This past Saturday, South Florida Mom Bloggers and South Florida Bloggers got together at the George E. Batchelor Research and Academic Pavilion at Nicklaus Children’s Hospital to learn how to market ourselves to attract brand partnerships from two expert speakers – Lola Pfaehler and Marines Duarte. To say that the event was both beautiful and informative would be an understatement. We were so thrilled with every aspect of this event.

The Reception

First, we were treated to a full breakfast spread – bacon, eggs, assorted pastries, fruit, coffee, and bottled water – provided by our gracious host – Nicklaus Children’s Hospital.

Next, we sat down at our beautifully set tables. Each attendee received a floral arrangement by Zobeiluis, a cake pop from Cakeaholics, and a notebook from Nicklaus Children’s Hospital.

Our swag bags included:

• An information pack from Nicklaus Children’s Hospital
• Fabiola Granola
• Kepen Tea
• A Lego Playset
• A coupon for Legoland
• A Blogger Union Decal
• A Shea Moisture product
• and flyers from our other sponsors.

Q & A

Then, our Chapter Officers asked our speakers some questions about their blogging partnership journeys, so we could learn from their experiences and apply techniques that worked for them in order to improve our own blogs.

Our Speakers

Marines Duarte is a mom of four, wife, and professional. Founder of “En Tus Zapatos” and “Princesas Guerreras,” a campaign against abuse that strives to give a voice to and empower women. She was kind enough to share what she learned from her first brand collaboration and her previous experience in lifestyle, fashion, publicity, publishing, and digital media.

Lola Pfaehler is an amazing fashion blogger, influencer, and mom to her beautiful daughter, Vera Rose, who inspired her to create By oh Lola. In her well curated blog, she not only talks about fashion, but also about how to stay fabulous after pregnancy, and continue to be creative, fresh, and dedicated to her dreams as an individual in her new life as a mother.

Our speakers shared invaluable knowledge that will surely help us on our blogging journeys.

What We Learned

Some of the key takeaways were:

• How to reach out to brands
• What to send to brands you are interested in working with
• The right time to send certain materials to brands
• Knowing the value of your work and taking your experience into consideration when pricing your services
• Using connections from your past and networking in order to approach a brand more strategically
• What brands are looking for when they are looking for bloggers/influencers to work with
• The importance of quality over quantity of content
• Maintaining your voice and image when working with brands
• The importance of knowing yourself and your followers
• How to highlight your strengths and uniqueness to look more appealing to brands
• How to appear professional when approaching a brand
• Clearly identifying the goals of the brand and working to meet or exceed their expectations
• Negotiating your rate and services provided
• The importance of creating your own, clearly defined brand
• How to tie in your personal experience to create content for brands
• The importance of researching a brand and trying their products before reaching out to them
• How to lay the groundwork for how your audience with receive the product
• Only work with brands you like and that fit your own brand identity
• There’s room for every blogger/influencer to work in the industry because we each have something unique to bring to the table
• Always strive to be the best at what you do and never stop learning how to improve your services
• How to pitch your ideas to brands to make them believe in your vision
• Share your passion

We are so grateful to Lola and Marines for sharing their insights into how to attract and work with brands. We’re excited to apply the techniques we learned!

The Tour

After the Q&A, we were honored to get a tour from our host – Nicklaus Children’s Hospital.

We had the privilege of seeing and learning about the new Fetal Care Center and special delivery unit, scheduled to open in June of 2019.

The Fetal Care Center is for healthy mothers expecting a high-risk infant. Mother and newborn will benefit from staying together in the same hospital, where the infant will have immediate access to the team of renowned specialists.

The new unit will feature five labor and delivery rooms, five antepartum rooms, and two operating rooms.

The center will also have nurse navigators available 24/7 to help optimize care for patients and families.

We also toured the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Where a nurse gave us a tour of their state-of-the-art 14 bed private room Level II NICU. In each room, parents have an area with a television set and a double pull out couch, so they can both stay in the same room as their critically ill newborns.

And finally, we saw the Michael Fux Family Center (MFFC) located next to the main lobby. MFFC is  a space dedicated for the entertainment of all of their patients, families and visitors. The center offers a wide range of services and conveniences including: a movie theater and performance center, a quiet room, an internet cafe, hairstyling and massage room, laundry, reading room, library, cardio gym, and more .

We couldn’t feel more honored to have been hosted by, and learned so much about, such a prestigious health care facility.

Nicklaus Children’s Hospital, we can’t thank you enough for your hospitality!

In Conclusion

This meetup couldn’t have come about without our generous sponsors and speakers to whom we are so grateful.

And thank you to all of the South Florida Mom Bloggers and South Florida Bloggers who attended the event. Without such a strong community of bloggers willing to come together help build each other up, we’d have no reason to do any of this, so thank you so so much. We look forward to continue providing our members with quality meetups in the future!

See you at the next meetup!

Big Thanks to Our Sponsors