The complete guide to podcast sponsorships

Jordan from the Dreamful podcast asks, "How do you find companies that want to sponsor your podcast?"

TL;DR
Podcast sponsorships and host-read ads are the two of the more popular strategies for monetizing your podcast, but it can difficult to land sponsors for your podcast unless your podcast is incredible popular or you happen to be a part of a podcast network.

In this episode, you'll learn how to find, pitch, and secure sponsorships as an independent podcaster, no matter how many downloads you have.

Record your podcasting question at Speakpipe.com/Buzzsprout to be featured on a future episode.

Review Podcasting Q&A in Podchaser to let us know what you think of the show.

Transcript

Travis: 0:00

In today's episode, you'll learn how to get sponsors for your podcast. Welcome to Podcasting Q&A, where you learn the best tips and strategies to launch grow and monetize your show. This week's question comes from Jordan.

Jordan: 0:15

Hey there, this is Jordan from dreamful podcast. My question is regarding sponsorships. I browse popcorn but have not yet found brands that align with the values and mission of my podcast. So I was wondering if you had any tips on one reaching out to potential sponsors? And what I need to provide to them to? Do I provide a contract or Does the sponsor? And three once the ad is in the podcast episode? What is the general protocol for invoicing the sponsor? Thanks, Buzzsprout.

