When Your Blog Gets Pitched, Pitch Back

November 17th, 2006 by Ben Yoskovitz

Bloggers are getting pitched more and more from companies and their public relations people who are looking to promote all sorts of goods. There’s a lot of book pitching, but no shortage of other products being pitched as well.

Lots of A-list bloggers get pitched daily. Many are getting tired of it, mostly because there’s so many crappy pitches.

Personally, I love it. For starters it’s nice to know that someone wants to promote something through Instigator Blog.

But more importantly, I pitch back.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been pitched a few times. A couple of those weren’t good fits. I replied quickly to the pitches (I don’t get millions of emails, so I can still respond to everyone!) and left it at that. Some of the pitches were good fits and I engaged in some conversations with the pitchers about what they wanted out of me. One was a book. The PR person sent me the book (I have yet to read it, but I plan to.) It’s a book on entrepreneurship, so it makes perfect sense for me to read it and review it here.

I also pitched the PR person back. Something along the lines of, “Would you like to run a contest on the blog? Or maybe do some advertising? Are there other products you’re promoting that would be a good fit?”

There wasn’t a good fit in terms of doing any blog sponsorship but it was great to create and build the relationship beyond the PR person just pitching me.

Pitch the pitchers. It’s a legitimate and great way to find new opportunities for making money on your blog.

With all the hoopla going on about companies like ReviewMe, it’s absolutely essential that you maintain the integrity of your blog and keep separate what you do for money and what you do voluntarily. TechCrunch calls pay-per-post stuff a virus, and while I think that’s harsh (and easy for an A-list blogger to say), I do think it’s important to maintain integrity and be open to what you’re doing for money (or not.) To-date I haven’t written any pay-per-post material, whatsoever. If I did, I’d tell you.

If I write a review of the book that I was pitched it will be an honest review. Simple as that. PR people have to realize that when they make a pitch. Certainly if you write a bad review they’re unlikely to pitch you again, but that’s their problem, not yours. If I further engage that PR company to do any advertising or sponsorship for money it will have to be completely separate from any writing I do voluntarily. It’s a fine line, but it’s manageable.

The best way to make money on a blog is through sponsorship and when you’re pitched think of it as an opportunity to create and extend the relationship and find sponsorship opportunities.

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Tags: blogs, blogging, weblog, public relations, blog pitches, blog advertising, sponsorship, blog sponsorship, making money online, online marketing

Picture by bd2000.

Getting Kicked in the Pants With SuccessJolt’s Carnival of Success

November 16th, 2006 by Ben Yoskovitz

I’m a big fan of blog carnivals as a way of finding great content and promoting your own blog.

Yesterday, one of my posts — What a Poop-Covered Toddler Can Teach You About Business — appeared in the Carnival of Success at SuccessJolt.

SuccessJolt’s tagline is: “Your daily kick in the pants!”

You gotta love it. Everyone needs a kick in the pants once in awhile…

The Carnival of Success doesn’t focus solely on business - you’ll find posts on personal development, life, family, health and more.

Some of my favorites included:

• How To Find What You Love To Do by Brian Kim
• Declutter, declutter, declutter! by Henrik Edberg
• What To Do When You Make Mistakes by Ririan

Since it’s almost impossible to kick yourself in your own pants unless you’re a Cirque de Soleil acrobat, let others like SuccessJolt, Brian Kim, Henrik Edberg and Ririan help. I’ll kick you too, if you like…

Please subscribe for free to Instigator Blog via RSS. For more information, click here.

Tags: success jolt, blog carnivals, brian kim, ririan, henrik edberg, small business, personal development, business strategy, entrepreneurship

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The Best Way of Making Money on a Blog is Through Sponsorship

November 16th, 2006 by Ben Yoskovitz

Your blog doesn’t get a ton of traffic.

Your blog doesn’t display great contextual ads. Or maybe you don’t want to use contextual ads because you feel it devalues the overall quality of your blog.

Now what?

Lots of people make money with contextual advertising, particularly with Google AdSense. But there’s way more people who don’t earn much of anything from Google AdSense or other advertising options like Text Link Ads and Performancing.

Mastering contextual advertising isn’t rocket science, but it definitely takes some effort. And there’s an insane amount of resources out there (some good, some bad) on how to maximize the success of Google AdSense and other programs.

Affiliate marketing works well for quite a few people, but there’s also a learning curve. It takes time to figure out, and there are a ton of options with companies like Commission Junction, PayDotCom and Click Bank.

The best way of making money with a blog is through sponsorship.

