The Best Type of Podcast Sponsors (Especially if You Don’t Have a Lot of Downloads)

welcome to the second to last episode of the year for make money podcasting. I'm excited because this is a fun, quick episode where I'm going to tell you the brand deals. That. You can get, and it doesn't matter really how many downloads you have. But before we get to that, I do want to tell you what's coming up. What's in store for. 2023 it's December as I record this. Uh, so the first big thing that's happening with this show. Is the name is changing. Make money. Podcasting podcast is a terrible name. Uh, to say out loud. And I realized that now I thought I was being clever and direct with the title of the show. It's going to be called the profitable podcaster from here on out. And it's going to include like the book I'm working on and a few other resources. So, uh, if you see that in your podcast feed, Don't worry. It's this show, the profitable podcaster. Along with that. There are a few other things I'm changing up the format. So on Saturdays. Uh, every other Saturday, at least I will have an episode of setup Saturday, where I've partnered with my friend, Matt, Madeiros over at the podcast setup dot. Calm. Could be.org. Um, I'm pretty sure it's the podcast@up.com. But, uh, in any case, you'll hear more about that. On Saturday. If you are subscribed, you can subscribe over at make money, pod.com. Of course. Uh, where I'll be going through setups that he covers on his blog, giving my input and kind of talking about how this helps you be a better podcast or a profitable podcast, or. The other thing I'm switching up in January in 2023, is that I'm going to do more coaching calls. So. I'm going to reduce the number of episodes. That's just me talking solo. I know I've talked a lot about mini podcasting, but this show is to help podcasters make money. That is the mission, and there is no better way to do that than getting on a call with them. And talking to them. So I'm going to be doing free 20 minute coaching calls with podcasters. If you want in on that. Make sure you're subscribed to my mailing list. At make money, pod.com/tips. That's make money. pod.com/tips. All of these links will also be in the show notes over at make money. pod.com/ 2, 2, 2. So. If you are not sure. Uh, About all the things I just said, make money. pod.com/ 2, 2, 2. We'll have all the links, but for now, let's do this. I want to tell you the type of brand deal where it doesn't matter. How many downloads do you have So my friend and creator, incredible creator, Justin Moore, he runs creator wizard and brand deal wizard. And I just went through his cohort. And here is where he made it. Crystal clear to me. I knew this on, on some level, but he made it crystal clear. Right. He talks about three. Types of brands, campaigns. The first one conversions. We can't do much about that. Right. As far as leverage and charging and results. With conversions, they are looking for. Conversions. They're looking for how many people listen to your ad spot? And then by. Something from them. This is probably going to work best with lower dollar items for, um, for smaller podcasters. And honestly it might I'm experimenting. This is an experiment I'm doing. Uh, for the podcast liftoff lab. Uh, an experiment I'm doing is working with CPA. I've never done this before. This is essentially affiliate links. This is something I'm going to experiment with in 2023. But again, if they're looking for conversions, you need to show. Hey, I have this many downloads, so it's likely that this many people can convert. The brand on their side knows they know. Hey, if we reach a thousand people that. A hundred people are likely to click through. And five people are likely to buy, which means if you can't deliver at least five people. Uh, then it's it's, it's not gonna really be a winning. Um, partnership for them. So that's conversions. It's tough if you have a really niched audience and like a perfect. Fit. Definitely do that, obviously I'm, I don't have millions and millions of subscribers and listeners for my podcast and I get sponsorships all the time. Um, some of them are conversion-based and some of them have really worked out, but, uh, those are definitely the hardest ones to work with. Two is repurposing. This is where a brand is essentially hiring a creator to make content that they're going to reuse either in an organic or paid campaign. Podcasting. It was a little tough for that, right? Because most of these brands are going, going to want video content that they can then share on their socials or they can share on YouTube or they can include in Instagram ads or whatever. So podcasting is a little tough. I haven't seen too many re-purposing campaigns. I haven't seen it to be honest. I haven't seen any repurposing campaigns and an audio only podcast. Uh, so if you're doing video, video is going to be a big component in 2023. Repurposing could be a big part of that. And there they want you to create the content. So it's, it's, uh, not necessarily a tough sell. I'll link to Justin's thread, Justin, as a Twitter thread on this I'll link to that where he, he goes deep. The third. Type of brand campaign is the awareness campaign. And this is why I think awareness campaigns. Are absolutely the best for small podcasters. And awareness campaign. Is not. Conversions. It's not repurposing. It's getting the word out about. A brand. A product. It's about the talk. And so as long as you deliver content where you are talking. And getting other people maybe to talk. About the product. It's a win for them. So maybe this is clicks, but maybe they just want the word out there. Right. As a podcast host. It means you're establishing trust with your audience. No matter how big you are, if you have a hundred