BlogHer ’10 – The Mega Mindful Monetization Session

We’re in the Room of Your Own – The Mega “Mindful Monetization” Session! at BlogHer ’10. This session in the professional track is being moderated by Amy Lupold Bair with Marta Wohrle, Megan Jordan, and Micaela Preston. By the way, there are people sitting on the floor in here – it’s that popular!

“At what point in your blogging career did you decide to monetize?”

Marta says she decided on Day 1. Micaela took three years before she decided to start taking sponsors and advertising on her blog. Megan went to BlogHer ’08; she used affiliate ads on her site before then but never made any money. People were buying things in real life based on her recommendations, and that’s when she was told she could talk to the companies directly in order to monetize that.

Marta’s site reviews beauty products. They test products for about four weeks before they recommend them. She became an Amazon affiliate and was selling 400-500 items per month, but that wasn’t making her very much money. Then she joined OpenSky as an ecommerce solution, and it’s been much more lucrative.

Megan’s storytelling was selling products offline. She doesn’t do reviews and giveaways. She published one post last month, and she’s not going to worry about it. Her best month has posts only once per week. She decided to work with very few sponsors. Her audience comes first. There is always a great story to go along with what works for the brands. Know your audience’s needs first.

Micaela was worried that monetizing would change her blog, making her hesitant. Green living is not about consumerism and selling products, and she didn’t want to clutter up her blog. She created an advertising/promotion policy, which she highly recommends for other bloggers. For her, she wants small companies and mom-run businesses as advertisers. She doesn’t make a lot of money, but her purpose for monetizing was to help cover blogging expenses and to promote sustainable products as a benefit for her readers. It also turned out to be fun to promote her sponsors.

Megan said you should be having fun with your monetization and your promotions.

Amy points out that there is no one right way to monetize. You have to know where you want to go with your blog, what your boundaries are, because sponsors will find you.

Micaela says you need to determine your purpose for monetizing. Is it all about the money? Is it to help your readers? Don’t respond to pitches right away; think about it before.

“Have you had any backlash from your readers when you decided to monetize?”

Marta did a survey of her VIP readers, and out of 300 responses, there were two people who thought that she was pushing her ecommerce products too much.

Megan says she has an army of critics in her head. She hasn’t had any backlash yet because she is very mindful of her audience, and she’s always anticipating what her readers will think in her head before she publishes her posts.

Opening up the floor for questions.

Sherry wants to know what people think about getting paid to run giveaways.

Amy says that she does a lot of giveaways for one reason…as a gift to her readers. “They come for the contests, and they stay for the content.” They’re fun, but very time consuming. She does not charge to run giveaways because she feels they add value. PR reps have confirmed for her that they would love to pay bloggers for everything they do, but they are often not able to budget for it and just don’t have the money. You have to make it clear in the beginning what you expect.

Micaela does not charge for reviews or giveaways. She does not accept money for it.

Megan doesn’t give away crap, but she’d charge money for it if she did. (Lots of laughter.)

Question: Where do you suggest starting with stats when you want to monetize? When are you worth a company’s time?

Marta recommends using Google Analytics to learn about your readers. Do a survey.

Amy says not to worry so much about the numbers. Worry about the whole package. Twitter, Facebook, real life things like being the president of your moms club…

Megan  says to put real life stuff on your About page.

Don’t knock on the door of Fortune 500 companies when you’re small. Look for the small businesses that are wondering when they’ll be big enough for bloggers to pay attention to them. Charge a small amount when you start out, and you can raise your rates later. Try local companies.

Question: How do you know what to charge when companies inquire about your rates?

Marta uses Google AdSense, which gives her a baseline for what her ad space is worth. But if an  advertiser wants to run an ad on her site specifically, she is going to charge more for that targeted ad space. Always use your highest CPM ad network as your baseline, then charge more.

Megan says to “do your freaking research.” She looks at sites that are similar to hers, find out what their rates are, and double them.

Question: Sponsored posts? Yes or no?

Marta feels that they would compromise her integrity. She said no quite violently.

Amy points out that Megan has a completely integrated approach with her site and manages to tell a great story. It’s not generally what people think of as sponsored posts, but she does disclose the fact that she has been paid for a particular brand. Megan says doesn’t write about specific products, but instead about brands and their campaigns.

Jessica wants to know how to monetize with integrity. What are some tips for best practices?

