Advertising On Blogs: Tips For A Small Business!

As a business, especially when starting out advertising on blogs can be a perfect way to start, as budgets can be much  smaller - here our tips on how to successfully advertise your small business on blogs! 

Find The Right Blogs!

It’s vital that you pick the right fashion blog(s) to advertise on. (Or whichever niche your brand falls into)  You need to pick ones that promote the style of clothing (and or product)  that you want to work with as well as ones that reflects your own business ethos. Whether you choose to focus your advertising on one single blog or spread yourself over a few is of course up to you, however it is always vital to make sure the blogs you select can offer you the kind of potential customers you want. If you’re out of sync with what the readers of that blog are looking for you’ll be wasting everyone’s time! It goes both ways too as bloggers want to make sure they are offering their readers relevant links and content. 

It does seems to me that some businesses expect that they can whack an advert on a highly trafficked blog and that enquiries will just start rolling in. Sorry but it’s a little bit more complicated than that! Be targeted with your advertising and you’ll reap the rewards. Look into your niche! 

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Make Sure Your Site Suits!

This one is pretty simple! When Wonderland first started out we lacked a slight direction, so when it came to advertising it was a mixed bag. Since having the tag line 'It's always Summer somewhere' and having a more festival/boho vibe our branding changed, and therefore people came to our site knowing what to expect. If your advert doesn't reflect your product then chances are, sales will be lower. 

Make Sure The Price Is Right

There is no standard pricing structure across all blogs, the all their own prices by what they judge their blog real estate to be worth. Generally the more traffic a blog receives the more expensive the adverts. However it’s not all about being the biggest. As we’ve already determined, a small targeted audience can be much more beneficial than a huge one that doesn’t necessarily identify with what you do. A newer blog might attract a very specific niche of readers, and one that you’d like to be booking. Don’t be afraid to ask for Media Packs fom a selection of  bloggers and compare prices/stats/readership to make sure you can determine which is the right choice for you.

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Set Your Own Goals!

Before you start to advertise you should set yourself targets or goals in order to determine what you would like to get out of your investment. It sounds simple and obvious but only then will you be able to look at the results objectively and decide if the advertising is working for you.

Maybe you want to get 10 sales a month, or more hits, o a relationship with the blogger? Write these down and refer back to them when it comes to deciding whether to renew.

Banner Ads or Sponsored Posts

Most blogs offer a selection of banner ads (priced according to location and size) as well as sponsored posts. These articles are usually written by the blogger from information you provide them about your business. Both options will send traffic to your site but potentially in different ways. When I look at the number of clicks my banner ads get vs the sponsored posts they are not miles apart, however the traffic sent through a banner ad is usually spread out whereas the traffic from a sponsored post is condensed into one or two days. 

Stand Out!

If you choose the banner advert option it’s important to make yours stand out from the competition. It sounds obvious but if all the other ads on the site are very blue in colour, for example, try making yours bright red! There are often trends in popular types of images/editing/fonts/colours so when it comes to designing your advert make sure it is as unique as possible as well as a strong representation of you and what you do.  Be sure to make it very obvious what it is you do with the image that you choose. If you’re a company that specialises in prom dresses for example don’t have an image of a pair of shorts. It may be a beautiful photograph but customers who just glance at the ads may not realise what you specialise in  and if they’re on the look out for a prom dres they may pass you by.

Change it up!

If you feel your advert isn’t working, or it’s been the same for a while and your clicks are going down, ask the blogger if its OK to change the graphic. I would assume that this wouldn’t be too much of a problem as long as you’re not asking to change it ever other day of course! If this is something you think you might like to try, ask if this is possible before you book the ad just to make sure it’s an option.

Give It Time!

Generally blogs will give you options to book ads monthly but for longer periods of time they will incentivise you with a discount for paying for it all up front. Often one month alone is not really enough time to make a judement on if something is working or not. Readers will rarely click on an ad the first time they see it, but if the graphic piques their interest, they are more likely to click it the third, fourth or fifth time they notice it. If this doesn’t happen for you then try changing the graphic or rebook with a different advert option.

I hope this gives you some food for thought!