How to Get Sponsored Posts for Your Blog

Welcome back, we are SO EXCITED to share the second post in a 3-part series with expert minds from Wellevation HQ, an influencer marketing and blog management agency, and InfluencerSEO, your one-stop shop for all things blog optimization. 

No matter where you are in your blogging journey, one thing remains the same. You don’t want your business to be a side hustle. You want to make real money and turn it into a lucrative, long-lasting career. When you start a blog, you may not be thinking about anything more than sharing your content. But, as you grow, the need to monetize is clear. 

One of the best ways for influencers to make money on their blog while maintaining the integrity of their high-quality brand is through sponsored content or brand collaborations. In order to get started with sponsored content, you need to get noticed by your favorite brands! 

Being noticed might look like getting a sneak peek at the latest new products, receiving an invitation to a big press trip, or being approached for an upcoming sponsored campaign. These moments are big opportunities for your brand. But, just HOW do brands/agencies find you? And, HOW do you ensure you’re their number one pick again and again?

Last week, we at Wellevation HQ talked about blog management for sponsored content. This week, we’re giving you the down-low on how to get noticed by brands. No matter your size, sponsored content can help you reach all your blogging goals. Don’t sell yourself short. Brands need your influence. Here are 5 tips to get sponsored posts:

How to Get Sponsored Posts for Your Blog

Be searchable and reachable. 

First up, to get noticed by brands, you need to be highly visible. For your website, this means having great search engine optimization that will launch your content to the top of the search engine results pages EVERY SINGLE TIME. When someone Googles your niche, you want your content to be FIRST. 

If you haven’t started managing your SEO yet, don’t worry. You can either go the do-it-yourself route and read all about SEO on InfluencerSEO’s blog. Or, you can hire them for their incredible SEO services. They’ll handle all the optimization for you, so you know you’re searchable and visible! 

Now, every blogger has two sides. Their website AND their social media channels. Many brands find great influencers through their Instagram or other profiles. (Don’t worry, if you’re not yet on social media, creating a profile on any platform is easy!) Once you’re on social media, you can increase your visibility by adding the right hashtags and engaging with your audience often. 

One last note on this tip: ensure your contact information is available. When it is, brands can easily send requests for sponsored content or open a dialogue to start a relationship. Make sure you’re checking your emails often or have a dedicated blog manager to take care of all the correspondence. In this industry, you snooze and you lose. 

Share about them unsolicited. 

Even if you’re highly visible, the brands may not see you or know that your audience will be valuable to them. To be noticed, engage consistently with their content. Not only that, but share openly about their product or service in blog posts or on social media. 

When you do this unsolicited, it makes it easier to get paid posts later. This is because brands can already see that your audience connects with the posts AND that the content you’re producing is high-quality and on-brand. 

So, don’t be afraid of a little free press to build goodwill. This actually makes a brand more likely to recognize you as an advocate and consider you for future paid work. We’ve been involved in many conversations where accepting free products for an event or mentioning a brand on TV were what sealed the deal for continued paid work together.

Acknowledge their acts of generosity. 

Brands are looking for people who are already enthusiastic about their products. We can’t tell you how many times brands are pitched with an invitation for a paid collaboration without any prior mention of or association to the brand. 

That’s why when we pitch on behalf of our influencers, we always include links to previous coverage including the brand. This way, they get a taste of what a partnership will look like and can see the influencer is looking for more than just money. Assuming a brand has a budget because they worked with X influencer is not a good enough reason {or passion} to solicit a partnership!

So, once the brand starts interacting with you in any way, start sharing about it! Even if you haven’t worked with the brands on a sponsored post-basis, keep sharing. If they sent you coupons or free products, share that act of generosity with your audience. Plus, who doesn’t love an unboxing video? And keep in mind that this doesn’t go for every single brand that reaches out to you. We recommend sticking to brands you truly love and use on a regular basis. 

Find common points of connection.

In order for a brand to know for certain you’ll be a good fit to advertise their products, show them you have common points of connection. Maybe you’re attending the same event, or the event is something you’d like to go to in the future. Let them know you’re excited to see them attend! 

Or, maybe they released a new product that’s perfect for your audience or personal goals? Share about it! Whatever they announce, show how you support their actions and how your brand lives within that same community. 

These gestures give the decision-maker case studies to share back {and show off to!} their team and prove the genuine excitement you have for the brand. It helps them look good, which in turn helps you look even better.

Produce high-quality content. 

This one might seem like a no-brainer, but if you’re new to blogging, it’s important to note. Brands will want your sponsored blog post to be spectacular. They won’t believe you can craft a powerful article if the content that’s already on your website isn’t up to snuff. 

If you’ve got old content that is a much lower quality than others on your page, think about deleting it (make sure to add your redirects). And, ensure everything from your web design to your branding to your written content is carefully considered and of the highest quality. 

Be professional. 

Brands are big companies. They want to know you’re a professional. Creating a page with a professional profile picture isn’t enough. Brands will want a thorough media kit that shows your page views, email list size, demographic stats, and details about your messaging. If you haven’t made one of these yet, Wellevation HQ can help! This is one of the main duties of our blog managers! 

Beyond an eye-catching and comprehensive media kit, brands also expect you to conduct yourself professionally online. From communication with your audience to managing a high-quality website, brands will scrutinize your professionalism on the world wide web. Keep it professional to keep your name on the list of future partner influencers. 

Once that initial connection is made, be ready to talk details. As we shared about in previous blog posts, know your numbers and what sets you apart from the competition. While most of this communication is typically done via email, I always think it’s worth offering to get on a phone call. This is just another way to prove your professionalism, build rapport with the brand, and deepen that connection – something that’s often lost in email. 

Take the stress out of getting sponsored post opportunities by following these key steps! 

Once you get a steady stream of regular sponsored posts, you’ll see your followers grow, your income grow, and your business grow. It’ll take some work, but when you engage consistently, keep a professional presence, and stay ultra-visible, you’ll have more collab requests than you know what to do with. 

That being said, you’ve got a lot going on. There is so much people don’t see on the business side of blogging. From bookkeeping to networking to writing, you’ve got SO MUCH to do. So, if you want experts to handle your sponsored blog posts, you’ll definitely see a return on your investment—both with your sanity and your wallet. 

At Wellevation HQ, we take a relationship-based approach to influencer marketing. This means we spend most of our days talking to brands via email, phone, or video call in order to stay top of mind for our influencer clients. So, when a brand client has a project, they’ll reach out to us FIRST to locate the best influencers (a.k.a YOU!) to fill their needs. 

Whether you decide to work with an agency or rock it solo, we wish you all the best! We’re confident you’ll find great sponsored post opportunities (and plenty of them!) Make 2022 the year you grow your blog and make it a big success with a BIG audience and a BIG profit. Good luck and tune in next week for part three!