When your blog has reached a certain level of viewership and interaction, you may find yourself wanting to seek out the best ways of monetizing it. Blogging can be a lucrative industry these days, and one of the best options for making money from your blog is by working with sponsors.
How Do Sponsors Work?
For the majority of bloggers, a sponsorship is relatively simple:
- They receive an item from the sponsor that is relevant to both the sponsor and the blog. For example, fashion bloggers tend to receive clothes; beauty bloggers receive makeup; parenting bloggers receive toys for children – something that fits both parties, essentially.
- The item is free.
- The blogger will then write a post on their blog featuring the item, and linking back to the sponsor.
- The sponsors will then pay the blogger for writing the post.
This can be a one-off post, or a more ongoing relationship.
In some circumstances, there is no payment for the post; the free item is seen as payment enough. In most blogging circles, however, this is becoming frowned upon as detailed on http://www.thekrystaldiaries.com/bloggers-shouldnt-work-free/ . Essentially, the feeling is that the post itself is often more time-expensive to put together than the item in question is worth.
For the sake of clarity, we’ll stick to sponsors that send a product and then subsequently pay for the post to be published. If you are happy to write for free in exchange for a product then that’s your decision, of course!
Who Benefits From A Sponsor?
Both the blogger and the company themselves benefit. The blogger receives the free item and then the payment for the post; the company has its products featured on a blog that is popular with their targeted customers. Everyone wins.
What Can Go Wrong With A Sponsorship?
One of the biggest issues is that companies and brands don’t pay for the post, despite agreeing to do so. This can leave bloggers having to chase money up, potentially even having to look for a lawyer on https://www.thegoodsolicitorguide.com/ so they can recover the money owed to them.
There is also the chance that the company won’t like the post that has been written. This can be avoided by being ensuring you don’t publish anything without the brand’s approval.
How Do You Find Sponsorships?
Often, they will find you, especially if you add a button to your sidebar that makes it clear you are PR friendly.
If there is a brand you are particularly hoping to work for, then contact their marketing team and highlight your blog. There’s no guarantee that they will respond, of course, but it at least should help to put you on their radar for future campaigns.
Do Readers Like Sponsored Posts?
In the main, no, but of course it very much depends on how you go about writing them. Try and make the post feel natural to your blog and your usual style of content, rather than sticking out like a sore thumb as a very obviously sponsored post. You can also explain to your readers that you have to make a living, and ask that they excuse the occasional sponsored post as it allows you to provide the rest of the blog for free.
So now you should have a good idea about how sponsored posts work, giving you another option for monetising your blog!
PIN THIS POST
