Influential Introvert: Communication Coaching for Professionals with Performance Anxiety - Sponsorship 101 for the Indie Podcaster with Jessica Kupferman

Episode Date: June 27, 2019

You may know that the big podcast ad agencies want you to have 5,000 downloads an episode before they’ll talk to you (see The Five Best Ways to Make Money with Your Podcast if you need a refresher on the CPM model). But small podcasts can do just fine without them by negotiating their own sponsorship deals.    On this episode, I dive deep into sponsorship for the indie podcaster with Jessica Kupferman, CEO of She Podcasts, the largest women's podcasting community, which she co-founded with Elsie Escobar.    Subscribe to Podcasting Step by Step for free and listen to the episode with Jess to learn:  the right way to approach o sponsor; how do decide what to charge for an ad; what to include in your media kit and in which order; and so much more.   Show notes. Visit sarahmikutel.com for more articles on how to podcast. Ready to start podcasting? Download my free guide: “8 Mistakes New Podcasters Make and How to Fix Them.”    Looking for a podcast media host? Use my Libsyn affiliate code POSTCARD to get the rest of this month for free and next month free.    I’m your podcast coach, Sarah Mikutel. Did you know that I also host the Postcard Academy travel podcast? Check it out if you’re the ‘experiences not things’ kind of person who believes travel goes deeper than a fantastic meal (though that is pretty great). Every week, I interview people who packed up everything to start a new adventure in another part of the world. You’ll learn how they did it and get their best insider food and culture tips.    Thank you so much for listening to Podcasting Step by Step. I know you’re busy and have many listening options, so it means a lot to me that Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

I think the key to making money in podcasting is not to start hoping to make money. Have you been wanting to start a podcast for a while now, but something's holding you back? Maybe it's fear of putting yourself out there or confusion about the technology. I'm Sarah Mikital and on podcasting step by step, I'll break down how to podcast with a little loving motivation to give you the skills and the confidence you need to finally launch that show of your dreams. Let's get started. Hello, hello. In the last episode, I talked about a variety of ways you can make money with your podcast. Today, I am deep diving into sponsorship for the indie podcaster with Jessica Kuperman,

CEO of She Podcasts, the largest women's podcasting community, which she co-founded with Elsie Escobar, who you heard from previously on the show. Jess began podcasting in 2013 with Lady Business Radio and later started a podcast advertising agency, which she sold on to True Native Media. On this episode, you will learn the right way to approach a sponsor, how to decide what to charge for an ad, what to include in your media kit and in which order, and so much more.

At the end of the show, I will share how you can get a hold of an example podcast sponsorship contract and a sample media kit. Jess has been podcasting with friends for years, and we begin our conversation talking about whether that's a good idea or not, and what you absolutely need to have in place before you start a show with a friend or a partner. Let's jump into my conversation with Jess.

Welcome, Jessica. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank you so much for having me. You are the co-founder of the world's biggest podcasting community for women. She podcasts. What was the first podcast you ever listened to? The first podcast I ever listened to was the Ricky Jervais show. It was a two-hour-long show with Ricky Jervais and his,

writing partner, Stephen Merchant, and some random friend named Carl Pilkington, and they were just, Carl had just some really interesting, funny ways of thinking. And then Ricky and Stephen would just laugh their faces off at him. And I originally didn't want to listen to a podcast because I had no idea like what it was, but I was also trying to avoid interaction with coworkers. And so my husband suggested it. And after I got over how nerdy I thought it was, it really was very helpful. It was very helpful and that show was hilarious so you are a podcast comedian yourself right i believe you have a podcast called brilliant observation i do i do my my co-hosts is a friend from college and her last um you know every jewish girl's dream she her name was melissa freeman and she married a jewish doctor named

dr brilliant so like she's so her parents are happy so she's doctor and mrs brilliant and she didn't originally want to use her name as part of the show but i was like that's just the stupidest move ever. If you have a name like brilliant, you use it, I think. Yeah. Yeah. So what is it like podcasting with a friend? What is that relationship like? So all the people that I podcast with are friends, actually. Like I'm very good friends with Mark Asquith, who I am doing a show called Captivate with and it just hasn't launched yet. And then I do brilliant observations with Melissa and my editor, John, who also edits she podcasts. And I'm very good friends with Elsie. Elsie and I became better friends through working together and doing the show.

