Episode 141
How to Get Podcast Sponsors With Only 1,000 Downloads (Micro Sponsorship Strategy)
"You need at least 10,000 downloads per episode before sponsors will even look at you."
If I had a dollar for every time I've heard this in podcasting circles, I'd have enough to sponsor someone's show myself. This advice has convinced countless podcasters that monetisation is off-limits until they hit some arbitrary download threshold. It's not just misleading, it's costing you money right now.
After helping dozens of podcasters at Bamby Media secure their first sponsors, I can tell you that smaller shows have a distinct advantage that most creators haven’t explored: micro sponsorship.
In this episode, I explain what micro sponsorship is, how it works, who to target and how much to charge.
BAMBY MEDIA LINKS:
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Transcript
You don't need to go after massive sponsors to try and get some
Speaker:monetization happening for your podcast.
Speaker:There are other ways to do it.
Speaker:In fact, there are quite a few ways and I do have a monetizing
Speaker:your podcast mini course that you can take whenever you like.
Speaker:It'll be in the description below.
Speaker:Today we're gonna discuss one thing in particular that you may
Speaker:not have tried, especially if you are a smaller show with a.
Speaker:Smaller audience and it feels like a bit silly maybe to try and chase sponsors.
Speaker:There are other things that you can do, and one of the best ways that I've
Speaker:actually seen people get what I like to call Micros sponsors for their show,
Speaker:micro Cosponsoring is a really cool idea, and it's something that I've
Speaker:seen some of our clients do very successfully here at Baie Media.
Speaker:So I'm gonna share it with you today.
Speaker:What does micro.
Speaker:Sponsoring actually mean, well, it's kind of like a fancy term for
Speaker:essentially reaching out to small businesses to help support your
Speaker:show with a small monetary value.
Speaker:So let's say you are a show that really only gets about a thousand downloads
Speaker:in a month, or even less than that.
Speaker:The number is less important at this point.
Speaker:If you're a show of that size, going after a big sponsor is
Speaker:not really gonna go anywhere.
Speaker:A big sponsor needs big reach.
Speaker:They wanna make sure that they're getting into as many ears as physically
Speaker:possible, and so a smaller show just they'll never really go for it.
Speaker:I have not seen it happen.
Speaker:Even when people say, oh, a niche audience, you know that that works.
Speaker:Bigger sponsors don't really chase smaller niche audiences unless it's
Speaker:a very specific sponsor for a very.
Speaker:Niche.
Speaker:So micro sponsoring for smaller shows essentially means you
Speaker:reaching out to your audience.
Speaker:This is first and foremost your audience.
Speaker:And this could be via LinkedIn, this could be via Instagram, TikTok, email,
Speaker:newsletter, uh, word of mouth, any which way that you can to let them
Speaker:know that you are looking for support and you want to support them as well.
Speaker:So it's a mutually beneficial arrangement here where they give you a bit of money.
Speaker:So that you can talk about their product or their service on your podcast,
Speaker:and that's the exchange they wouldn't normally be able to afford getting
Speaker:a sponsorship place on a podcast because they are quite expensive
Speaker:depending on the size of the show.
Speaker:But they wanna dip their toe into some sort of podcast marketing.
Speaker:They wanna get into the podcast advertising space as a sponsor.
Speaker:They can't do it with a lot of money.
Speaker:They just don't have it.
Speaker:So you don't have a lot of downloads, okay?
Speaker:They don't have a lot of money.
Speaker:It's a match made in heaven because then you are supporting each other.
Speaker:Essentially, you've got a podcast, it's got enough of an audience, it's
Speaker:a niche audience for what that actual sponsor needs, and that sponsor doesn't
Speaker:need to give you a heap of money to get in front of that audience.
Speaker:That's why it's such a powerful strategy to do, and it also generally means that.
Speaker:You feel more connected to the sponsor as well because maybe you know them,
Speaker:maybe they're part of your network more broadly and you feel like, oh man,
Speaker:this is great that I actually get to do a host red like ad for this person.
Speaker:I really wanna support them and they're feeling good about it too,
Speaker:because they're supporting you by giving you a little bit of money.
Speaker:I like to say anything less than $500 is probably a bit of a waste
Speaker:of time, and that's for a month.
Speaker:That's not an unreasonable starting number.
Speaker:That's quite a good number to start with, so both sides feel happy about that.
