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The Brand Brief / Media Kits
What a brand manager actually sees when they open a creator’s media kit.
Not what most creators think. The format tells you something before the numbers do. And almost nobody includes the one piece of information that brands need most — and filter on first.
What brand managers look for in an influencer media kit is something I have watched from both sides of the table for a long time, and what I know is that the document most creators send is answering questions the brand is not asking while ignoring the question that ends the conversation fastest. Media kits are extremely important — and just the format alone tells you something about the creator’s ability to create before you read a single number. The thing that is almost always missing is location. And brands are often looking for regional deals.
Most creators think about their media kit as a statistics document. Here is my follower count. Here is my engagement rate. Here are some screenshots from my best-performing posts. That is not wrong exactly — those things belong in the kit. But the brand manager opening that document is running through a mental checklist that starts before the numbers, and ends on a data point that is almost never there.
The first thing a brand manager registers is the quality of the document itself. A media kit that looks rushed, templated, or clearly built in a free tool with stock layouts tells the brand something before they have read a word. It tells them that the creator did not think this document was worth investing real time in. And if the creator does not invest real time in presenting themselves to the people who can grow their business, what does that say about the investment they make in the brand’s content?
The first audition most creators do not realize they are giving
The Media Kit as Creative Audition
A media kit is not a resume. It is a creative audition. Our brand management team reviews creator media kits before they go to any brand — and a bad format stops the process before it starts. The brand is not just reading statistics — they are forming an impression of what it would be like to work with this person. Does the design reflect care? Does the layout make the important information easy to find? Does the document feel like something the creator actually made, or like they downloaded a template and filled in the blanks? A bad media kit is a hard no from us before it ever leaves our office. It means the creator was not willing to put enough time into creating for the people who can actually grow their business. That is a signal we take seriously.
The format of the media kit tells you something about the creator’s ability to create before you read a single number.
The thing almost nobody includes
After format, the filter that ends more media kit conversations than anything else is one most creators never think to include: location. Not where the creator lives. Where their audience lives.
Brands running regional campaigns — a restaurant group, a regional retailer, a product that ships only domestically, a service that operates in specific markets — need to know the geography of a creator’s audience before they can evaluate the creator at all. It is the first filter they apply. And when a media kit does not include it, the brand has to ask — which adds friction — or has to assume, which often means they move on to a creator whose kit answered the question proactively.
The missing filter.
Audience location is the most commonly requested and least commonly provided piece of information in a creator media kit. Brands running regional campaigns apply it as their first filter. Creators who include it proactively remove a barrier that would otherwise end the conversation before it started. (Searchlight Social, on what brand managers look for in creator media kits.)
A creator in Los Angeles with a following that is seventy percent based in the United States — a pattern the Influencer Marketing Hub’s annual benchmarks confirm is the primary filter brands apply before any other evaluation — and forty percent concentrated in California is a different proposition than a creator with the same follower count whose audience is globally distributed. The brand running a regional activation needs the first creator. They may not know to ask about the second one’s geography until after they have already moved past them.
The media kits we build for our clients through our influencer marketing consulting practice include audience geography as a primary data point — not buried in an appendix, but prominently featured alongside engagement and average views. It answers the regional question before it becomes a barrier. And it signals to the brand that the creator and their management team understand what brands actually need — not just what looks impressive in a pitch document.
Frequently asked questions
What should an influencer include in their media kit?
At minimum: audience size across platforms, average reel or video views over the last 90 days, engagement rate, audience demographics including age and gender breakdown, and — critically — location. Most creators include everything except location, which is often the first filter a brand applies for regional campaigns. Past brand partnerships, content samples, and a rate card round out a complete kit. The format itself matters too: a media kit that is well-designed and easy to navigate signals that the creator takes their business seriously.
What do brand managers actually look at in a creator media kit?
The format first, the numbers second. A media kit that looks rushed, templated, or clearly not designed is a signal about the creator’s approach to their work before a single number is read. After format, brand managers look at average performance — not peak performance — and audience location. Follower count is checked but rarely the deciding factor. What closes deals is evidence of real engagement in the right geography with the right audience profile.
Why do creators lose brand deals because of their media kit?
Usually for one of three reasons. The kit looks like it was put together in an hour — which signals to the brand that the creator does not treat pitching as seriously as creating. The numbers presented are peak performance rather than typical performance — which erodes trust when the campaign results do not match. Or the kit is missing location data entirely — which causes the brand to assume the audience is not in the geography they need, even when it is.
Should a creator’s location be in their media kit?
Yes, and so should the audience’s location breakdown. Brands running regional campaigns — a restaurant chain, a local service, a product that ships only domestically — need to know where the creator’s audience actually lives before anything else. This information is almost never in the media kit. Creators think of location as where they are, not where their audience is. Brands need both. Including audience geography proactively removes a filter that would otherwise eliminate the creator before the conversation even starts.
What does a bad influencer media kit signal to a brand?
That the creator was not willing to put enough time into creating for the people who can actually grow their business. A media kit that is rushed, templated, or visually inconsistent suggests the creator applies the same level of effort to everything that is not their content. For a brand that is about to trust that creator to represent them, that is a meaningful signal. The media kit is the first creative audition — and a bad one ends the conversation before it begins.
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