This post will be all about securing sponsorships from other blogs. This is completely different from sponsorships from companies. I’ll cover those in another post. (Soon to be linked here.)
So let’s dive right in.
How to get other bloggers to want to sponsor your blog.
I’m going to be honest, it’s going to take some numbers to make this happen. They don’t have to be super sexy numbers, but you’re going to need to be able to show that you can provide something of value to your potential sponsor. Value to most bloggers seeking to pay for sponsorship is traffic to their blog. It’s tough to show that you can provide traffic when you’re sitting on 25 GFC followers and 30 Twitter followers. To start from the bottom is tough, but you’re going to have to get those numbers up a bit. To learn what to do if you are starting from the bottom, check out this post —> How to Get Your First 200 Blog Followers.
So once you have a small following, do some price research. Take your numbers (GFC followers, traffic, social followers) and have a look at some blogs of similar size. See what they are charging and determine a similar amount. You’re going to want to be competitively priced. Once you’ve done that, you’ll want to arrange a couple of button swaps. No one wants to be the first to do anything. Potential sponsors don’t have to know that you have other people’s buttons (ads) on your site for free. All they see is that other people are advertising on your site, so they feel better about doing so themselves.
Do not make bloggers email you for rates. In my post, No, I Will Not Email You for Rates, I discuss how there are thousands of blogs out there and most bloggers will simply pass you up if you’re adding an extra step such as requiring an email for rates. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
Make yourself a good looking, easy to find rates page. An eye appealing page just encourages bloggers to read further. If a blogger has to hunt for a sponsorship page, you’ll probably lose them. Have the rates laid out and thoroughly explain what each level of sponsorship includes. Don’t leave anything to question. If you do, you’re adding another step and you know how much people love extra steps.
Try not to have a million ads on your site either. It’s really easy to watch the $10 bills pile up and get a ton of sponsors, but no one wants their ad hidden within a group of 20 sidebar ads. Put a realistic limit on your ads or price them accordingly.
How to Accept Payment for Blog Sponsorships.
There are many ways that you can handle the payment for blog sponsors. There are services set up just for this purpose. Passion Fruit Ads is one such service. The problem I have with them? Your advertisers pay them, and then they pay you. On their terms. Additionally, they keep $1 per ad sold. So if you’re selling $10 ads on your site through them, you’re taking a 10% pay cut by using their service. It’s not the easiest way for most, but I recommend handling everything on you own. I would accept Paypal (people can pay you through Paypal with credit cards) and manage the ads myself. Standard payment processing by PayPal is 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. Handling everything yourself gives you total control over what is happening with regard to your income and you site, and that is a great thing.
Disclosing Income from Your Blog.
Any content on your site that you are getting paid to put there must be accompanied by a disclosure policy. The FTC has just updated those requirements. If you’re only making money from other bloggers sponsoring you, (first of all, you should think about diversifying!) you have an easy task. Create a new page titled “Disclosure Policy” and put a link to that page in your sidebar. Have the policy say that you accept payment from other bloggers to have their buttons placed on your site. For information on how to create a more detailed disclosure policy, click here. And for the skinny on the updates, see this post.
Good luck in securing some sponsorships!
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