Knock Brands Socks Off: How we got a Disney Executive to say "Wow, this may be one of the Best Recaps I have ever seen!!!"

There are so many mistakes we make as bloggers. I think one of the biggest ones we made when we got our first paid jobs was not following up and if we did, not following up in the correct way. Not until a few years ago when I was listening to a podcast on marketing (I apologize, I can’t remember the name for the life of me) but the host was talking about how all of his long term clients had exceptional follow up.

From then on I created a system to make sure that our clients would know the short and long term benefits of collaborating with us. What I love about what we created, is not only does it make the brands happy, but we got some amazing responses. Here is what we do and how you can too.

“Wow, this may be one of the Best Recaps I have ever seen!!!”

How to impress brands

Step 1 – Put together a report

I know what you are thinking, creating a report is so time-consuming. I already created the content, bought stuff for the photo shoot, took the photos, edited them, wrote a blog post and sent them the analytics, why in the world would they also need a report.

Why Put Together a Report?

Because everyone else is doing all the things you mentioned above, you need to stand out from the crowd. Nobody remembers the client who did a standard job, they remember the person who either did an exceptional job or the one who was horrible (don’t let the latter be you).

Do it right and you will receive emails like this, and I can guarantee you, they will remember you. Here is the reply we received from a Disney Executive.

How to pitch to brands

You’ll Get Way More than Just Praise!

Not only did we receive praise from the Disney Parks Social Media Executive, but we also got invited to Disney Creators Days. An exclusive event for top Disney Creators and a few other special Disney events where the participants were major publications like Buzzfeed, People Magazine, and then us, Global Munchkins. Crazy, right?

In addition, when we ran into our contact who thanked us for the report, they made it an effort to introduce to higher-level Disney executives letting them know about our report and how impressed she was with our content. Her exact quote was “If I could clone Mike Mamian I would” Now, obviously my wife pointed out many a reason you wouldn’t want to do such a thing 😉

But the fact that a simple report like that could create such a response, shows you how much brands value reporting and follow up.

My Daughter at Disney Creator Days – Living Her Best Life

Step 2 – What should you include in your report & Which Clients should you create a report?

What to Say?

There is an expression in sales, sell the sizzle, not the steak? The sizzle is the thing that will excite the brand. I remember when fajitas first became popular when I was a kid (I am really dating myself). When the waiter would come out with the fajitas sizzling, everybody in the restaurant would turn to see what was coming out. We pretty much begged our parents for fajitas over burgers or anything else on the menu, all because of the sizzle.

So, what’s the sizzle with your report?

Anything that would make the brand excited! Show them the parts of your campaign that really stood out. It doesn’t always have to be the basics, in fact, one of the items shouldn’t be. You can include things like a popular hashtag your post was trending on. Include the reach of the hashtag.

**For the report below you can see we were the Top Influencer for the Month of July for Universal Orlando, we make it a point to show the brand our successes.

brand reports

*Pro Tip* If you have a brand you really want to impress, find a way to add the product you’re promoting to something that is already performing well. For instance, If we love a resort, we will add them to our Best Spring Break Destinations Post that gets over 200,000 pageviews a year. The resorts love it.

For which Clients should I create a report?

If you can, send it to every client you work with. However, that can be time-consuming and we can’t even keep up with that pace with our crew of 5 at our office. Instead, we look at each campaign and if the client is someone we want to work with over a long period of time, then the answer is yes, create a report

Step 3 – Make the Report 1 Page

This was a mistake when we first created reports. They would be 5 pages long and although they looked lovely, nobody has the time to look through a 5-page report. Keep it simple and to the point. One page is more than enough to make an impact.

Step 4 – Add some images and icons

Global Munchkins One Page (1)

Your report is like an advertisement for your brand. Do you ever look at an ad with a ton of words, nope? Neither will your client.

Include Images from the Campaign
Use Bullet Points or Short Statements to make your point. (Not long sentences/paragraphs)
Add in Icons with stats from Social Media or the Blog
Include other stats that may be associated with the brand
- In the Disney Report, we also let them know about other popular Disney Articles we have written so Disney was aware of our popular blog posts.

Disney Cruise

Step 5 – Send an email with a summary.

The last step is to send off the email. Sometimes this is the hardest part but you won’t regret it. Here is a quick guide to what to do.

Thank the client for the amazing experience
Include a summary of the highlights (the client might be too busy to view the whole report).
Include links to the blog post or Instagram
Make sure to attach the report. PDF is preferable, make sure the file is not too big as large files often become undeliverable.

6. You sent the report what now?

As with pitching, you never know if you are going to get a response. Most of the time you do but sometimes the email gets lost in the mix.

When you do get a response:

If the client loved your report:

Thank them for their kind words and then let them know you would be open to more opportunities with the brand.
Research the brand some more and in about 30-60 days pitch them a new idea or even the possibility of being a brand ambassador

influencer marketing: how to impress brands

Working with my partner in crime

If the client did not respond:

Don’t worry or fret, I would say 30% of clients won’t respond, often because they are busy or just did not get around to it.

We wait about 3 months and then send them updated stats. The reason being is most of the time something has changed in the report:

Blog received more traffic
Pinterest Pin got more views
Blog Post is ranking higher on Google

What if nothing changed?

If nothing changed, we make things happen to create new information. Here are some of the simple things you can do.

Create a new Pinterest Pin
Add the brand’s product to one of your listicle articles
- Like I mentioned earlier, we add some of our favorite travel destinations to our most popular articles like Best Spring Break Destinations or Best Hotel Pools. Then we can tell them their resort is now on a page that received hundreds of thousands of visits a year. Now, it does not have to be that much traffic, any additional traffic is better.
Promote it again on your Instagram stories
Promote it on Facebook and Twitter

All these things can create new data to send over to your client.

Now that you have new data, send an email saying here is your 3-month report or however long it has been since the campaign ran. We did this with Oklahoma City after one year and here is the reply:

How to report to brands

Overall

At the end of the day, you may get another contract from the client and you might not, but overperforming has never hurt us and reports like this seem to only help us acquire additional contracts.

If you have any questions about sending brands reports, feel free to comment below or send me a Direct Message on Instagram

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Knock Brands Socks Off: How we got a Disney Executive to say “Wow, this may be one of the Best Recaps I have ever seen!!!”

March 7, 2020

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“Wow, this may be one of the Best Recaps I have ever seen!!!”