If you are a freelance creative, you will, at some point, need to send a prospective client your media kit — or a press kit — to best represent your work. You have your portfolio and website, but how does a media kit fit in? A media kit an important branding item and is crucial to freelancers, influencers, and creatives, and their ability to close on projects. It’s a digital portfolio (typically a PDF file) that tells a client everything they need to know about potentially working with you, and why they should choose you for a project or campaign.
A media kit is a lot like a resume, and many of the same rules apply. Your media kit needs to be concise, free from spelling and grammatical errors, and capture the reader’s attention immediately. Otherwise, you may be overlooked. It has to stand out and show who you are as a person, while still sharing all information that is essential in a client’s decision to hire you.
Now, let’s break down the essential items and sections needed in a professional media kit. It might be overwhelming at first, but these ideas can help spark your own, unique media kit design.
About You
In this section, write a short paragraph that shares and explains the 5 Ws and 1 H to your client: who, what, when, where, why, and how. Make it short and sweet.
- Who you are
- What you focus on as a photographer, videographer, influencer, or freelancer (explain your type or types of photography)
- Where you’re located
- When you got started and How long you’ve been in your field as a professional
- Why they should consider working with you (awards you’ve received, or a short summary of your top clients or projects)
In the “About You” section, it’s easy to focus on the “why” too much, but remember: your social media insights, client list, and portfolio sections will help strengthen this argument. Only include information that will add value to your pitch.
Services Offered
This section is incredibly important, because it gives a concise and clear list of services you offer to clients. It also makes you really think about what you want to focus on for the future, especially if you are just starting out.
It’s easy to start out doing everything, trying to provide every creative service under the sun. But it’s important to be honest with yourself, your abilities, and current resources. Then, create a concise list of creative services you can provide to clients on a daily or weekly basis.
Whether that list is focused on photography, videography, social media promotion, writing, or graphic design, figure out your unique set of services you offer and do really well. Use that as a foundation moving forward. It’s better to do a few things well, than try to do everything, and do them all partly.
Past and Present Clients
This is another important section, and really adds value to “why” clients would hire you. Try to make this section stand out visually. Include company or client logos instead of just writing them in a bulleted list. Put your most successful or important brand partnerships at the top, and show them off. Prospective clients will notice these things, so make this section stand out on your media kit.
Portfolio
This section is especially important if you’re a photographer or videographer. We all have photos or videos we are most proud of, so this your opportunity to show them off.
If you’re a photographer, put your top three to five photos in a vertical or horizontal image grid on the top, bottom, left, or right of your media kit. If you’re a videographer, have a grid of image thumbnails from your top films or videos, with a small call to action like, “watch here”, and hyperlink those thumbnails to a YouTube or Vimeo account. This way, your clients can watch your best work easily.
Again, keep this portfolio section short and sweet. Only include your top pieces of work, and make it easy for clients to view or watch further. This will help show your level of quality, which will speak to “why” a brand will hire you.
Contact Information and/or Social Media Platforms
This section is important, because it’s the intersection for communication. Include everything from your email, phone number, website or online portfolio, and all social media platforms you believe add value to your brand, and that the client would be interested in.
And if you add anything to this section, hyperlink it. Make it easy for clients to discover more of your work, platforms, or pages. All that does is add value to your media kit, and strengthens your pitch. Make this section of your media kit an easy place for clients to continue reading. Give them the chance to explore who you are and what you offer to them, through your linked pages.
Social Media or Blog Insights and Demographics
Finally, if part of your creative business includes social media or blog promotion, brands are going to want to see the numbers behind your pages. This will help them determine if your insights, engagement, and demographics are authentic, strong, and in line with their marketing requirements.
Now, there is an overwhelming amount of information that you can share, but the most important are as follows:
- Your follower count for all pages you promote on
- Demographics like age, gender, and follower/subscriber/reader locations
- Insights like daily, weekly, and monthly blog or page visits, split between unique or new visitors and current subscribers, followers, or readers
- Engagement numbers like average engagement rate, average views, reach, or impressions for videos, posts, and stories, and total reach and impressions per week or per month
Again, the engagement numbers you share will vary slightly per platform, but the most significant are:
- How many people see your content (Reach)
- How they interact with your content, or if they interact at all (Impressions like likes, comments, saves, shares)
If you can share that in a simple and effective way, along with your follower count and demographics, that will really help strengthen your media kit, show your value, and close on a social media partnership.
Feature photo by Nathan Lee Allen
