Advertiser Interested! I'm Not Ready For This!

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According to a blogger friend this guy is legit. The trouble is I know nothing about ad rates and I've only been blogging since May so I don't even know how to put an ad up in my Wordpress blog. Please read below and any advice or help you could offer is appreciated. Thank you! Emily

"I noticed your website on the NJ Mom's blogs. I was struck by how personal your posts are, especially your struggles with your medical issues.

I am an attorney in Pennington, NJ focusing my practice on planning for parents of minor children. I make sure that parents have plans in place that ensure that their children are cared for if something happens to them. Actually, you can check out the description for one of my upcoming workshops to see more detail. Here is the link - http://www.jerseyestateplanning.com/upcoming-workshops/

In any event, I was wondering if you had advertising on your blog and what the rates were. I would also like to feature your blog in my bi-weekly e-zine to clients, prospects and planning partners. Would you be okay with that? I intend to feature a blog for each issue during July & August's e-zines. If you'd like to see what these look like, you can sign up to receive them through the link below. Subscribe with confidence as I only send out updates every other week and there's almost no sales talk in these. They are pure substance for my trusted house list.

By the way, so you don't think that I'm spamming you or your friends, I just wanted to give you advance notice that I'm sending out emails like this to some of the other NJ Mom bloggers that I found interesting.

I look forward to hearing from you and thank you for your consideration - "

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Storm on July 2, 2009 at 7:58pm: Most bloggers do their rates via how much traffic their blog gets, and either in a 1 month slot, 3 month, 6 months, and 1 year. No one can really tell you how much to charge for the ad, but no matter how little traffic you get, I probably wouldn't go below $20 for a one month slot with a small graphic ad. It's all up to you though!

I don't use Wordpress myself, so I can't help you there - hopefully someone else comes along soon who can help you there. :); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by minnemom on July 2, 2009 at 8:08pm: Look at several blogs--similar in content to yours or different--and see if they have advertising links. Some will have their rates and stats on an ad page.

Are you using wordpress.com or a self-hosted wordpress blog? I think you can do it in either one, especially if it's a simple square block ad. You just put the photo in a sidebar and link the photo to the advertiser's site.

(If there's a simpler way, I'd love to hear it, but that's how I do it. You can peek at http://minnemom.com if you want to see how I've done it. I'm new to this too.)

Linda; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Nancy Long on July 3, 2009 at 9:32am: If you need help you can email me and I'll help you out (I'm also a web designer http://www.pagesbynancy.com). Basically just upload their button ad (or whatever it is), use a text widget and put the code in. If you need help with the code, that's where you can email me, if I put the code here you wouldn't be able to see it, because this form would display the finished product that the code creates :) .; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Emily on July 3, 2009 at 7:57pm: Thank you all for your responses so far. You have been great!

Below is the main points of his next conversation to me:

"Thank you for returning my email. (And for feeling comfortable enough to disclose your name, I will, of course, keep it in confidence as circumstances dictate.)

So, I wish I could say I'm a savvy marketing lawyer who has an ad all prepared and knows just what he wants to do, but I'm kinda making this up as I go along. I'm talking with a couple other mommy bloggers and think I have an approach that is fair and will be consistent across the board. Let me know how this sounds: I would like to put up an ad that is a 125x125 box with a call to a free report for people who click on it. The free report would either be for the 6 common mistakes in naming guardians or something I call the Moms Freedom Guide. I'd be happy to provide you copies with each so you can approve it as something your readers are getting exposed to. These are substantive pieces of information, not thinly-veiled marketing pieces, so I'm confident you'll be okay with them. In addition, I would like to be able to guest post on your blog regarding issues related to estate planning, family planning and the like. The rate that seems to be quoted around these parts is $50/year. How does that sound to you?

Now that you've signed up, I'm going to send you out a copy of our latest e-zine so you can see the format and style. If you agree, I would like to feature you and some of the other bloggers in a series highlighting your writing and content. (Don't tell the other NJ Moms Blogs bloggers this, but I'm big on writing style and quality and I only reached out to those whose writing I thought was superior.) In any event, my hope would be to have a moms blog featured per issue and then, after I have featured everyone once, condense that to a monthly digest of the latest posts since the last time I sent the digest. "

I know this would just be a statewide ad and he would be offering to feature me in his blog but 50/yr. still seems really low.

Emily; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by minnemom on July 3, 2009 at 8:30pm: $50/year sounds low to me. If you're not comfortable with it, don't do it. You weren't even soliciting ads--he approached you. If you let him guest post, I'd be sure to tell him you get final say over content, and be very very careful because he's a lawyer. He'll know more than you do about contracts, agreements, etc.

Linda

Emily said:
Thank you all for your responses so far. You have been great!

Below is the main points of his next conversation to me:

"Thank you for returning my email. (And for feeling comfortable enough to disclose your name, I will, of course, keep it in confidence as circumstances dictate.)

So, I wish I could say I'm a savvy marketing lawyer who has an ad all prepared and knows just what he wants to do, but I'm kinda making this up as I go along. I'm talking with a couple other mommy bloggers and think I have an approach that is fair and will be consistent across the board. Let me know how this sounds: I would like to put up an ad that is a 125x125 box with a call to a free report for people who click on it. The free report would either be for the 6 common mistakes in naming guardians or something I call the Moms Freedom Guide. I'd be happy to provide you copies with each so you can approve it as something your readers are getting exposed to. These are substantive pieces of information, not thinly-veiled marketing pieces, so I'm confident you'll be okay with them. In addition, I would like to be able to guest post on your blog regarding issues related to estate planning, family planning and the like. The rate that seems to be quoted around these parts is $50/year. How does that sound to you?

Now that you've signed up, I'm going to send you out a copy of our latest e-zine so you can see the format and style. If you agree, I would like to feature you and some of the other bloggers in a series highlighting your writing and content. (Don't tell the other NJ Moms Blogs bloggers this, but I'm big on writing style and quality and I only reached out to those whose writing I thought was superior.) In any event, my hope would be to have a moms blog featured per issue and then, after I have featured everyone once, condense that to a monthly digest of the latest posts since the last time I sent the digest. "

I know this would just be a statewide ad and he would be offering to feature me in his blog but 50/yr. still seems really low.

Emily; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Storm on July 6, 2009 at 2:06pm: I second what Minnemom says - that seems awfully low to me. You're worth more than that! I also wouldn't agree to the guest post on your blog, but that's me, and ultimately up to you.

(Personally, I feel that he's taking advantage and I'd run); ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Emily on July 6, 2009 at 7:55pm: I think there's been a misunderstanding. He wants to feature My blog on his e-zine. Anyway here's what I decided:

..."I have been blogging for about a year and do know a lot of bloggers with more experience than I. A year may be a bit too long of a commitment for both of us. Why don't we start out for three months and see how it goes from there? Since you would like to feature me in one of your e-zines and this is just for New Jersey I would charge $15 a month for your ad. If things worked out well after three months the rate would not be raised.

I like your ideas for the content of your blog ad.

Please let me know what you think about what I am proposing and then we can take it from there.

Best regards,"

You ladies and a few other Moms and gents I know helped me figure it all out. If he takes it fine, if not, it wasn't meant to be. It is just my first ad request and I have just been blogging for a month and a half or so. Hopefully it is the first of many!

I'll keep you posted!

Thanks again!

Emily; ▶ Reply to This