So that actually I think is very helpful because the respect as a coworker is there first. And then we became friends. But we weren't exactly. I mean, there was a mutual level of trust and respect of one another's time and skill and money. Whereas with a with a college friend is a little more complicated. I'm not sure if I guess you act. You act differently when it's a business setting, kind of when it starts out in a business setting, then it was if it's just like kind of you and a friend. I mean, if you had to ask me who my best friend of the whole world would be, it would be Elsie, for sure now.

But Melissa and I have a very, very long history together, but that doesn't necessarily make the most ideal situation because you have this relationship for when you were a kid and you can still remember when they were a jerk and they. can still remember when you were a jerk. So I don't really have that with Elsie. We only have this nice adult supportive friendship, whereas, like, Melissa is a person that has, you know, that I've been very, very, very drunk with and probably done stupid things and vice versa. You know, and also, she's kind of like a sister. So we annoy each other. And I'm not saying, you know, and I know, I know sisters that record together that have a lot of contention. And I have friends. And I have friends. who, you know, have recorded with their best friend for, I have one. Actually, there's a, actually, I'm not painting a very lovely picture, am I? But I have friends in Canada who record together, and

one of them takes it really, really, really, really, really seriously. And one of them doesn't. And actually, I find that in most couples, co-host couples. One of them takes it really seriously and the other one doesn't. I'm usually the one that doesn't in every situation. only because I don't take very much seriously and like a podcast. I just, I did not get into it to take it seriously. Like when we like when I started Lady Bus. Actually Lady Mrs.

Radio took it really seriously. But even then I never, I didn't even edit. There was no editing. Whatever happened, we would just, you know, if I had to pee, I would go pee and the other person would just wait. The cat would meow and people would call and it was just all in the show. all of it was in the show and people didn't seem to mind

so I have a hard time like being militant about when we're going to record and like Elsie understands so Elsie understands this about me because she was on Lady Business Radio so like she either drives the show or if she's too stressed out she lets me drive it and when I drive

it we just chat about stuff we think is weird in the industry or you know what it's like to podcast with goats or like just whatever I just you know so I think when you when you podcast with friends I think it's really important if you are going to do it that your roles are very clear and if that means that my role is to you know in the she podcast world my role is to do the marketing even if I need to outsource it

my job is to make sure the marketing gets done I do all the business stuff I have the website I do the PayPal I set up the stuff like elsie's probably never touched the website she does do the Patreon stuff and occasionally she'll invoice someone if we're coaching but that's pretty much it all the text stuff I do she does all the show notes she picks the topics if there's something missing I can I mean it's not like I'm not allowed to add stuff it's just that usually she if I've ever added stuff she's like I have that above like it's already there like I don't even have to yeah she gets annoyed if she's like don't try and act like you can't like I already have it up there don't even bother it's like all right sorry yeah so um you know

that's my role. And in the other show, a lot of my role is to provide the content because I'm hilarious. And so I do. But, you know, if it's, if there's no content there, you can tell I've forgotten. And like, also we record at night and that's hard for me because I have a four-year-old. And it can just be complicated, I guess. So you founded an agency that dealt with podcast advertising and you sold that. But what was JK Media Agency? And I like that. Thank you. It is very lucky when you're funny to have initials of JK. So it was J-S-K Media Agency. And the idea of the agency was, so I've always been able to sell sponsorship. Doesn't matter the downloads. Doesn't matter. It does sort of matter the community and the reach. But it doesn't have to be what they, the big T-H-E-Y,

they dictate it. It doesn't have to be a thousand per episode, you know, equals $25. It can be whatever you say it's going to be because you know your reach and the level of loyalty of your audience. And so I wanted to sell other shows that way, smaller shows that way. And this is one of those times in podcasting where I think I know better than the industry. And I do on some level. But like, the truth is that I wasn't, like, it was too early in the game to make money selling that way. Like if I was going to go to Hello Fresh, who's used to buying $25 per thousand per episode, I wasn't all of a sudden going to. be like, this show is worth 200 an episode, even though they have 17 downloads, because they also

