111: Do You Need Sponsors For Your Podcast?
The idea of making money with your podcast is one of the prime reasons you’re producing a podcast. This, of course, begs the question: should I get sponsors on my show? Why not make money in addition to the work you’re already putting in? Is there a downside? What kind of sponsors benefit my show?
In this episode, I’m explaining why it’s better not to have sponsors on your podcast! (Hint: it takes a lot of clicks to profit.) Yes, turn down that sponsorship for mattresses! By focusing on your own brand and promoting your own materials, you’re able to make that money for yourself instead than sending your listeners to someone else!
The question that just keeps coming up in calls and with our clients
More often than not, when we’re sitting at our desk thinking, “Wow, it's really expensive for me to produce this podcast,” between your time, your team’s time, and any outsourcing you do. You might think, “I’m spending a lot of time on this podcast and it would feel great to get paid to do this podcast.” I feel you. I'm 100% there. And it makes sense that you might think about sponsors for that, because people who have been listening to podcasts for years understand that there are sponsors for podcasts everywhere.
But that is changing. While common for really big podcasts, sponsors have never been ideal for more niche online businesses who have a podcast as part of their marketing, because what you should be marketing on the podcast is your own programs and services. When we start introducing a sponsor into the program, what we're now telling people is to go somewhere else and do something else other than connect with us and join our list and buy our thing and sign up for our program, right?
Why you should be marketing your own programs and services on your podcast
It really depends on what type of podcast you have on whether sponsors are a good idea or not. If you have a podcast that doesn't necessarily have products and services and a business tied to it, then yes, sponsors may work for you. But if you’re trying to sell your own products, you’re going to undermine your own business when you start to advertise somebody else's things on it. And really, do you want to hear ads when you’re listening to a podcast? Do you enjoy it when you listen to other people’s podcasts?
Why sponsors are not going to solve all of our (podcast) problems
The success of my podcast –and yours!– is not tied to having sponsors. Because you can make money from your podcast in a ton of ways outside of just being paid to place ads. At the moment, we are seeing a shift in the marketing industry. There’s a lot more layoffs happening, and as a result, more advertisers are pulling out of podcasts. Podcast advertising was shaped in the model of TV advertising, and honestly, that model has never worked all that well for more niche media like podcasting.
In addition, the payout for ads are also not geared toward small-to-medium podcasts. I see a lot of rates around $25 per 1000 downloads; this is creating a new and different problem for the podcast. Now, as the business owner, the concern will be more on getting downloads or clicks. Instead, the concern should be about how to cultivate and convert the existing listeners that you have into new clients or customers.
How to shift from “I need sponsors to have a successful podcast” to “How do I convert my podcast listeners into customers?”
Now, for the reframe: instead of sponsors, how can you focus on building your brand and your authority via your podcast? What are the best ways to share
-your expertise
-your authority
-the things that light you up
-how you help people
-the services that you offer
Again, this is not in a cute, sales-y way; this is the very subtle building of strategically-aligned content. This helps ensure you're pulling in the right customers and the right listeners who could, down the road, become clients and customers. This is also about how to become more visible. Where are you sharing your podcast? How are you sharing it? Are you on other podcasts? Are you visible in other ways? How are you going to get people to come to your podcast? Focusing on those things is what is going to really help you out way more. Then we can start a discussion on how my podcast makes money for me or my business.
Or another way to ask this: am I actually getting leads and customers from my podcasts? This is why, instead of focusing on subscribers and downloads, the effort is put into gaining new clients, which creates new opportunities and makes more money than downloads. So put in the time to market your own products repeatedly (not just one and done), and give yourself the time and space to share your passion in your own work.
And if you need help, I am now offering Strategy Intensives each month. These include an audit of your podcast, and then a call to talk about your goals and what you want to achieve. Then, we look at your podcast with very clear eyes and see, is it working for your business? And if not, how can we get there? After the call, you receive an action plan and 30 days of support so you can implement those things.
So make sure again that you're sharing what you're working on, and show that you're not afraid to share how you're working with clients. Build that into your podcast so people can get a great feel for what's happening in your world, and then they will see something they need.
You can do it, friends! Go out there and get strategic with your podcast! We’re cheering you on!
Need help creating a plan to turn listeners into customers? Check out our Podcast Strategy Intensive.
We’ll audit your podcast and marketing strategy, help you create a unique customer path, and give you a strong, strategic base so you can grow your podcast AND your business! We can’t wait to help you out. Click here to learn more.
Links:
097: My 2023 Podcast Predictions and Why Podcasting Is NOT a Dying Industry
109: Don’t Let Your Download Numbers Hold You Back
110: Why Aren’t Your Listeners Becoming Customers?
