How to pitch a brand on Instagram DM

To pitch a brand on Instagram, send one short message that says who you are, why you picked this brand, one specific idea, and one easy question to answer. Wait about a week, follow up once with something new, then stop. Most pitches get no reply, and that is normal, so the work lies in choosing brands your audience really fits and making the message easy to say yes to. If the brand lists a partnerships email in its bio or on its website, use that first and keep the DM as the backup.

This guide covers who to contact, what to write, when to follow up and what to avoid. It is written for creators in India, small ones included. Nothing here promises a deal. Brands choose creators for their own reasons, and a small account should expect plenty of silence at first.

A good pitch starts with a good match, and there are three places to find one. First, brands you already use. You can speak about them honestly, and your followers will believe you. Second, brands your audience already asks about: scroll your comments and DMs for questions such as “where is that bag from?” Third, local businesses in your city, such as a café, a studio, a bookshop or a salon, which often decide quickly because the owner reads the DMs.

To find brands that already pay creators, open a brand’s tagged posts and look for creator content that carries a paid partnership label. ASCI’s influencer guidelines list the “Paid Partnership” tag on Instagram among the accepted disclosure labels, so a tagged post with that label is a sign that the brand has worked with creators before. Instagram’s Help Center also describes Meta Creator Marketplace as a way to connect with brands. It asks for a professional, public account, age 18 or over and at least 1,000 followers, and is available in all countries where Meta advertising operates except Crimea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Russia. The page warns that the feature may not be available to you yet, so check your own professional dashboard.

Skip brands whose claims you could not stand behind. ASCI advises influencers to satisfy themselves that an advertiser can substantiate the claims in the advertisement. If you would not use the product, or a skincare brand promises results you cannot check, say no before you pitch. Your trust with your audience is worth more than one fee.

Keep a simple sheet with the brand, the product you would feature, the contact route, the date you pitched and the reply. It stops you pitching the same brand twice by accident, and it tells you after a month which kind of brand answers you.

The right person depends on the size of the brand, and the DM inbox is often the wrong door.

• Small and local brands: the owner or one social media person usually reads the DMs. Message the account and ask who looks after collaborations.
• Larger brands: partnerships are usually handled by a marketing team, an agency or a PR firm, and they usually prefer email. Look in the bio, the website footer or a “collaborations” page for the address they want used.
• Brands that say how to reach them: do what they say. If the bio reads “collabs: email us”, a DM is a worse route, not a shortcut.
• Not sure: send a one-line message asking where a partnership idea should go. It takes them seconds to answer, and it shows you respect their process.

A note on how the DM arrives. Instagram’s Help Center says messages from people an account follows appear in its Chats list, while other people’s messages are requests: the account chooses whether they go to its Message Requests folder or are not received at all, and a request must be accepted before it appears in Chats. A busy brand team may never open that folder. Test it yourself by sending a message from one of your accounts to a friend who does not follow you, and see what they see. If a brand lists an email, that is the better route, because an email stays in an inbox and can carry a media kit.

Four parts, in this order, in roughly sixty to ninety words.

1. Who you are, in one line: your name, what you make and who watches. Say where your audience lives if it matters to the brand.
2. Why this brand: one true, specific reason, such as a product you have used or a question your followers keep asking.
3. One idea: describe the piece in a sentence, for example the format, the setting and the point of it. One idea they can picture beats a list of services.
4. One easy question: “Can I send a one-page outline?” or “Is there an email you prefer?” A yes-or-no question is much easier to answer than “let me know your thoughts”.

Here is an example, with placeholders in braces. “Hi {brand} team, I’m {name}. I make budget cooking Reels in Hindi for people cooking for the first time, and most of my viewers are in {city}. I’ve used your {product} for a month and my comments keep asking about it. I’d like to make a Reel on {idea}. Can I send a one-page outline here, or is there an email you prefer?” Change every detail so that it is true of you.

Our collaboration DM templates page has twelve ready-to-edit versions, including follow-ups and replies. Use them as a starting shape, then write in your own words, because brands recognise copy-paste within a line.

What to leave out of the first message

• Your rates. A price makes no sense until you know what they want made. Our guide to charging for a sponsored Reel covers how to work one out once they reply.
• A long biography or a wall of numbers. Offer the media kit when they answer.
• Claims you cannot show. A brand may ask for a screenshot of your audience insights, so give honest figures.
• “Collab?” on its own. It gives them nothing to say yes to.

No official rule says when to follow up, and I found no reliable data on the best gap, so treat the timings in the table above as a sensible habit rather than a fact. A week gives a busy team time to open the message. Three weeks is long enough that a gentle last line will not feel pushy.

The follow-up should add something. “Just checking in” three times is noise. Try a real update: your Reel about a similar product reached more saves than usual, a festival or season is coming up that suits the idea, or you can send the idea by email if the DM is easier to miss. After the second message, stop. Do not write from a second account, and do not comment on their posts to get noticed.

A quiet brand is not a no. Budgets, seasons and staff change. If you have a new reason after two or three months, such as a better result or a product launch on their side, write once more. A clear “no, thank you” deserves a polite thank-you and nothing else.

1. Ask for the brief, the dates and the budget before you name a price. A fee follows what is being asked for.
2. Send your media kit as a link. Our guide to making a media kit shows what to put in it.
3. Suggest a package in writing: how many pieces, which formats, how many rounds of changes, where and for how long the brand may reuse them.
4. Settle the payment terms before you film: the amount, who pays what, and the date. Our guide to influencer contracts lists what to check.
5. Agree how the post will be labelled. ASCI treats free products, discounts and gifts as a material connection, and its guidelines put the duty to make the disclosure on the influencer, with the advertiser responsible for the content being within the code. A brand that asks you to skip the label is asking you to break them.

Tip: If the first offer is only a free product, decide your own rule in advance. Some creators accept gifts they would buy anyway, and some do not. A gifted post still needs a label under ASCI’s guidelines.

• Do not send the same message to fifty brands, or use a tool that promises to DM hundreds of them. Meta’s messaging rules for businesses are built around replying to people within a window, usually 24 hours after their message, not around cold outreach. Any tool that asks for your Instagram password also puts your account at risk.
• Do not inflate your numbers or buy followers. Brands can spot a large following with almost no engagement, and bought followers break Instagram’s rules.
• Do not pitch someone else’s work as yours, or promise results such as sales that you cannot control.
• Do not tag a brand in unrelated posts or spam their comments hoping for attention.
• Do not argue with a refusal, and do not start filming before the terms are agreed.

DMFast is our product, so weigh this section accordingly. It cannot send a pitch for you, because it replies to people who have already commented or messaged you first, and Meta’s official tools let a business message someone only after that person has contacted it. What it can do is answer the other direction. Once brands know your account, a DM keyword such as RATES can send a short reply you wrote, and replies to Story mentions can thank a brand that tags you. It works with Instagram professional accounts and Facebook Pages, not with WhatsApp.

• A list of ten brands, each with a true reason for the match.
• The contact route the brand prefers, email first when it exists.
• A first message under ninety words with one idea and one question.
• A media kit ready to share, but not attached.
• A date in your sheet for one follow-up, and a rule that you will stop after it.
• Your own policy on free products, and a plan to label every paid or gifted post.