downloads per episode. Those hundred people trust you enough to keep coming back and listening to your show. And so when you make recommendations, like with, even with brand deals, They are more likely to listen and at least check it out, even if they're not ready to pop by. They're at least going to check it out and consider it when they are ready. So first, remember that a podcast is a fast track to know like, and trust if people know like, and trust you, they are more likely to take your word for something. So this is, I mean, the linchpin of all this is that even within an awareness campaign, your. Promoting products and your sponsors are people you believe in. And people who are a good fit for your audience, right? Those are the important things, no matter what kind of campaign, but with an a with awareness campaigns, you want to get people to, uh, to talk about the product and the brand is leveraging the trust that you have with your audience. They're basically saying even if your audience is not ready to buy today, We want them to know. That we exist. That they might have this pain point and that we solve this pain point. Right. So it's, it's about educating on the pain point and it's about educating on the solution. And again, it's just making people aware. This is really good for high dollar products, right. Uh, if you're, if you're like a subscription service where you're charging 80 bucks a month, for example, Um, you know, that people aren't going to hear about you and immediately sign up for an $80 a month product. But you're making the argument that, Hey, we solved this problem. We believe it's at least an $80 a month problem. And when you have it, we want you to think of us. This is, I mean, this is how most TV commercials are. Right. There's no direct way to know when TV commercials are or ad spots in TV shows or, or necessarily radio land. You don't know when they work. Right. Coca-Cola doesn't know how many people saw the Superbowl ad and then went out immediately and bought a Coke. Right? Uh, the same thing goes with, with cars, someone seeing a car commercial. Isn't going to go out and buy a car because. They saw the commercial, but when they're ready to buy a car, They might think, oh yeah. I saw the ad for the Toyota Sienna. That looks pretty good. Let me do some research on that. They are aware that the new Toyota Sienna not a sponsor, but I have it. Uh, exists and now they'll consider that right. Even the Christmas and the holiday ads that are out right now where it's like, get your loved one, a car here, a giant boat. No, I mean, I don't know anybody who's ever bought their loved one, a car for Christmas, but that's just me. If, you know, somebody let me know. I want to talk to that person and be like, Hey, are you crazy rich? Or were you just. Saving for that. Did you need a car anyway? Were you killing two birds with one stone? I want to know. But most of the time, people aren't seeing a car commercial and going, I must buy a car right now. They are cataloging that for when they are ready to buy a car. So awareness campaigns and podcasts are the same way. So now the question is how can you as a podcaster. Pitch better for awareness campaigns. It's all about understanding the brand's goals. And what they want out of the campaign with you. So if you, if they want an awareness campaign, don't pitch them and say, Hey, I can deliver five new customers to you. Or if, if they want an awareness campaign and they don't say like, oh, and you can repurpose my content and vice versa. Right. If they want conversions, nothing but conversions are going to be the ma the KPI, right? The key performance indicator. So first get on the phone with a sponsor. I know that this is like anathema for some people I don't. Uh, they don't want to get on the phone and talk to somebody. But if you're going to pitch somebody on five or $10,000 deal, A 30 minute phone calls going to mean the world to them. And then you understand their problem. So you ask them this question point blank. What is your goal for this campaign? What is your goal for this sponsorship? And if they say awareness or something, that sounds like awareness while we just want people to know our product exists. Great now, you know how to better pitch them. Here's what you do. First. You tell them. That you sell baked in ads. Why. Because baked in ads are going to exist. As long as the audio for that podcast episode exists. So that sponsor, that sponsorship, that link, that logo, that promo ad that you read a host read baked in ad is what you're selling. That's going to exist forever. If you go to. Uh, my first sponsor for a podcast ever, how I built it slash 0 0 1 almost seven years old at this point. The link for that sponsor still goes somewhere. They paid $99. And they've had a backlink for seven years. Anybody who goes back and listens to that first episode, which by the way, is still a very popular episode. They're hearing that ad read. So sell the baked in ads because that is long-term long-tail awareness. This is especially true. If you have an active back catalog. Or if you're routinely pointing people to older episodes, So if you're saying like, Hey, oh yeah, this is very similar to the interview I did with blah, blah back and blah, blah. Check that out. You're pointing people to that episode and you're also indirectly pointing them to those sponsors spots. Right. So show the long tail of your content. And say, Hey, this is baked in. It's never going to change. Which means that you're paying me once for something that could be on the internet for 1, 2, 5, 7, 10 years. So that's number one, talk about baked in ads. They're basically forever linked. They are evergreen. And they're great for an awareness campaign. Number two. Tell them. All