Travis: 0:49

Thanks for your question. Jordan, podcast sponsorships, and advertisements are two of the more popular strategies that podcasters will use to monetize their show. But what about all the nitty gritty details about finding a podcast sponsor that's good for your audience? And then how do you actually sign them to a contract and actually start making money? We're going to talk about that in more in today's episode. So the first step in monetizing your podcast through sponsorships is finding sponsors, companies and brands that are eager and willing to spend money to promote their products and services to your audience. And there's a couple of tried and true ways to do this as an independent podcaster. The first one is to do some research on other podcasts in your category. So if you have a home gardening based podcast, listen to some of the larger home gardening podcasts in your space, people that are doing similar things covering similar topics, and see if there are companies or brands that are sponsoring those shows. If so, that gives you could indicator at what kinds of brands you can reach out to that are in the mindset of spending money on podcast advertising. But the more lucrative way to do this. And the more effective way to do this is to reach out to people that you already know and have a connection with. So think through your internal Rolodex of connections that you've made over the years and ask yourself who do I know who either owns a business, or is in a position to spend marketing dollars on a product or service. And that product or service aligns with the things that my podcast audience would be interested in. Let's say, for instance, that you have a homeschooling podcast, and you know, somebody who makes supplemental materials for homeschooling, you can approach them and say, Hey, I have this audience of homeschooling moms and dads that would love your product or service, would you be interested in sponsoring a few episodes of my podcast, so I can promote your product and service to my listeners, that is going to be a much more effective way to find sponsors, especially early on, if you don't have a large number of contacts. Because at the end of the day, the hardest part of this is not just writing down a list of companies you want to sponsor your podcast, it's getting access to the person that's deciding to spend the money on the ads. Now, how much do you charge for a podcast sponsorship? Or how much can you expect to earn if somebody decides to sponsor your podcast? Well, most companies that are in the podcast advertising space will negotiate based on a CPM model and the industry standard is $20. So that means a company will give you $20 for every 1000 downloads that that episode receives. So if you get a podcast that gets 500 downloads per episode, then that company would probably give you around$10. to sponsor that episode, if you get 5000 downloads per episode, that company would give you $100 to sponsor that episode. And as you get more and more downloads, and as you're working with larger and larger brands, that model starts to make sense. But if you're an independent podcaster, and you're using the strategy that we talked about in point number one, then you'll want to negotiate based on the value that you bring. So to give you an example of how this could work, I was recently negotiating with a company who wanted to sponsor one of my podcasts. And at first we were negotiating based on a CPM rate, they wanted to offer me $20 for over 1000 downloads that I got on an episode that I promoted their product or service. But this was a company whose products and services I believed it and that I knew my audience would benefit from. And so I didn't want to just read something for 30 seconds and collect a paycheck. I wanted to actually send them new customers. And so I asked them, How much is a new customer worth to you, when somebody signs up for your service? How much is that worth to you? And they said, We are willing to spend $200 for every person that signs up for the service, because over the lifetime, the value of that customer is worth considerably more than $200. So I said, let's do that, instead of paying me based on how many downloads I get for you. Why don't you only pay me when somebody signs up for your service. You can still sponsor the podcast, I'll still endorse the product. I'll still do the host right ads, all that kind of stuff. But instead of paying me based on the number of downloads I get, pay me every single time somebody signs up for your service. So we did a limited run of four episodes, they sponsored the podcast. And in exchange, I made $400. Just give you an idea, if we'd done the CPM model, that would have been less than $60. From the same audience, the same listeners. Now let's talk about contracts. What do you actually need to get in writing, when a brand or a company says they want to sponsor your podcast? Well, if you're working with a larger brand, or company that is already sponsoring podcasts, there's a good chance they have a contract that they use, and they will send it to you, it will have all the terms and conditions of that sponsorship, what they're going to pay you and what you're going to do for them. And you'll both sign it. If you're working with a company that doesn't have that. You don't have to create anything fancy, just a simple word document stating what they're paying for what you're doing in exchange for them, and that you both sign. So you have a an agreement, you both are signed up to the same thing and have the same expectations about what you're going to deliver. Now that first contract is typically for three to four episodes. And the reason is that brands or companies want to test drive you You are an unproven marketing strategy, when you first start working together, they aren't sure if you're going to help them 10 extra investment or if they're going to lose money. If at the end of that, you both come to the table, and you say, Hey, I really like this product. I really like the service, and my listeners seem to be responding to it. I'm gonna continue to develop this relationship long term. And they come back and say, yeah, we spent $1 sponsoring your podcast, and we made $500. So we absolutely want to continue sponsoring your podcast, that's when you can negotiate a more long term sponsorship deal. And typically, those are going to be in those six to 12 month range. Now, once you have a contract signed and in place, it is time to promote the product or service. And there's three main ways that people will do this. The first one is a pre roll ad. And that is simply the first 30 to 60 seconds of your episode, you're talking about the product or the service, before you jump into the the meat of your episode. The next way is a mid roll ad. And that's where in the middle of your episode, you interrupt it, to tell them about the sponsorship, you tell them about this company and why it's awesome and why they need to go and check it out. And then the third way would be some sort of integration, some kind of product or service integration. So this would be where instead of just limiting the scope of when you're talking about this brand, to 30 to 60 seconds, you're making them a part of the podcast, you're making them almost like a character in the episode. So let's say for instance, that you have a dieting and food and nutrition based podcast, and you work out a sponsorship with an app that tracks intermittent fasting for you. Well, instead of just doing a pre roll ad saying, Hey, here's this app that I use, you should try it out, you can make a series of episodes about intermittent fasting. And guess what people that are about to do intermittent fasting need, they need an app to help them track it. So that app becomes woven into the content of your podcast. And it's not going to feel like an ad to your listeners. And because it's the natural next step. For people that are listening to your podcast, you're going to be able to help more people download that app, and that apps gonna be a lot happier with you as a result. Now a great way to get started in podcast sponsorships is to use a service like popcorn popcorn allows you to browse brands and companies looking to sponsor podcasts, you can pitch your show directly to the decision makers. And you can manage the entire relationship right within the popcorn dashboard. new brands join popcorns marketplace every single week. So if you scroll through the list of companies that are currently looking to sponsor podcasts, and you don't see any that really fit or jive with your show, check that periodically, because there's a good chance that one is eventually going to get listed in there. And then you'll want to jump on it and be one of the first ones to pitch your show. And to make it even easier. Buzzsprout just launched a direct integration with popcorn. Now you can connect your Buzzsprout and your popcorn accounts and seamlessly verify your stats. And you can add brands directly to your podcast show notes by using the custom sponsors feature inside your Buzzsprout dashboard. The key thing here is make sure that you actually endorse the product. People can tell if you're just reading a script, if you're just reading what someone gave you, because they cut you a check. Make sure that when you sign up for these podcast sponsorships and these deals that not only are you going to be able to fulfill the written terms of the agreement, like mentioning the name of the product or the service in your podcast. But you're gonna feel great about incorporating it into your podcast as a whole. And that by having these sponsorships and these relationships, it's actually gonna make your podcast better. Thanks for your question, Jordan. Now if you have a question you'd like us to answer on a future episode of the show, just head over to speakpipe.com/Buzzsprout or Cli k the link in the show notes nd record a brief audio messag. Podcasting Q&A is availa le both as a video and a podcas. So if you like watching videos make sure you subscribe to the Buzzsprout YouTube channe. And if you're an audio file l ke myself, then you can find P dcasting Q&A in your favori e listening app. Well that's it for today. Thanks for listen ng and as always, keep podcas ing