When it comes to building your brand’s podcast, you need to consider getting your podcast sponsored. Sponsorship is one of the best ways to monetize your podcast and you can build a portfolio of sponsors very early on. But to secure podcast sponsors, you need to demonstrate your value to sponsors with a proposal or package.
What you include in this can be very detailed, and needs to showcase the benefits of working with you. And to do this you need to show several statistics that can demonstrate why you’re a great option to partner with. In this article, we demonstrate what these are, and how to display them.
Understand Your Audience
Sponsors are going to be primarily interested in who you’re pitching your podcast to. Your audience is going to be the ones that they’ll be marketing to and there has to be some alignment between your audience and their target audience. Therefore, to make an impression, you’ve got to have a thorough understanding of your listeners. There are several ways you can communicate this with your sponsors.
Demographics: Have an idea about your audience’s age, gender, location, and income levels. Tools like Spotify for Podcasters, Apple Podcasts Connect, and hosting platforms like Buzzsprout or Libsyn can provide valuable insights. You might also be able to get this information from your customer base if you already have a brand.
Another factor you might want to consider is the audience’s interests. What are their behaviors, values, routines, reasons for listening to the podcast, etc? These can provide insight into how a brand might be received on your podcast.
You can also look at their engagement metrics. What is the average listen-through rate, episode downloads, and engagement on social media – and how does this relate to loyalty?
All these factors can be brought together to create a detailed profile of your core audience. And this can help sponsors to understand why your podcast is a perfect fit for you.
Showcase Authentic Engagement
Engagement is key to ensuring podcast sponsors take you seriously. Brand leaders will want to know that your listeners aren’t passive, but active members who get involved and engage with your brand. So you will want to use several metrics to get this sorted including getting listener feedback from testimonials, emails, or comments from listeners.
You might also want to look at forums, social media groups, or comment sections on blog posts/podcast listings. The YouTube community section can be a great location to help you find engagement points. And if you publish a video podcast on YouTube, this can be an excellent location to find comments.
Finally, you can look at how successful call-to-actions have been. Track and share the results from past campaigns to show how your content can help drive listener behavior.
Sponsor Performance
Using the right monitoring tools allows you to see how particular campaigns have benefited other sponsors on your podcast. For example, you can see how many social media followers, mentions, or engagements a brand gets from campaigns you’ve shared.
You might also be able to see how many conversions a brand sponsor has had if you use an affiliate code or a specific landing page for your podcast activities. This can give tangible benefits to potential sponsors and give them an idea of what kind of return to expect.
Setting expectations early on in a business relationship is important. Trust is key to success and you should aim to give realistic expectations, instead of ideal returns. Using past data is one of the best ways that you can do this.
Your Connections
Sometimes it isn’t what you know or what you can offer, but the connections available through your podcast. If you have notable guests or work with other brands, then these can be positive aspects for the sponsors. And it can positively impact the sponsor’s reputation.
You can talk about how the guests or other brands have engaged with other sponsors on your podcast, or how the association has benefited them.
Niche Growth
Your audience might be small at the moment, but it might be because you’re working in a new niche or within an industry that is growing. So you want to include how growth is happening in your niche. It can include revenues in the industry, number of customers, return customers, and more.
Niche growth can be a good way to demonstrate your value when you’re a small brand with a young audience. But if you can show potential, then you can demonstrate long-term success.
Length of Contracts
Talk about how long you’ve worked with other brands. It might include brands that you’ve worked with for months or years. Length of contracts demonstrates that you have strong positive relationships that yield high success with brands and this can be a sign of trust and the positive impact your sponsorship packages can have.
The length of contracts can be shown in case studies with graphs. You might also want to use graphs that show when revenue was made for the sponsor and tie this into specific promotions or episodes.
Awards
When you’ve won awards for your podcast, you can include these in your proposal. This can demonstrate that your content is high-quality and that those in your industry respect you. It also means that your audience is highly engaged and will likely help you build sales/conversions.
