It is pretty much every ammeter blogger's dream to collaborate with the big high street brands; Topshop, H&M, New Look and also Boots. I've found a great way to kind of make that happen as I have received free products from Boots in exchange for an honest review. 

So this is not technically a blogger assignment, Boots do not seek out bloggers and you're not expected to blog or feature the received items. What I'm actually talking about here is being part of Boots' reviewing panel. You simply sign up and wait to be selected. At the moment, Boots are not looking to take on anymore reviewers, but don't be put off. You can register your interest here, which is what I did and I was very quickly contacted after this. There are thousands of products, so Boots need thousands of reviewers, it is definitely worth submitting the form. 

Ok, so say you're in. What happens next? 

Boots sends out a survey every so often (I tend to get one every few weeks) and it usually lands in my junk because, to be quite honest it looks very spammy slash verging on the point of scammy. But it's not! Its the real deal. Click the link and you're taken to a quick survey that assesses if you are right for the product they want to send you. If it is skin care, you'll be asked what skin type you have, what problems you have with your skin etc and it will even ask you what product you'd most like to try. Make sure you are honest, there are no right and wrong answers. They probably have a bunch of products for all skin types and problems, so they want to send them to the right people. 

If you get a survey, you're not guaranteed to receive the item but after about three surveys I got selected - yay! 

Receiving your free product!

You won't get a confirmation or anything, if you've been successful, the item will just appear on your door mat one day. Now, the important thing to point out here is that you receive a completely unbranded bottle with the product inside. You're not to know the brand because it could introduce bias and that's not what Boots wants. So, as you can see it is not brilliant for taking loving blogging pictures and raving about the brand cause you literally don't know yet. You will find out though! 

Depending on what you receive, you'll also receive a set of different instructions. Some require you to use the product every day for two weeks, for example. I received a blemish solution which I had to use every day and complete a survey after one and two weeks to describe the effects. 

Seems a bit of a hass. What are the benefits of doing this?

I'm super busy, with university looming, my bikini business, blogging and other jobs but the surveys don't come every week and they are super quick to fill out, literally a minute or two, there aren't many questions. 

If you specifically have a skin issue but just don't know what to try and don't want to spend money trying 100 different products then this is so great. I have blemishes from spots that will not bugger off, so after trying several brands that are not working, I turned to this in hope Boots could give me something new to try. Even if you're just after some new makeup to try, a bronzer maybe. Boots reviewing team may introduce you to something new. You're also helping things in the long run by leaving honest reviews! For me, it has helped me get better at blogging and realise the importance of writing good reviews too. Once you start receiving products you are more likely to be picked again if you do a timely review. Of course, you can always decline surveys if you're too busy sometimes!

So if you fancy grabbing some free products to test from Boots, don't hesitate to join by clicking the link below:

Become a Boots Reviewing Panel member

(This post is not sponsored by Boots)

Ever wondered why brands don't reply to your requests to work with them? Feeling like you're at a bit of a dead end and not progressing as a blogger? Owning a small business myself,  I've had many collaboration requests and it has made me realise that how someone goes about asking to collab can be off putting to brands. Read on to find out what I've learnt about this, first hand from my own company and how it may help you approach brands better.

1. Just want free stuff? Don't bother.

The absolute golden rule of blogging in general. You should not own a blog or think about starting a blog if you are only in it for the "free stuff". My late Grandad told me many times that there is no such thing in life as getting something for "free". And he's right! Blogging requires a lot of hard work, when you get sent a product, a lot of work needs to go into creating your post in order to please the brand for potential future collaborations and to grow respect as a valued blogger. So there is just no point approaching a brand with this kind of attitude, it won't help you in the long run. And it may be easier to spot this kind of attitude than you may think. From owning Magical Matilda Apparel I can certainly tell when someone just wants a free bikini. The typical message I tend to get that tells me that is usually a one sentence DM, no introduction, just a simple "Hi, I'd love to promote you" or "Are you looking for promoters?" or "Is there any chance of me being a promoter cos' I really love your brand"

I feel it is unprofessional, they haven't shown any passion, not told me of past achievements, what they blog about - nothing. Brands can tell if you're just after a freebie.

2. Send an e-mail, not a effortless DM.

Personally, I don't mind being contacted via DM but some bigger companies might prefer an e-mail.. If a brand has provided an e-mail address contact them via that e-mail address! Yes it takes more work than sending a quick DM on the Instagram app that you're already on, but an e-mail looks oh so much more professional.  Even visit their website to find an e-mail if it is not displayed on their Insta bio. If you actually go to the extra trouble of writing an e-mail, the brand will automatically give you more credit for contacting them in a more professional, serious way. Whilst blogging for many of us is a hobby, working with bloggers is a professional thing to brands, it's marketing, it's work, so you need to respect that. 

