4 Reasons why I have given up blog sponsorship
At the end of 2013, I attended The Blogcademy - (you can read my review here). I had an amazing time and met a host of awesome people- many of whom I am still great friends with!
One of the main things in the Blogcademy (or at least a big reason of why bloggers are so keen to attend it) are the tips and various ways of monetising your blog. One of (but certainly not the only) method mentioned of monetising your blog is through side bar advertising or blog sponsorship.
After leaving The Blogcademy I was SUPER FIRED UP like a blogging ninja to open up advertising on indieBerries. Within the first month of opening up sponsorship (in October 2013) I had about 15 sponsors queued up with three different packages available on offer, a main slot, a medium slot and a small slot - with a discounted package for ordering three months at a time. I hosted sponsorship on indieBerries for about a year and absolutely loved being able to share new blogs with indieBerries readers as well as finding new blogs for me to personally read!
About 4 months ago now - I closed sponsorship on indieBerries (even though I'm still trying to figure out how to remove the link in the sidebar!) and I thought it would be useful for anyone who is interested in opening up sponsorship on their blogs to hear my reasons why.
When I first started blogging, I read The Daybook quite regularly and I remember thinking, "WOW!! She is getting paid by all those people on her sidebar to blog! BEST. THING. EVER!!!" I honestly remember thinking that it was the ultimate BEE-ALL and END-ALL of the blogging realm. Like. If you can get someone to PAY you to blog. DANG - You've made it. #cracksopenthechampers
After having paid sponsorship on the blog for over a year - I have come to my own views/conclusions about blog sponsorship so here are my 4 reasons why I have (currently) chosen to remove side bar blog sponsorship. These views may change in the future - but for now, this is right for me for the following reasons
1. Having sponsors or advertisers on your blog is NOT passive income.
Depending on how you choose to run your sponsorship this can obviously vary to some degree - but I personally believe that it is the BIGGEST misconception of having "blog sponsorship".
In the course of me starting indieBerries in 2010, I have paid for advertising for this blog 5 times. The first time, (in 2012) I took out a $25 side bar advert on a big American crafty-type blog - the blogger had tens of thousands of pageviews daily with tens of thousands of unique visitors a month. The advert I took out included a small side bar advert for 30 days and over the course of that month - my blog did not recieve ONE single click through from that website. I was absolutely gutted. It took me almost 2 years to even think about paying for advertising again. Even though $25 wasn't a lot to pay - (it was for me back then) it was especially a lot when it essentially amounted to nothing. The bottom line is that the rate of pageviews to actual click throughs is pretty small - which is why when I opened up sponsorship on my own blog, I made sure that it also included an in-post write up - because that is mainly where viewers are coming to read - which means a higher chance of click through for advertisers.
Yes - this makes hosting sponsorship a lot more work than what it could be (ie: "sidebar ad and there you go, chum") but for me, I would have hated for anyone to sponsor this blog and come away feeling the way that I did when I sponsored that "BIG" blog 3 years ago. If indieBerries had 10 million unique readers each day - I could possibly justify that kind of "here's your sidebar chum" advertising, based on numbers only - but for now, I personally didn't really think it was fair to people who had paid for advertising to only have sidebar adverts alone - regardless of how low I made the price.
There are companies in place (such as passionfruit - which is who I ran my advertising through) that make the process as streamlined as possible for you - ie: no need for you to insert the adverts into your sidebar manually, check the dates, check the ad sizes, send invoices, remove adverts, get new adverts, manage payments etc) but they also (obviously) have their fees. And as with all the processes I have just mentioned, even if you DO offer sidebar advertising only and choose to do it on your own - it still is a heck load of work.
So let me just re-iterate: opening up sponsorship on your blog will not automatically make money RAIN DOWN ON YOU. It requires work. A lot of work. And time.
2. Having sponsors on your blog turns your blog from a hobby into a business.
Some people reading this point above may be thinking, "YEAH. THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I WANT TO DO!!" TURN MY BLOG FROM A HOBBY TO A BUSINESS!! This is absolutely great! (I also want to/am turning my blog into a business!) but there are real implications of having sidebar advertising/sponsorship that I don't think are really discussed much.
