How to get stuff for free

How to get stuff for free….one of the many questions that I’m asked on a regular basis is this, ‘how can I get stuff for free like you do?’ To be totally honest with you, it’s a question that gets my back up for many reasons. For one, it seems to devalue the products that I am actually lucky enough to receive complimentary, and for two, I don’t get products for free per se. The products I receive are almost a trade off, if you will, in return for a review, social media promotion and a boost to the companies advertising.

One of the things that you may not know is that I’ve blogged on and off for ten years. That’s ten years of building up a solid reputation, relationships with PR companies and brands, and ten years of refining my writing style and building my business up slowly into what it is today. And believe me, I’ve only scratched the surface of what I want to achieve.

Working with brands and receiving products came along as a result of careful blogging, content and online PR knowledge and working extremely hard to please my readers, the agencies and brands I’m affiliated with, and also, myself.

‘Getting stuff for free’ really isn’t as it seems. Let me tell you about the process…

The outreach
First of all, a brand or the companies I’m affiliated with might send me an email to ask if I’m interested in reviewing a product. Rates or products will be discussed back and forth until we come to an agreement.

The delivery
The minute a new product lands through my door, the agency receives an email of thanks, the packaging is photographed, the contents are photographed and the products are put to the test.

The review
The length of the review period depends entirely on the product – skincare products may take weeks to test as I need to see the long-term affect on my skin, whereas makeup products may take days to review. All products are carefully tried, re-tried and tested alongside other products to see how they perform, the longevity, and the results Background facts are checked about the brand itself, and the ingredients are researched and scrutinised.

The social side
Next is the social media side – the images are posted on instagram, snapchat, twitter and facebook as a teaser and pre-requisite to the upcoming review. After the initial images are posted out, the actual writing or filming (or both) process takes place. This might be an unboxing video being filmed for YouTube which means the setting up of the equipment and work area, preparing myself, filming and then finally downloading the files, editing and uploading them to YouTube. Or it might be a blog post – more images are taken, carefully constructed written work is crafted, then comes the editing and re-drafting, then, eventually, the post is published.

Promotion
After all of that, the social media sharing and promotion begins again to promote the post or video. This can even continue for weeks after the post is published, as older posts are re-shared to keep up the hype about the aforementioned product.

As you can see from the lengthy process, getting products for free doesn’t just stop as soon as they fall through your door. It’s actually a whole scheme of work designed to help bloggers and brands build a relationship while promoting a whole host of amazing products so that others can try them too. Having the luxury of being sent freebies comes with time, commitment and a lot of hard work consistently. I’m thankful for any brands that I’ve worked with in the past and love the opportunity to share these gorgeous beauty discoveries with you all!

© This post is copyright of Rachael Divers 2016.