Sponsorships Best Practices For Your Podcast
Chances are that if making a podcast is your passion, you want to be able to make a living off of it. One way to do that is to take up sponsorships! That’s what this article is all about – how to approach sponsorships as a podcaster. Let’s get into it!
There are many sponsorship opportunities within a podcast. Here’s some you will want to think about.
Series Sponsorship
This is one of the ultimate goals for any podcaster, it solves all your monetisation requirements for the series by having a sponsor for the whole series. The important thing though is to get a sponsor that suits your audience. For example, if you’re making a podcast about gardening, you wouldn’t want a car manufacturer sponsorship. However, you might want a tech sponsor like Amazon Alexa as it allows your audience to listen to your podcast whilst gardening.
Figure out how you would introduce the sponsor for your episode, for example, by saying “brought to you by” or “in partnership with”. The presenters should talk about the brand organically so it feels less forced.
You could also organise giveaways for your sponsor’s products as prizes as an engagement activity, which will help you grow your followers on social media.
Also think about how you would include the sponsor in your branding as it’s a nice thing to do and will most likely be a requirement. The better you perform for your sponsor, the better your partnership with them will be. So see if you can also dedicate a feature to the brand to help them stand out and become memorable to your audience.
Episode Sponsorship
Much like series sponsorships, you want to make sure they fit with your audience. You should introduce the podcast episode stating something along the lines of “this episode is brought to you by (insert brand name)”. You can then talk about the sponsor during the episode, either as part of a feature, mid way through the episode with a dedicated ad or wherever appropriate during the episode.
In Pod Ads
When offering a dedicated ad on your podcast, we recommend you do this in the middle of the episode to avoid it being skipped over in the beginning or stopped short at the end when the listener either turns it off or skips to the next episode. If the presenter creates the ad, which will usually be a pre approved script, the audience is more likely to listen and even buy the product or service being advertised as they trust the presenter and it will feel more like a recommendation instead of a hard sales ad. The more natural and authentic your pitch will be, the better the sponsorship will perform.
Mailing List Sponsorship
This is another way of generating sales for your sponsor. Subscribers already engage with your mailing list, if done right, they’ll actually look forward to them, so selling via a mailing list is much easier than anywhere else. This is because if people have signed up to your mailing list, they do want to hear from you directly! Plus, people regularly check their emails and they are very likely to open it and read it. By having your mailing list sponsored, you’re helping them reach the most engaged part of your audience and the conversion rate is much higher.
Stand Alone Content
Brands will pay you to create a stand alone video that can be hosted on your social media platforms, your mailing list, your websites and all of the brand’s websites, socials, youtube, mailing lists etc. If you don’t have a series sponsor this can be a neat way to generate extra income. If you are in negotiations with a sponsor, this can be an extra opportunity to drive up the price and offer a unique angle for marketing their brand. If you perform well, you might be able to get the brand to sponsor you regularly.
Package up the different sponsorship opportunities. Think about costs to create your podcast, include hosting fees, equipment fees, guest booking fees, website costs, mailing list costs and of course how much you want to earn per episode to allow you the time to create high quaslity content. Work it out as a whole series cost and cost per episode and price it up accordingly. Then go into your audience demographics to show the potential sponsor why your audience are perfect for their brand to highlight the return on investment.
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