Count the creators in your niche who have ever sent a mail to a provincial tourism office, a sector federation or an intercommunal body.
In Belgium that list is close to empty, and it is not because the work does not exist. This country has an institutional density with no real equivalent: regions, communities, provinces, intercommunal bodies, sector federations, public agencies, each with its own communication budget and its own obligation to spend it. They commission video constantly.
The reason creators stay away is simpler than it looks, and it is fixable in one question.
Why nobody approaches them
Three beliefs, and two of them are wrong.
It looks like a closed world
It is not closed, it is quiet. These organisations do not publish briefs on the platforms creators watch, they do not run creator campaigns, and their communication officers are not on the marketing conference circuit. Nothing is hidden, but nothing comes to you either.
It looks like it pays badly
Usually the opposite, at the level of a single commission. What is true is that the money is committed slowly and paid on its own calendar, which is a different problem and one you can plan around once you know it exists.
It looks administratively impossible
This one is partly true, and it is the part worth learning. Public money cannot be spent the way a brand spends it, and a creator who does not understand that will make an offer nobody is able to accept.
The question that decides everything
Ask, at the first call: how is your organisation allowed to buy this.
Not what the budget is. How they are allowed to buy. Depending on the body and the amount involved, the route can be a simple direct order, a request for several quotes, a formal procedure, or a place on a framework contract that was awarded months ago. Each route has different paperwork and a completely different timeline, and the person you are speaking to knows the answer or knows who does.
That single question does more than anything else in this article. It moves you out of the pile of suppliers who send a rate card and into the small group who understand how the buyer works, which in this sector is the actual competitive advantage.
| What you ask | What a brand answers | What a public body answers |
|---|---|---|
| Who signs this off | One marketing lead | A department, sometimes a council decision |
| When can we start | Next week | When the commitment is registered |
| Can we adjust the scope later | Usually yes | Rarely, the scope was part of the award |
| When am I paid | On our payment run | On a fixed public calendar |
| Who else is competing | Two other creators | Whoever answered the same call |
The third row is the one that catches creators out. With a brand, scope drifts and everyone shrugs. With a public buyer, the scope frequently is the thing that was formally decided, and adding two videos mid project can be genuinely impossible rather than merely annoying.
What changes in your quote
More detail than a brand needs, and in a different order.
Countable, because someone else will read it
Write what is delivered in countable terms: number of videos, durations, formats, languages, number of revision rounds. A public file has to be readable by someone who was not in the meeting, possibly a year later, possibly an auditor. Vagueness that a brand tolerates will be sent back to you for clarification, which costs three weeks.
Separate the price of the work from the price of the usage, and say for how long and where the material may be used. Public communication has a habit of running for years, on channels nobody listed at the start, because the campaign became a permanent page on a site. Decide whether that is included and price it either way, rather than discovering it later.
And state your terms plainly, including when you expect payment. That sentence is not aggressive here, it is expected.
Two constraints that do not exist with brands
Both are easy to accommodate and expensive to discover late.
The content has to be usable by everyone
Public bodies carry accessibility obligations on what they publish, and video is the format where that bites: burned in or supplied subtitles, readable contrast, no meaning carried by sound alone. What exactly applies depends on the organisation and on the channel, so ask rather than assume, but assume it applies.
Build it into the quote as a deliverable instead of treating it as a favour, and deliver the subtitle file separately so their web team can use it. Creators who do this without being asked get asked back.
There are periods when they cannot publish
Around elections, public communication is restricted, and the rules differ by level of government and by how close the vote is. A project can be perfectly agreed and then sit unpublished for weeks for reasons that have nothing to do with your work.
You do not need to know those rules, you need to ask one question at scoping: is there a date after which this cannot go out. The answer reshapes the schedule, and asking it is another signal that you understand who you are dealing with.
The timeline is the real adjustment
A brand decides in a week and pays late. A public body decides slowly and then pays exactly as it said it would.
Plan for the decision to take longer than any commercial project you have run, and for it to be invisible while it happens: the silence between your offer and the answer is procedure, not disinterest. Once the commitment exists, things become extremely predictable, which is the part creators end up liking.
The practical consequence is about cash rather than patience. Do not let a public project be the only thing in your pipeline in a given quarter, and do not assume the payment will arrive in the month you delivered. Ask what the payment terms are and build the quarter around the answer.
The languages are not optional here
A regional body communicates in the language of its region, and a federal one usually has to work in more than one.
That is a constraint and also the opening. A creator who can deliver two language versions properly, or who works as a declared pair to cover both, answers a need this buyer has structurally and permanently. Very few individual creators present themselves that way, and it is the fastest route into a supplier list.
How to make the first contact
Not with a rate card, and not with a pitch about engagement.
Find the communication officer of one specific organisation, name the campaign or the topic you saw, and say in three lines what you make and where you are based. Then ask the buying question. Local matters more here than in any commercial sector: a provincial body would rather work with somebody from the province, and being nearby is a real argument rather than a nice detail.
One organisation that answers is worth twenty that do not, because these buyers repeat and they talk to each other across bodies far more than brands do.
Keep reading
- Your hands, in an ad you never shot
- How to Find UGC Clients in Belgium
- The advice stops right before the useful part
- Somewhere in Your Company There Are Two Briefs
- The complete UGC guide for Belgium
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to be on some official supplier list?
Sometimes, and it depends entirely on the body and the amount. That is exactly what the buying question answers, and if a list exists, asking how to get onto it is a normal thing for a supplier to ask.
Is the work creatively limited?
Less than creators expect, but the message is fixed and it is not yours to reinterpret. The freedom is in the execution rather than in the angle, which suits some creators very well and frustrates others.
Should I lower my rate for a public client?
No. A rate you cannot repeat is worse here than anywhere, because this buyer comes back and will expect the same price for years.
What if the invoice is late?
Ask early and factually who to contact about payment status, and use that route rather than escalating. Late payment in this sector is almost always a file waiting on a signature, not a decision about you.