The Event Email Reply That Started MAKING Me Money
A simple reply template that's helped me turn unpaid PR invites into paid creator work - and why every creator should stop treating event invitations as automatic opportunities.
For the first few months of being a full-time creator, I said yes to almost every PR invite.
As a newbie in the space, it was important that I built relationships - both with brands and with other creators, to be visible and taken seriously, to network and on top of that…I simply felt lucky to be included.
Then one day I realised I’d spent £40 on train tickets, lost half a working day and come home with a tote bag, two cocktails and a scented candle.
That’s when I started asking a different question…
Should events should be expendable?
Before we get into that question, I think it’s worth taking a step back and asking:
What are PR events actually for?
Because despite the free drinks, canapés and goodie bags, they’re not really social events at all. They’re marketing events.
For creators, they can be hugely valuable. They provide an opportunity to build relationships with brands, meet teams face-to-face, strengthen relationships with fellow creators and often be among the first to discover new products or launches. Some of the best paid partnerships I’ve secured have come from conversations that started at events.
But they’re also incredibly valuable for brands.
A room full of creators creates buzz. It generates social proof. It puts products into creators’ hands. It creates content, visibility and awareness without having to pay the creators or journalists attending. It helps brands build relationships with potential partners before they ever need to commission a campaign.
And that’s where I started to notice something interesting.
As creators, we’re often told to view PR events as opportunities. But opportunities for who?
Because whilst a creator may leave with a goodie bag and a few new contacts, the brand leaves with dozens of creators talking about their product, posting stories, sharing content and increasing awareness.
One creator travelling into London might spend £40 on train tickets and lose half a working day.
A brand hosting an event with 30 creators may generate hundreds of pieces of content, thousands of impressions and dozens of new creator relationships.
When I looked at it through that lens, I realised the exchange wasn’t always as balanced as I’d assumed.
That doesn’t mean PR events are bad value. Far from it. Some are absolutely worth attending.
But it did make me stop treating every invitation as an automatic yes and start evaluating them the same way I would any other business decision.
So when I get invited to a PR event, this is how I approach the email in my inbox.
My First Question: Can You Cover Travel?
I’d like to first address the fact that I started thinking in this way when I was at a point of my growth where I no longer needed to attend events.
I was making a good income with existing clients. I was no longer working my full time corporate job so I couldn’t tag an event on after a day in the office. I had built strong relationships with fellow creators who I now classed as good friends. I was getting a lot of gifted PR directly to my home and the goodie bag was less important.
I am so grateful that I am even able to approach events in this way and that my work work building my platforms has got me to this stage. It’s allowed me to take my foot off the gas slightly and have the mindset that not every event was worth attending.
If a brand was asking me to travel into London, spend several hours at an event and create content around their launch (although this is always on a no obligation basis - I’ll cover the topic of “Can we invite you here/gift you this in exchange for content” in another post soon), was it unreasonable to ask whether they could cover the cost of getting there?
I decided it wasn’t.
So I started replying with a simple question:
“Would there be any budget available to cover travel expenses for this event?”
The response was fascinating.
Some brands immediately offered to cover train fares. Others didn’t have budget available. Occasionally, I wouldn’t receive a response at all.
But regardless of the answer, I suddenly had more information than I did before…Instead of treating every invitation the same, I could make an informed decision.
Was this a brand I’d love to work with one day?
Was this a genuinely valuable networking opportunity?
Did I already have a relationship with the PR team?
Or was I simply spending money to help fill a room or with hope I’d post about it?
Asking about travel didn’t suddenly make PR events profitable, but it did something far more important:
It made me stop treating my time as free.
The Realisation I Should Have Had Sooner
A few months later, another thought occurred to me and I realised I was looking at the situation completely backwards. If a brand believes my audience is valuable enough to invite me to their launch, why wasn’t I asking whether they’d like paid coverage of that launch?
It was a mindset shift from:
“How do I get invited to more things?”
to
“How do I make opportunities commercially valuable?”
It suddenly clicked...Why the heck am I not asking them for paid work FOR the event?!?