1. You can hand-pick sponsors and build real relationships. With affiliate marketing you do get to pick what ads you show, but it’s not the same as targeting specific sponsors you absolutely want to work with and pitching them directly. Sponsorships also give you a chance to build actual person-to-person relationships. Those relationships can be of great value in developing your blog, finding other partners and growing your network.
2. You can display sponsorships on your blog in a number of ways. A sponsorship can be almost anything - a link in your posts, co-branding on the site, an advertisement, special content, a contest, etc. There’s a ton of different ways you can execute a sponsorship, and that makes them very interesting. You can figure out what your audience really wants to see, and work with sponsors to develop content, advertising and ideas that make sense.
3. You can negotiate payment options. Sponsorships can be paid for in a bunch of different ways: page views, clickthroughs, monthly, etc. The control and flexibility stay in your hands. For example, if you’re running an online contest, you might get paid for the implementation and during the life of the contest. I prefer monthly payments since they’re the easiest for everyone to understand.
4. You don’t have a huge learning curve to deal with. There’s a minimal learning curve with sponsorships. Find a sponsor, decide on the type of sponsorship and negotiate the price. You won’t see a million websites selling you $19.99 info products on, “how to maximize sponsorship opportunities with your blog.” That’s because sponsorships are so flexible and open, and dependent on real relationships, you can’t develop a “best practices system for everyone.”
5. You don’t need an uber-popular blog to get sponsors. There’s a lot of opportunity out there for smaller blogs to find sponsors. You might not get VISA or some Fortune 100 company involved, but lots of smaller companies could benefit from blog sponsorships. I’ve got a sponsor who I’ve very much enjoyed working with, and although I’d love Instigator Blog to be in the Technorati 100, I don’t think that’s going to happen! Still, with the right audience and reasonable traffic numbers, you can find a great sponsor.

Getting sponsors will take time. It’s not as easy as throwing up some contextual ads or affiliate marketing links. But just because you can put ads on your site in 5 minutes doesn’t mean they’ll make you any money.

The human element of sponsorships is key. Build relationships with people (which you already do as an extension of blogging) and sponsorships will return more than just monetary rewards over time.

Please subscribe for free to Instigator Blog via RSS. For more information, click here.

Tags: blogs, blogging, weblog, sponsorships, making money on blogs, how to blog

Picture by Martin Deutsch.

Ted Demopoulos Stole My Book Idea

November 15th, 2006 by Ben Yoskovitz

I just finished reading What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting by Ted Demopoulos, which he graciously sent me.

Ted stole my book idea.

If I was going to write an introductory guide to the benefits of blogging and podcasting, I would have written Ted’s book. Ok, so technically Ted didn’t steal anything from me, he just beat me to the punch.

Although I was already a strong believer in blogging and podcasting, I still found a ton of great examples in Ted’s book about how people in a variety of industries are using blogging and podcasting successfully. Real estate? Sure! Small business? Absolutely! Sploggers in Russia getting drunk on vodka? Sign me up!

Ted takes a humble approach, which is smart. Blogging isn’t going to revolutionize the world. It’s not going to save starving children or cure any disease. It’s not even about replacing other forms of communication, throwing websites into the Internet trash heap or eliminating the need for traditional PR. Blogging and podcasting are evolutions of what marketers, salespeople, CEOs, small business owners and entrepreneurs have been doing for years. It’s a great evolution, one that’s way more accessible to a wider audience, but too many evangelists do get carried away. Ted doesn’t. He uses real world examples, admits that no one is an uber-expert and lets the people he interviews express themselves openly.

I’d recommend this book to anyone who is thinking about blogging/podcasting or has just started. I’d also recommend this book to any experienced bloggers that feel burnt out, or feel like they’re starting to lose their focus. What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting is a quick read, an easy read and inspirational.

Tags: podcasting, podcast, blogging, weblog, ted demopoulos, blogging books

Can Blogging Make Someone Seem Inaccessible?

November 14th, 2006 by Ben Yoskovitz

There’s no question that blogging can present you as an expert. Blogging can raise your profile significantly. And it’s not hard to do.

The common belief is that blogging makes people far more accessible than they were before; bloggers are out there, promoting themselves and their ideas, and hopefully giving their audience plenty of opportunity to get in touch.

All true.

But I also know that many people do feel apprehensive about contacting bloggers, particularly very popular ones. They see a person who speaks their mind, is an uber-expert and has a big audience. They see a star. They see an A-lister. They see someone who is obviously very successful and wouldn’t want to communicate with little ole me, right?

Bloggers need to be aware of this. Some definitely are. Liz Strauss does an insanely good job of being open and available. Anyone visiting her blog can tell it’s very popular. Scour the blogosphere for even a few minutes and you’re bound to find Liz Strauss somewhere. But she’s the farthest thing from unreachable that you can imagine.

I can’t speak for Liz directly, but I bet she’d tell you she’s very aware of people’s apprehension when it comes to contacting popular bloggers.

Some popular bloggers play up their popularity by acting or coming across like movie stars. They’re not. They’re not untouchable. And that attitude of superiority will come to haunt them later. I’d say this is rare, but it’s out there. Clique-mentality exists in the blogosphere, but it sucks. It’s bad business.

Popular bloggers look more successful than they really might be.

I’m not insulting anyone, but just because someone has a popular blog doesn’t mean they’re incredibly successful. It doesn’t mean they don’t want to talk to you. It doesn’t mean they don’t NEED your business.

Used properly, blog popularity can be a great thing! Those who work hard to grow their blogs will look like authorities and have an eager audience. If they’re accessible too, it’s a winning combination!

A quick anecdote - some people consider my blog successful (thank