Speaker:Doesn't feel like a lot of money to the sponsor and it also feels significant
Speaker:enough for you as the podcaster.
Speaker:That maybe that helps support some of the production bills
Speaker:like we have here at Bammy Media.
Speaker:You know, we're a podcast production company.
Speaker:If they can substitute some of that by having a sponsor, then everyone feels
Speaker:good about that, you know, so it's all like this happy dance of loveliness.
Speaker:So that's important to note.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:You don't have to have a big podcast.
Speaker:You have to have enough downloads for that sponsor to feel like,
Speaker:okay, well that's worth it.
Speaker:If we move on to kind of the next stage here, how do we actually package this
Speaker:up so we know we wanna charge them maybe about $500 to have a slot for a month.
Speaker:We need to show them what they're actually gonna get for that.
Speaker:This is where it's important to go into the backend of your podcast
Speaker:analytics and get the information you need before you reach out or
Speaker:start reaching out to potential small businesses and micro responses.
Speaker:The data that's really important to have is obviously how many downloads
Speaker:you have, who your demographic is.
Speaker:So are they mostly female?
Speaker:Are they mostly male?
Speaker:How old they are?
Speaker:So kind of what age bracket we're working within what country you mostly
Speaker:have people in and definitely list like the top three and that will make
Speaker:sense for the sponsor as well if you have like downloads for countries that
Speaker:make sense for the product or service that they actually have as well.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:The country needs to.
Speaker:Align with that.
Speaker:So we've got country age, bracket, and gender.
Speaker:They're the main things.
Speaker:You can't get all of that information from the one podcast host at this time.
Speaker:To the best of my knowledge, I don't know of many podcast hosts that actually
Speaker:give you the gender information.
Speaker:Spotify does.
Speaker:So if you have a Spotify for Creators account, and in fact it's very
Speaker:easy to do, it's completely free.
Speaker:You just log into Spotify, you sign up, like connect your actual podcast.
Speaker:You don't need to be hosted with them.
Speaker:Once you've connected and claimed your show, you're able to see some more data
Speaker:in the backend of Spotify, but it only relates to the actual consumption of.
Speaker:People using Spotify to listen to your show.
Speaker:So it's not gonna be a true representation of your market, but it gives you kind
Speaker:of enough information to go, well, okay, if Spotify uses a this, then
Speaker:it's probably gonna be close to that from Apple and other things as well.
Speaker:Apple also has a backend Apple Podcasts where you get a little bit
Speaker:more analytics from their end as well.
Speaker:They also give you consumption rate, so how long people are tuning in for
Speaker:before they give up on your episode.
Speaker:That's less important.
Speaker:From a sponsorship point of view, you kind of just wanna make sure
Speaker:that all your episodes are hitting at least 50% because you're gonna have a
Speaker:mid-roll in there and you wanna make sure that mid-roll actually is heard.
Speaker:So make your podcast content good enough that people are sticking around.
Speaker:That's just a no brainer really at this point.
Speaker:And you heard me just touch on their host read.
Speaker:That's another important thing to let the Micros sponsor know that
Speaker:you are going to be the one that is actually recording the ad.
Speaker:You'll be saying, you know, Hey, this episode is brought to you by, um, iPhone.
Speaker:You know, like whatever it is, you are going to actually
Speaker:be the one saying the thing.
Speaker:You're going to draft the script.
Speaker:The sponsor, micro Ponsor can actually give you some touch
Speaker:points if they want like that.
Speaker:They actually wanna make sure that you actually hit when you're talking
Speaker:about their product or servers.
Speaker:You get approval from them and then you actually record the script.
Speaker:And that's a host Red Ad. Host Red Ads Convert.
Speaker:Way better.
Speaker:Then programmatic.
Speaker:Programmatic being those ads that you hear, where it's like, have
Speaker:you had your car fixed lately?
Speaker:Well, maybe you should.
Speaker:Programmatic ads are the ones that you hear where it's not actually the
Speaker:host, it's some other random voiceover person, and they're explaining about,
Speaker:you know, the latest thing or whatever.
Speaker:Like there's all those programmatic ads that you hear on radio.
Speaker:They don't convert as high because they're really received as ads.
Speaker:Whereas host read ads.
Speaker:Aren't received in the same way by the listener.