Having advertisers on your blog creates a different kind of "blogging responsibility". As a blogger who blogs for fun/ creative outlet / sharing / personal memoirs / showing my portfolio / inspiring others - it feels great to be able to blog and share things when I truly feel like a) I have a really funny story, b) I have something of value to share c) I have memories I want to document d) design work I want to share. Having people paying for space on your website puts a responsibility on you to keep your blog stats up and readers coming to your website daily. So it can sometimes feel that if you don't have a) b) c) or d) to share - you have to e) pump out something (anything) to get eyes onto your website and it can be overwhelming and quite exhausting trying to maintain that level of inspiration on a daily basis (provided you are a solo blogger).
This can, in some senses take away the "fun" in blogging - I started a blog purely for fun and it has grown over the years into something from which I have been fortunate enough to launch a business. Blogging is still very much "fun" for me, it is something that I do at the end of my "work" day. But having sponsorship on your blog - can turn blogging into something that is "for fun" into something that "must be done" - ie: work.
3. Having sponsorship on your blog may make you feel strange about promoting things/people that haven't paid you to advertise.
When I first opened up sponsorship on indieBerries, I had a few people (and friends) who asked about collaborative projects and it felt a bit unfair to promote their awesome things on indieBerries when other people had had to pay for it. It felt a bit weird to say no to those people - when in the past I would likely have said yes. On a side note: I was very lucky in that every single sponsor that I did have on indieBerries was a person/blog/website that I really did love. I have friends and family who are starting businesses and it would feel good for me to promote them, but a little bit unfair for me to promote them if other people have to pay for the same thing.
4. Offering sponsorship on your blog (initially) requires a lot of "SPONSOR ME!!" posts.
As mentioned above, opening up sponsorship will not automatically make MONEY RAIN DOWN ON YOU - you have to actively promote the sponsorships options which usually requires "SPONSOR ME" type posts. (which are often monthly) - Personally I started feeling like this was becoming so spammy, so "sponsor me" and not really true to who I am. It started feeling like every post I wrote was about "sponsor me" or "these are the sponsors", and I lost the space to have things that I just wanted to post because.
In a strange way, opening up sponsorship, shifted the focus away from what I was doing to what other people are doing. I want indieBerries to always be a place that is about our life, our memories, our funny stories and I would hope that people come to this blog to read about indieBerries - and not to come to this blog with the intention of finding another place to go. I think this is different for wedding blogs or craft blogs in particular where people are coming specifically to get good recommendations of service providers and products, but for a personal, lifestyle, design blog - I would hope that people pop over to stay for the value that I can bring. Note: there are many blogs that I read that have done side bar advertising quite successfully - but if I'm really honest - I no longer go to their blogs to read about the things they do - I go to their blogs to see what other blogs I can find. Which I think is a shame.
One of the main things that I learnt through my year of having sponsorship is that it's a lot of thinking that the grass is SO much greener on the other side -
You are actually not looking for grass at all.
* * * * *
I have come to realise that what I value about indieBerries is that it is a personal space, it is a place that for me (and hopefully others) is always fun. Whilst there are other avenues that I can use to generate income from this blog (using it as a means of "living portfolio"to generate new work, behind the scenes snaps of some of the work processes, promoting the stationery products I offer, affiliate programs, collaborative projects etc) but right now, side bar sponsorship is not right for me. In time, that may change and of course for now I am still open for in-post sponsored posts - which I believe to give advertisers more "air time" in any case!
Things are quite different for me (and my business) now, than they were a year ago. I have various online stores, I have been doing much more custom design work and I am halfway through my yoga teacher training (which is like the best thing to happen to me ever {besides Warren}) and have built a new website for myself to share that journey which will hopefully inspire others.
My biggest pieces of advice I could give anyone thinking about starting sponsorship is to
a) think exactly your reasons for wanting to do it (for me initially it was to earn money, but now that other aspects of my business are thriving that doesn't seem so essential),
b) to think of a suitable strategy of how you want to do it - and know your reasons behind why you are choosing to do it that way (ie: sidebar ads only, sidebar and in-post write ups, using an ad host etc)
c) to implement it and see how it goes from there! With the possibility of being open to change!
Does anyone else have any thoughts/musing/ideas about how they run sponsorship on their blogs? I'd love to hear in the comments below or on the indieBerries Facebook Page!
Happy Hump Day all!
x