have 65,000 people on their Instagram. Like, they don't care. They're not, they, they, they know how they buy, and that's how they buy. Whereas like, let's, can we break that down a little bit for people who are unfamiliar with the current podcast sponsorship model? So I know you've, I know you've said it's broken. So just walk us through like how the model works for the bigger shows and, and why that doesn't benefit most podcasters. So the way that advertising works, and this is actually all digital advertising, not just podcasting. An advertiser wants to know what cost per impression. And on a banner ad on websites, an impression is how many times an ad has been like served up. So if you reload your, so let's say you see a Subaru ad. If you put refresh, it's served twice. If you hit refresh five

times, you've seen that ad five times, and Subaru is paying per impression. So if you want to boost, you know, if Subaru had the time and the wherewithal, they could just hit refresh a billion times and then the advertiser would pay or whatever, you know, they would pay more for that ad. So the same works in podcasting, except the difference is between podcasting as digital advertising and everything else is that podcasting is very, very hard to measure. We don't have a standard We're trying to get a standard unit of measurement, but it's still not quite there. So at the beginning of when I had my agency, it's not that no one could agree about what constituted a download or a listen.

It's just that they were all measuring it differently. Some companies were measuring like, okay, if they listen for 30 seconds, that's considered a download. And some companies were saying two minutes. And some companies were saying, well, what if they, you know, and then there was the whole thing of like, well, if they download the MP3 and they're not streaming it, then what do you do? You don't have any idea when they're, like, it's just not a perfect system. With websites and Facebook, it's a perfect system because you can very easily track it. You can't track it with listens

because of humans and human beings and just you can't control them as much as we would all like to. So, um, so the, the standard unit of measurement for a podcast is price per thousand downloads, per episode. So if this episode gets a thousand downloads, you can charge, let's say, $50 for that $1,000. If it gets $3,000, then 50 times three is 150 for that one ad in that episode. A thousand is a lot, considering that majority of podcasts don't get more than 200. You know, like in order to make money, say five or 10,000, that's like the top 8% of all podcasts. Yes, those podcasts are often NYC. NPR, New York Times, but that's because they already had these huge built-in audiences that they've had for,

you know, 200 years. I mean, I don't know about NPR, but New York Times has had an audience since the dawn of newsprint. So, NPR for a number of decades as well. Exactly. So, so it's easier for those big guys to make money. And of course, they already have all these contacts with big advertisers because they've been advertising in newspaper and on, you know, on the radio. So all the podcasters who were here before that time had no problem, you know, finding a little advertiser. Like my like Lady Business Radio, for example, because of the B-School community, they knew that I had reach and, um, clout. So no one even asked me what my downloads were. They said, I'd like you to talk about my MailChimp course on your show. How much? And I said $150. I didn't,

nobody asked me. I didn't look at, I mean, they could see what my social reach was, but it's just a price I felt was fair. And so I said it and they were happy to pay it because it, they got it back tenfold because it sold courses. And it was just like it was an exchange of how much would you, you know, how much return do you get? Not a mathematical equation of listens. Yeah. And Lady Business Radio was your first podcast. Yes. Lady Business Radio was my very first podcast. Yes. So you, so what can a smaller podcast do if they want to approach a sponsor? first of all like what would they need to have in place before they before they approached a sponsor because it's a new medium the first thing they have to do is

understand why podcast what podcast advertising does for a sponsor and I think most people just show up talking about their show but I always compare it to like dating like it's almost like showing up and saying like you know I'm going to be a great wife and we'll have a white pick a fence you don't even know if the person like wants to get married ever you don't even know if they like have ever been in a relationship um and so you kind of have have to, you know, is this something you've ever thought of? It's, you know, and know why it's great. It's really more effective than other types of advertising because listeners are so engaged and it's different than radio because radio is pre-formatted and it has a time limit, whereas

podcasts, you can get as freaky as you want for as long as you want, you know, and no one's telling you what to do. There's like all these benefits to doing podcast advertising that I feel like podcasters don't really know. And, you know, I don't know that there's a lot of places to research it, but it's worth finding out why. an advertiser would want to in the first place and then you talk about your show. But really, your mission, your vision, that's really secondary to reach. Any advertiser wants more clients and the more listeners you have, the more customers they get. So if you don't have listeners per se, you have to at least show your reach.

