“Get Sponsored to Attend the Next Conference in Your Niche” plus 1 more

Get Sponsored to Attend the Next Conference in Your Niche

Posted: 07 Aug 2012 01:02 PM PDT

This guest post is by Kylie Ofiu of KylieOfiu.com.

If you attend conferences, the idea that you could get sponsorship to go will certainly appeal.

In 31 Days To Build a Better Blog, one of the tasks is to hunt for a sponsor for your blog.

Even if you’re a smaller blogger, getting sponsorship is doable. You don't have to have 100,000 subscribers or 50,000 page views a month, although it does make things easier. It is simply a matter of presenting yourself in the best possible way and finding a business—or businesses—that are compatible with you and your brand.

I had between 10,000 and 15,000 monthly pageviews when I negotiated full sponsorship with a big brand to attend a blogging conference. I had only a few hundred followers on Facebook and around 1,000 followers on Twitter—so not a huge following. But that isn’t always the point.

If you have heavily engaged readers, that can be more beneficial than a large following who do not actively share your posts, click on your links, or engage with you on social media. You don’t have to be big to get sponsorship—but you do have to have authority among your tribe.

How to get sponsorship for conferences

Think you’re up for the challenge? Taking on a sponsorship involves some significant work—but it’s worth it!

1. Get prepared

You need to get prepared before you start pitching potential sponsors.

Look over you blog and make any changes you have been meaning to do, but have been putting off. Make sure you social media buttons are visible and your posts are easy to share. You’ll be judged on appearances as well as statistics, so make yourself and your blog look good.

See the post 10 Ways to Make Your Blog More Attractive to Advertisers for more advice.

2. Create a media kit

A media kit is essential for any blogger who wants to work with brands or get sponsorship. It’s basically a few pages on your blog, your audience, your blog statistics, why it and you are fantastic, and what you offer. Keep it interesting, factual and easy to update.

The post Create a Media Kit to Attract Advertisers to Your Blog explains how to do this in detail.

3. What will you offer?

When it comes to sponsorship, aside from your statistics, what you are going to offer or do for the brand or business? That’s what they are really interested in: why they should work with you.

You could create packages that cost a set amount, and include a select variety of things you will do for the sponsors, or you could offer to tailor a package to suit the brand's needs and outline the ways you can promote them.

Some of the offers you could include in your sponsorship pitch are:

Sponsored posts, including a post that welcomes the brand as a sponsor, explains why they’re great, and possibly includes a giveaway or a special discount for their product or service. You could include a link to the sponsor’s site in every post you write about the conference (usually three to five posts in total).
Adding the posts to post-conference link lists and blog round-ups.
An ad in your sidebar for three, six, nine, or 12 months.
You’ll mention and link to the brand from your social media platforms.
You’ll include a link to their site from your newsletter for the duration of the sponsorship.
You’ll use brand products at the conference such as pens, notepads, tote bags, etc.
You’ll mention the sponsor on the back of your business card.

These are just suggestions—it’s up to you to offer items that you feel comfortable with, and which suit your blog and audience. Whatever you choose, make sure you over-deliver and provide real value to your sponsor.

4. List potential sponsors

Some bloggers need to send 50 or more emails before they get sponsorship, so be prepared to contact a lot of businesses. When you’re thinking about who you would like to sponsor you, consider these points:

Look at the size of your blog and the size of the business or brand you’re approaching: If you are a small blog, don't go reaching for big brands to begin with. Instead, look at smaller businesses, bloggers and even local organizations that might suit your blog.
Consider having a few sponsors instead of just one sponsor: Four sponsors sharing the cost can make it easier for you to find sponsors.
Consider your niche: Are you a mummy blogger, tech blogger, food blogger, or finance blogger? Know your niche and look for sponsors that fit. For example, food bloggers might look for restaurants or food brands. It is unlikely readers of a food blog are going to be terribly interested in insurance ads! They’re there for the food.
Talk to brands you’ve worked with before: If you’ve done any freelance writing for a brand, had a lot to do with a brand or business (perhaps they’ve advertised with you before, or you’ve connected strongly on social media), email them about sponsorship.

