Sponsorship

[mermaid.duniya]

So I wanted to know how sponsorship works is it like where you go and ask some "hey I wanna review your product will ya give it to me for free" Cause I can't afford a tail and it's expensive cause I live in India so... Do you know if anyone is going to give a tail for me to review??? I know this is complicated!!! [emoji23]

[Iryna]

Imagine you are a business owner and your company makes mermaid tails. You choose to promote your products by sending it to someone for a review: video, blog, instagram.

Now who would you want to review it? Someone who has 50 subscribers or 5000? Definitely 5000 and you'd want all of those people be interested in mermaid tails. Why? So you can get orders. That's the main reason of advertisement is to create more business for the company.
And I'm talking about cheap fabric tails. No company would do such type of promotion with a $1000 dollar product unless you have millions of subscribers.

Now you can answer your question.

Since you're in India you can try to think outside the box and find a way to make money. For example find suppliers of unique shell sequins other that Victor and Whatever manufacturer. Find a way to sell them to America.
Or find some cheap fabrics and make your own tail, take pictures of it and sell it on Etsy.

Sky is the limit and the only thing that stops you is you.

[Marlin]

@duniya- Typically most of the bigger companies: Merbellas, Finfolk, Mernation, Mertailor, etc. already have such good word of mouth that advertisement within the community is unnecessary. Most are so back-logged with orders that they don't really need to gain more business, as they are already on year-long or longer wait lists.

Some of the new ones that are being formed usually don't work on "Hey I'll give you a free one for the advertisement." I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm saying it's rare and typically frowned upon to ask about. If you are lucky enough to have a decent rapport with someone looking to start making tails, sometimes you can get one of their first "prototype models" at cost. That is about the best deal you can expect.

[Miyu]

Like Marlin said, most of the time when you get a "tester" tail it's a prototype from a new tailmaker and you generally are still expected to cover cost of materials + shipping (speaking from experience, I am also broke and was looking to get a prototype tail from a few of my friends here who are tailmakers but can't I afford even the cost of materials at the moment LOL).

I ended up making my own first tail (here's the construction thread (http://mernetwork.com/index/showthread.php?6933-Miyu-s-POTC-inspired-fabric-tail)) out of some spandex dance material that was in a discount bin at my local Joann's fabric store. The fluke was originally made out of cheap organza but I am currently replacing the fluke with a sturdier sheer curtain fabric (cheap curtains from WalMart) as my first week of mermaid practice the small pool totally chewed up the (apparently) delicate fluke fabric. EVEN THOUGH IT'S A FABRIC TAIL, I still get compliments on it all the time, as I took the time to make it fairly realistic. If you find your current fabric tail isn't realistic enough for you, try making your own tail skin - it's a very rewarding experience ;)

[Mermaid Alea]

@duniya- Typically most of the bigger companies: Merbellas, Finfolk, Mernation, Mertailor, etc. already have such good word of mouth that advertisement within the community is unnecessary. Most are so back-logged with orders that they don't really need to gain more business, as they are already on year-long or longer wait lists.

Some of the new ones that are being formed usually don't work on "Hey I'll give you a free one for the advertisement." I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm saying it's rare and typically frowned upon to ask about. If you are lucky enough to have a decent rapport with someone looking to start making tails, sometimes you can get one of their first "prototype models" at cost. That is about the best deal you can expect.

Very well said. This is what I was trying to explain to my Mom. I was excitedly telling her about Finfolk's Mythic tails and somehow she got onto the topic of sponsorship and how a new tail line like that would need promoting. I shook my head and tried to explain how Finfolk is a widely known company and they already have promoting covered. My Mom's idea of trying to get sponsored by them was cool and it was fun to think 'what if' but unfortunately it isn't like that. Tailmakers are well promoted for FREE here on Mernetwork. Heck, I don't own a tail made by a tailmaker but even I probably help add to promoting them by posting on the topics saying I love the look of their tails. People are constantly posting photos of themselves in their tail made by ____ tail maker and people usually credit their tailmaker with every photo posted. Many of those photos by the way are taken by a good photographer so the photos are of high quality - great for promoting. Customers show unboxing videos, they write reviews, they just generally freely promote tailmakers on here and elsewhere. Also as Marlin said most tailmakers have wait lists so honestly they don't have much of a reason to sponsor someone. I know for me, I am a nobody in the mer world lol. So a tailmaker would be like, "Why do I want to sponsor a mermaid no one really knows or follows, who has zero experience swimming in a silicone tail, performing professionally, has no real training, etc when I could sponsor a mer already well known with all of those qualifications."

What you might want to do though is talk with someone like Mermaid Hyli and maybe they would tell you how they got to the point where they were modeling tailmaker's creations. Raina's books might help too. I don't know if you will necessarily get a free tail but it would be fun to get to model tails and perhaps go to neat locations for photoshoots.

[AniaR]

I think I told you about my book before but in my third one I have a detailed step by step guide to making a sponsorship package to send out.

I do sponsorship work with my company, and also doing it for the Mermania convention :) They're both slightly different but I've had great results!