Speaker:So that's an important distinction for your Micros sponsor to really be aware of
Speaker:is that you are going to be the one that's actually recording and saying the things.
Speaker:There's also gonna be two slots for them.
Speaker:We're gonna have a pre-roll.
Speaker:Okay, and we're gonna have a mid-roll.
Speaker:So pre-roll is normally, this episode is brought to you by blah, more on
Speaker:them later or something like that.
Speaker:So it's just a little flip.
Speaker:And then in the mid-roll, you are looking at about 60 to 90 seconds of just a proper
Speaker:sort of ad sponsorship at that point.
Speaker:As to how to put that ad together.
Speaker:I have a video on YouTube where you can have a look at how I actually put
Speaker:a mid role like sponsorship together, and that's also inside of our monetizing
Speaker:your podcast mini course as well.
Speaker:So we've got some information.
Speaker:We know we wanna chase a micro ponsor.
Speaker:That's gonna be a small business probably in your local area.
Speaker:You could even pound the pavement.
Speaker:And go and, you know, talk to your local coffee shops or people that you see all
Speaker:the time before you reach out to them.
Speaker:You need to make sure that you've got some numbers and statistics
Speaker:that they can give them.
Speaker:That would be preferably in the form of some sort of pitch deck, generally
Speaker:about three pages or four pages in length that goes through the data
Speaker:that they're really gonna need.
Speaker:Again, this is stuff I have inside of the monetizing your podcast mini course.
Speaker:That actually gives you an example.
Speaker:Pitch deck that you can have a look at there as well.
Speaker:So you've got your kind of pitch deck.
Speaker:You know who you wanna reach out to, you can start reaching out to them.
Speaker:You wanna keep the cost kind of low so that they're not contributing a
Speaker:heap of money that they don't have.
Speaker:You are a smaller show, so it makes sense for you to be charging less
Speaker:it, you know, defray some of the cost of actually producing the podcast.
Speaker:Everybody wins.
Speaker:Honestly, everybody wins.
Speaker:You get to support a local business or a small business, they get to
Speaker:support you and your production fees are lessened as a result.
Speaker:So to me, micro sponsorship is such a good way for a smaller show to actually get
Speaker:a little bit of monetization happening.
Speaker:It builds more of a community.
Speaker:The micro sponsor gets like excited about hearing their
Speaker:actual business on a podcast.
Speaker:It's, it's like such a cool moment.
Speaker:So I would definitely encourage you to look at that as an option.
Speaker:Go through your statistics, look at what you can offer.
Speaker:Do a bit of research onto how to actually put a mid-roll together.
Speaker:Do you need music?
Speaker:Do you not need music?
Speaker:Maybe do our monetizing your podcast mini course so that you can actually
Speaker:get all that information really simply.
Speaker:There are many other ways to actually monetize your podcast, but I certainly
Speaker:feel like this is kind of more of a no-brainer for a smaller show.
Speaker:And it can be a bit like ugh, confronting when you first start doing it.
Speaker:But the other thing that's really cool about it is that when you do start doing
Speaker:it, when a person that's listening to your show listens and hears that you
Speaker:have a small business sponsorship.
Speaker:And they're listening to it.
Speaker:They're like, oh my gosh, I also have a small business.
Speaker:I didn't know that she or he was allowing that kind of thing.
Speaker:That's cool.
Speaker:And so they're more likely to feel like, all right, I would like to do this too.
Speaker:And if your costs are low enough, there'll be a higher appetite
Speaker:for the actual sponsorship slots.
Speaker:I hope that made sense.
Speaker:I definitely think it's a good option.
Speaker:I think you need to kick yourself up the butt a little bit and actually
Speaker:just put yourself out there.
Speaker:I know it's scary to be asking people for money.
Speaker:If you frame it in the way where it's like, no, I'm supporting them too.
Speaker:It's not just about me asking for things.
Speaker:It's about me actually being able to support another small business as well.
Speaker:If you frame it like that, it's more of a service and less of an ask, and
Speaker:then you'll feel better about it too.
Speaker:That's it for me today.
Speaker:I hope that that was really valuable for you.
Speaker:As I said numerous times if you want to learn more about our monetizing your.
Speaker:Podcast mini course.
Speaker:Then there is a link in the description to go and do that.
Speaker:It is very cost effective and tells you all you need to know about monetizing.
Speaker:Bye.