Think outside the square a little when you’re listing potential sponsors. You could hold auditions for sponsors, or if you meet a reps from a business, product, or brand you’d like to work with, tell them. Opportunities are everywhere!

5. Contact the Marketing department, not PR

In larger companies there are often Public Relations departments and Marketing departments. PR tries to get free publicity, whereas the marketing department is the one with the money for advertising and marketing.

Take the time to find out who to contact by either calling the company, or checking out their website to find the relevant person. Then personalize your pitch to them.

6. Pitch your blog

You can do this by either calling your contact to discuss potential sponsorship, or sending them an email.

Keep it brief; if they are interested, they’ll get back to you. Let them know who you are, what you do, and that you are interested in a potential partnership. Most people do not read full proposals, nor do they want them until they have made some contact with you first, so you won’t need to send your proposal at the first contact.

7. Negotiate

Once you have a brand or business interested in working with you, you will need to negotiate what will and won't be included.

As you do this, make sure you know what you want, but also be clear on why partnering with you is a fantastic opportunity for them. The arrangement needs to be mutually beneficial, so make sure you only agree to sponsorship tasks that you are comfortable with. Confirm everything in writing and have them sign a contract for the sponsorship.

8. Follow up

Some brands will want updates on the work you’re doing for their sponsorship. If something great happens—a post you wrote about the conference for which they sponsored you goes viral, for example—be sure to let them know.

If you’re work for the sponsor gets positive feedback from readers, keep track of it. Then, when it comes times to discuss renewing the sponsorship, you’ll have strong evidence as to why they should sponsor you again. Towards the end of your sponsorship, do get in contact with the brand to see if they are interested in renewing advertising, or sponsoring you for another conference in future.

Who’ll send you to your next conference?

Be persistent with your sponsorship pitches! Know your worth and actively do your best to present yourself in the best possible light. It’s critical to show why you are a great fit for the brand or brands you want to sponsor you.

It might take some time, but it sponsorship for conferences really is doable. More brands and businesses want to work with bloggers, because we are valuable.

Have you got a sponsor to send you to your next conference? Share your sponsorship tips with us in the comments.

Kylie Ofiu is the author of Blog to Book, 365 Ways to Make Money, among other titles as well as a public speaker, freelance writer and blogger. She shares real ways to make and save money on her blog, as well as what she is doing to go from SAHM to millionaire by 30.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Get Sponsored to Attend the Next Conference in Your Niche

From Zero to Manifesto in 4 Easy Steps

Posted: 07 Aug 2012 07:00 AM PDT

This guest post is by Michael Alexis of Writerviews.com.

Chris Guillebeau's 279 Days to Overnight Success has been downloaded over 100,000 times, and the guys over at ThinkTraffic credit their manifesto to the first viral traffic bump on Expert Enough.

They didn't slave away finding the right words to empower their mission, defining values, and getting the end result all dolled up for publishing just for the kicks—a manifesto is the mark of a serious blogger. And they have been known to offer three incredible benefits:

Your manifesto becomes a consistent path for you to follow with your work.
It becomes a rallying call for readers to share your vision.
You can offer it as a free download to snag email subscribers.

Basically, when you create a manifesto, you go from thinking, "I have a blog" to realizing the start of your world-changing movement—overnight.

I learned the information in this post from this interview I did with Kyeli and Pace Smith of Connection Revolution, a mission to change the world.

With such a large goal, this blogging duo have explored many ways of reaching their audience, including publishing a book and earning over $20,000 the first time they offered an online course. So let’s see how Kyeli and Pace created a great manifesto.

Step 1: Hit them with the problem, then hug them with your solution

If we didn’t have a manifesto, the Connection Revolution would be a hodgepodge of apparently unrelated junk. —Pace Smith

The first step in creating a manifesto is to come up with an idea. This idea should be a cohesive vision for your blog’s larger goal. It will make it really clear why you are doing what you are doing.