3. Use appropriate language and structure.

Following on from above, to get across your professionalism you need to structure your e-mail properly and use appropriate language. While being formal is not necessary (it obviously depends on the brand you are approaching), a clear, grammatically correct e-mail is important. And it doesn't even take that long! I would start off by introducing myself, what I blog about and that I'm interested in working with the brand, like an intro to any letter you write. Maybe think of it like a job application. Next, I'd go on to say why I wanted to work for them, briefly state what I know about their brand, what I value, how this fits in with my blog and my previous experience etc. Do your research!! Again, this doesn't take long if you're serious about working with the brand. I'd sign off politely and provide my links. Simple. But it does mean it whittles out those who know nothing about the brand, therefore are not passionate and simply want the freebie.

4. Be realistic.

Approach brands that are realistically going to promote you. Don't have high expectations and try not to contact every single company you like the look of. You'll get fed up of getting no where and end up sending brief DMs like the example in tip 1. Whilst not everything is about follower count, which I will explain next, you can't expect brands to gift you if you do not have an ideal influence. Everyone has got to start somewhere, and there are brands that will be more than happy to work with bloggers who don't necessarily have thousands and thousands of followers so just keep your requests clean, crisp and professional and a company may see a spark in you. In the mean time, keep growing your blog with your own purchases and content.

5. Don't obsess over followers

I think all of us bloggers from time to time take part in a good old "SFS" and there's nothing wrong with that, it's great to help other's, that's what the blogger community is all about. But I recommend not obsessing over it. It's probably not attractive to brands, especially mine, to see potential promoters constantly engaging in these follower activities, obsessively asking people to like their content or filling their bio with things like their follower count, follower goals, "follow back or I unfollow" etc - it's just not genuine. Why would you want someone to like or comment or follow you when they don't like it, don't leave truthful feedback and are highly unlikely to engage in any of your future content? It's not constructive therefore it will be very difficult for you to honestly know what works and what doesn't for your readers and potential collaborators. Basically, if you want to be taken seriously as a blogger who blogs and shares content just because they love it then you shouldn't be worried about follower count. Be genuine, just let it come naturally. 

Second, whilst it's lovely to do a fellow blogger a favour by offering a follow for a follow, the same idea applies. You're going to fill your follower count with people who don't really care about your content, don't really care about the brands you are promoting and also fill your Instagram feed with content you don't really care about. I don't think it's very attractive seeing equal amounts of followers and following, to a brand. What percentage of that is actually genuine, interested followers? Just something to think about. (Obviously I'm not saying only follow like 1 person!) It's all about having a strong influence, perhaps not the number of followers.

6. Take rejection well.

It can be frustrating and maybe upsetting after writing a well thought out piece offering your services to your favourite clothing line only to be turned down. Take rejection gracefully! I've had many people contact my business and when I reply saying I cannot offer a free product or I'm not looking for promoters I sometimes get a moody "ok" or no reply what so ever. I feel it's such a shame to be like that. A polite "thanks for your response! No problem, maybe in the future, thank you anyway" would be a much better option. Rude rejection makes me feel the asker does not care about my brand and yet again are simply after something for nothing. Replying to turned down collaboration requests in a polite, friendly, positive manner may make brands remember you for future opportunities or at least consider you should you apply again.

7. Remember not every company can gift bloggers.

Again, about taking rejection well. Everyone has got to start somewhere, including businesses. Some may not be in the position to offer complimentary products let alone pay bloggers for promotion. So don't feel angered if a brand cannot gift you free of charge and remember to reply politely like I said above. Like several brands I've come across, I've been happy to offer bloggers with a high influence a complimentary bikini. But for bloggers with a lesser influence, this just is not beneficial for a small business like mine to give away stock for free. Therefore I've come up with an alternative that basically offers certain bloggers with a smaller influence the opportunity to purchase a bikini but at a significant discount. Other companies may offer you something similar. That's a really big deal and still a great opportunity! Don't dismiss the idea completely, think about it. If you love what the brand sells, and would have bought something from them anyway, then you should feel delighted that the company has offered you an item for a discount or whatever it may be?! It is a great way for small businesses to keep going whilst getting some exposure and the newbie blogger gets to count this as valuable experience, build their portfolio and gets to purchase a item they enjoy at a discount! Win win!

8. Follow the brand!!

Oh my, the amount of times I've had people asking to work with my bikini business and they aren't even following it...!!!? It's just an instant, absolute no. How can someone be passionate and love the brand when they aren't even following it to show that support and commitment? Again, this could make a brand suspicious that you're only contacting them to see if they'll give you something for free, if not you're not bothered by their company and simply move onto the next. To make myself even more legit and serious, I won't contact the brand until I've been following them for a while. This allows me to study what they're all about and enjoy their posts in order to send them a really knowledgeable, impressive collaboration request. However sometimes, you fall in love with a brand immediately after discovering them and all you want to do is work with them but just be mindful of the tips I've listed here.

