For the last few days, I’ve been working quite hard behind the scenes. Not on my home (as fun as that is for me) and not creating content for my clients. The last few days I’ve dedicated to updating my website as well as my media kit. The thing is, while you might love the prospect of creating content and working with your favourite brands, there is quite a lot of foundation/admin work that needs to be done first. Having a proper media kit is just the first step in terms of building relationships with PR agencies and companies and sure, it might be a bit boring, but it’s a really important one.

A few years ago, I did a blog post on creating a media kit. It was the first one I’d ever done and over the years, I have added and changed things here and there but overall the concept and layout remained pretty much the same. The fact that it hadn’t really been properly rehauled in terms of the design since its inception started to bother me. Things are different now than they were a few years ago and I knew it. But the way I was approaching things had remained unchanged. I think when you’ve been blogging for years (in fact, it’s almost my 6 year anniversary! Ack!), you can easily settle into a routine that seems nice and easy and comfy but you relax too long and things will have moved on without you.

So, I decided when I woke up early on Saturday morning (for some reason I struggle to sleep in these days – I’m blaming that on getting old!) that it was about time I got with the times. My old media kit was several pages long. I loved how much detail I was able to include, how it married so nicely with my branding but I realised that more and more, PRs just don’t have the time to look at a huge long kit. There are more bloggers now than there were just 3 years ago, after all and PRs are busier than ever. So, I’ve reduced it now to a mere 2 pages but my proudest achievement was creating a media kit landing page on my website which allowed me to go into a little more detail. I’ll come back to that in a second.

Why Have a Media Kit?

Now you might want to ask yourself why you need a media kit at all. What’s the point, especially if you are new in the blogging game? Or perhaps you’ve been doing this for a while and have just never gotten around to it? I think there are two big reasons to have a media kit.

You’ll Look More Professional

Now, I will say once again, that blogging doesn’t need to be competitive. If you think it is, then you should probably read this blog post. However, if a brand is looking to work with a few different influencers, they are going to have to do their research. They’ll want to know pretty quickly who will be the best fit for their particular campaign and they won’t have the time to read multiple blog posts, ‘About Me’ pages and check out the social media profiles of every single blogger on their list, which might just number into the hundreds. A media kit will help them break through the details and get to the specifics. Who you are, what you blog about, what your reach is like and any other factors they may need to make a quick decision. You wouldn’t walk into a job interview without a CV (or resume for my friends across the pond) and a media kit acts much the same way.

The second factor in this same vein is that not every blog out there has a media kit. While they are certainly more popular now than they were a few years ago – let’s be honest, here – they are a bit of a pain in the arse to pull together, especially at the very start. This means a lot of bloggers don’t bother. Just by having one, you are already going to show yourself to be that little bit more professional, that little bit more serious about your brand and your blog. All the more reason that a brand’s interest might be piqued.

It’ll Save You Time

The second big reason to have a media kit is that it’ll save you a crazy amount of time. The thing is, the longer your blog is around and the more care and attention you put into it, the more you’ll attract brands. Which is great of course. However, with the good stuff comes the bad and wading through all those crap offers (ie, working for free or working for much less than you are worth) is time-consuming. I spend many many hours a week just trying to keep up with my inbox (not always successfully, mind you). Having a media kit cuts out a lot of the inevitable emailing back and forth that occurs when you are contacted by an agency or a brand. Responding to enquiries using your kit saves time as it should contain at least most of the information they’ll have asked for in an email. Meaning you don’t have to type out the same information over and over again.

What should be in your kit?

About You / About Your Blog: This doesn’t need to be your life story but perhaps talk about why you got into writing about your particular passion, how long you’ve been blogging, what topics you write about and how your blog helps others. Keep the tone friendly but professional.

Website Stats: This will provide a brand with a snapshot of your reach. Even if you don’t think your numbers are that impressive, you can always highlight things like growth % over previous months or years to show that your blog is one to watch! I’d recommend including monthly page views, monthly unique visitors, subscribers (RSS, email) along with demographics about your audience (Are most of them female? What countries are they from? How old are they?) as this will help a brand to decide if their target audience fits your own. You should be able to find all this information on Google Analytics.

Social Media Stats: Make sure you include links (or at least your user names) across your social media profiles so they can easily find you. This also allows them to check out your engagement. So even if you only have 500 followers on Instagram, perhaps you get lots of comments and likes which indicates a high engagement. This could be a great factor in whether a brand chooses to work with you. Numbers aren’t everything!

Services Offered: Here’s where you get to list out ways in which a brand might want to collaborate with you. Do you want to offer sponsored posts? Product reviews? Giveaways? Ad Space? Social Media collaborations? Let a brand know what you are happy to chat about and include where your pricing would at least start from. This allows you some room for negotiation if the collaboration isn’t straight forward or requires additional promotion, photography rights, etc. Stating a starting price will at least let a brand know what options might be within their budget.

Press/Features and/or Awards: If you’ve been featured on any big name websites or publications, you can include this to show additional credibility. If you’ve won any blog awards, you definitely want to include those too!

Who You’ve Collaborated With: If you’ve worked with a few brands in the past, highlight those as well. It can be as simple as a logo or it can be a link to the blog post itself.

Images and Graphics: While a media kit normally has a whole lot of text, you’ll want some graphics or images in there to break things up a bit. So be sure to include (your own!) images that reflect you and your blog’s style. Include your logo, a picture of your (smiling) face along with any images from previous collaborations or just some of the best photography from your blog that you have.

Testimonials: Here’s one thing I think a lot of bloggers forget about. They’ve had a great campaign with a brand, the brand was thrilled with the outcome, you collect your fee and you go on your merry way (or on to your next collaboration). If you have had a positive experience from a brand, why not ask for a testimonial? These add weight and credibility to your media kit and give other brands good reason to work with you.

What form is best for a Media Kit?

Now it really doesn’t matter on what platform you create your media kit. You can use Photoshop or Word, Powerpoint or Canva. For around $10-$20, you can download kits from Etsy or Creative Market that make it easy to simply fill in your details and go. What you do want to do afterwards, however, is create something that’s easy to view and download so once you’ve created your masterpiece, you’ll want to save it in PDF format.

Your media kit can be one or two pages but probably no more than 3 or 4 in total. It’s a lot of information to fit in a relatively small space but the quicker and easier it is for a brand to download and keep, the better.

Now, if you really want to take it a step further, then consider an online media kit which means you simply only need to send a link. I’ve started noticing bloggers use these more and more and I have to admit, I was pretty damn impressed. It’s clearly the newest way to stand out in a sea of bloggers and when I woke up on Saturday morning, this is what I decided to do.

I built mine using Divi Builder which came with my blog theme and I basically taught myself how to build the page on my website. I imagine if you use a platform like SquareSpace, this job would be a lot easier! For WordPress sites, you might want to look into creating it yourself or use the assistance of a web designer. It’s certainly more involved and I wouldn’t necessarily say this is something you need, especially if you are a fairly new blogger. A PDF will always be your first step no matter what! But if you’ve been blogging for a while and you really want to be one step ahead, then it’s something to think about!

Next month, I’ll be talking about how to develop relationships with brands and actually get paid for the work you do! But before you can do that, you’ll need a media kit. So spend the next month getting yours together and then come back for more info on the possibilities it opens!

So now it’s your turn. I’d love to know if you have a media kit, have you found it helpful in collaborating with brands? And if you haven’t yet, what’s stopping you?

PS. I’ve been nominated for Best Interior Design Blog in the EKBB Influencers Awards! I’d love it if you could vote for me! Thank you!