Today on Episode 45 we’re be talking about pricing sponsored posts effectively and appropriately for what you’re offering. My goal is to help you succeed at being a blogger, and help you to learn to make more money than the amount you are currently.
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Pricing Sponsored Posts – Sandbox To Success Episode 045
This topic has come up from things I’ve observed in the blogging world right now. I am in several blogging groups where members often discuss how much money they are making from sponsored post. Often times they also share the amount of traffic they receive, or this information is available in their published media kit. I have been shocked to learn the prices that many bloggers all over are accepting for sponsored post, and not a good kind of shocked! For the views to dollar and value to dollar it seems that on TOTS Family (which has a higher price point than Thinking Outside the Sandbox) is getting a higher point of pay than other bloggers out there. Today we’ll talk about how to change that. We’ll do so by speaking about a few points you’ll want to consider when deciding how to price your sponsored post.
What are you offering?
If you offer stellar DIY and Craft post, great recipes, or whatever it may be…. consider that your pillar and dig in to make that your niche. That will allow you to connect with brands, companies, and specific campaigns that are the best fit for your blog. You are then able to take a look at what you offer and do well, and repackage it for the brands. Show them the “must-have” value that your blog offers them.
Focus on Value, Not Content
The content is just secondary, when it comes to value. If a company is coming to you, they already like your content. Everyone produces great content. At TOTS we disclose our rates, and add that it includes year-round social media promotion. Almost every post we have is Evergreen, and are constantly promoted. That’s a win-win for us and the brand. For us, traffic correlates to money. For the brand, this means that their links will always be in the eyes of new and fresh people.
Just recently, we did a post on plus size fashion for summer for a company called Pat Pat. I didn’t put Summer 2016, because I wanted it to be an article that was good for many different summers. The company wanted to use a discount code that was only good for a week. Despite that, Pat Pat will always be in the post. After the promotional period ends I’ll remove the discount code and refresh the post to make it even more evergreen. This will allow it to not be out of date when we promote it on a regular basis.
Offer A La Carte Options
Another thing we do to beef up our value add is to contract work. If approached by a food company we pitch the fee, and then go on to tell them that if they’d like to hire our recipe blogger for a custom recipe her fees start at X amount of dollars. I then go on to tell them about sites she’s been featured on such as Foodgawker, and other popular food submission sites. We disclose that we have no control over which blog post those sites accept, but that we’ve had success in getting submitted to those in the past. I then go even further to upsell them to having my contributor do their post by showing them other places across the web where she’s been featured, even if it isn’t necessarily with us. I talk her up, because she’s worth it and it gives her value.
The tricky part (that drives me nuts) is when people say “What’s the problem then, why can’t they cut you out as the middle man and go straight to her?”. They could, and she has a great food blog! By cutting us out, however, they’d miss out on all of the other great things that our blog specifically has to offer. By selling the benefits of our own blog first, then upselling her services, it allows them to consider adding us both into their budget should they decide they want to include more bloggers on their campaign. This is a win-win!
How to Start Pricing
A good idea would be to join many ad networks that do sponsored post. (Check out this list of networks here: 40+ Blog Networks You Must Join). Some of the networks have such high pay rates, while others aren’t that great. Some networks are notoriously low-balling, and you may want to start with them if you are working on learning to monetize or just building your network. Where you start now doesn’t necessarily mean that’s where you have to continue to be! You can rewrite the script at any time.
If you start feeling overwhelmed, find ways to add on value to your services and increase the price so that you can do less. This is easier when you’re cold-pitched than with networks but even with networks you want to distinguish yourself from all of the other bloggers applying and really sell your value. When you’re cold-pitched, however, you can really lay on the upselling. You can offer add-ons like custom Pinterest boards, videos, and more! Videos really provide the option for a higher dollar value since they’re often promoted on additional channels than you blog.
Key Takeaways
That’s all for today. The key takeaway is to think about what you give in return for the sponsored post that you do. If you haven’t done sponsored post yet think about a post you’ve done and consider what you would have done differently if someone was paying you to do it. I also highly recommend a media kit. Have it accessible to prove to them what you’re doing and why they should hire you, while highlighting your past work as well. Learn more about media kits in these past post we’ve written here:
- Creating A Media Kit That Works – Sandbox To Success Ep 025
- Need a Media Kit? Try These 5 Easy Ideas!
- Creating a Media Kit with Google Drive
- How To Pitch Sponsored Posts – Sandbox To Success Ep 28
That’s all for today!
Until next time, thanks for listening to the Sandbox to Success podcast, with your host: Katrina M. Thom. If you like what you just heard, leave us a message at ITunes or Stitcher. We would also love to hear what you have to say. Use the hashtag #totspodcast to connect with us on twitter. Don’t forget to check out the show notes, which can be found at www.totsbusiness.com. Join us next time for another edition of the Sandbox to Success podcast. Have an AWESOME day!
