How to Get Celebrity Endorsements: Three Crucial Steps

Do you know you can get celebrity endorsements without paying the celebrities a cent? It's true. What you’re going to create is the perception of a celebrity endorsement. Here are the first few steps to getting your product or service into the hands of A-list celebrities.

1. Create an Info File. Information gathering is only effective if it's organized. It can be easy to forget who likes what if you have 20 names on your list. For instance, you discover on a certain day Lisa Rinna likes animal prints, but you could easily confuse her with another star unless you note this information down.

To keep track of your stars' hobbies, professional contacts, and preferences, keep an info file on each celebrity. Make a folder for each celebrity you send gifts to. Keep track of their preferences and what you send them. It's a good idea to include a section for their managers, publicists, and agents. These people are your lifeline to the stars; it usually pays to send them a little gift too.

2. Create a notice-worthy gift package. If you want to get celebrity endorsements, do not rely purely on your product. While it's true the items you send will do a lot of talking for you, it is not the only thing that does. It's easy and thus tempting to simply ship your products to celebrities' publicists, with a quick note that you think their stars would like it. However, this will only ensure your product gets ignored.

Your package has to be both memorable and professional. Otherwise, it will only end up in the gaping black hole that ignored celebrity gifts get thrown into.

How much information should you include in your package? Draw the line between too much and too little. Along with your items, include a single-page company profile, a short but polite personal note, and a catalog or visual which shows your latest merchandise or talks about your service. Also, make it easy for them to get in touch with you should they need to. Put two business cards (one for the celebrity and the other for their representative) at the bottom and at the top of the package so that your contact details are easily visible.

3. Wait for feedback. Sometimes, you can get celebrity endorsements in the form of a thank you note or phone call in as little as a week after you send your package. Other times, you will not hear back from them, but you might see a celebrity photographed using the yoga mat you sent her, for example. So, while you wait for feedback, do more research. Peruse celebrity websites for photos of the stars you sent presents to. You just might just come across a goldmine!

Of course, these are only a few of the steps that you need to follow to get celebrity endorsements without offering anyone a multimillion dollar contract. You want to make sure that you have done your research, are sending gifts to celebrities who are an appropriate fit for your product or service and creating wow-worthy packages that will get you noticed.