And it demonstrates that you’re a quality podcast, focusing on the quality of production and audience retention. It helps to reassure the podcast sponsors and make them more likely to listen to your proposal. And it is highly prestigious for the sponsor to work with award winners.
The Impact of Different Podcast Sponsorship
There are many different types of podcast sponsorship. You might have host-read ads, product placements, or pre-recorded adverts. You might also have adverts in several time spots in your podcast. By having data that is grouped by these different types and times of adverts you can push sponsors to have more lucrative advertisement spots.
You might also want to include information about how adding other types of advertising alongside your podcast spots can improve results. For instance, if an email blast alongside an advertising spot can improve returns, include it as it can help increase revenues with ease.
What Should Your Media Kit Include?
Sponsors want clear, organized, and reliable data to make informed decisions. A media kit is the perfect tool for presenting this information. A Media Kit should include:
Audience demographics – This should be a detailed list of who the audience is including age, gender, profession, income, interests, and pain points.
Download/stream statistics – Including both your total for the entire series and the average per episode. If you’ve seen growth and your audience is growing, display data for the last five/ten episodes.
Social Media following and engagement rates – You can list these as a single figure, or you can split the figures up to say where you’re getting the most engagement, that way sponsors can see if that aligns with their preferred communication method.
Email List – How many people have subscribed to a mailing list and the open/click-through rates for the emails.
Case Studies – Showcase where you’ve had success before with other sponsors, including the impressions, ROI, sales, revenues, and other information that might be related to them.
Testimonials – Add some references of people you’ve worked with to ensure that they know you’re approachable and will work with them.
Notable Guests – If you’ve worked with some high-profile guests, include these in your media kit. Any awards or industry recognition should also be included.
In the media kit, you need to be as transparent and honest as possible. If your audience is small, that isn’t a problem, if you have high engagement. Quality over quantity can sometimes be more valuable than pure numbers.
And remember to make your media kit as visually appealing as possible. Add graphs, charts, images, and other elements to improve the quality of the document to make it eye-catching and keep the attention of the potential sponsor.
You should also find out who to address the proposal to and include that information in the proposal. Their name can demonstrate that you’ve done your research and you care about the partnership.
If possible, study the website of the potential sponsor and use some of the same terms and language that they use. This allows you to align your proposal to their frame of mind and can make conversations easier. A simple example of how this can work is how they talk about their customers. Some terms that might be used include customers, guests, patrons, etc.
If you can, use a high-quality image of their logo inside the document, that can really make your media kit and sponsorship project look authentic and professional.
FAQs
Do sponsors always want to see plenty of data before they work with you?
Not all sponsors will want to see lots of data, but by including it in proposals, it is there for those who want to know the hard facts of your potential partners.
What if I don’t have previous sponsors to demonstrate past success?
Use your podcast growth and numbers to demonstrate how you can showcase the potential sponsors to your audience. Include audience growth, engagement, and more.
How long until I follow up on a proposal?
Try to follow up on a sponsorship proposal within a couple of days. Even if it is to book a more convenient time to speak to your contact.
Final Word: Statistics That Display Your Value to Podcast Sponsors
When you want to work with podcast sponsors you need to provide evidence why working with you is going to benefit them. Using hard data and facts in a media kit and sponsorship proposal will make your request to work with the sponsor much more effective and will generate more revenue.
It isn’t always about converting either. Some sponsors might already be willing to work with you, but by presenting evidence to them on the benefits of working with you, you might be able to get more from each sponsorship deal.
Produce Your Podcast is a full-service podcast production, editing, and marketing agency
specializing in helping brands launch, grow, and monetize successful podcasts that impact their bottom line. With 30+ years of experience in broadcasting and business development brought to every project we work on, our team of experts is a reliable partner to help you achieve your goals with your show.
Click here to schedule a conversation with our team today and let’s bring your show to life!