So Elsie and I, for example, get maybe 2,000 episodes, usually under one. But we have, yeah, on Shee Podcasts, but we have 12. thousand people on our Facebook group. We have a reach of something like 25,000 on Twitter, you know, between the three of the three of us, meaning me, her and she podcast. We have about, you know, six thousand on Instagram. Like that's a reach. That's a that's a healthy reach. Even if the listenership is small, the reach is huge. So we can say, you know, 250 a show. And no one really quite, you know, like they don't really ask like um, um, making it up kind of based on what you So Elsie and I, this is the first time I ever had to do a price for someone besides myself with Elsie,

was with Elsie, who by the way hates discussing money and pricing and all marketing in general. Well, not marketing, but, you know, like sponsorship. So the way I did it with her was like this. Someone wanted to be our sponsor and I said, should we charge $50? And she was like, no, that's way too low. And I was like, what about $500? She was like, that's ridiculous. They're never going to get that money back.

So I was like, okay. And I started doing like an auction with her. What about $150? that seem fair? Yeah, that could be fair. What about 250? Does that seem fair? 250's better, but it feels a little high. Okay. What about 200? Nah, you know, we were comfortable. I mean, I don't know. These are just numbers I'm making up, but like, you have to feel it in your gut. Like, this is a number that I know I can, I can perform for this person and they will get a good result, and I'll feel good and they'll feel good. And a lot of that is instinct that

sounds counterintuitive to like price your show this way but it is really the best way because you know you do know what you're worth you have to you know as a podcaster I mean even this show Sarah like you know what your audience is like you know what they're willing to spend you know what they want to listen to so you can say a thousand dollars for an episode knowing full well that there are four people at least in your audience you know that'll pay two thousand dollars to go to italy or whatever it is yourself you know like you know and that's really important so so back to you your question about the agency, I was really hoping to sort of change the landscape, but it wasn't, I wasn't capable of doing it in an agency setting. And I ended up selling the way everyone else

sold. And then it just made me crazy and a little bit sick to my stomach that I had all these great shows that I wanted to sell one way. And instead I was selling all these other shows the same old way. So I sold the agency to somebody who was doing it that way as well. And I feel a lot better about it. We mentioned, you know, what we charge and what we feel comfortable with. In addition to having an ad on our show, like, what are the other ways that we can offer value to a potential sponsor? So other ways of offering value to a sponsor information, I mean, it really depends on what your podcast is about. Like, like Elizabeth Covart, I always call her Dr. Liz. Dr. Liz Covart is a historian who does Ben Franklin's world. And sponsorship is.

has been a strong way of her to monetize because she has really, really good research on her audience. A lot of them are professors and, you know, just people who love history. They're very highly educated. But she's also done talks about how to start, you know, a podcast. And she's also done a lot of like, she's done a lot of speaking for academia in general about what this has done for her life and how much she enjoys it. So she's had, you know, a lucrative speaking career. And now she's parlayed into a full-time job at the Amahandro Institute, and they basically pay her to do the podcast she's been doing for five years, which is kind of cool, right? And they're like, you know, it's Ben Franklin's world sponsored by the Amahandro Institute. And for that, they give her a full-time salary,

which I think is amazing. That's brilliant. So that's kind of, would you call that branded content or an exclusive sponsorship? I guess exclusive sponsorship. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You know, the content matched their mission and what they want to talk about. They loved it. They thought, that I mean they got a lot out of sponsoring her show so they offered her like an office and a plate you know and some funding so that she could make her show better and it was just cool it's just cool um other people yeah other people do live events like there's a show called what fresh hell and they're two very funny ladies and they do local live events they sell tickets to a venue and then they do their show live and that's how they make money and and there's all different ways to do that

too there's memberships like we don't charge for a podcast but there are other shows that charge for memberships or access to education. What's his name? Lou Mangelo, who does Walt Disney World Radio, organizes people to come to Walt Disney World and go to Disney with him. Like he was a lawyer in New Jersey who loved Disney. And this podcast allowed him to move to Orlando and take people around the happiest freaking place on earth.

Like it's the dream. So yeah, there's all different, there's all different ways of, of, I think, making money. I think the key to making money in podcasting is not to start hoping to make money. That is the absolute opposite. And I mean, nowhere in the universe does a law of attraction play harder than in podcasting because the second you are doing it for the money, you're chasing it away. There are much easier ways to make money. That's fair.

