Budgeting for Bloggers: You’re Doing It Wrong

May 18, 2016
5:50 pm

Posted by DMA Solutions Team

A question that often surfaces for us during marketing discussions is “how much do we need to budget for blog partnerships?” This has been a wildly inconsistent conversation for years, and something that can be uncomfortable for brands to think about. We hope to make it a little less uncomfortable by honing in on the process we’ve adapted, based on open and honest discussions we’ve had with the blogger community.

Here are a few things we need to consider when budgeting for blogger partnerships:

Time: Typically, a blog post can take anywhere from 1 hour to 3 hours to write and format in a way that tells a compelling story. Pair that with the 6 to 8 hours that it takes to develop a recipe, shop for ingredients, prepare, test (and re-test if it’s not perfect), style, and photograph the recipe, and you’re looking at a minimum of 7 hours to produce a high-quality post.

Influence: The benefit of partnering with bloggers is that their audience already wants to know about the products that you sell. Therefore, you’re paying for a qualified consumer audience and the personal recommendation by a trusted source – the blogger.

According to a Social Chorus study:

81% of U.S. online consumers trust information and advice from blogs

61% of U.S. online consumers have made a purchase based on recommendations from a blog

Long-term Benefits: Blog posts last far beyond the week or even month that they’re posted. The opportunity for your brand to be visible and drive traffic back to your website lasts until that blogger’s webpage no longer exists. In several of our clients’ cases, we’ve seen traffic back to the website even after 2 years since that blog post went live. We also see that national publications like BuzzFeed and Health will take blogger recipes from months or years back to create a post for their own readers. The ROI for blog partnerships is significant if you compare it to another form of marketing like a digital advertisement, which may last one month on a site, and then does not produce results after that.

So, how much should I budget for? Glad you asked…

Let’s think of the budget from this perspective – most reasonably priced photographers charge anywhere from $500-750 for recipe development and photography. Yet, our expectations are usually that bloggers will create a recipe, photograph, and promote that content for less than $750. Once I put this into perspective, I realized that a sponsorship fee of $1,000 – $1,500 depending on the blogger’s following, is really not unreasonable.

For those of you who still aren’t convinced, I’d like to address some of the most common rebuttals we get for paying bloggers:

Previously, bloggers would review the products that they loved because they loved them – why do I have to pay them all of a sudden? There are still bloggers who write in exchange for free product. But, those bloggers’ audiences are comprised of people looking for quick reviews most often. If the expectation is a story and a recipe with your product, then you need to pay.

I’ve tried paying bloggers before and what I got in return was not what I had hoped for. Then you’re picking the wrong bloggers. Significant research beforehand and partnership agreements with clear expectations are must-haves. There are and always will be bloggers who do not meet expectations, so it helps to rely on someone with expertise in blogger relations to help avoid these types of disappointments. DMA vets and nurtures blogger relationships for years in order to identify which partnerships are the best. Some last, and some do not.

If I’m paying a blogger to use my product, doesn’t that go against the entire point of blogging, which is to be authentic? If you’re picking the right bloggers, then the expectation is that they already have a personal connection and mutual respect for your brand story. Most legitimate bloggers will not work with brands that they don’t believe in, which allows them to keep their authenticity, while also being paid for their work.

At the end of the day, we’re all tasked with putting budget dollars toward efforts that will result in sales. Period. I would challenge any marketer to consider – even if it’s one or two “test partnerships” – allocating dollars for bloggers to see the impact that it can have on your brand. We know that trusted referrals lead to sales by way of awareness, which drives curiosity, which inspires conversation and engagement, which results in trial and ultimately brand loyalty.