How to Successfully Sell Advertising Space on Low Traffic & New Blogs

 

This is a part of the “Getting Started with Blog Advertising” blog series.

If you’re a new-ish blogger, one of the challenges you will be experiencing is finding those first advertising clients. It’s hard because there is a lot of competition and you’re most valuable assets aren’t as competitive…. yet.

But, selling advertising on smaller blogs isn’t as harsh as you might think. Most bloggers think that to be successful at selling advertising you need the following:

• Lots and lots of traffic.
• Lots and lots of social proof, fans on Facebook, followers on Twitter, etc.
• An experienced track record of advertising.

Of course, if you’re a blogger who has just started out you don’t have these types of things.  But don’t feel like you will automatically be disqualified because advertisers and businesses won’t find you attractive.  Traffic is only part of the equation – an advertiser cares about one thing primarily: Conversion, especially high conversion rates.

What they need are blogs and bloggers who can deliver the right type of traffic with the right type of visitors to them.

Know Yourself:

You need to know your blog as well as you possibly can. The only way that you can do this is use website analytics.  This is the only way that you can really understand what you can actually offer to a potential advertiser. If you haven’t set this up then you must do that now and you must wait for a least a month (or two).  Make sure that it’s tracking as well as having a good history of metrics and statistics.

There are tons of options for you but without question you should have at least Google Analytics

Know Your Visitors:

Not only do you need to know yourself, but you need to make sure that you know your visitors as well as you possibly can. Either you’ve picked up on who they are over time or you can ask them directly by polling them directly via something as simple as Poll Daddy.

 You can ask them who they are, what they like, maybe and even what their purchasing patterns regarding your content.   Don’t forget to stay updated via Facebook and Twitter and other social networking outlets that may be sharing your content and/or talking about your blog and brand.  Don’t forget to check sites like Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, and other such sites that might be indexing your content as well.

Conversations are happening... make sure you're a part of them!

Find Your Future Advertisers:

The next thing is to simply find the advertisers that will want and your blog (but, they  just don’t know it yet). Here are a few ideas that will give you a good place to start your search:

• Linked Blogs – The blogs that link to you may already have advertisers - the fact that they are linked to you could mean that the advertisers might want to advertise on your blog too, especially if your content and niche are similar. Perhaps emailing the advertisers directly would be a good strategy! You could mention the existing link relationship and how you could serve their target audience as well!
• Your Community – People who comment obviously love your blog and some of them may have businesses (or know of marketers) that may have advertising needs. Sometimes the thought hasn’t crossed their mind.
• Research – You probably already know your niche pretty well and the other blogs within your realm, many of which you look up to and admire. Visit these blogs, with similar content, and be sure to make a note who is spending money.  Maybe drop them an introductory email.
• Intuition – You probably have already got an idea about which businesses would like to advertise on your blog. Make note of these as well and make the first contact, drop them a line and see what their advertising needs are.

These are definitely some of the easiest ways for you to engage advertisers even if you don’t have an all-singing-all-dancing blog, at the moment.

Now, the next step is taking advantage of some of the other posts that I’ve already written on how to engage a potential advertiser:

• 8 Tips to create the best advertising page ever
• Crafting a simple blog advertising agreement {Examples Included}
• 3 Principles that will help you choose the right advertisers
• 10 Tips on how to handle your first advertising sale

You’ll definitely want to check out these posts!

It Never Hurts to Ask:

The bottom line is that you, too, can start advertising if you engage properly and wisely, it never hurts to ask by pitching to these advertisers and contacting them directly.

What do you have to lose? Advertising on a smaller blog isn’t too difficult if you do it wisely. Try different methods and approaches, track your progress and provide them the most recent information possible. Go above and beyond and you may end up with a sweet return.

And good luck!

This is a part of the “Getting Started with Blog Advertising” blog series.

 

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