Yes, girl. That's for sure. So many easier ways. So I want to stick with pitching for a while. So let's say we're somebody like Liz and we have a great. show we have a following we want to pitch a sponsor we have somebody in mind to we think that their audience would get a lot of value what needs to go into our pitch email so for me the pitch email is um very very short i have a show that i know would love your product i'm i'm sarah

and I have this podcast and I talk to these people. I know they would love your show. Have you ever done podcast advertising? If you haven't, I would love to, you know, talk to you a little bit about it. If you have, would you mind if I, you know, would you mind if I told you a little bit about my show? That's it. No paragraphs, no explanation, no numbers, no community, no nothing. Maybe you can say like, I have a show with X amount of listeners, all of them with.

women under 40 who love sewing or whatever, but like, but only if it's really niche. Otherwise, you just really want to know if it's something they would ever consider. If they have, you know, and actually what you're asking and what they're hearing are two different things. You're asking, is this something you could consider? But what they're, what they're pondering is, can we start something new? Do we have the budget? Is this the right time in the year to do it?

Have we blown everything on something else? Did we podcast advertise before? How did it go? They have a million things they have to look at to answer that question. So that's why when you pitch your mission and your vision and your topics, you've gone way past the point for them. Should we include a media kit or does that come later? If they say, sure, I'd be interested in talking about it. Then you reply, here's my media kit. Basically, the show is like this. We have this much reach. We all love these things. There are a really cool audience and I'd love to talk to you about it. Here's my media kit. Let me know. know, and I hate the, do you have time at three on Wednesday? Let me know when you might have a chance in the next week or so, but I'm also very, yeah, I can be, what's the word? I, not passive aggressive, but I can be, again, I'm a very relaxed person. And I, and I feel like the way that I phrase things makes other people feel relaxed. And for me, that's how I sell. Other people,

maybe uptight is the way to go. It's just not for me, because it sounds forced. So for me, it's like, hey man it's cool if you got another if you got time in the next couple days let me know we'll chit-chat it'll be great we'll have a smoke whatever like i don't even smoke but like you know like i'm just trying to give them a feel of friendship and humanity instead of all the billions of other corporate emails they've gotten that day so yeah yeah so yeah so how can we wow them with our media kit what are our essentials i mean first of all it's got to look good period i mean i don't think you can be taken seriously if it's just like a word doc that's just my opinion but I'm also I'm also an ex-graphing and web designer and I'm also very visual I'm a visual thinker and and I have a visual memory so like

if it's not pretty I don't remember it and if it's really pretty then it wows my you know then my face it wows my face off then I'll remember it so I think they should look good and I mean even the things you can do in Canva look good um there's lots of press kit and media kit templates in Canva that I think are perfectly lovely and they're free um Yeah. So I think you need your cover art. I think you need maybe a picture of you. I do think you need a little bit about you and why you do the show, a little bit about the show and what topics you cover. And I mean, I think it needs to go in a specific order. I think you're taking them on a little journey. So, hi, I'm Jess. I do this show. Here's what we talk about. Here are the people that listen. Here's how many there are. here's what they think, a few testimonials. And then after the testimonials, you'd say, you know, in order to get in front of this fantastic, delicious audience, here's what it's going to cost you.

Here's what it includes. If you're interested, give me a call. And that's the exact order that I do it. So you would include price and then also this includes like one ad to social media posts for different things like that. Okay. And what about social media following? Do you have to include that? And what if you don't really have a following?

If you don't have a following, I don't think I would include it. If you do have a follow, you only include the numbers you're willing to promote on. Like if you're not willing to like talk about Hello Fresh on your Instagram, don't send them those Instagram numbers because it's just, it's not going to be part of their package. Like you only like you either and most people are either all in on social media or not into it at all. So if you're not into it at all and you have, let's say, 500 listeners, you could spin. a little bit and say, you know, we've doubled our audience in two months, which is true if you had 250 last month and now you have 500. Like, that's not a lie to double. You know, and it is impressive,

even if it is from 10 to 20, doubling anything is hard, right? But, you know, and I'm not saying lie, I'm not saying lie, but I'm saying you can make your, your, somewhere in there is an impressive accolade that someone else will be impressed by even if you think it sounds ridiculous. So like, you know, have you ever done your resume and then forgotten all the cool stuff you've ever done? Like, it's kind of the media kit has to be a little bit like that. Like you have to remember, oh yeah, I did sell a course out in three days for my audience. And oh yeah, we did have a meetup with, you know, a hundred people in attendance. Oh yeah. We, you know, like you have to really think about what you and your show have accomplished, even though at the time you were probably just like,

