Working with brands is one of the ways bloggers monetize their blogs. There are 5 main ways you can make money blogging that is through ads, sponsored posts, products, offering services and affiliate marketing. The key to growing your income as a blogger is diversifying your sources of income.
Not only do you get to make money through working with brands (sponsored posts) but you also get to form relationships and your network reach grows. Most importantly you get introduce a product or a service to your audience.
Sometimes the blogosphere can be overcrowded which makes it even hard for bloggers especially small ones to land a sponsorship opportunity.
Brands naturally want advertisement so all you have to do is give them a reason as to why they should choose you. That is why today am sharing with you this ultimate guide to working with brands.
You need a blog first before you start working with brands
It goes without saying that you need a blog. The first impression is everything when it comes to working with brands that’s why you need a self-hosted website from the word go. My blog is hosted by Bluehost and they are awesome.
Their customer service is 24/7 and the site speed is very fast. It’s affordable and you get a free domain name for a whole year.
Check out my step by step tutorial guide on how to start a profitable blog in under 30 minutes. As a bonus to my readers once you start your blog I will send you a copy of my ebook The Beginner’s whisper guide for free. Just email me juelz@juelzjohn.com
How To Get Noticed By Brands.
1. Get your voice
Your voice is what will make you unique it will set you apart even though your niche is saturated. Nothing on the internet is new but how you tackle it makes the biggest difference.
2. Put out valuable content
You need to put out content that people are looking for.
Solve problems.
Find out what your readers are struggling with and give them a solution.
3. Grow your audience
Before you start working with brands you need to grow your audience first. You need to be an influencer.
I don’t mean you need to have thousands and thousands of followers but have an engaged audience. An audience that believes and trust your influence regardless of how small it is. It’s better to have 500 engaged followers than 1000 followers who are just there for numbers.
In simpler terms, you should focus more on engagement than numbers.
Brand collaborations are 50/50. You benefit and the brand too, but if you don’t have that influence then you have nothing to offer to the brand and they will obviously skip you.
Related post: How to get your blog ready to working with brands
How to get started working with brands.
You might be asking yourself how do I get to connect with brands?
Well, there are 3 ways you can go about it:
- Reach out to the brands directly
- Brands mighty reach out to you
- Through advertising networks
Related posts
How To Make Money With Sponsored Posts
How To Get Your Blog Ready To Working With Brands As A Blogger
How To Write The Perfect Email Pitch To Brands To Land Sponsored Posts
1. Reaching out to brands directly
You need to really stand out because brands are getting so many collaboration requests and well they don’t have a spot for everyone.
Contacting a brand directly can feel a bit daunting but it’s all in the approach you take. To ease the process you can start by following the brands on social media and tagging them in relevant posts. This will be a nice way to warm up to the brands.
When you email them you won’t be a complete stranger to them, they might remember an Instagram post you tagged them in or when you mentioned the brand on Twitter. Remember your goal is to make the brand believe that you genuinely love them.
Reaching out to brands directly has its pros in that once accepted, the collaboration can turn into a long-term partnership if you do a good job for them. Another advantage is that you are in full control, you have the freedom to go big on your creativity and you get to work on your own terms.
On the downside, negotiations can take forever and can turn out into a no.
The easiest way to find contacts is through their website. Most websites have a press or a media tab mostly at the bottom so check if they have any contacts listed.
If you’re lucky enough to find the email address of the PR person, it nice to address them using their name. There is just something to it when you address a person using their name, one feels important. If they don’t have contacts you can just email their customer support or try search for press release from that brand.
The more brands you pitch to the higher the chances of landing a job.
How to write a pitch email.
Your email should be short, precise and descriptive.
Keeping in mind you aren’t the only one writing to this brand so you need to sell and make yourself stand out.
Below is a simple format you can use.
Briefly introduce yourself and your blog.
Say what your blog is all about. Keep it sweet, you don’t have to include your whole blog history. Why you love the brand and why you think it will be a good fit for your audience. Include a clear call to action.
Finally, attach your media kit.