9. Keep your blog fresh.

Be sure to update your blog whenever you can, take good quality photos and post good quality content. When you approach a brand and provide your links, they may very well check you out. It's all about first impressions, if you're blog looks good and contains decent stuff, the brand is more likely to consider you. Add widgets, join blogger sites, add the badges, choose a clean layout that fits your style, use catchy headlines and check spelling. Doing this can not only improve the likeliness of a brand choosing to work with you but can also improve the overall success of your blog in regards to readers.

10. Give the brand a shout out!

If you're really into the company and really want to work with them, what's the harm in giving them a quick shout out? It will get you noticed by the brand and they may also be able to assess what kind of influence you have. It will show you care about them enough to want to share their items with your readers. Smaller businesses especially will notice your efforts. It only takes a few minutes and you need not leave the Instagram post up forever. I think this is just another way to prove your creditability, legitimacy and overall enjoyment of the brand to the company. Loyalty - something that could potentially help you in the long run . 

So this post may seem like I'm having a bit of rant ha-ha! But since owning a business of my own it has opened my eyes to some of the collaboration request mishaps other companies have had to endure. I hope these tips that have bugged me as a brand owner will help any bloggers out there improve their relationship with brands. Some of the tips may seem picky, tiresome and requires a lot of bother but brands are looking for someone to represent everything they speak for so they want someone who knows them well, is reliable, honest, genuine and willing to put a lot of bother into their posts. Like I said, it may just be a hobby to most bloggers but it is part of their business to a brand, they need to find the perfect promoter. If you take just one thing away from this post, take this: don't approach companies just for the free stuff. 

A dream of mine has always been to start my own business. I think it started in my early teens when I started selling some unwanted bits and pieces that belonged to myself and my family for a few extra quid pocket money. I remember getting so excited when I'd get a notification saying one of my items had sold. I still use eBay for this reason today and it still has the same effect! I dabbled with my own business when I began making my own two piece clothing items. Unfortunately it didn't really have time to hit off as I had to go back to university which required all of my attention. So, now I'm super happy to announce I've re-established and re-branded my business to give it another go! And here's how, in case you're thinking of doing similar.

1. What are you going to sell?

Probably the best place to start, think of something you would buy yourself. Whilst there are a lot of items out there that are in high demand, there's not much point selling it if you're not passionate about it. I'm feeling really proud of my business (attempt) because I've created it myself from the name, the finance to the final sale, so it is important I'm selling something I can be proud of and enjoy marketing. 

At first I would recommend choosing only a few products, maybe even one to start off with, for example I've chosen swimwear. As my business (hopefully) gets more successful, I want to get more styles in and expand into other areas of clothing including some handmade, self-designed pieces, such as my two pieces, when I have more time (final uni year problems).

If you can, choose something unique, don't copy anyone else because you are just creating competition for yourself - and what's the fun in being a copy cat? Finally, decide where you are going to source your items or how you are going to make them.



2. Finance.
The boring part. Starting a business is not easy, you can't just order some stuff one day and have it sold over night. Neither can you just dive in, you need to think about branding, copyright (which I will talk more about later) and of course - money. Depending on what you wanna sell, you're gonna need a sizeable chunk of cash to start up. I had to first work out how many bikinis I wanted to buy from my source, what styles, what sizes, how many of each size and what this will all cost. I want my business to be as professional as possible, which unfortunately requires more dollar input. I wanted my bikinis to be housed in a box, which I would decorate and then delivered in a mail bag. Again, I'm really nitty-gritty about sticking to my brand's theme so the mail bags had to be a certain colour, the decorations had to be just so, and so on. All costing £££ extra. I did manage to cut some cost by sizing down on the boxes. 

Still interested? The best way for novices like me to keep track of  spending, or to just experiment with numbers, I think, is Excel. Everyone hated it in school, no one understood it, "I'm going to use this in the future" said no student, ever. But, it's actually been quite helpful and its surprising how quickly I remembered/picked up the basics to create a simple total money-out spend spreadsheet. I won't bore you with the details but I basically kept it organised and simple with a column for my products, their size, price to me, price I'd sell for, postage, blah blah blah and another for all the extra branding items, followed by a grand total. I managed to make the spreadsheet 'work' so if my outcome/income will correspond with how many units I've bought/sold. It's geeky but I find it quite satisfying. 

However, a small business can be done on the cheap by going basic if you're not too fussed about packaging.

