Blogging with purpose
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You will have noticed this week we have learned how to reach out to brands for advertising and sponsorship on our blogs – and the best way to sell yourself is to have all your details in a handy, professional media kit. It shows that you’re serious about partnering up to create an both an income for you and awareness of brands, and gives potential sponsors all the information they need to decide that you’re the blogger they’d like to work with.
A media kit is a snapshot of your blog’s vital details, packaged up in a reader-friendly download. It provides potential sponsors a one-stop shop of information they use to inform their decisions about with whom they will partner. It not only has an overview of you, your blog, your reach, and your prices, but it is an essential selling tool for when PR representatives plead your case to the decision-makers in charge of their budgets. A media kit is like an extended business card you may send to anyone who needs to know more about you and what you do.
This can differ from blogger to blogger, so pick and choose how much information you feel you need to supply (less is more, ya know what I’m sayin’?). Often a one-page overview is useful, but there are times when advertisers or book publishers or other interested parties need to know more detail about your blog and what you provide.
The most common items are:
About you:
- Your name
- A profile shot
- Your blog URL
- Your tagline (if you have one)
- A brief introduction/overview of you and the blog. Keep it short and punchy. The likelihood is that the person you are sending it to has already looked at your blog and your About Me page. Keep this one down to a few lines.
- Regular post topics or features that would appeal to brands
About your readers:
- Statistics snapshot – unique browsers, monthly pageviews,
- Your demographics – who is reading your blog? Gender and age range is good to include here.
- Newsletter and email subscriber numbers
- Followers across social media sites – namely Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest (Google +, LinkedIn, and YouTube if that’s where your audience is at)
- Optional – Alexa ranking, Klout score, Google Page Rank, if you feel they will help your case
About your services:
- Advertising spaces available, and prices for each (including discounts available for longer-term packages, etc), not forgetting RSS feeds and newsletters
- Sponsored post rates
- Inclusions (extra incentives!) around social media for advertisers and sponsors. Do you offer shout-outs and freebies for advertisers? Let them know!
- Sponsored social media update prices
- Conference sponsorship packages and prices
- Ambassadorship packages and prices
- Affiliate details
- Giveaway or review admin fees
- Your policies on review products
- Advertising spots/options to sponsor podcasts
- Mention (if appropriate) that you are open to any ideas the brands or advertisers have for collaborations
- Payment specifics and terms
Your previous brand partnerships:
- Write a brief overview of the kinds of products and services you like to feature on the blog
- Link to a few of the larger campaigns you have completed that did well and you enjoyed
- Write a list of the other brand names that have been featured
Testimonials:
- Include a few carefully-curated positive reviews of your work, or a couple of lines from people and brands with whom you have worked
- Add your press features, or where you’ve been featured on other blogs
Contact details:
- Your name
- PO Box or address for people to send items
- Email
- Phone number (if appropriate)
- Social media links
- Skype details
By all means hire a designer to create you one, if you like – but it’s quite simple to gather your information, a few images, and make them look great on paper. You can make a very simple one using Word (and then converting to PDF), or use any one of the image-creation sites out there. PicMonkey is easy to use (here is a great PicMonkey media kit tutorial), as is Canva, and Ribbet. PowerPoint is quite user-friendly, and can turn out professional-looking media kits in no time, you can use Pages, Photoshop, or even google downloadable templates. You could also search Etsy or similar places for either a downloadable template you can buy, or have a custom one made.
Each person’s media kit needs are so different – you might find useful info at the following posts:
Tips for Creating a Media Kit for Your Blog // Amy Lynn Andrews
Blogger Media Kits: When You Don’t Have Much Traffic // Katy Widrick
How to Create a Media Kit that Rocks // The Blog Maven
Creating a Media Kit for Your Blog // The Well
And you can get inspired with these media kit examples:
ClickinMoms Click Magazine
The Art of Simple
Bloggers Bazaar Pinterest board of media kit samples
The Blog Maven – 20 Media Kit Examples
Best Blogger Media Kits – Katy Widrick
Before you go:
- Update your kit often. Every three months is average
- Make it customisable – especially if you get someone else to create it for you. Make sure it’s easy for you to update it on your own
- Make it easily accessible. Consider having it as a download on your “work with me” or “contact” page. It saves email back-and-forth, and makes it so much easier (and faster!) for potential brands
- Think of printing – ensure your kit is of a high enough resolution to look good when printed
- Think of collaborating – don’t be afraid to make a list of dream collaborators, and be proactive in approaching them. Offer your media kit as a simple start.
- Be positive. And remember, if your numbers aren’t anything to write home about yet, you might like to mention your growth instead. Something like “doubled twitter followers in a month” sounds positive and encouraging. And is true!
- Be consistent with statistics. There are many ways of capturing this information, but Google Analytics appears to be the standard, and is quite accurate.
- Watch your language. While it’s great you write your blog with your own unique voice, this is the time to be professional (and a little quirky, as needed!). Keep it slick.
- We are visual creatures – break up big chunks of text and eye-swimming numbers with bright images, easy-to-read but interesting fonts, and lots of white space.
Have you seen a great example of a media kit lately? What do you have in yours?
Stacey Roberts is the Managing Editor of ProBlogger.net, and the blogger behind Veggie Mama. A writer, blogger, and full-time word nerd, she can be found making play-dough, reading The Cat in the Hat for the eleventh time, and avoiding the laundry. See evidence on Instagram here, on Facebook here, and twitter @veggie_mama.
Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger
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Partnering with Brands Theme Week: The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Media Kit
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Partnering with Brands Theme Week: The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Media Kit #bloggingtips
