photos, videos, three Instagram posts, and a detailed blog post with a link back, it might not be worth it.

Recognize your value and ensure a fair exchange in any collaboration.

Always advocate for terms that respect your expertise and the effort required to meet the deliverables.

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

2. Sponsored Content

Sponsored content is content that is paid for by the brand, but published and distributed by the influencer. 

In this case, a brand will pay for a specific asset — ie. an IG post, IG reel, IG story, YouTube video, podcast, TikTok, Facebook post, and/or blog post.

The influencer will create it and post it on their channel, website, or platform.  

How to negotiate a sponsorship deal comes down to striking a balance between what the brand wants and what the influencer can offer.

One person’s Instagram sponsorship cost will be vastly different from another’s.

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

3. Paid Product Collaboration

In a paid product collaboration, brands work with influencers to target a specific audience, usually to promote a product.

In these collaborations, the brand can request specific wording and talking points, offer creative direction, and require pre-approval.

They can be paid collaboration Instagram message, emails, or other communications to the influencer’s audience.

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

4. Giveaways

In a giveaway, brands pair with an influencer perfect for their product or niche.

During the giveaway, users usually need to share, like, comment, tag, or follow a brand’s page to participate, which increases brand awareness or gets them email addresses. 

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

5. Brand Ambassadorship

Brand ambassadors are in a long-term relationship with the brand they promote to their audience.

These partnerships help drive stronger results than one-off partnerships.

Again, remember to only be a brand ambassador for products or services you use and love.

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

How to Decide What to Charge

Many factors go into deciding the perfect rate for new brand partnerships.

Your stats, including the number of followers you have, engagement levels, longevity, reach, and growth rates, are all important factors.

Some tools you can use to figure out your rate include the Instagram Influencer Sponsored Post Money Calculator and Social Blue Book.

Though you have to pay to use Social Blue Book, it has a beneficial Know Your Worth feature that calculates how much you should be charging per platform.

According to the site, Know Your Worth is “A game-changing tool that provides you a monetary value that you can use in brand deal negotiations.”

What to Consider When Determining Rates

There are several key things to consider when figuring out how to negotiate influencer rates.

• Time: How quickly does the brand want the deliverables?
• Cost: How much will it cost you to produce the deliverables?
• Usage Rights: If a brand wants images for anything that could result in sales, you should charge a fee.
• Exclusivity: If a brand doesn’t want you to work with its competitors for x period of time, you can charge for it because it could be potential income you’d have to decline.

How to Negotiate Brand Partnerships: FAQs

While having a large following can be an advantage, many brands prioritize engagement, niche relevance, and content quality over your follower count (which is often considered a vanity metric).

Even micro-influencers and nano-influencers with fewer than 5,000 followers, can secure partnerships with a loyal and engaged audience.

What are the influencer tiers?

If you’re wondering what a nano-influencer is, or what the other “influencer terms” mentioned above mean, here are the five influencer tiers explained.

• Nano influencers have between 5,000 and 10,000 followers
• Micro influencers have between 10,000 and 50,000
• Mid-tier influencers have 50,000-250,000 followers
• Macro influencers have 250,000 to 1.5 million followers
• Celebrity influencers have anything beyond that 1.5 million follower level

The partnership selection process for brands usually involves researching influencers on social media platforms.

They may consider the size of your following, and it may influence a brand’s decision on if and how to negotiate brand deals with you — however, your follower count number isn’t necessarily the be all, end all for brand partnerships.

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

Influencers have different approaches, so you’ll likely need to try several methods before landing on the perfect one.

Ideas you can try include directly emailing a brand with your media kit or a multi-page pitch proposal.

Another approach is to post about a company or product you love on your account, then reach out to a brand to introduce yourself and explain why you’d like to work with them. 

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

Here are some more questions to ask when deciding if you want to collaborate with a brand, or not:

• What deliverables does the brand want?
• How many reels, stories, or posts are expected?
• Do they want a blog post as well?
• How soon do they need ALL their deliverables?
• How long does the brand plan to use your content to advertise?
• If the brand wants exclusivity, which brands do they consider competitors?
• What is their budget?

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

Also, check out Social Bluebook, which offers tools to help creators figure out their rates. 

Usually, the calculator comes up with lower rates than Social Bluebook, but those numbers can give you a minimum number to go with.

Another rule of thumb is to charge a penny per follower.

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

If you want to make money blogging, you need a clear grasp of your worth, so now’s the moment to lay it out for the brand.

Lean on your stats, numbers, and past successful brand partnerships to make a solid case for your pricing.

Then be clear about your rates. For example, “For X Y Z deliverables, my usual rate is $X. Is the brand able to meet me closer to my rate?”

You can also say something along these lines: “I can meet you at $X, but am not able to go below $X under any circumstances.”

The higher the rate you ask for initially, the more room you have for negotiation.

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

Start by expressing appreciation for the offer, then provide a clear rationale for your counteroffer, using tangible data or examples when possible.

Don’t be afraid to ask if they have any flexibility with the budget. If they do, you can ask them to meet your rate (or get closer to it).

If they can’t, negotiate other aspects of the contract, like the quantity of deliverables.

What are the fundamentals of how to ask for a brand deal?

If you do these things, you’ll position yourself as a good negotiator that the brand will take seriously — but not take advantage of:

• Listening actively throughout the discussion
• Being open to compromise
• Maintaining a positive tone

Remember brand partnership negotiation tactics are about finding a win-win solution for both parties.

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

At first, you’ll likely get many no’s — but over time, you’ll discover what approaches work the best.

For example, some influencers approach brands by sending them their media kit through email, direct message, or through a contact they found on LinkedIn.

Even a media kit TikTok outreach strategy could work, depending on what bread you’re pitching.

Consider using a pitch proposal template that includes your value proposition, the timeline, and the deliverables.

Negotiate Brand Partnerships

This negotiation style involves building trust, sharing data and information, exploring different possible solutions, and creating value.

You should strive to understand the other party’s perspectives, concerns, and expectations.

Collaborative negotiation is ideal for influencers because it helps establish, maintain, and improve a long-term partnership. 

My Final Thoughts on How to Negotiate Brand Partnerships as a Travel Blogger

We’ve discussed ten key steps to negotiating with brands. These steps even apply to how to negotiate with influencers as a brand.

Knowing your worth, determining your rates, and learning how to discuss budgets, timelines, and deliverables comfortably are all important aspects of a brand partnership negotiation.

If you’re looking for a direct template or guide, a negotiate brand partnerships sample can be an excellent starting point.

Although it will take time to lock in these skills, it’s worth the effort.

You can even use these steps when determining how to bargain like a pro when traveling, not just before you go.