How to Create Your Blog Media Kit

Want to go pro with your blog? You need a blog media kit! 

A blog media kit is an absolute must when working with brands. It includes the basic info and stats about your blog, as well as the types of partnerships you’re willing to do and your fees.

I initially created my lifestyle blog media kit in PicMonkey. I am so *not* a designer, but even I can master PicMonkey—so I KNOW that you can, too! I recommend using the “design” tool of PicMonkey so you can create color blocks and add text. PicMonkey doesn’t have a spell check feature, so you’ll probably want to write your text in a Word document and then copy and paste it into a text box for PicMonkey.

NOTE: Since the initial publishing of this blog post, I have now switched to Canva for creating my blog media kit. Canva is a fantastic tool as well!

When you visit my blog media kit page, you’ll notice that my media kit itself is super simple: just a one-page document. However, on that webpage, I have more details if brands are interested in seeing a bunch of other brands I’ve worked with previously, as well as testimonials and blogging recognition. That way, brands have the option of seeing as much or as little information as they want.

This really helps to make my media kit itself much less intense. A couple years ago, my blog media kit was a six-page PDF that just had too much info in it. It was overwhelming. It’s better to go simple and be concise: brands can always ask for more information later on. Moreover, the way I’ve done it now (with a webpage and the media kit one-pager as just one component of that) makes it all much more manageable and inviting for brands to check out exactly what they’re most interested in right away.

One of the big decisions bloggers have to make, when making their media kit easily accessible online, is whether or not to include fees. If you’ve checked out my blog media kit, you’ll know that I’m a big fan of transparency and that I’m a huge proponent of posting fees.

Here are a few key reasons why you should publicly share your fees (and particular details about what partnerships you’re interested in) with your media kit:

• It helps other bloggers know how much to charge. If the majority of bloggers charge $10 for a sponsored article, that sets the precedent for all of us. Charging lower fees undercuts the industry, which can be extremely problematic.

• It helps brands to know how much a sponsored article (or sidebar ad etc.) is worth. The more media kits that bloggers publish on their websites with fees included, the more that brands will learn the value of bloggers and realize how much they should be paying bloggers for their work.

• It helps to weed out brands who don’t respect your value. This is important! As your blog grows, so will the number of requests you receive. It’s okay if your media kit and your fees scare off some brands. If it’s a quality brand who understands the value of blog promotions, they’ll respect your fees (or they’ll contact you with offers to negotiate—more on that in a moment). If a brand comes to your blog and is so scared of your fees that they don’t want to contact you because of it, do you REALLY want to work with them? Probably not.

• It helps brands understand exactly what kind of partnerships you are open to. Publishing your media kit (rather than a generic, “want to work with me? Email me at ____!”) explicitly tells brands what you are and are not interested in for a blog/brand partnership. Your blog media kit should be easy to find and accessible on your site so that brands don’t have to go hunting for it or contacting you for it. I don’t allow sidebar ads on my site, so if a brand is interested only in that and they check out my media kit, they’ll realize that it’s not a good fit and save us both a lot of time.

So: what should you include in your media kit? You’ll need the following:

• Your logo, website URL, blog name, personal name, and contact information (keep it simple with just an email address or just a phone number—however you prefer to be contacted). Since my logo, website URL, and blog name (and personal name!) are all the exact same thing, I made it easy on myself with focusing on the logo as a big section of my media kit.

• Social media stats. You can get into as much detail as you like, but I keep it pretty basic with monthly pageviews and approximate number of followers on my main social media accounts (for me, that’s Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram). Keep this updated as frequently as possible if your stats are constantly climbing. My blog readership has doubled in the past month, so these days I’m updating my media kit about once a week to keep on top of it.

• A (professional) picture of you. This is your blog—personalize it! A nice headshot will do.

• Rates and partnership opportunities. This is another one where you can get into as much detail as you like. Keeping it more basic gives more room for flexibility, but you want to keep it specific enough to outline the types of partnerships you’re most interested in and how much that will cost a brand.
• A brief overview. This should include a few lines on your blog, a little about you as the blogger, and information on your target audiences. Basically include here what a brand would want to know about whether you, your blog, and your audiences are a good fit for them.

How much should you charge for sponsored articles?

This is a tricky question! Take your time assessing what your time is worth. It’s not all about pageviews; it’s more about who YOU are as a blogger, your place in the community, and your audience. As a general rule, if every brand says “yes” to your fee, it might be too low; if no brands say “yes” to your fee, it might be too high. Keep in mind you can always negotiate prices. When I’m working with a brand, we’ll often go back and forth based on their initial suggestion and my base fees to accommodate and figure out something that’s fair to both of us. Just because you have your fees on your website, doesn’t mean that always has to be the hard-and-fast number.

That being said, don’t sell yourself short. Have a number in your head that is the lowest price point you’ll go—do NOT undervalue yourself. If you’re interested in sponsored articles, I recommend starting at $150/article and moving forward from there.

Do you have any suggestions for creating a blog media kit? Got any questions about making one? Share in the comments section below!

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Thank you to Allison for providing the beautiful stock photo!