🥜 Sponsorships 101 (Earn More With Your $how)

You have been working your A$$ off trying to make some money from your show but have no clue how to lock down a brand partner. Today we are changing that. We are going to help you get sponsorships.

Let’s Get Crackin' (Nut Joke)

Podcast Sponsorships 101

Brand partnerships just make sense. Podcasters have a captivated loyal audience and brands want to get in front of those listeners. The intimacy of a podcast makes it unlike any other form of advertising and it’s why even small shows can make a ton of sense for brands to work with.

How a podcaster gets paid is typically based on a bunch of underlying factors including things like audience size and the format of their podcast. BUT stats aren’t the only thing that goes into landing sponsorship. The better you understand your audience and the unique value you can provide, the more you can make from partnerships.

Here’s how you can get sponsorships even as a “small” podcast. It comes down to Value Positioning. Stop thinking simply about the size of your audience, and start thinking about the value of that audience and who it would be most valuable to!

Let's say you run a show that’s all about Gardening and the Gardening Expo is coming up. Your audience is their dream customers. That type of targeting and the relationship comes at a premium. So get creative, make a list of potential partnerships, and don’t be afraid to reach out to them. But always remember Value Positioning and remember the value of your audience with the right partner. Don’t get ripped off by selling just off of a CPM model, you’re cutting yourself short

eMarketer reported that more than $2 billion is expected to be earned by podcasters in ad revenue by the end of 2023. You can absolutely get yourself a piece of that pie with some creativity and effort.

It Goes Both Ways

The first thing that’s important to understand is that brands don’t simply want to advertise their products on your podcast, but they NEED to.

A paid advertisement on a podcast often costs a company far less money than a commercial on TV or an ad on a streaming service does and can be way more effective.

Brands also know that podcasts are only growing in popularity. More people are consuming podcasts each day but not nearly as many new shows are being created. This increase in demand but not in supply makes it a great time to run a show.

These brands are also learning that paying a podcaster to advertise their product or service is a great way to ensure people actually see or hear your ad. According to a poll done by Midroll, around 81% of podcast listeners claim to always pay attention to ads on podcasts. That blows other advertising options out of the water.

That same poll reported that 61% of people ignore other forms of advertisements such as billboards or standard commercials. That means that podcast sponsorship is a direction that almost every brand is going to be looking into.

🤔 Types of Sponsorships

Now that you see why a paid sponsorship is important for both the podcaster and the brand, let’s break down the different types of ad formats. Figuring out the right model to go with for your podcast will ensure that you’re earning as much from the sponsorship as possible.

Affiliate Model: If you choose to have your podcast sponsored based on an affiliate model, that means a brand has agreed to let you sign up as part of their affiliate program and you as a podcaster would get paid anytime one of your listeners purchases the promoted product or service.

The affiliate model is great for a podcaster that knows their audience and is almost certain that a portion of their listeners will purchase the product. Otherwise, it might be worth it to check out the next model.

CPM Model: The Cost Per Mille model, or CPM uses the old French and Latin word “mille” which means thousand, and essentially means that you would generate ad revenue based on the number of downloads that you have on the sponsored episode.

This is a great model for an established podcast that already has an audience built up for itself and can guarantee thousands of downloads per episode. According to Hubspot, the typical podcast can get anywhere from $10 to $50 per 1,000 downloads.

Value-Base Model: Then there is the Value-Based model which is our personal favorite as we teased earlier.

A value-based model is basically the opposite of CPM and allows you to establish a set rate that you would like the sponsoring brand to pay you per episode that includes their advertisement. How much you make will depend on the value of your audience to the sponsor and your ability to position that value. This is why some podcasts make a ton and many make none. The wealthy pods understand the importance of outreach and positioning the value of the audience they have worked hard to build.

Hybrid: The hybrid model is a combination of of any of the previous models. Get creative when working with brands and build a deal that makes the most sense for you and your goals.

More Outreach = More Sponsors

Getting Sponsors doesn’t have to be hard or scary.

The best thing that a podcaster can do to find the perfect brand sponsorship is to simply reach out to the sponsors directly. If you wait for them to come to you, you’re going to be waiting forever because it’s most likely not going to happen. By now you know how valuable podcast advertising is so take full advantage!

A good way to see what brands would be willing to advertise through your podcast is to check out other podcasts that are in the same general niche and see what brands are sponsoring them and look into those brands. This is a great way to start but get creative in your research. The perfect sponsor may not even be aware that podcast sponsorship is an option for advertising. You may need to educate them a bit 😉 but it could be well worth it.

Once you find a company that fits your podcast, pitch to them directly. With a little bit of confidence and conversation, your podcast will be one step closer to being successful.

To find points of contact, try the following

1. LinkedIn - check for employees at the brand with “marketing” “sponsorships” or “social media” in their title

2. The Brands Socials - try DMing them wherever they have a presence online. (Pro Tip: go where they are active but have the smallest audience, you are more likely to to be seen)

3. Contact Us Pages - any brand or business will have a “Contact Us” page. If the previous 2 methods fail, try this.

4. FOLLOW UP. Don’t get discouraged and keep following up (respectfully) until you get an answer.

📺News of the Week: YouTube Music Now Hosts Podcasts!📺

Google announced its plan to bring podcasts over to YouTube Music in February 2023, and in just over a month they’ve already got the ball rolling.

In fact, YouTube Music users have reported seeing podcasts appearing in their suggestions tab right on the app's home screen. This can be a huge opportunity for podcasters that are looking to use YouTube to push their podcast.

Since podcasts can be both watched and listened to depending on the creator, those who simply posted their podcast to YouTube were missing out on potential audience members who only like to listen to podcasts.

Well, now that YouTube Music is hosting podcasts, creators on YouTube can officially reach listeners who might not have been using the traditional YouTube app to listen to podcasts.

If you’re interested in learning more about YouTube Music and its step into the realm of podcasts, check out this great article written by Android Police.

Tweets of the Week

The best Tweets of the Week this time are coming in the form of a thread that was both hilarious to think about, but also might be letting us know what the future’s going to look like.

David Siegel apparently had bots that worked for his company and caught them fraternizing! It didn’t take long for other Twitter users to begin asking the important questions.

Some users even suggested that we were catching a glimpse of the future.

That’s all for today. Keep being Nuts about Podcasting and see you next week!

🥜Podcast Nut