How Bloggers Can Land Their First Paid Sponsorship (Without a Big Audience)

Hey, I’m Lidiya, and I’ve been earning a full-time income from sponsored blogging for many years now.

It’s not the usual thing you hear in the blogging industry, I know.

You may be used to hearing about big and small bloggers earning from affiliate marketing, ads, and selling digital products or services, or a combination of these. But how often do you hear that someone is earning recurring revenue simply by working with brands, and from just 1 blog?

Here’s the thing. My blogging business is small, but it gives me all the time freedom I could ever wish for, which I now appreciate more than ever because I became a mom 2 months ago.

I also absolutely love it, and that hasn’t changed ever since I started that blog back in 2013.

The site I’m talking about is Let’s Reach Success, and while I run 2 more now and publish content on other platforms too, this blog is the foundation of my business.

Sponsored blogging changed my life. I stumbled upon this income stream a long time ago, before knowing it was even a thing. And I’ve been relying on it ever since.

I’ll never forget that email I got back in the days, from a sponsor that wanted to publish a guest post on my site with 1 link back to their client’s site, and pay me $100 for that.

It was the best $100 I had earned, as my other income then was coming from freelance writing (which I later happily replaced with full-time blogging).

I then started studying the business of sponsored blogging, and discovered a whole new world that almost no one talks about online.

Because it worked so well for me, and I created my own strategies for pitching brands and getting on their radar, discovered so many sponsored networks to join and got better at negotiating my rates, I began teaching this business model.

Blog sponsorships allow me to work between 1 and 3 hours a day, and I’ve optimized the process as much as possible. I have email templates that save me time when responding to brands who pitch me, I update my media kit often, I post strategic content on my blog that attracts more sponsors, and I join at least a few new sponsored networks per year.

I share all this inside my course The Blog Sponsorship Boss, by the way.

And if you need some proof that this works, feel free to grab my annual income report, The $51K Blogging Case Study.

If you’re just getting started with blog sponsorships, in this guide, I’ll help you take the first steps. But let’s start with something crucial I want you to know.

 

Debunking The Myth

There’s a big myth among bloggers that you need a lot of page views in order to land paid opportunities for your blog.

That might be the case if you want to earn from ads, but it’s not for sponsorships.

Let me use my business experience as an example.

My blog used to get 100K monthly page views years ago, when the Google algorithm made more sense and organic traffic from search engines was actually attainable. But things have changed in the industry.

So many bloggers have lost traffic (and with that all their ad revenue actually) that they’ve moved onto other traffic sources, income streams and content strategies.

My blog now gets between 10K and 20K page views a month, and yet it’s earning me more in sponsorships than the good old days when it hit over a million page views per year.

Why is that?

We can never really tell, but my guess is that it’s related to:

• My domain authority being high and sponsors being more interested in that than in traffic;
• Blog traffic not being as significant as it used to be;
• My experience with working with brands (being discovered more, negotiating better, etc;)
• Appearing on more sponsored networks (these might not always bring you paid opportunities directly, but can be the reason why sponsors notice your blog and contact you outside of the networks);
• Learning the rules of the sponsored blogging game (they are quite specific, and all of them I learned from experience and making mistakes);
• The confidence to charge more, knowing that companies have a big budget for this (it’s like influencer marketing but with bloggers).

So if not having too many page views ever stopped you from monetizing with sponsored content, let that limiting belief die and let’s move forward.

 

How to Land Your First Paid Sponsorship

1. Get your blog ready for sponsors.

What does that mean?

Well, for a start, make sure you have a clear niche and a site that looks professional and functions well, and publish the main pages on it, including Contact and legal pages.

Have a clear navigation menu and add the right pages there. The same goes for your footer and every other element on your blog.

I have a free blogging course if you’re ready to take those first steps.

Don’t obsess over design, functionality matters more. And at the end of the day, it’s all about your blog content.

In addition to your blog, make sure you have a business email (that includes your domain name), and start building your presence on other platforms as search engines now care about your whole brand.

That means a Pinterest account (which is a great traffic source for brand new blogs, by the way!), and getting on socials (Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube – whichever works for you). Add your website URL there and a description.

That’s the beginning of your brand.

2. Give it at least 6 months.

If your blog is brand new, give it at least 6 months to build some trust with search engines and to create enough content so sponsors can take you seriously when you pitch them.

Also, this is what most sponsored networks require (a site that has existed for at least 6 months) before you can add your blog to them. Most still won’t accept you at this stage, but you can try again again after some time.

During that time, post content consistently. Have the right blog categories and make sure each contains at least 10 blog posts. That’s your site structure.

3. Understand what brands actually want.

Brands want access to your platform and your audience, but also the SEO juice they gain from a dofollow link from your site to theirs.

There are all kinds of paid collaborations you can be part of. Sometimes it can be a combination with an affiliate campaign, so you can write a review for the brand and use your affiliate links, include a newsletter promo and share on socials. That’s an example of a sponsored package you can have,  by the way.

Today you can get pretty creative with how you want to work with brands, or hear their suggestions. There are no strict rules, but the dofollow link they require is usually at the center of it all.

Brands also want your site to be trusted by search engines, and that usually means a good domain authority score. You increase it by getting good backlinks, being consistent with blogging (the longer your domain name exists, the more search engines trust it), improving your online presence, and so much more.

Here’s a detailed list of all the factors that matter for ranking your website and gaining Google’s trust.

Ultimately, the best strategy is to give people what they want – to write the content they search for,  and find ways to keep them on your site longer and get them on your email list. Please people first, and you’ll please the algorithms too.

Once you have a strong content strategy and a blog that is positioned well, brands will notice you and email you.

4. Create a starter media kit.

This is a PDF file that you send brands via email when they ask for your rates or if you even accept sponsorships.

Inside, you can add your bio and niche, website metrics, topics you accept, social profiles, your rates and packages, conditions you work with, and contact and payment details.

Create that inside Canva and save it as a PDF so you can quickly send it to brands.

5. Create a list of brands to pitch.

You’ll also need to start pitching brands yourself. While this may sound scary, it’s actually not. Just be okay with rejection and see it as ‘not right now’ or ‘not a good fit’.

For the rest, you never know where your next paid collab can come from.

There are different ways to find brands to work with. You can see the sponsors other bloggers in your niche have worked with and email them yourself.

You can also just contact the company behind any product you’ve used or online service or tool you’ve tried. This makes it more personal and you can offer to write a review and introduce the product to your audience.

6. Send your first pitch.

Outline a simple structure. That could be:

• Quick intro;
• Why you love the brand;
• The audience fit;
• Your idea;
• Clear call to action.

Keep it short and specific, and send at least 5 emails like that every week.

Don’t forget to follow up at least once.

7. Build momentum from one Yes.

I can’t tell you how long it will take to get your first sponsored opportunity, but the only way to not get it is to give up. So stay consistent with your efforts.

And once you do hear a Yes, make the most of that. Include it in your media kit as an example of a successful past collaboration.

Offer a special package to that client to continue the relationship.

Use this as proof that it works for you, and be confident in raising your rates or negotiating better from now on.

Final words

And that’s it. That’s how you can get started with blog sponsorships even as a new blogger, and even without a big audience or many page views.

What do you think?

If you’re ready for the next step, grab my free guide with the strategies I use to make $3K-$5K per month from sponsored posts on my blog.