impressed with yourself you know other people who are not in the podcasting industry will be impressed by that so I mean as far as what as far as what I think about do you need a social media I do think you do yes I do think you need digital and the reason why is because most people listen on their phone most people are on social on their phone most people will be able to click from social to your show a.k.a more more listeners so you have to constantly be saying about the new episode on your social which leads them to downloads, I mean, to listens, and then when they're listening, you say, don't forget to

follow me on social in case there's a new listener and so on and so on and so on. Like that needs to be constantly rotating circles from one to the other. And I'm not saying you have to have like a stream of sales, but you know, you can be cash about it and fun about it, but you know, it does need to be there. Well, this is a whole other podcast, so I don't want to talk about it too long. What quick advice do you have for people to build community, especially on social if they're sort of starting from from nothing. I think that um you know even if you're an introvert you can have conversation starters and make people feel so I think make people feel safe so like one of the things I think it's great about the she podcast group is that we stick to some pretty some pretty

strict guidelines and one of them is you can't promote in there and we and eventually we did add one comment that you could like a post that you could comment on to promote but I'm not going to have it hog up the feed. I don't want it to take over the group. I think that's really important, no promotion, because it's all people post and no one reads it. I don't think anyone reads it. I mean, people in my group will say that they read it. I don't believe them. I don't think they do. Yeah. I also think that sticking to the topic is really important. If you have a, if you have a, well, you know, even that. So like, I have another group called business and babies for people who were pregnant or just about to have a baby. And in there, it's kind of an anything goes. But that's

because when you're talking about pregnancy and babies, like everything is humiliating. It's all, you know, physical, medical, sexual, stressful, mental. Like, that's a very, you know, it's a, it has to feel really, really safe. And it's even more vital. There's no promotion ever. No post in there, no nothing. I need people to feel like they can just vent and no one will ever say anything. and it will never get back to them. And that's the kind of group where I feel like it's important. There are other kinds of groups like for comedy, where I feel like, you know,

you kind of really have to define what you want it to be. Is it a place to tell jokes? Is it a place for your comedy? Are you entertaining people? Will people participate? They're only going to participate if you ask questions where people can be funny for the answer. So like if I was going to have a comedy group, which I don't,

I would ask ice breakers in there all the time. Like if you were an ice cream flavor, what ice cream flavor would you be? Because those are the kind of, of questions people cannot resist is answering about themselves people love to talk about themselves and so the best way to have a group is to ask them questions about themselves no matter how mundane it will get response but i think that you know making people feel like it's fun making people feel like you're there starting a group and disappearing is a terrible way to do it um they're not always going to

go yeah i mean but you would you would think that that's obvious but it's not people start a group and they expect everyone to talk amongst themselves and they're not going to do it that. They're listening to your show. You need to be there. I guess what you're saying is it's not enough to just like start an Instagram and assume people are going to show up. You actually have to foster real community in something like a Facebook group if you want to start generating conversation. Also, I think, requires your, you're setting a goal and going about how to achieve it. Because even on Instagram, you can just, I mean, I just post random stuff and people either respond or they don't. don't really have like an Instagram strategy, but I know that when people do, they are posting

things that they either want reshared or they're posting things that they want people to comment on so that they can get higher up in the algorithm. Like there's a whole strategy to marketing that if you're not going to participate in in some way, then just know that it's not going to be what you want it to. Like don't like I don't expect my Instagram to bring me followers or business. So as a result, I'm not disappointed by using. Instagram. If you start an Instagram, post pictures of your kids and a few pretty quotes and then wonder why it's not bringing followers, you're just being silly. You have to be strategic about everything if you want results for everything, anything, anything. Losing weight, anything. Yeah, strategic.

And then, yeah, and pick the platform that you actually want to participate in. Yeah, like no one, no one signs up for a gym, goes three times and then says, why don't I have any weight loss? Like, what do you mean? Yeah. How hard have we worked here? Come on. Well, I think, you know, in our culture, we expect immediate results for everything. Especially when it's digital, right? Yeah, especially when it's digital. So what are some mistakes that podcasters make that turnoff sponsors?

