How do I make dollars in sponsored content advertising?

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Affiliate marketing, Refer and Earn, Banner displays, Adsense, and Sponsored content advertisings are the methods followed by wide category of bloggers to monetize their site.

For some bloggers AdSense works well, for some affiliate marketing brings good money, some make a decent income in displaying banners but for some bloggers like me sponsored content advertising works well.

Every month I am receiving 20-30 proposals for publishing sponsored content on my blog socialtalky.com. Most of the proposals are from foreign nations.

Based on the content length and sponsor’s requirements I am charging in dollars varies from $20 to $100(established bloggers charge more) per post that too they send me the article and I just publish it on my blog.

I am not writing this post to brag that I am making passive income but revealing how to attract sponsors.

As said in MS DHONI movie “spend an equal amount of time on your passion as you spend in your full time job”. I am doing it.

I work on my blog from 8-12pm and from 5-7am daily and spend some extra hours on Sunday.

Out of this six hours most of the time I promote my articles than writing new articles. It’s like Pareto principle because I promote 80% of the time I write and read for 20% of the time.

Unless until you promote or advocate for your content no one will speak for it and in the beginning you get traffic only from online promotion than organic. So, promote it.

Whenever you approach any business for putting banner or publishing sponsored article on your site first and foremost they ask is your daily views and subscription base.

Wherever people goes money follows them

I get more traffic from social bookmarking sites like Flipboard, Pinterest, Reddit, and Digg than social medias like Facebook, Twitter, Google plus and Linkedin.

The beauty of social bookmarking sites is you need not followers to bring traffic even with one or zero followers you can drive thousands of page views.

But on the other hand, you need thousands of followers to generate hundreds of page views. Facebook officially disclosed page posts will reach only 16% of page followers organically.

People do pay promotion on social medias to reach more people where the ROI is less. To create a brand impact social medias are best but to get more pageviews bookmarking sites are preferred.

I receive more foreign proposals for sponsored content advertising because of Flipboard and Stumbleupon.

Whenever marketers send you proposals before fixing the price understand their business and customer base. Because a new player will spend more money on advertising than the established one.

A month ago, I quoted $20 to publish an article but she replied they will give $40 for an article.

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Then I enquired about the business she replied they are newly formed and investing more in promotion on decent blogs (She though $20 is a monthly subscription fee).

At the same time don’t demand more it will 100% backfire they won’t even reply to you. This also happened to me.

You must change your mindset that you are not a mere blogger but a sales/business man who is selling his space for displaying ads like Google or any other established online content websites.

You can also send proposals to business in your niche to advertise on your blog.

If they are not showing interest in your proposal feel free to write a second mail with numbers.

I had sent a proposal to a private firm in the UK they didn’t show interest first but I sent a second mail with proof how sponsored contents performed on my blog. I sent them the screenshot of the numbers then they convinced to publish a post.

Even if they are not convinced after second mail gives some discounts and combo offers like Sponsored article + Banner display at attractive price mostly this time you will win the sponsor.

Don’t break the continuity once you are done publishing.

I do after sales also. I collect the responses in numbers and comments the post received and mail it to the concerned sponsor. By showing the results they will surely consider you for publishing the article next time.

Do weekly email promotion to all sponsors.

I am using Zoho campaign for bulk email marketing and maintaining an exclusive list for sponsors to send weekly performance results of any sponsored article, convince why they need to consider publishing an article on my blog for the second time, what are all the changes I brought for advertisers, Exclusive offers and many.

You can choose your desired email marketing software to send bulk emails but do it.

Sponsors will approach you only if you invite them, make a text block on your blog inviting sponsors or guest bloggers with contact details. That’s how people approached me.

This is how I approach and make money from sponsored content advertising though it looks simple and normal. It took me one complete year to get my first sponsor.

Don’t approach sponsors with fewer contents and pageviews be patient and focus on content quality and numbers. You will get business in future for sure.

The aim of all the bloggers is to make a passive income from the blog but bloggers who are all patient enough only can make such a money who expects a return in shorter period shuts down the blog less than a year.

Be patient, do guest blogging, promote and improve your SEO score. Business will follow.