Are you a blogger looking to make more income?  Have you wondered or heard of sponsored posts?  Landing sponsored posts isn’t as difficult as it may seem.  Last month alone I made over 10K in income just from sponsored posts and I do not have a ridiculous amount of pageviews.

Why You’re not Hearing Back from Brands & What to do about it

Before I dive into the details on landing sponsored posts I want to be sure that everyone is clear on what a sponsored post is.

A sponsored post is when a brand or company compensates or gives you a product in return for a post on your site.  Part of the reason that I land so many sponsored posts with all different brands is because my sponsored posts do not come off salesy or sound like a review.  I only work with brands that I know my audience would love.  Plus, the brands that I work with understand that I’m a story-teller.  Therefore, they know that their product will get incorporated into my story.  I’m not going to write a post about how wonderful coffee machine is.  Instead I’m going to show you by creating a recipe that this particular coffee machine is meant to make.  I’m not going to tell you about my kids favorite drink.  Instead I’m going to give you tips for road trips and incorporate it as one of the things that is a must to have.

Make sense?

Now that we understand that a sponsored post in my eyes is successful when it tells a story and gives your audience something that they will use, let’s move on to the specifics.  You absolutely must disclose in your post that, “this is a sponsored post on behalf _______, but all opinions are my own.”  This let’s your audience know up front that the links to the outside company is going to benefit you.  You must also make sure that those links are “nofollow” links.  I am not a technical savvy blogger.   I went to school for creative writing, psychology and elementary education, so I use a plugin that let’s me check a box to make it a nofollow link.  There is a way to code it, but like I said this is not my strength.

Alright so now you know what to include when writing your sponsored so you should feel confident enough to reach out brands to work with them directly.  Hold up though!  Many of you are probably asking what do I ask for and who am I asking?  No panicking!

You need to have a pitch that is specific to each brand.

You also need to know who to send that pitch to.  This is a perfect time to introduce you to my 10 Day Pitch Perfect Challenge.  It will walk you step-by-step so that you are ready to hit send on that email to your absolute favorite brand with the correct email address in place.

You also need to have a media kit.

I dragged my feet on this for a while.  Like I said before I’m just not tech savvy so creating something that I was going to present as my professional resume scared me.  I mean, I don’t even like to create printables so you can imagine my concern with creating a media kit.  In order to make this even easier I created Elements of a Converting Media Kit Video Training.

There are 4 Essential Elements of a media kit though.  The first is your name, site name and bio.

The second is your social media stats.  Your social media stats do not need to be ginormous.  Obviously it will help if they are, but as long as you have an audience that is interacting with you on one or more platforms then you can feel confident reaching out to brands.  It drives me crazy when people state that they can’t reach out because their audience is too small.  Yet we later come to find out that their audience is small because they only create vegan and gluten free recipes.  This is a very specific niche, but there are TONS of products out there that fall into this realm.  My audience might be much larger than theirs, but my vegan and gluten free audience is going to SO much smaller than theirs.  Do you see where I’m going with this?  As long as you are writing quality content that is reaching an audience you can and should be making money from sponsored posts.

Okay, I’m coming off my soap box.  I just hate it when bloggers let money slip through their hands because they don’t think xy or z.  Here’s my advice.  STOP THINKING!  Just do it!  The worst thing that is going to happen is the brand will ignore your email or tell you that they’re not interested.  I’m sorry, but their loss.  So get to it!  Seriously, I’m hopping down and have dropped the mic.

The third element of a media kit is your previous work.  This should come in the form of pictures.  We live in a visual society.  That’s why Pinterest is the number one driver of traffic to my site.  Show the brand how gorgeous your images are.  Pick two and be sure that they fall into the niche of the brand that you’re pitching.  So if you are reaching out to a an office store, I wouldn’t recommend having picture solely of food on your media kit.  Therefore, if you are a lifestyle blogger that plans on pitching across the gamut of brands then you might need more than one media kit.  Don’t hate me!  I’m a lifestyle blogger so I have more than one media kit.

The final element of your media kit is your accolades.  Think of where you have been published. It can be print or another website.  If you’re new then this is something to build in as you continue to write killer content and get published on other sites.

Have confidence in the super hero within you!

I cannot tell you how many times I have let fear creep into my self-conscious and hold me back. Each and everyone of you have a super hero within you.  It’s largely due to the fact that you have a super power.  Whether it’s taking gorgeous photos or a knack for social media.  All bloggers and influencers have a super power.  Usually it’s that they’re a bit crazy.  This is coming from a completely crazy person that started a lifestyle site in midst of having kids and working full time in an inner city school district.  We as a society of people have big dreams and we are willing to do what it takes to reach them.  So go get them!

Get there faster with our 10 Day Pitch Perfect Challenge today so that you can work with the brands you love tomorrow!