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The Transcript for Podcast Your Business:
111: Do You Need Sponsors For Your Podcast?
[00:00:04] Caroline Hull Are you ready to start a strategic podcast for your business and share your message in a way that feels wildly authentic? This is the place. Welcome to Podcast Your Business, where each week I share the strategy behind having a podcast that helps grow your business. I'm Caroline Hull, podcast manager, strategist and consultant, and I've seen the power of podcasts can have for your business. Let's get started. Hello and welcome back to the podcast.
[00:00:36] I am sitting here batch recording with my vanilla latte that I made on my new espresso machine and I've got my leg brace on, so I'm super uncomfortable. So I'm really excited to dive into this topic before I go take a break on the couch with an ice pack. This is a big one and I am definitely going to share my thoughts and feelings on it. And you know, you can disagree with me, you can agree with me. But this is what we teach here at Wild Home Podcasting. And I think it's really important for me to share it here because it just keeps coming up in calls and with our clients, and that is, do you need sponsors for your podcast?
[00:01:23] So here's the thing. One in a sponsor from your podcast. Where does that come from? More often than not, it's because we are sitting here going, Wow, it's really expensive for me to produce this podcast and have my team take care of it or outsource it. I feel like I'm spending a lot of time on it. It sure would be great to be paid to do this podcast and I get it. I feel you. I'm 100% there. I think what is interesting is, especially when business owners come and tell me this. And I'm always a little bit surprised, and I don't know why, because people who have been listening in podcasts for years understand that there are sponsors for podcasts everywhere. But that is definitely changing for sure. Sponsors for me are not necessarily a good idea for online businesses who have a podcast as part of their marketing, because what you should be marketing on the podcast is your own programs and services. When we start introducing a sponsor into it, what we're now telling people is to go somewhere else and do something else other than connect with us and join our list and buy our thing and sign up for our program, right?
[00:02:36] And so it really depends on what type of podcast you have on whether sponsors or a good idea or not. If you have a podcast that doesn't necessarily have products and services and a business tied to it, then yeah, sponsors may work for you for sure, but when again, you're trying to sell your own things, I feel like it's very much undermining yourself when you start to advertise somebody else's things on it and listen like also nobody is going to come to my podcast and want to hear an ad for a mattress, right? Like, I just I want to put that out there. You don't want to hear about another product. You want to hear about what I am doing, what's happening in my world. And I want you to hear about it too. Because for me, the success of my podcast is not tied to having sponsors. That does not mean that it isn't tied to how much money I make from the podcast. And we're going to talk about that and more in a minute. What I want you to do If you have not gone back and listen to episode 97, I did a Trends episode like What to Expect this year from podcasts in general, like the industry. I highly doubt you pause this episode and go and listen to that one because I talk about this a lot. And the truth of the matter is we are actually seeing a shift in the industry, which does not surprise me at all. But you may have noticed there's been like a lot of layoffs. We've been seeing a lot of advertisers pulling out of podcasts. And it doesn't surprise me because the fact of the matter is we're putting a value in downloads for advertising, and it's very different than, let's say, TV advertising. You know, I think the problem is, is that when podcasts were created and people started advertising, they came at it from the TV model and that doesn't necessarily work. And honestly, the payout usually isn't as wonderful as you might think. I think I see a lot of rates around $25 per 1000 downloads, so let that sink in for a minute.
[00:04:49] So it really just doesn't make sense to me For a business owner who has a podcast to be worrying about getting downloads so I can get sponsors. What you need instead is to be thinking about how you can cultivate and convert the listeners that you have in to customers. And that's all built around a strategy, right? Like understanding our customer path, understanding what the goals are for our business and how our podcast fits into that, having strategically aligned content. And then, I don't know, sharing our own programs and services. And you can do that in several ways. I mean, sometimes I will just mention it here on the podcast that we're doing something or you can actually run an ad for your own thing. I think it is so much more valuable to do that, to let people into your world, to let people know what you're working on than it is to advertise a mattress on your podcast. And I mean, the thing about that is too, is like they may not want a mattress because they're not listening to your podcast to hear about mattresses or to get lifestyle tips from you. They're listening to your podcast to hear your thoughts on the thing that you are an authority on, right? They want to know what you think about health and wellness. If you're a health and wellness coach, they want to know what you're talking about. If you're a social media agency, they want to hear your social media tips and what's going on in the social media world. You all come to me to hear about podcasting for your business. You don't come to me to hear about mattresses. And so I just kind of want to frame that for you, because I think there's a huge misconception for those of us who have not been in the podcasting world, who are not in that traditional sense of podcasting, to think that what's going to solve all of our problems is a sponsor.