Brainstorm your idea by asking what’s wrong with the world you engage with. If you blog about children’s hockey, maybe you think it’s a problem that physical contact is allowed when the early-bloomers outweigh the others by 30 pounds. If you blog about activism, maybe you think people should do more and protest less. If you blog about blogging, what’s wrong with that world?

You’ll use your words to paint a really ugly picture that gets people to say, “Yeah, you’re right! I’m not okay with that either.” But, don’t dwell on the negative, or Pace warns you’ll “become a documentary and people will feel horrible and drained.”

Instead, you want people to feel good after reading your manifesto. So, the second part of the idea is to tell a story about what a perfect world could look like. The perfect world of little league sports. The glorious dream of contact-free play! Make it a vision as vivid as you possibly can.

Want an easy way to remember all that? Think IDEA. Initially Depressing Eventually Awesome.

Action step: Create an idea for your manifesto using this easy formula: IDEA = [What's the biggest problem with your world?] + [What does your ideal world look like?].

Step 2: Revise and outline your idea

Sometimes I think I must have been in a drug addled haze or something. I felt like I had a brilliant idea, but then when I bring it into the world people will be like “what are you talking about?” —Pace Smith

Once you have your idea(s), spend an afternoon considering it. You can do this by reading what others have written about the topic, conversing and communicating it to others, or journaling. This process will clarify your thoughts and feelings. You might also develop new viewpoints and see what resonates, especially if you talk about your ideas with others.

When you are satisfied that you’ve come up with “the idea,” create an outline. This could be a mind map, table of contents, or something similar that starts to provide structure to your idea. By seeing the flow of ideas you can ensure that they are logical and you haven’t missed key steps.

Action step: Revise (or refine) your idea by talking about it with a friend. When you have the idea, create an outline containing the major points.

Step 3: Write your manifesto (with the help of a plan!)

Everyone says “I wish I had time to write a book”, but actually everyone has time to write a book, you just need to make it a priority. —Kyelie Smith

You might write a blog post in one sitting, but a manifesto can take weeks. So to make sure you finish, you need a plan. Set a schedule that compliments your regular routine and make it a habit. An example is writing your manifesto one hour a day for six days a week. If you are like me and write in bursts, commit to drafting a certain number of pages in a certain number of days.

You can also do a daily brain dump. This is a writing practice that you do before your public work, and is intended to clear your mind. Spend 15 minutes writing about your distractions: the cat that keeps biting you even though you rescued it from the streets of Beijing, how difficult it is to experiment being a vegan when you can’t eat wheat, or whether CommentLuv is good for your blog.

By having a plan, and clearing your mind to execute it, you will finish your manifesto.

Action step: Commit to a writing schedule. It can complement your current writing habits, or jolt you into action.

Step 4: Give your manifesto a design that complements the theme

I really loved your manifesto and the design was awesome! —Kyelie Smith

The design and custom illustrations for Connection Revolution’s manifesto cost between $500 and $800. Worth the investment? Absolutely. Professional design complements your words, and enhances their value.

Pace and Kyelie hired a designer and artist they knew in the offline world. The designer had never created a manifesto before, so she researched what others charged and then they all negotiated.

Another way to find a designer is to look at the credits in another manifesto you liked. Usually the author will credit the designer for their work. If there is no credit, send the authour a quick email saying that you liked it, and especially the design—then ask for the contact information for the designer.

Action step: When you have a designer and price settled, revise the work until it’s just as you like. Make the design consistent with your blog theme.

Have you created your own manifesto? Thinking about it? I’d appreciate your thoughts on how to create a good one.

I'm Michael Alexis and I video interview the world's top bloggers at WriterViews. Check out this ProBlogger article from when I interviewed Ramit Sethi.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

From Zero to Manifesto in 4 Easy Steps