An investment banker and fashion creator shares how she balances both careers and the exact email template she’s used to pitch brands

• Diti Goradia started posting fashion content when she began her investment banking job.
• Five years later, she’s worked with brands like Anita Dongre and Google Pixel on paid campaigns.
• She shares an email template she uses to pitch brands and how she balances banking with influencing.

Diti Goradia works 12-hour days as an investment banker at SMBC in New York City, but she spends her free time creating fashion and lifestyle content. She uploads new Instagram posts and reels, emails brands to negotiate rates, and plans her content schedule during those 5, 10, or 20-minute intervals.

“It’s hectic, but I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Goradia admitted. “Balancing both careers has been very rewarding.”

Since graduating from Rutgers University in 2018, the 26-year-old has been posting fashion and lifestyle content to Instagram. She desired a creative outlet for self-expression outside of her full-time banking job.

“Sometimes, all you need is one person who encourages you to go for it, and for me, that was my husband,” she explained. “He was definitely a ‘Instagram boyfriend,’ before we got married and took all the photos.” I might not have started in the first place if it hadn’t been for him.”

Now, the part-time creator has 34,200 Instagram followers, where she posts details about her outfits, events she attends, and photoshoots she models in. She’s earned $16,250 since January 2023 by working with brands such as Nordstrom, jewelry company Tanishq, skincare brand Aavrani, and fashion brand Papa Don’t Preach, as evidenced by documentation she provided.

“Followers see the end product on Instagram and love it, but I think most people don’t realize that behind that photo or video are weeks’ worth of negotiations with brands and a ton of administrative work,” she explained.

She emails brands herself and typically films content on weekends.

Goradia, who was born in India and moved to the United States when she was two, says fashion allows her to stay connected to her South Asian roots. In a lot of her content, she wears Indian clothing like lehengas and sarees and highlights products from South Asian-owned businesses like Aavrani.

People in her comments and DMs began asking questions about exactly what she was wearing, where she got the outfits, and how they could shop for the same looks as she posted consistently in her stories and grid.

The first brand she collaborated with contacted her in March 2020, two years after she began posting. Goradia created an email template a year later so she could contact companies herself. The template has led to collaborations with fashion brands such as JadeByMK, Aisha Rao, and The Little Black Bow.

She’s also done paid collaborations with global brands like Anita Dongre, Nikon, and Google Pixel, all of whom approached her.

She now charges a minimum of $1,000 for any Instagram content, whether it’s a story, reel, or post, with final rates based on the exact deliverables, timeline, and scale of the business she’s working with.

“My time is limited, so I choose projects that really speak to me or if it’s a brand that I really love,” she explained. “I’m very fortunate to have the ability to pick and choose.”

She also stated that her six-figure salary and her partner’s income help her choose brand deals more carefully.

Goradia bulk shoots most of her content on weekends due to the demands of her banking career during the work week, and schedules posts to go live throughout the week or posts them during her breaks. Though she’s been working with brands on paid campaigns for a few years, she says the thrill of landing a campaign never fades.

“It still astounds me that brands would pay me to model their clothes or promote their products,” she says.

The email template she uses to pitch brands is as follows:

Hello, [X] Team.

I’ve been using [X] for over [Y] years or I just discovered [X] and [why I like the product / service]. I’m particularly fond of [insert as many specifics as possible!].

My Instagram [or other social media] audience consists of [%] [demographics] of females [see if this matches the brand’s target demographic] who I’m sure would enjoy your products.

I’d like to learn more about how we can collaborate to share your products with my audience. If you are interested, I would be happy to share my engagement and other details with you. [Insert link to social media channels].

I look forward to hearing from you!