Amy says she tells too much, rather than not enough. Her disclosure statement appears on a dedicated page, and she integrates her disclosure into her posts.

Megan says she used the same service that Amy uses. She says her disclosure is “smooth.”

Question: How are we supposed to find out what are realistic expectations for monetization income?

Micaela searched other blogs, and some bloggers do disclose how much they make. Talk to a lot of people at BlogHer and other conference; have frank discussions and don’t be so secretive.

Marta points out that it really depends on your niche. Beauty sites make a lot more than food and grocery sites. Note: CPM = cost per 1,000 impressions. CPC = cost per click.

Megan says that any time people try to talk about hard numbers on Twitter, someone will start raving about price fixing.

Amy adds that X/Y/Z is only worth whatever someone is willing to pay. She thinks that it’s helpful to offer a service outside of an ad on a blog. But realize that the people you’re working with on product reviews may have no relationship with the people at the same brand who handle advertising.

Annie from PhD in Parenting wants to know what sort of research people do when deciding what brands to work with or not.

Megan says that it all starts with the pitches. She looks at every single pitch to see if it makes sense, but she has to connect with the advertiser on a story level. (She’s totally not getting to the heart of the issue that Annie was trying to address without naming companies, but there’s one company in particular that she disapproves of ethically.)

Micaela is a green blogger and gets many pitches that are definitely not for green products. She researches pitches that look interesting to her to make sure it’s really something she wants to promote.

Amy does Twitter parties with a lot of clients that are “just for the night.” (Raucous laughter.) She doesn’t have extended relationships with companies. When they were Sitewarming parties for new products, there often wasn’t a lot of information available to do research. But she did occasionally have to turn down a client or two once the ball had gotten rolling because she discovered that she wasn’t comfortable with them morally.

Question: How does Amazon compare with OpenSky? The blogger asking makes hundreds of dollars a month from the Amazon affiliate program.

Marta has about an 11% conversion rate when she uses the Amazon affiliate program. She uses OpenSky when she wants to get to something very particular, when she wants to get a really special offer for her readers. She will go to companies to negotiate special deals for her readers through the OpenSky platform. She gets higher commissions from OpenSky than from Amazon.

Cheryl wants to know what departments to talk to when she wants to approach companies for sponsorship opportunities.

Amy doesn’t try to bypass the PR folks. She’ll Google the company looking for press releases, and she can find contact information for PR people that way.

Megan works with PR as well. She actually uses another blogger who runs an agency to make the connection. There’s nothing wrong with going through PR first. PR reps speak “brand speak.” If you can convince them of what you want to do, they can figure out how to say it in words that brands understand.

Some industries may have specific digital marketing professionals. (Advice from Barbara Jones, a PR rep in the front row.)

Cozi talks to bloggers directly, so not all brands use PR agencies. You can find people from brands who are out in the social media sphere who may be more likely to work with you as a blogger if you reach them where they are. Tell the brand what you can do for them. Start out with how you can serve their needs before you start talking about your blog.

Question: Advice for bloggers starting out and want to make money?

Don’t be a personal blogger. There’s little money in it.

Marta says if you want to make money, you have to own something. Figure out what you can do better than anyone else.

Joanna Dolgoff wants to know if there’s an easy way to find ads to place on her site that wouldn’t be time consuming but also wouldn’t cause trouble for appearing on her MD Web site.

Marta says to find a health ad network that would allow her to opt-out of particular types of ads.

Tonya comments that you shouldn’t be afraid that a brand will say no. You can always negotiate.

Megan (in the audience) mentions opportunities that she’s gotten through her blog even though she doesn’t make a penny through ads. She’s gotten offers from magazines and a book deal because of her blog. Your blog is a platform that can lead to many things. Make sure your contact information is on your site.

Tom mentions that there are businesses looking for very innovative proposals from bloggers, and to always think creatively.

Megan wants to close with having the willingness to walk away from opportunities that aren’t a good fit for you. Walking away from one opportunity may open the door for a greater opportunity.

Micaela seconds that. Take the time to think about it and know your purpose.

Marta says to experiment because not everything works for everybody. If you want to make money, it is hard work.

Christina Gleason (976 Posts)

That’s me: Christina Gleason. I’m a writer, editor, and disability advocate. I'm a multiply disabled autistic lady doing my best in this world built for abled people. I’m a geek for grammar, fantasy, and casual gaming. I hate vegetables. I cannot reliably speak, so I’ll happily conduct business over email or messaging instead.