You have now created your “advertise here” blog page and your blog media kit document. You have your contact details available on your blog but still no e-mails from interested advertisers.
If you run a small blog, having an advertise page will not be enough to attract advertisers. Google Adsense is your friend while your blog readership is small.
But what if you are tired of contextual ads? What if it does not work for your blog? What if you want another source of revenue? You have to learn to sell your blog and start approaching companies that are related to your blog content directly.
Here is a simple guide that I follow personally when hunting down the direct advertisers:
Search Google or Yahoo for your blog content keywords. Look in the “sponsored listings” on the search result page. Go to your competitors pages, which companies advertise on their blogs?
Select relevant companies. If some of these companies provide relevant products or services to your blog visitors, take a look at their site, learn about the company and find the contact details of their marketing department.
Send them an email. Sell your blog as best as you can. Keep your emails short and to the point. Tell them about your blog and what you can help them with. Include these details:
- Who are your visitors?
- How many unique visitors do you get?
- If you do, what relevant keywords do you rank high on?
Here is an example of an email I sent out recently for one of my blogs:
Hi,
I run a #your content here# blog at #your URL#. I rank high in Google for several keywords including #keyword one# and #keyword two#.
I was interested to hear if you would be interested in advertising on my site as I believe it could bring you some highly targeted, quality traffic.
Let me know what you think. I am looking forward to hearing from you.
The responses. Companies are usually very fair and you do get a high-response rate in most of the cases. Here are the responses I got on the email above:
The open answers:
Yes we may be, did you have something particular in mind?
You’ve done a nice job with your site. Tell me what you’re thinking.
The affiliate deal answers:
With reference to your email we would be very interested in appearing on your great website, I would like to suggest a cooperation with you! Would joining our affiliate programme and working on a CPA basis be something you might be interested in?
I have looked at your site and think that it would be perfect for our strategic partnership program. On becoming a strategic partner I can provide you with a white label, feed or banners all with a unique tracking code to allow you to list our inventory on to your site.
The text link answers:
Thanks for your message as received below, it has been forwarded onto me. We would be interested in advertising, specifically text links back to our relevant pages, could you let me know what the cost would be for this?
Thank you for your mail. Would it be possible for us to stick a link on URL or possibly have you create and endorsement about company name within the current content of this page? We are very interested in this page and working with you.
The thanks, but no thanks answer:
Thank you for your email. We are satisfied with the way we market our product and are not at this point looking for further outlets. Thank you for your interest in our company.
Give them a realistic offer. When you get a positive response, the ball is in your court. Think about a long term relationship potential. Do not oversell your blog. Do not overestimate your blog abilities. Do not overcharge.
Companies are looking for value. If they pay you for one month and do not get satisfying results they will not come back. Some options you can offers is a month of trial or a hybrid deal where you get a fixed fee with a CPA affiliate deal on top.
Use Spyfu.com and Google Keyword Tool to get an idea of the cost per click for the different keywords phrases. It will help you know how much they currently spend per visitor and where their budget range is. Think realistically what your blog can perform, reply back and offer an interesting deal which is a reasonable price for your blog size and for their budget.
See it is not that hard. Afterall you have nothing to lose. Contact some relevant companies and see what they say today. Please comment if you have any experience with this. And please post your progress if you try this sytem.
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve always been a firm believer in “you don’t get anything without asking.” These are some great tips and I plan to implement them into my blog strategy.
I am glad it was useful to you, please keep my updated on how it works!
I have been thinking a lot about the idea of blog sponsors. I’ve written a list of companies I’d like to approach, but I recently was told by another blogger that I shouldn’t even consider putting any ads on my blog until I have at least 4000-6000 daily readers. I’m nowhere near that right now…should I wait?
I would recommend you just to go for it, you have nothing to lose. Having more visitors will increase your chances of success but without even trying to get a sponsor you will never get anywhere…
When do you know it’s time… when people start coming to you.
If you need money *now*, you can certainly approach people directly or check out the interest on webmaster forums (the Digital Point Forums has a section just for buying and selling links), but I think you really know it’s time when that first person approaches you about buying a link, something they’ll feel more comfortable doing if you have indeed set up a page with advertising information!
Good post. It really helped me how to approach the advertisers.
Thank You.
It’s cool,i have known more for how to make money from here,thank you.
And i have a question,you said:
Some options you can offers is a month of trial or a hybrid deal where you get a fixed fee with a CPA affiliate deal on top.
If the blogger let his friends come to hit the ads more and more,the company will cry.How could you convince the company accept it?
Show them the benefit of being your sponsor and having their brand in front of your audience.