He wrote to a camera equipment company saying he made travel content and was interested in working together. Two days later they replied with one line: "send us your media kit." He sat looking at it. He had not known such a thing existed, nor what went in it, nor what it looked like.
So he wrote a message saying he had fourteen thousand subscribers, what his videos averaged, and that he was ready to collaborate. Nothing came back.
The problem was not that his channel was small. The problem was that he answered a question they had not asked.
A media kit is not a CV and not a display of numbers
The name misleads. Whoever reads your kit is not a fan of yours and does not want to know your journey. They are a marketing employee who has to convince a manager to release a budget, and they need three things from you to be able to do that:
- Who watches you? Not how many, but who. What kind of people they are, what matters to them, where they live.
- What do you make? The shape and standard of the work, with visual proof.
- How do they work with you? What formats are available, what you need from them, and how the conversation starts.
Every line in your kit should serve one of those three questions. Anything that does not, delete.
One page, in this order
A good kit is one page or two, not five. And the order matters, because the reader reads the first part and skims the rest.
1. One line saying what you make and for whom. For example: "I make short travel films about handmade crafts in the Arab world, for an audience that watches because they love these places and want to visit them." That line is the most important thing in the whole kit.
2. Your audience in three lines. Which countries they are in, which ages, and anything that distinguishes them. If most of your views come from three countries, write them down, because that alone may be the reason you are accepted or refused.
3. Your work: three links, not ten. Pick three pieces that represent what you make at its best, and give each a line explaining why it is there. A company selling audio gear wants to see a video whose sound is good, not your most-viewed video.
4. The numbers that matter, without exaggeration. Its own section is below.
5. What you have done with other brands. If you have previous work, name it, name the format, and give a line on the result. If you do not, the next section handles that.
6. Collaboration formats. An integrated segment in a video, a full dedicated video, a series, appearing in short-form, attending an event. Write what you actually accept, and it will save you conversations that never end.
7. The contact line. One email and one name. Do not list three ways to reach you, because it makes the reader hesitate.
Which numbers to include and which to leave out
The subscriber count on its own is the worst number to build a kit on, because it says nothing to a person making a decision. What does say something:
- Average views in the first thirty days across your recent videos, not the highest video in your history.
- Your top three countries by view share.
- Age and gender split, if it is distinctive.
- The share of viewers who finish the video, if it is in your favour.
- Average view duration, the number marketers read fastest.
And one rule you never break: do not state a number you cannot open the analytics panel and prove. An inflated number is exposed in the first report after publication, and it ends the relationship permanently.
And if you have not reached the stage of thinking about money at all, the article that settles it is when should you start thinking about making money from your channel.
A small channel: what do you write with no big numbers?
This is the majority case, and it has a practical answer: instead of size, offer specificity.
A channel with three thousand subscribers who all care about one narrow thing is more useful to a brand selling that thing than a channel with a hundred thousand scattered ones. So write it plainly: "my audience is small and specific: beginner filmmakers buying their first camera, and I take their questions in every video."
Then add what numbers do not measure: that you deliver on time, that you write the script yourself, that you shoot and edit alone so no crew is needed. Those are things small companies actually buy.
What never goes in a media kit
- A screenshot of your analytics with no explanation.
- A list of every video you have ever made.
- Talk about how much you love filming and your journey with the camera.
- Logos of brands you have not actually worked with, even if you use their products.
- A price built on nothing, which has its own section below.
- Low-quality images or fonts with no clear licence.
Prices: do they go in the kit?
Do not put a fixed price in a document you send to everybody, because the work varies with the format, the rights and the usage period. But do not walk into the conversation with no figure in your head either.
The practical middle: state in the kit that pricing depends on format and usage period, and ask them to name their budget or its range. By the time the conversation reaches a number, you will have actually worked out your costs.
And whatever you agree, put it in writing before you shoot a single frame. The six items you cannot leave out are in what to agree on before you film any paid job.
How to send it
An attached PDF. Not an image, not a file that needs a login, not a link to a service that may be blocked on their side. And the filename should say who you are: "yourname-media-kit-2026.pdf".
A short message in the body. The kit is attached, but the message is what decides whether anyone opens it.
To a person, not a general inbox. Find the name of whoever handles marketing or content at that company. A message addressed to a name gets opened far more often than one sent to a general address.
A first-contact template
Subject: Possible collaboration: [content type] for an audience of [audience]
Hello [name],
I am [your name], I make [content type] on [platform] for an audience of
[audience in half a line].
I noticed that [something specific about the company or its product that shows
you actually know it], and I think there is an overlap with what I make.
I have a specific idea: [the idea in two lines, not "whatever suits you"].
Attached is a media kit with my audience, three pieces of work and the formats
I offer. Happy to have a short conversation if it is worth one.
[name] · [email] · [channel link]
The line that makes the difference is the specific idea. A message saying "whatever collaboration suits you" hands the work to them, and nobody does work on your behalf.
Once they reply
If they agree, move straight to writing it down: the format, the deadline, the number of revision rounds, the rights, the duration, and the price. And if the work is a sponsored segment inside a video, how to write it without losing your audience is the subject of writing a sponsored segment.
If they do not reply, do not call the message a failure after a week. Send one short reminder after ten days, then leave it. Most silence is a budget that has not opened yet, and they may open it next quarter and come back to your message.
Update the kit every three months
A kit with year-old numbers hurts you. Make updating it an item in your regular review: the new numbers, three more recent pieces, and any brand you have worked with. Ten minutes every three months is enough, and it means you are ready on the day somebody actually asks for the kit.