How to find a sponsor for BlogHer 2010 (or anything else)

You want to go to BlogHer 2010.

I get it.

I’ve seen your tweets.  I’ve read your blog posts.  I know you want to go.

Your greatest desire seems to be finding a company or individual to sponsor your trip.  In a way, I sympathize: I’d also like to be able to worry less about the impact going to NYC next August will have on my finances.  That’s where our similarities end.  You refer to yourself as being willing to “whore” yourself for a sponsorship.  You’ve even worked out, already, more than a year before the event, an elaborate payment scheme for your “services”.  You don’t seem to care who sponsors you.  You just want someone’s money to help you out.

Am I wrong?  Then maybe you should reconsider the message you are sending.

The blogging community — whether parenting, sports, tech, you name it — is incredibly gracious and giving.  You can see the best in people when we pull together to provide support during times of hardship.  In any corner of the blogging world, people don’t assist each other out of obligation.  They assist one another because of a sense of empathy and understanding, because there is a common thread that weaves a pattern between you, me, and ten thousand other bloggers.

What is the thread that stretches between you and a sponsor?  That the sponsor wants to connect with female bloggers, and you are one?  You need to offer something stronger than that.  There are thousands of “female bloggers”.  Is it that the sponsor’s products are aimed at toddlers, and you have one?  Again, you need something stronger than that.  There are hundreds of female bloggers with toddlers.  They could pay any one of them to hand out business cards and toss an ad up on her blog.  What do YOU offer?

Chances are, if you are begging for a sponsorship, you don’t have a close relationship with anyone who could potentially sponsor you.  So, at this point, you’re grasping at straws, hoping that someone out there will Google “who can I sponsor for BlogHer 2010?” and land on your blog post asking for them.  I’d wager that ‘big name’ bloggers don’t need to ask for sponsorships, that they’re approached both by large companies whose representatives they’ve worked with before and small businesses whose owners are faithful commenters on their blogs. Both groups should be equally important to you, because they share one thing: they have an existing relationship with that blogger and are interested in what she has to say.

Have you ever received a PR pitch as a result of blogging?  What made you decide to accept, or reject, that pitch?  Do you say “yes” to everything that reaches your email inbox?  If so, then you’re either receiving only pitches that are perfectly tailored to you, or you lack a sense of focus.

It’s the necessity, and the presence, of a sense of focus that makes you valuable.  Consider yourself as the sponsor and these PR pitches as the sponsoree.  When you receive a PR pitch, how do you determine whether it’s the right product for you?  By reviewing something, whether positively or negatively, you are representing someone in the target audience of that product.

Take that to heart.  You represent your sponsor.

Don’t try to sell yourself to whoever will buy.  You are doing yourself, and any potential sponsor, a disservice.  Is a sponsor really going to want to be represented by someone who will sell her loyalty to the first company that comes along?  Is that the way you want to portray yourself?

I suggest that, if you want to be sponsored, you consider your existing relationships with companies first.  Do you buy X brand of diapers exclusively?  Have you posted about, tweeted, recommended, or reviewed them?  Has a PR representative of that company contacted you before?  Excellent.  Contact that person again.  Let them know you support their product, their marketing, and their philosophies. Provide links to posts or tweets where you have written about that product (and be genuine).  Hell, provide a picture of your smiling, angelic baby wearing that diaper.  If they respond positively, then bring up the fact that you would be willing to represent them at BlogHer 2010.  Provide information about BlogHer and how your representation of this business will benefit them.

You are capable of more than putting an ad on your site and handing out business cards.

You are more valuable than a “whore”.

Prove it.

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Tagged as: blogher, rant, soapbox