A media kit is simply a document that clearly outlines your blog statics and other important facts. This is very key because it covers everything you weren’t able to include in your email. A media kit is like your online resume it will help market your blog even more.
In your media kit, you can include things such as:
- Your blog stats that is your page views and unique visitors per month.
- Social media count.List how many followers you have on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and so on.
- Collaborations details.List downs the different options you offer and your rates. Previous collaborations if any. Include testimonials from any previous brands you have worked with.
As you write your email have in mind it’s not about you, it’s all about how the brand will benefit from the collaboration.
Follow back and be patient. Give them time to go through your email but if you don’t hear from them in a week’s time send them a follow- up email. If you still don’t hear from them it might be time to move on.
2. Brands reach out to you
After you have been blogging for a while and your audience is growing, you will start receiving emails from brands with a request for collaboration.
Some emails are worth paying attention to while others aren’t. For example, there are those brands who will send out blast emails which are very general like to hundreds of others bloggers. All they do is edit the name of the blog. Most of them will offer a free product in exchange for a blog post honestly those aren’t worth it. For them, it’s a game of numbers.The more bloggers they email the most feedback they get.
For a genuine collaboration, the brand will send you a more personalized email showing they actually took time to go through your blog.
The big advantage of brands approaching you is that already want to work with you which means you don’t have to do any pitching.
On the other hard some brands can take forever before processing payment so you might get paid months and months down the line and that’s after back and forth emailing them.
3.Through advertising networks
The advertising networks act as a middleman between you and the brand. Networks are awesome because once you sign up and you are accepted the network will just be emailing you of opportunities which they find best suit you.
It’s almost stress-free because the network handles all the communication with the brand. Some brands take ages to pay for campaigns and you don’t have to go through the headache of having to email them back and forth.
The cons of going through advertising networks:
- They will take some percentage of your pay “their cut” which I find ok because they are doing all the negotiation for you.
- Another disadvantage is that there will be many bloggers taking part in the same campaign meaning you will all be publishing the same post at around the same time. This is where creativity comes in, you might be doing the same campaign but if your approach is a bit different you get to stand out from the other bloggers.
Examples of advertising networks you can join today are: Tapinfluence , Activate by bloglovin. Izea , Collectively and Clever.
Should I get paid to work with brands?
This is a question that so many bloggers are confused about. Yes, you should get paid.
What to do when a brand offers a product and no other compensation
Some brands are young and they may not have the budget to compensate you at the moment.
When that happens you find yourself on a tight spot. Whether to accept the unpaid collaboration or just move on.
This is where you need to evaluate if the collaboration is worth to you and your audience. Sometimes it’s ok to accept the collaboration in exchange for the free product.
For example,maybe the brand has a huge and engaged audience and they offers to share your post to them,it could be a win win.More people will get to know about you and your blog .You could easily have them sign up to your email list by offering a freebie.
If you are new at this, it will even help you to build your portfolio. You need to be careful not to sell yourself short.
Tips for having a successful collaboration
1. Keep your audience first.
Remember your audience is the reason you have landed that sponsored post. You need to ask yourself what value will that post be adding to your readers?
Don’t be blinded by the big cheque and forget all about your audience’s trust.
2. Meet the deadline.
It’s very important that you meet the deadlines. Your goal is to do a good job and while you are at it you build lasting relationships.
Some of the collaborations can be so demanding and you end up falling short of time to complete.
Simply email the person in charge and request for more time if possible.
3. Be clear with your terms and condition
This is a mutual partnership, so at the beginning make sure that all the conditions are clearly outlined to avoid any sort of misunderstanding later on. For example the number of blog posts you ought to post, social shares if any such things.
There you have it, I hope you have learnt a thing or two on working with brands. For you be successful at working with brands you need to come up with a strategic plan.
First figure out if your blog is in a position to start attracting brands if it’s not start working on the main key things that’s is having a professional blog, engaged audience and traffic.
If you are set to go then make a list of maybe 10 brands you want to reach and advertising network you want to join. Get on to it.
The more brands you approach the higher chances of landing a gig.
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