of the places where you can promote their product. I've talked about. In the past on this show, I've talked about calculating your overall reach. This is taking, not just downloads, but how many YouTube subscribers do you have? How many Instagram followers do you have? How many followers on Twitter and Tik TOK and your newsletter, do you have. Calculate that and make one number. Add value to your awareness campaign sponsors. By saying not only will I promote you on my podcast, I'll give you a shout out in my newsletter. I'll I'll give you a tweet thread, why your tool is so great. I'll do a reel or a story or whatever else you can do to add value for that sponsor. This is great for pretty much any campaign, but awareness campaigns in particular, because now you're saying, I'm not just telling my podcast audience about you. I'm telling my whole audience about you and I'm doing it in a bunch of different ways. So even if someone's listening to the ad spot, if they go on YouTube, maybe they'll see a little demo of your product, or if it's a physical product, maybe they'll get to see it. And, and understand why I like it so much. And again, all of that content, I mean the social content is a little less evergreen, but your newsletter is hitting the inbox. YouTube content is going to be there forever. The first YouTube video ever is still up. It's a guy, the founder at the zoo. So. This is another way that you can really add value for a. Awareness campaign. So those are the two things you can do. And even if you're a small niche podcast, that's okay. Right. The brand you're working with. You need to remember this, the brand you are working with. He wants to reach the exact people that you reach. Something about your content, whether you pitched to them or they came to you, something about your content makes them want to continue the conversation. And so in awareness campaign, it means, Hey, I'm just going to shout your name from the rooftops for this campaign. So. Again, the last thing I want to emphasize here is they want your audience to be aware of the pain points and the solution they offer. Right? So this is another way to craft your pitch, to craft the content you're going to make. Because again, maybe, you know, if we look at a text expander, Right there a long time sponsor of mine. A lot of people probably don't think about text expansion is automation. So you say like, Hey, how many times have you, typoed your email address today? Or how many times have you written the same email to a bunch of people? What if I told you that there was a way. Two. Make that easier for you? What if there was a way that you could type. 200 words. With a three character keystroke. Text expander is that thing. And if they're going for awareness great now, oh, well, you know, I'm not really ready for that yet, but as they're typing their email address for the millionth time, or if they're typing out that same support email, they're always typing out. Oh, Hey, what was that tool? I think it was text expander. So by the way, Texas, manager's not a sponsor of this episode. But they are a longtime sponsor and I appreciate them. So to recap. Understand awareness campaigns are all about the talk. You will, you want to be talking? About the product. And about the brand. You won't know, it's an awareness campaign until you get on the phone. Or a zoom call with. The brand and you ask them, Hey, what is the goal of this campaign? So that's number one. Number two highlight the benefits of baked in ads. Hey, this isn't just something that's going to run for a short amount of time. This is going to run as long as I'm podcasting. And then highlight. The back catalog. So that's number three, highlight the back catalog. Show how your episodes get downloaded every six, 12 or even 24 months later. Like I said some of my I'm, uh, I'm approaching episode 300. Well episode 300 of like the main show. Um, Of how I built it. And episode 100 still does really well. Episode one still does really well. So talk about that and say, Hey. Not only are you paying me for this campaign for this month, but like six months down the line, people are still gonna be listening to this. A year down the line, people are still going to be listening to this. And then finally make sure to. Think about your overall reach, include all of your contents properties, because awareness is about the number of people who hear about the brand. And there are people who listen to your podcast, who aren't subscribed to your newsletter and vice versa. There are people in your newsletter who aren't subscribed to your podcast. So the more people that you can reach in an awareness campaign, the more valuable you are and your content is to the brand. Which means you can charge more, right? Because again, they're not just looking at KPI or ROI. They're not saying I spent a thousand person dollars of this person. I need to make $1,001. They're saying I am spending a thousand dollars with this person to get a bunch of people to at least to hear my name. And that's really valuable because. Only you have that trust, right? Only you have the trust. From your audience. You can't, you can't really buy that. Okay. So. That's it for this episode, again, I will link to Justin's fantastic threat on this in the show notes, which you can find over at make money, pod.com. Slash If you liked this episode, uh, please. Subscribe. What's my call to action. You heard it at the beginning. I want you to join my mailing list, really. Um, and again, this is the penultimate show for this year, so I hope you enjoyed it. The next episode is going to be, uh, the tools you need to launch your mini podcasts. So. Uh, definitely subscribe to the show and check that out. And until next time, I can't wait to see. What you make.