Guess what? I didn’t have one! At the time, I had not made a decision about whether or not to offer any kind of advertising on my blog, so creating a Media Kit was the farthest thing from my mind.
Now I know.
You can still create a media kit for reviews and giveaways, even if you don’t wish to offer advertising. While I have not yet begun to offer banner advertising for this blog, I have been researching the possibility. It’s likely I will begin to do this in the near future. I have been reading a lot about this and making notes, mulling over ideas in my head.
It occurred to me that perhaps my research could help my blogging readers. I know that every time I ask another blogger about how to create a Media Kit or how much bloggers charge for advertising, I’m met with the proverbial (and virtual) “blank stare,” followed by a comment that they don’t have enough pageviews or unique visitors to their blog to even consider a Media Kit. So, I’m going to share with you what I’m learning, and I’ve even created a Media Kit Template that I’m going to share with you as well. The download link for that is at the bottom of this post.
But, before I go any further with this, let’s start back at the beginning, because I know there are some of you out there who are not even terribly familiar with Google Analytics (ie: pageviews, unique visitors, etc.). If you are considering putting together a Media Kit, you’ll need to begin there — Google Analytics. Google Analytics is the score-keeper for your blog. It tracks all kinds of information about how many people visit your blog, how long they stay, how many pages they view, where they live, and how they found you. Signing up is pretty painless.
Once you are able to access the analytics for your blog, there are a few keywords you’ll need to understand:
Unique Visitors: This is number of different people who have visited your blog in the past month.
Pageviews: This the number of pages of your blog that have been viewed in the past month.
Here’s an example for you. Let’s say 5000 individuals visited your blog and of those 5000, 2000 came back again during the month. Let’s pretend that 3000 of those visited 2 pages while on your blog, and the rest only one page. Your analytics would look like this:
Visits: 7000
Unique Visitors: 5000
Pageviews: 10,000
The next thing you should know is that there is room for you and the possibility of having paid advertising on your blog, even if you have a small following. What is important is that you have a niche, you blog excellent content on a regular basis, and your blog readership is growing. Being active in social media (Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest) is a big plus as well.
Now on to what I’m learning about advertising.
In my research, I have found some mixed information about how much blogs are able to charge for advertising. Pricing can be calculated several different ways. Two formulas I’ve seen a few different places differ in that one bases the charge on monthly pageviews, while the other bases the charge on monthly unique visitors.
Formula #1: $0.50-$1.50 for every 1000 Monthly Pageviews
Formula #2: Monthly Unique Visitors divided by 10.
To give you an example, let’s say you have a blog with these stats:
Monthly Pageviews: 30,000
Monthly Unique Visitors: 3,500
Using the first formula, this blogger would consider charging $15-45/month for a banner ad.
Using the second formula, this blogger would consider charging $35/month for a banner ad.
There is certainly more information to factor in when deciding your advertising charge. For instance, a blogger who is also very active in all aspects of social media (Facebook Fan Page, Twitter, Pinterest — all with good followings) can easily charge at the higher end, while a blogger who relies mostly on her blog only to disseminate information would likely be more successful charging a lower rate.
For those of you who really don’t wish to try to figure out how much you should charge, I’ve developed a basic pricing structure to get you started. All of these scenarios assume you are blogging actively within your niche, and utilizing social media to some degree. There’s always wiggle room here as well. You don’t want to sell yourself (or your blog) short, but at the same time, you don’t want to overprice your services. It may take some time of adjusting your pricing structure before you find consistent success in this endeavor.
This blogger might be fairly new to blogging, has a small readership, but is growing at a steady rate. She has developed a strong niche and is blogging regularly (at least 3 times per week). Her blog stats may look something like this:
2000-3000 Unique visitors per month
10,000 Pageviews per month
This blogger could possibly charge $10-15 per month for 125 x125 buttons and $15-20 a month for 250 x 300 banners or 728×30 leaderboard ads, but she will need to heavily sell her good points, to make up for the lower numbers.
Regular Blogger
This blogger has been blogging for at least 2 years and has a loyal readership. Her blog is steadily growing and her niche is strong. She’s blogging quality content several days a week and may be guest blogging for other blogs and writing reviews. Her blog stats may look something like this:
15,000-20,000 Pageviews per month
This blogger could possibly charge $15-25 per month for 125 x125 buttons and $20-35 a month for 300 x 250 banners or 728×30 leaderboard ads.
Influential blogger
- Bloggers willing to “sweeten the pot” a little by including social media mentions on a regular basis (ie: weekly or monthly), reviews, giveaways, or promotional posts in their advertising package can expect to be able to charge more, and may be more successful securing advertising clients.
- Remember when seeking advertisers to be authentic with your advertising. Be sure you are choosing companies you can get on board with. For example, as a delight-directed, unit study blogger, it would not be very authentic for me to advertise for a boxed curriculum company or online school. If you are a strong proponent of breastfeeding, you probably won’t want to advertise for a formula company.
- One question I hear a lot is, “Where do I find advertisers?” My advice is to begin with companies with which you already have a relationship. Those who contact you frequently for reviews or giveaways, who have recognized that you frequently blog about their curriculum, or you’ve been able to spend time talking with at the homeschool convention you went to last year.
- I have come to believe that having a Media Kit ready to email is helpful, even if you don’t wish to accept advertising on your blog. Someone may still want your Media Kit for reviews and giveaways.
- Even companies you may not have a strong relationship may be impressed enough with your blog to want to advertise with you. If you have a small blog, be sure to stress your best points. Having big numbers for your blog is helpful, but it’s not everything.
I’ve created a sample media kit for those of you wondering what those look like. Actually, they can look like whatever you envision in your mind, but this one is simple to create and has all of the info you will need to include. Feel free to download it now to use as a guide for creating your own Media Kit.
Click to download the PDF here: Homeschool Blogger Media Kit Template.
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