How to Make a Living With Your Writing: Advertising and sponsorship
If you have a significant audience, companies will want to advertise on your site or sponsor your podcast or video channel.
Whereas affiliate marketing means you are paid after a customer has clicked and bought the product or service, advertising and sponsorship involve upfront payment for promotion.
The same ethical principle applies, in that you should only work with companies that are useful to your audience and offer a great product or service. This is also important for the retention of advertisers over time, because they need a return on their investment.
This stream of income has significantly increased for creators over the last few years, as video content and podcasting, in particular, have become more popular and companies want to pay for placement.
Advertising
Advertising options include an advert on your website, a link in your newsletter, a paid promotional article, or an ad in a video or podcast.
You can work with companies directly or choose passive advertising options where a company serves ads over or within your content.
Examples include YouTube advertising which I have on my channel at YouTube.com/thecreativepenn for some videos, or a company like Midroll.com for podcast advertising.
Successful author examples include steampunk author Meg La Torre at iWriterly, and Jenna Moreci, who both combine book sales with YouTube advertising and other streams of income.
Sponsorship
Ongoing sponsorship from a company implies a longer term relationship than one-off advertising and is often developed over time based on relationships in your niche.
My Creative Penn Podcast is sponsored by Kobo Writing Life, Draft2Digital, Findaway Voices, Ingram Spark, and ProWritingAid, companies I use personally and happily recommend. They have all continued to renew their podcast sponsorship because my audience is a good fit and they continue to receive a return on investment from appearing on the show.
If you want to earn money with advertising and sponsorship:
Develop a niche audience and have an effective way to reach them
This might be a website or blog, YouTube channel, podcast, or even a Facebook Page, Instagram channel or other social media platform.
Advertisers and sponsors need evidence of views, downloads, or clicks before they invest and as part of renewal negotiation. Prepare your numbers and create a PowerPoint/Keynote deck or PDF with all the relevant details.
Decide on your rates
Your advertising rate will be based on the size of your measurable audience, placement type, how long the sponsorship is for — and your own confidence at asking. There are various industry rates listed online which you can use for starters. Increase your rates as your audience grows and don’t lock in sponsors for too long, so you can raise your rates over time.
Keep creating content that your audience love
Ongoing advertising and sponsorship revenue is dependent on creating content that people consume and engage with, so you need to create for the long term to make it effective.
Your advertisers and sponsors are also your customers, so create content that resonates with their message. I try to match my sponsors with the episode topic, for example, ProWritingAid with an interview on editing and Findaway Voices with audiobooks.
Questions:
• Do you have a niche audience that is large enough to consider offering advertising or sponsorship?
• Which companies or services might work best for your audience?
Resources:
• Interview with Meg La Torre on her multiple streams of income based on her iWriterly YouTube channel: TheCreativePenn.com/youtubeincome
• My YouTube channel — www.YouTube.com/thecreativepenn
• iWriterly YouTube channel — www.youtube.com/iwriterly
• Jenna Moreci’s YouTube channel — www.youtube.com/jennamoreci
