Blog Sponsorship for Creative Bloggers: Valuing Yourself As A Blogger

This month sees the return of a new Saturday-ly blogging series, talking about the ever hot-topic of blog sponsorship. There are those who do it, those who want to do it, those who are confused by it and, in all honesty, those who hate it. A complete spectrum of responses and actions, and you know what? That’s ok! That’s what makes this blogging community a place for everyone – diversity.

About The Series

I’ll be sharing about my journey and experiences with blog sponsorship. We’ll be talking to online stores about why they sponsor blogs and what they look for in blogs when thinking about sponsorship. We’ll be talking about valuing yourself as a blogger, and we’ll even talk about how and why to break up with a sponsor if the relationship isn’t working out.

This series isn’t about the when and how much of blog sponsorship with the nitty gritty details of formulas and numbers, so much as the why. Why ‘do’ blog sponsorship, why do shops sponsor, why do bloggers get involved with sponsors. Of course there’ll be some numbers, but there’s never any easy formulas for pricing or at what point in your stats should you start. That’s up to you.

If this is something you’re interested, then tune in every Saturday in November to find out more! And if not, then skip right on over to get to the quilty fabric stuff in between – there will still be plenty of that happening! Either way, let’s make a promise now to be open and honest and share our comments in love. I want to hear what you guys have to say about this all, and I will endeavour to answer as many questions as I can or am able to. But first, let’s get digging into what blog sponsorship is really about…

Valuing Yourself As A Blogger

What blog sponsorship really boils down to, is valuing yourself as a blogger. If you believe in yourself and your blog, and the value it has in this busy blogging marketplace, don’t be afraid to share that! We have heard a lot this year about valuing ourselves as quilters and the true monetary value of our skills and products. Our blogs are no different! If you spend time and effort in improving yourself as a blogger and improving your blog itself, it has value. If you care about creating interesting and unique content that people want to read, it has value. If you spend actual money on your blog to make it better/easier, it has value.

Like quilting, there are no easy ways to determine the actual monetary amount your blog is worth. With quilting, there are supplies you can count to determine at the very least the literal value of your product, but where does the time you spent thinking, designing and creating the product come into the equation?

With blogging, I could add up my hosting + domain + linky fees for a very basic, annual cost of blogging, but where does the amount of blog traffic fit into it? How do I place a value on how many people will see the ad spots, or the SEO of the links I share to my sponsors? How about my time and effort spent in creating the blog content that draws the traffic and thus eyeball to see the ad spots?
There are no easy answers on what monetary value to place on yourself as a blogger. There are plenty of formulas and tables to be found, based on page views and unique visitor numbers and hours spent blogging and blog posts per week and, and, and… For me personally, I did a little research to see what I could find out about other quilt bloggers’ traffic and ad rates, determined what I thought was reasonable for my situation, and tested the waters by sending out some emails. My rates were soon validated when sponsors signed up!

Blog sponsorship is something you need to go into being sure of your value as a blogger, and the value of your blog. If you don’t believe in yourself, why should sponsors? It IS ultimately a business relationship, and you need to be able to confidently promote your blog and yourself as a blogger as something worth investing their money into.

Further Information

I have loads of great information about all sorts of blogging tips and tricks on my Blogging Pinterest board. Or join the Quilty Bloggers and Instagrammers Support Group on Facebook to “talk business” with others in our niche!

The other posts in this series:
– My personal experience with blog sponsorship and what I’ve learned along the way
– What Blog Sponsors Are Really Looking For
– Blog Sponsorship: Your Stories and Thoughts