How to Get A Celebrity To Endorse Your Product
It’s one thing to get your Uncle Frank to endorse your product, but it’s far greater to get a famous celebrity to do so. Businesses wonder if it is possible to gain build relationships with celebrities and secure their endorsements. It is quite possible if the business and product align with the particular celebrity’s personal brand. Generally all you need is a photograph of the celebrity using the product, and the glow of their fame will turn into a killer promotion.
Focus on Shared Values
There is no business or product that appeals to every celebrity in the world. When looking for an endorsement, you should always be looking for a relevant celebrity who aligns with your brand values. Start with an inventory of your own values to get really clear about who you are as a brand and which kinds of celebrities would be a great fit.
Find out which charities or events your target celebrities support. This will give you clue about their deeply held values. If the charity or event aligns with your company values, this will help you with your pitch to the celebrity. To know who celebrities support, follow their personal news across the internet, or pay to access a celebrity database that lists favorite charitable causes in the celebrity profiles.
Benefit Celebrity Brand Image
Think about how you can actually benefit them by bolstering their personal brand image. Do your homework and be prepared to tell the celebrity how your product reinforces what they want people to think about them. Spell it out for them how your product or brand will convert new fans or deepen their relationship with current fans. Perhaps you can even make the celebrity want to use your product and get free publicity.
Rising Stars
Don’t only target the world-famous celebrities who are darlings of the national media. Spread your focus to b-list celebrities and rising stars who may not be household names. The market is so segmented with online media that celebrities come in many different forms and sizes. What should concern you is whether or not your target audience might have heard of the celebrity or find them appealing, not if everybody in the country has heard of them before.
Send a Free Gift
It might be a bit forward to send a gift directly to a celebrity’s personal office, but it can work with the right product. A better place to send the gift would be at an event the celebrity is attending. Try to get the celebrity to endorse your product at the event, getting a photograph of the celebrity with your product. Events with celebrities often have something called gifting suites where attendees get a bagful of gifts to sample. And if you’re willing to pay the fees, you can get your product in that bag.
Find out which events your target celebrity will be attending, and make sure they find your wonderful product among the gifting suite bounty. You can usually get a picture of at least one of the celebrities with your gift product, but it might not be the exact celebrity you were targeting. If a celebrity endorsement is the goal and you are not too picky about who it is, a gifting suite can be a great way to get a celebrity endorsement.
PR Firms
Some celebrities are just too difficult to land for product endorsements if you are working alone. Another route is to hire PR companies who already have celebrity relationships and follow their lead in getting your products into the hands of celebrities. Sometimes these PR companies know agents who represent big celebrities and they might be the only realistic chance you have to get your product to them.
Shout Out to Celebrity Fans
Sometimes celebrities just use a product and then share about their experience on social media. Make sure you keep alerts for any mentions of your business and products so you can give a shout out to a celebrity who used your product. If you find that a celebrity used your product, plaster that fact on your own social media accounts even if the celebrity didn’t post it on theirs.
Contact The Celebrity
Once you make up a list of celebrities appropriate for your target audience and product, it’s time to actually make contact with them. You can try the long-shot approach of direct messaging the celebrity on social media, but it is a better idea to contact their representative. Celebrity representatives can be managers, publicists, or agents. They are the people who will actually talk to businesses about opportunities. Check out celebrity booking databases where you can find the contact info of various representatives’ phone numbers for celebrities. There are many different options here; most databases have thousands or tens of thousands of phone numbers and email addresses.