How Sew Heidi made her niche her secret weapon
Heidi Weinberg learned quickly in the fashion industry that working for herself was the way to go.
It was 2009 and she was working in-house with a fashion brand, but just found it toxic and not worth the “very low, abusive, exploitative pay.” Having had enough, she pivoted and went freelance. It took some trial and error but she soon found her groove, pulling in great income and working with new clients.
The pivot transformed her career, but she didn’t want to keep it to herself. She started a YouTube channel, Sew Heidi, to teach other people how to find success in freelance fashion. At first, she focused on technical skills like using Adobe Illustrator for fashion design. She kept up on YouTube as a fun side project while she remained a freelance designer, but over time the channel grew.
Eventually, she started teaching in-person workshops then, in 2015, she took that side hustle online, launching Sew Heidi as an online teaching platform. As her online content about freelancing in fashion picked up steam, she pivoted again to exclusively focusing on teaching others in the industry how to make it as a freelancer.
“It's a very underserved category. There are a lot of resources out there for people who want to start their own fashion brand. There are various job resources to find a job. But there's really nothing for people that want to go freelance,” she says.
Focusing on that niche was the final puzzle piece that built Sew Heidi into a thriving business with a podcast and a YouTube channel with more than 46,000 subscribers.
A mindset shift
At this point, all of Heidi’s revenue as a creator was coming from her courses, even with years of podcasting under her belt.
Her offers from brands at that point were low — $50 for a podcast episode. It didn’t seem worth it, so it wasn’t something she actively pursued.
“I had no idea that you could get paid legit money to do these brand partnerships,” she says.
It all clicked in 2023. She was listening to Jeremy Enn’s Podcast Marketing Academy and started chatting with Jeremy. He told her with her niche audience, she should be aiming for brand partnerships.
“I was like, well, I'm not doing $50 an episode. He goes, ‘Oh, no, no, you can do way more than that,’” she says.
Jeremy recommended that Heidi check out Justin from Creator Wizard, who had been a guest on Podcast Marketing Academy.
“I watched that, and I was like, oh my gosh, I can do a lot,” says Heidi. Justin made her realize that being a niche creator actually made her more valuable to potential partners, not to mention the years she’d spent building a loyal audience.
From there, Heidi jumped into the Brand Deal Wizard program.
“That opened up my whole world.”
Harnessing her niche
One of the misconceptions Heidi had about brands was that she was too niche to attract sponsors. Looking at other podcasts and YouTube channels, she was used to seeing ads for things like home goods, or food items, or makeup.
It was clear that those types of brands wanted more general lifestyle creators. Heidi also worried that she didn’t have the numbers to attract sponsors, even though her numbers were pretty impressive, with 20,000 downloads per podcast episode, about 19,000 followers on Instagram, and 21,000 email subscribers.
But, as she soon learned, that didn’t mean there weren’t brands that were a fit for Sew Heidi.
She had actually worked with one brand before, a fashion software tool. It had only been a mutual exposure type of deal, but Brand Deal Wizard showed her she could turn it into something more.
Armed with what she learned from Brand Deal Wizard, Heidi rekindled an email chain with the software company. This time, she wanted to land a deal for actual money. She also came prepared with her own ideas to pitch — a tip she learned from the Creator Wizard team.
She got stuck at one point when it came to money. Using a generic deal calculator, she was getting low numbers. Talking to Justin though, she was told that she could command much more.
“‘Oh, Heidi’, he goes, ’it's just a base starting point. You're so niche, you could basically charge what you want,’” she remembers Justin saying.
After some back and forth with the brand, she landed a $7,500 deal for some email and LinkedIn mentions — her first big win.
Her assumption that lower numbers always meant lower pay simply wasn't true. Niche creators have highly attuned audiences with a high degree of trust — and brands see incredible value in that. Heidi just needed to learn what her worth was.
Partnerships, not just deals
Another big mindset shift that Heidi had was treating her brand sponsors like her freelance clients. It’s a two-way relationship, one that Heidi already had the skills for.
“When Justin presented it through the lens of managing a brand partnership, I instantly saw the parallels,” she says.