Hmm. Such a good question. Or I should say turn off potential sponsors. You know, I think not taking themselves seriously, not following up. not being reliable, ghosting, disappearing. I think that if you get a response from a sponsor, waiting a week is not cool. I think you should be available right away. And it's actually something I've been struggling with with the event that I'm planning.

I know that when you're planning an event, you have to be really, really, really, really available. When people ask questions and respond right away. And it's, you know, occasionally can be hard for me because I'm one of those people who focuses for long periods of time. and then my email builds up. And so I've had to re- change the way that I work. And I think podcasters can be that way as well. They may not be looking,

especially if the podcast is a side gig, you may not be looking at your podcast email, but if you're pitching sponsors and they respond, you can't wait till the next time you have a day off. You've got to like check that email and respond right away and be responsive and be professional because they're professional people, even if you are doing it as a hot, So I think that's one of the I think that's one of the most important things is if you want them to take you seriously and give you money

Then you know you have to work for it another thing is Not feeling like you have to work for it like you have a sponsor You have a specific job to sell their product for them You're not being paid to do your show you're paid to get them sales and so really you should be doing whatever you need to do to do to to make that happen. So like if they give you copy and bullet points, I'm not saying, you know, reading it word for word like a seventh grade essay is terrible idea.

You have to be charming and charismatic. You can't just say and thank you for, you know, and by the way, Casper Mattress, find one today. Like no, you have to sell it. You have to be excited and enthusiastic. You know, I think those types of things. I think just not. thinking through what you're doing.

I mean, I guess that's sort of an overall. Yeah, answer. So let's say that we have landed a sponsor. Hooray. What are the essential elements that would go into a sponsorship contract? You need an out clause. They need an out clause. You need a cancellation fee if they decide to yank your campaign at the last minute,

especially if it's a multi-week campaign. you need payment terms so you know exactly when you're going to get paid. I like to get paid up front, but companies don't always want to do that. So you need like a, even if they give you a deposit and then the rest later, it depends on how you work. But you definitely need payment terms in there. You need the advertising terms spelled out specifically 30 seconds within the first five minutes of the show or 60 seconds in the middle of the the show midroll does not necessarily mean if you have an hour show it has to be the 30 minute mark mid roll can be anytime after the first 15 minutes to anytime before the last 10 minutes it's supposed to

fit in your show you don't have to interrupt like an interview dead center in the middle because it says midroll but you do need to put all of those terms in writing so that the other person understands exactly what they're getting and when they're getting it and what it's going to sound like and what it'll be I think illustrating that part's really important. I think outlining who's responsible for what. If they're responsible for copy, are you going to write it yourself? Are they responsible for giving you a sample? Are you going to go out and buy it?

Are they responsible for invoicing? Or are you going to invoice them? Are they just going to pay you? All that stuff needs to be laid out to. Who's responsible for? Where are you going to get a logo? What else are they going to give you? Are they going to give you this Facebook post?

You're going to make it yourself. All that stuff needs to be outlined too. Are there any sort of standards? for podcast contracts in terms of like how long they typically last. Is it by episode or by like length of like how does? I mean, the ideal length for a campaign is going to be longer than four in a row because it takes like seven or eight times for people to even remember what the ad is and then act on it.

A lot of times companies want to try one or two. So if they're doing, I mean, so there's not really like a standard length. there's an ideal length, but you can't always control what they want or what they're going to buy. So yeah, I mean, it can be, a contract should be for every single ad. So like if it's four ads they want in July, you send them a contract for that. And then if they want to renew in June, you send them in, or sorry, that's backwards.

But you know what I mean? If they want to renew, then you send them a new one. And then if you, you know, you keep sending them a new one or you just have somewhere in the contract that it's on going until one of you cancels and then you don't have to keep doing that. But yeah, there isn't really a standard length, certainly. And yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts on ways to nurture the relationships. Hopefully you get your sponsorship renewed. But also, if this is like a business, maybe even a small business that's never done podcast advertising before or anything like this, how can you educate them at, like what you said, it can take

somebody multiple times to hear an ad before they will take action. And, you know, maybe somebody hear something on your podcast and they actually buy the product, but they're not necessarily using your direct response link or code or something like that. How can you sort of explain that value even though? Because I feel like for podcasts, they are under more scrutiny than, you know, like TV and radio. Like podcasters are being asked to prove all of the. these metrics that others are not. Yeah, it's funny. You know, people think of podcasting as digital advertising, but really it's, it's not. It's mainstream media. And so mainstream media isn't asked to show every single, like, watch on television, yet we're supposed to show every listen.

