Sponsored Posts – Now Accepting

You have been blogging for a short time.

At first, it was just to share about you and your interests personally for family and friends alike.

But now the thought of monetizing and getting your blog exposure with companies.

Quite simple, you want to use your blog to make you money.

How can you indeed make money from accepting sponsored posts on your blog?

I can tell you that the above was very much me over two years ago and I didn’t have a clue how to make that jump at first.

I finally accepted my very first sponsored post from Red Bubble here back in January 2013.

I have to admit, I let the company walk all over me and not only did I not get paid, but I didn’t even get shared by the company on their social networks for at least a month after the post went live.

I was truly disappointed, but thankfully I didn’t give up and did my research where companies and sponsored content was concerned for the next time out.

I grew and learned quite a lot since that first post to be quite honest.

How did I go about getting the most out of my sponsored post experiences?

Here is the thing on any given week, I get tons of company e-mail requests for me to indeed do sponsored content.

Many don’t fit my blog or my personal lifestyle to be quite honest and those are the first to just get trashed.  Sorry, but if I get see myself using the product or service at hand, I won’t bother to respond, because enough pulls at my plate weekly that I just have to let it go and delete the request only to move on.

But what if I am indeed interested and wanting to work with the company on the proposed sponsored post review?

Here are my surefire tips on how to get the most out of Sponsored Posts with companies.

1.  Set up a clearcut advertising page –

Once I knew I was serious about working with companies, I made sure to create my advertising page.  I not only include my stats about my blog, but also my social media network stats, because companies do indeed like to know that you are well respected in the blogging community, as well as on social networks, too.

On this advertising page, I also make sure to include all the sponsored content and companies I have worked with with link back to all original articles, so prospective companies can indeed see all the sponsored content I have done and all the companies I have worked with in the past.

The last thing, I include on this page is my advertising rates

Pricing is key here and my huge piece of advice is never underselling yourself or your services on this.  You and your opinion are truly worthy and valuable, as is your time.  So, make sure to set a price that you feel proud and comfortable with asking.  Negotiation can take place but try never to low ball yourself is the main point here.

By the way, there is no second-guessing here, because everything is listed very nicely and concisely too for businesses to find in one place all about my blog and how I conduct business.

2.  Responding to Sponsored Post E-mail Requests –

If I am indeed interested and intrigued to work with a company, I will always write back in a timely fashion.  I have a pending folder in my e-mail for all these types of requests and put them in this folder as the come in daily.  As my time frees up during the week, I try to set aside a bit of time to respond to these companies (at least once a week if not twice a week).  Here, I will thank them for their interest in working with me and my blog.  As well as direct them to the above-pre-set advertising page for further information.  I close the e-mail with thanking them again and expressing my desire and hope to work with them on this review.

3.  Sealing the Sponsored Post Deal –

Once I do hear back from the company and they are willing to work with me at my set price, I will then proceed forward with letting them know in a new correspondence my time -frame (which is also clearly stated on my advertising page) for when I will publish this post, as well as sending them my mailing address if it is a product I am reviewing that they are sending my way.

4.  Receiving the Sponsored Product –

Once I do indeed receive the product, I send another e-mail to kindly let the company know I did indeed receive their package and now will get to working not he actual review and post.  For more on the actual review, look for a follow up article on this next week.

5.  Dealing with Any Issues That May Arise with Sponsored Posts –

Nothing is perfect and even after that first sponsored post with Red Bubble that wasn’t ideal for me, I have had my fair share issues. The key is trying to work effectively and efficiently with the companies to hash out any unforeseen issues.

 Just recently, I had this with a company, who contacted me to review their new photo editing software and app.  I was all set to work with them and let them know I would review it here for my blogging readers versus over at my Confessions blog, where I didn’t think it would fit as nicely with my audience.  I even offered to make a pinnable graphic image (as they only had text links for advertising purposes), because they wanted to advertise with me, as well.  I told the company, I would use the image on my sidebar to advertise and also use it in accompanying article.

As per their instructions and that e-mail, I wrote the article and created the image, too.  Right after, they contacted me back again and not even very politely to tell me they didn’t want the article here (on J9 Designs) but over on my Confessions blog.

Here is the thing as much as I value a company’s opinion, my blogs are run by me and I feel that as so the final say for what I share on these sites are up to me.  Even though, I would be losing out on money and the time I put into the article, I truly felt strongly that I didn’t want to comprise my values on this.

I wrote the company back kindly letting them know this (even though they really weren’t as I stated all that nice to me in the previous e-mail).  And we had a back and forth conversation on this, but ultimately, we just couldn’t agree on the terms.

So, I nixed the sponsored paid portion of the article, because I humbly felt it wouldn’t be the right fit for my personal blog.  But to be honest at the end of the day, I still felt I did the right thing. I also came up with this article series, because of this experience, as well.  And yet still promise, I will be running the article here and now it isn’t sponsored, but just sharing my experience with the photo editing software itself, because I do think it is beneficial with certain features it offers for bloggers with image editing.  So stay tuned for that article to be published in the next few weeks.

Bottom line though, when problems do arise with companies and sponsored posts, you need to act quickly and in a business like manner to try to resolve the issue(s) at hand to either salvage the sponsored content or to sever ties moving on to the next sponsored opportunity.

Again, you will learn and gain valuable experience as you go with sponsored content.  So, don’t fret and jump in any time, the Sponsored Water is just fine!

It's only fair to share...

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