[00:06:41] So what I want you to do instead is focus on building your brand and your authority via your podcast, right? So again, sharing your expertise, sharing your authority, sharing the things that light you up, sharing how you help people, the services that you offer. And again, not in a salesy way, but just in the like. This is what we talked about in our group program the other day kind of way. Right. Very subtly building that in having strategically aligned content. So you're pulling in the right customers, the right listeners who then can maybe down the road become clients and customers, Right? And then the other thing is, you know, being visible. Where are you sharing your podcast? How are you sharing it? Are you on other podcasts? Are you visible in other ways? How are you going to get people to come to your podcast? And if you want to hear me ramble on about if you build it, they will come. You can listen to the last two episodes because I talk about that a little bit. But focusing on those things is going to really help you out way more. And so then when we start to say, okay, well, is my podcast making me money? Well, then I start to ask, am I actually getting leads and customers from my podcasts?
[00:08:06] Listen, I would much rather somebody buy one of my packages than go and purchase the mattress that I advertise for. Do you know why I keep talking about mattresses? I don't know if you all remember this, but there was like a few years ago I would listen to a podcast and it was like on every podcast there was a Casper mattress ad. Does anyone else remember this? Like, I would be listening to one of my favorite podcasts. I used to listen to Lure a lot. I'm not really ever alone where I can listen to that anymore, but I used to listen to Lore a lot and I think he had I feel like I'm going to say I could be totally wrong, but I think it was like a mattress ad and it always was such a weird thing for me because I'd be listening to this podcast and then we're talking about mattresses in our back to the podcast. But there was definitely like a moment where that was happening. So whenever I think of sponsors and advertisers, I just immediately my brain goes to mattresses. So sorry if that's a weird thing, you know, and there are other things you can do to if you have a product that you're excited about or tool that you want to share, how they suggest using affiliates for those things. You know, if there's a book you want to share, have an affiliate link for that. If there's, you know, let's say you're a big Trello user and you talk about how you use Trello all the time, have an affiliate link for that. Those kinds of things I think are totally acceptable, especially when you're sharing tools and how you say organize and the things that you use to to help you do the thing that you do. I love that. But for the rest of the time, I really want you to focus on sharing your own things. And if you have a program that's launching, don't just talk about it once on one episode, like make sure you build that into your marketing schedule so you can talk about it for a few times. Have content that allows you the opportunity to share about it. You know, let's say you're opening up a membership. Talk about what's going to happen in that membership. Talk about what happened in the membership. Maybe you guys had a group call the other day. You know, this kept coming up in a group calls. I'm going to share it with my listeners, you know, letting them know that you are working with people, you're working in a in a container somewhere, giving them the ability to hear what that's like and to say Now that's the thing that I need and go and get the thing that they need, right? And so you really do. Like I want you to shift from. I need sponsors to have a successful podcast to I need to really understand my customer path and have a line content so I can convert my listeners into customers. That's how I'm going to get the value out of my podcast. That's how I'm going to make money from my podcast. I said with quotation marks, and it can absolutely happen. I at the end of last year, I booked two clients who had never worked with me before simply because they listened to the podcast, and so that is possible for you too. And so making sure again that you're sharing, you're not afraid to say what you're working on, you're not afraid to share how you're working with clients. Those kinds of things. Build that into your podcast so people can get a really good feel for what's happening in your world and understand that that is a thing that they need. And yes, if you really want to run an ad in your podcasts, please run an ad about the services or programs that you offer. Okay, You don't need to advertise a mattress. Your podcast is here to support your business and its goals, and so make sure that it is set up to do that. Oh my goodness, I did it. I shared a podcast episode on how I feel about sponsors. I hope you enjoyed that. I hope that made sense and helps you reframe when you start to think, Oh, these are the things that I need to be successful.
[00:11:56] Reframe it, Remember those business goals and if you need help putting together a strategy for your podcast, I am now offering strategy intensives for your podcast. These are really great moments for us to come together and build strategy. Specifically for your podcast. I start out with an audit and then during a call we talk about your goals and what you want to achieve and we look at your podcast with very clear eyes and see is it doing that for you? And if not, how can we get there? After the call, you receive an action plan and 30 days of support so you can implement those things. And if you are interested in that at all, please head to the link in the show notes and we're only booking a couple of those each month. I'm so excited to be doing this because it's literally taking everything that we talk about on this podcast and putting it into action for you, because listening to these episodes, none of it is going to matter if you don't implement it. And I am here to help you move forward, implement and really feel like your podcast is doing what it needs to do for your business. I hope you have a great week and I will be back next week with a new episode. Thank you for listening to podcast your business. For more podcasting tips, follow us on Instagram @WildHomePodcasting. If you're ready to launch up level or grow your podcast, head to wildhomepodcast.com to get started today.