As a freelancer, Heidi knew how to craft a good pitch that resulted in contacts. She also knew how to deliver a post-campaign report. Both of these things make clients feel seen, heard, and taken care of, and brand sponsors need the same attention.
While managing brand sponsors is certainly a beast unto itself, Heidi was able to take her existing skill set and apply it. For her, it was an “aha” moment.
This is one of the important skills Creator Wizard teaches. Working with a brand doesn’t mean simply doing their bidding; it’s more about building a relationship that demonstrates expertise and knowledge of your audience. It’s your job to share with brands how your audience can benefit them, and how working with you can achieve their marketing goals.
“It’s about really leveraging your expertise, knowledge about your audience, and providing value and insights. Nobody knows your audience better than you do,” says Heidi.
With that knowledge, Heidi is able to guide brands to make the best deal possible, including which platforms are best to leverage.
Find your worth
Not all brand deals are created equal. Early on in many creators’ journeys, they take deals for simple exposure or free products. Heidi knew she was past that.
With guidance from Justin, she settled upon a minimum level of engagement, or MLE number. Or, as Justin calls it, a “hell yes” number. This is the minimum brand deal value that Heidi is willing to entertain. For her, that’s $7,500, although it will vary for different creators.
It’s something she brings up early in the negotiation process, after there’s already been some back and forth. This lets brands know up front what she expects and weeds out anyone who’s not willing to work on her level.
With that in place, no one’s time is wasted and Heidi can focus all her efforts on her business and deals that are actually worth it for her. It gives her a sense of control over her business and her partnerships, and allows her to succeed
How to harness your niche
Here are three insider tips from Heidi for other niche creators:
Understand your audience
You are an expert on your own audience and should know how to communicate that to brands.
You should know:
The primary demographics that engage with your content
Which platforms your audience uses most and/or how your audience differ on each
Your audience’s interests
What types of products they use
For Heidi, she doesn’t just work with general freelancers, but with fashion freelancers. That means solutions like a freelance invoicing tool are relevant to her audience and fashion design software.
That makes her a huge asset to those brands because they can target their potential buyers with pinpoint accuracy. A general lifestyle influencer may have more followers, but how many of them are looking for fashion design software? Heidi is able to deliver exactly what niche brands need.
Numbers matter, but they need context
One of the struggles of being a niche creator is not being able to share huge, impressive numbers. Or at least you may not think they’re impressive.
That’s why engagement numbers are crucial. They demonstrate that even if your following is small, those followers are highly interested in what you’re sharing. Big creators may have large followings, but they also tend to have lower engagement.
For example, Heidi is very active on Linkedin because her audience is, too. She may not have as many followers on LinkedIn as on YouTube, but her LinkedIn followers are highly engaged, leaving dozens of likes and comments whenever she posts. Those are the numbers that matter to brands and that demonstrate that when Heidi posts, her audience listens.
Heidi also has 21,000 email subscribers—an impressive number for a niche creator. Even more impressive is that her open rate is around 50%, a rate other newsletter writers would certainly envy.
It’s important to communicate engagement, as well as raw followers, to brands to show the full picture of what you can offer as a creator.
“It's not just about this vanity metric on the surface. It's not about reaching everybody. It's about reaching the right people,” says Heidi.
Go niche for niche
There are niche brands just like there are niche creators, and they’re going to understand what you’re doing better than anyone else.
Some of the brands Heidi has worked with have never done brand deals before because they work in such a specific space. Some have been international brands, while another was run by just two guys. In either case, she’s offering them a new marketing avenue just as much as they’re offering her a sponsorship.
Get creative with the brands you target. Do your research to find the brands that fit your niche and would love to get in front of your audience. They may not have experience with brand deals, but you could demonstrate their value.
Even small creators are a big deal
Heidi has gone from thinking that brand deals just weren’t for her, to negotiating them with expertise.
That’s the effect of Creator Wizard. It doesn’t matter how niche you are, or which platforms you’re succeeding on — you have value to offer to brands.
Don’t leave money on the table. Get started with Creator Wizard today to transform your business, just like Heidi.
Learn more about how Creator Wizard can help you here.