ProBlogger: Partnering with Brands Theme Week: The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Media Kit

Partnering with Brands Theme Week: The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Media Kit

Posted: 02 Jul 2014 08:30 AM PDT

You will have noticed this week we have learned how to reach out to brands for advertising and sponsorship on our blogs – and the best way to sell yourself is to have all your details in a handy, professional media kit. It shows that you’re serious about partnering up to create an both an income for you and awareness of brands, and gives potential sponsors all the information they need to decide that you’re the blogger they’d like to work with.

A media kit is a snapshot of your blog’s vital details, packaged up in a reader-friendly download. It provides potential sponsors a one-stop shop of information they use to inform their decisions about with whom they will partner. It not only has an overview of you, your blog, your reach, and your prices, but it is an essential selling tool for when PR representatives plead your case to the decision-makers in charge of their budgets. A media kit is like an extended business card you may send to anyone who needs to know more about you and what you do.

This can differ from blogger to blogger, so pick and choose how much information you feel you need to supply (less is more, ya know what I’m sayin’?). Often a one-page overview is useful, but there are times when advertisers or book publishers or other interested parties need to know more detail about your blog and what you provide.

The most common items are:

About you:

Your name
A profile shot
Your blog URL
Your tagline (if you have one)
A brief introduction/overview of you and the blog. Keep it short and punchy. The likelihood is that the person you are sending it to has already looked at your blog and your About Me page. Keep this one down to a few lines.
Regular post topics or features that would appeal to brands

About your readers:

Statistics snapshot – unique browsers, monthly pageviews,
Your demographics – who is reading your blog? Gender and age range is good to include here.
Newsletter and email subscriber numbers
Followers across social media sites – namely Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest (Google +, LinkedIn, and YouTube if that’s where your audience is at)
Optional – Alexa ranking, Klout score, Google Page Rank, if you feel they will help your case

About your services:

Advertising spaces available, and prices for each (including discounts available for longer-term packages, etc), not forgetting RSS feeds and newsletters
Sponsored post rates
Inclusions (extra incentives!) around social media for advertisers and sponsors. Do you offer shout-outs and freebies for advertisers? Let them know!
Sponsored social media update prices
Conference sponsorship packages and prices
Ambassadorship packages and prices
Affiliate details
Giveaway or review admin fees
Your policies on review products
Advertising spots/options to sponsor podcasts
Mention (if appropriate) that you are open to any ideas the brands or advertisers have for collaborations
Payment specifics and terms

Your previous brand partnerships:

Write a brief overview of the kinds of products and services you like to feature on the blog
Link to a few of the larger campaigns you have completed that did well and you enjoyed
Write a list of the other brand names that have been featured

Testimonials:

Include a few carefully-curated positive reviews of your work, or a couple of lines from people and brands with whom you have worked
Add your press features, or where you’ve been featured on other blogs

Contact details:

Your name
PO Box or address for people to send items
Email
Phone number (if appropriate)
Social media links
Skype details

By all means hire a designer to create you one, if you like – but it’s quite simple to gather your information, a few images, and make them look great on paper. You can make a very simple one using Word (and then converting to PDF), or use any one of the image-creation sites out there. PicMonkey is easy to use (here is a great PicMonkey media kit tutorial), as is Canva, and Ribbet. PowerPoint is quite user-friendly, and can turn out professional-looking media kits in no time, you can use Pages, Photoshop, or even google downloadable templates. You could also search Etsy or similar places for either a downloadable template you can buy, or have a custom one made.

Each person’s media kit needs are so different – you might find useful info at the following posts:

Tips for Creating a Media Kit for Your Blog // Amy Lynn Andrews

Blogger Media Kits: When You Don’t Have Much Traffic // Katy Widrick

How to Create a Media Kit that Rocks // The Blog Maven

Creating a Media Kit for Your Blog // The Well

And you can get inspired with these media kit examples:

ClickinMoms Click Magazine

The Art of Simple

Bloggers Bazaar Pinterest board of media kit samples

The Blog Maven – 20 Media Kit Examples

Best Blogger Media Kits – Katy Widrick

Before you go:

Update your kit often. Every three months is average
Make it customisable – especially if you get someone else to create it for you. Make sure it’s easy for you to update it on your own
Make it easily accessible. Consider having it as a download on your “work with me” or “contact” page. It saves email back-and-forth, and makes it so much easier (and faster!) for potential brands
Think of printing – ensure your kit is of a high enough resolution to look good when printed
Think of collaborating – don’t be afraid to make a list of dream collaborators, and be proactive in approaching them. Offer your media kit as a simple start.
Be positive. And remember, if your numbers aren’t anything to write home about yet, you might like to mention your growth instead. Something like “doubled twitter followers in a month” sounds positive and encouraging. And is true!
Be consistent with statistics. There are many ways of capturing this information, but Google Analytics appears to be the standard, and is quite accurate.
Watch your language. While it’s great you write your blog with your own unique voice, this is the time to be professional (and a little quirky, as needed!). Keep it slick.
We are visual creatures – break up big chunks of text and eye-swimming numbers with bright images, easy-to-read but interesting fonts, and lots of white space.

Have you seen a great example of a media kit lately? What do you have in yours?

Stacey Roberts is the Managing Editor of ProBlogger.net, and the blogger behind Veggie Mama. A writer, blogger, and full-time word nerd, she can be found making play-dough, reading The Cat in the Hat for the eleventh time, and avoiding the laundry. See evidence on Instagram here, on Facebook here, and twitter @veggie_mama.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Partnering with Brands Theme Week: The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Media Kit