Make Money with your Blog – Monetising Social Media through Sponsorship
25th October, 2011
Monetising social media is a tricky business. Although we are not experts in this (for social media experts, get in touch and we can pass on some recommendations!), we are however experts at sponsorship and utilising sponsorship to reap financial rewards for our clients.
These sponsorship tips can be utilised on a number of social media platforms, but more commonly can be found and developed on a blog. Freely available (see WordPress), blogs can not only drive conversations and showcase expertise, but can also provide the perfect platform to integrate new sponsorship revenues.
A great example of integrating sponsorship with social media can be seen with the DMA Email Marketing Blog. A fantastic source for everything email marketing and written by industry gurus, this blog is read globally and has become one of the prime resources for email marketers.
Here are some of our tips for integration:
Audience
Sponsorship is only possible if there is an audience. Fortunately, the DMA Email Blog had been going for some time and had a significant number of registrants already. This not only proved that there was appetite for the content, but also that any sponsors involved with the blog would be guaranteed to reach an audience.
Do not try and sell anything until you have a proven audience.
Assets
A number of integrated benefits were provided within the DMA Email Blog sponsorship proposal. These assets were tailored to reach the prospective sponsor’s objectives – the two most important included:
- Opportunity to write guest blogs – providing industry expert positioning
- Online display advertising – to promote the services or run competitions
Always think about your prospective sponsors before you look to build the assets into your sponsorship proposal. What might be something key for you may not be of value to a brand.
Cost
Pricing for sponsorship can vary, but should always have a value attributed to the tangible benefits you can offer. Tangible benefits typically include media rights, physical space (events), access to a database, etc. As the DMA already provided online advertising on their homepage and throughout the site, there was a base CPM rate for the audience. The sponsorship of the DMA Email Marketing Blog was based on this precedent.
In the case where you do not have anything to base your pricing on, refer to other advertising costs for online display in similar fields bearing in mind that your reach with a blog will be far less than with an online publication.
Measurement
Ensure that you have analytics to back up the cost and show the value to the sponsors you are aligning with. Without measurement in place, sponsorship will have no value and you will not be able to attribute ROI to the brand.
For more information on social media and sponsorship, make sure to check out the presentation Property Rights Owners Make Money with Social Media on SlideShare.