3. Create your brand.

This is probably the most important part of building a business. You need to think of some sort of theme and stick to it. So, firstly, a name. It could just be your name, a random word, something that means something to you. I've called mine Magical Matilda Apparel after my dog's Kennel Club/fancy pants show name, Magical Matilda. She is my world and my first ever dog which I begged my parents to get me for years, so she's a pretty special reason to name my business after. Make sure no one else has your business name by a simple Google search or something. Again, make it unique, try not to copy. 

Next I thought of the style I wanted to use, so colours, fonts, patterns etc. I wanted my brand to be girly but modern and sophisticated. For fonts I didn't want it to be too sharp so I went on a hunt for some handwritten fonts online - there are 1000's out there to download for free! Sticking with the handwritten/hand made effect, I went for some watercolour effects to tie the whole thing together. It's important not to use anything online, such as a picture or pattern, without permission. I don't know the laws on this kind of thing, but it's best to just avoid any copyright sticky situations and make your own stuff, just in case. Obviously if there is a pre-set available to download saying "take this for your own use" or something, then yeah you can use it. But it's nice to make your own patterns and drawings from scratch! 

I recommend using Pinterest to search for ideas, if you follow me using the link on the left hand side you can see some of the inspiration I pinned for reference. It was also helpful to create a brand mood board thingy, where you can create ever element of your brand in one document so you can see if it all looks good together, like the fonts, colours, patterns etc.

4. The logo.
The logo doesn't need to be a picture, it could just be your brand name in some kind of fancy font and arrangement but as my biz name is "Magical Matilda", I wanted some magical element to go with it. So I chose a unicorn! I couldn't just steal any old image from Pinterest, I had to create my own using a free design program GIMP. It's like Photoshop but less advanced. I got several images of unicorns together, used ideas from each of them to digitally draw my own unicorn from scratch. Its really simple, identifiable and says what I want my brand to tell people. I also created a sublogo from my main logo. This is kind of like a watermark and handy to put on smaller products. 

5. Copyright.
I'm no expert in this field, I'm not 100% about the rules, laws and regulations but all I know is don't use anyone else's name, branding, logo, picture, font, emblem, whatever without permission. Same goes for products, it's illegal to sell fakes and with replicas... I'm not too sure, it's a really grey area from what I can understand and I do law! I'd just do your research and steer clear, be original. I've seen several other companies using certain character images on their products and selling items as "copies" of the designer brand and...meh... I'm not going to say anything but I would not do this! Just be careful out der.


6. Packaging!
I've already touched on this briefly, I love nothing more than receiving something new and it's in cute packaging! The whole point of me forking out extra for the boxes is because I want the customer to feel they can keep their product inside the box or use it for something else cause it is just so God damn pretty! I've made some stickers with my logo on to paste onto the box, along with some colourful adhesive film from craft stores and other iddy biddy little accents I have in my art box at home that are inkeeping with my brand. I don't mind each box being slightly different, as long as they all have the same theme. You can get some pretty cheap bits and bobs to use as decoration such as wrapping paper, printable sticker paper and self adhesive film. Try Wilko. 


7. Taking photographs of your products
You should aim to make your products look as beautiful as possible. I used a plain backdrop to make the item stand out and cleared the background from any clutter. I used some self-adhesive film in a marble effect, it's really handy to roll out quickly whenever you need to take a few snaps. I used a proper camera to take the photos, too, not just a phone so the images can be good quality to look as profession as possible. I've also slightly edited them by making the background whiter and a few brightness/saturation adjustments but nothing too much so the product looks unrealistic. 

Wilko Marble Self Adhesive Film £5

8. Advertising, selling and social media
There are so many platforms to sell goods these days, from eBay and Etsy to your own website or a simple PayPal transaction. I'm going to pay out for a nice website platform once I'm up and running as I feel this is the ultimate professional element to a business! If using a selling site, the site takes some commission when your item has sold so it is important to think about that extra cost too. 

The best way to get yourself noticed is marketing, which is why I'm putting so much time and money into the look of my brand as I want people to stop and feel interested by it. I have created an Instagram for my business (@magicalmatildaapparel) before it is launched to get some form of following and interest while I'm adding finishing touches. Luckily I have a blog Instagram with a reasonable follower count where I can 'shout out' my business page to get it noticed that way. Hashtags are also my friend for that same reason. I'm also thinking of creating other social media pages like Facebook to ask my FaceyB friends and fam to join and share. I think it's good to get these accounts set up before you're ready to launch, or else you're just gonna be sat there twiddling your thumbs, all your products ready to go, just waiting for your first order to come through! Its fun to keep people waiting a little bit, bring about an element of excitement and WOW IT'S LAUNCHED when it finally does... No? Lol. 

SOOO, those are my very unprofessional tips for starting a small business! If you understand non of these jibberish ramblings I've just been blabbing about at 1am,  just try to comprehend that it's basically best not to copy! I should probably mention that tip 9. would be to have fun with it too - it's not all doom and gloom, surprisingly.