And I do think explaining that is important. I also think setting expectations, you know, that you can't guarantee sales. You have no control over what other people do. Some people, you know, that they should also measure aside from the sales specifically that they're getting from the code we've given them that you also need to look at your spike in traffic on the days the show goes out and for the week after that so like i always keep using hellofresh it's always on the top of mind i have no idea why i don't even like their food but like it's just always in my head um so for example you know like if you talk about hello fresh on monday and they got no sales for the next seven days but their traffic increased like 500, you know, more than it was the week before, that's probably because of you. And you need to be able to explain that there's other ways, you know, increase in conversation, increase in traffic, increase in sales in, you know, a specific area or within a certain demographic could all be attributed to you. Before we go, I just want to touch back on like how much we should charge really quick. Because I think that's something that can trip people up. And is there, I guess,

not a formula, but I guess I'll ask for a formula to like sort of generally gauge. I think you can take and consider a bunch of things. First of all, how much does their product cost? Second of all, how many products do they need to sell in order to make back the money you're charging? So if they have a $2,000 product, you know, charging $500 is, you know, depending on how big your audience is it's going to be tough for them to get that money back. So you don't want them to spend too much and not get it back.

But in the case of, you know, again, hello fresh. It's $50 a month. So if you charge them $100, chances are they'll get at least two or three clients and they'll make it back. So, I mean, most shows, regardless of downloads, charge at least $100 an episode. even the ones that have a thousand downloads an episode don't charge necessarily $35 because it's not worth the time to put the ad together for $35. It should at least be $100 per ad, I think.

Yeah. So that's the minimum you would go. I would go with per ad. And if you're listening out there and you're like, whoa, that's a lot. Then try $150 a month and see how that feels first. There's a starting point. But I mean, that's usually what I recommend is either $100 an ad or $150 a month

and just see if you feel like you're being, if you're getting the shaft. If you don't, if you feel like that's a fair price, go with it for now until your audience grows and then go, you know what? I feel like I could do this for like 300. You might as well make the ask, right? You might as well make the ask, especially if you feel like they're getting a lot out of it and it's a lot of work for you because advertising is just as much work as finding an advertiser. It's not like you get the sponsor and everything's free and clear.

You have a lot of work to do. You have to make it sound good. You have to make it look good. if you're posting, you have to schedule it properly. You have to keep track of it. And then in order to keep the sponsors happy and be renewed, you really have to send them a little report as to how it does. They don't have access to your stats.

So it's nice to send them how well it did on Facebook, how well it did on Twitter, show them your stats for the week or the months, put together like a little tracking report for them. And I think that they'll really appreciate that. And they'll want to advertise with you more. Well, Jess, I know you've got to run. So thank you so much for talking to me today.

Where can people find out more about you and the She Podcast Live, the conference that you are holding in October? Shepodcast.com or SheepidcastLive.com. We're having a conference for women podcaster. It's going to be really fun and awesome. And it's this October in Atlanta. So we hope to see you there. It's going to be awesome. Well, I will definitely see you there.

Thank you so much, Jess. Thank you so much, Sarah. It's been great talking to you. Wow, Jess shared such great information with us and really helped us understand sponsorship from the advertisers' point of view. I think that's something that is missing from a lot of conversations on how to monetize podcasts. We really have to see things from the other side if we want to pitch ourselves effectively. So I think one of the biggest takeaways is don't go full force and overwhelm a potential sponsor with too much information about yourself and your show. Give them a

little taste about you and your audience, and to find out if podcast sponsorship is something they'd even consider. Jess is kindly letting me share a sample sponsorship contract and a sample media kit that she put together for she podcasts. To get a copy of these, head on over to sarahmicatel.com slash sponsorship. Thank you for listening to podcasting step by step. You are now one step closer to launching that podcast you've been dreaming about. But I want to get you even closer. I created a free guidebook for you with actionable worksheets called eight mistakes new podcasters make and how to fix them. To find that, head on over to sarah micotel.com slash fix. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on

the spot? I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarahmicatel.com slash blank no more. more.