Podcasting is a fun hobby, but it can also be a lucrative source of income if you’re able to attract sponsors.
For some podcasters, getting sponsors can be difficult if you have no experience with making pitches.
If you choose to pitch sponsors directly, we have five effective tips for pitching your first sponsor.
🌊 Let’s dive in!
1. Make It about Them, Not You
When you try to get companies to sponsor your podcast, your motive is clear – you want to make money. However, you need to keep in mind that your sponsor also wants to make money. This means that from the first moment that you contact a potential sponsor you need to frame the entire dialogue around how they will benefit from sponsoring you.
The key here is to have the ability to explain how paying you money to advertise their products and/or services on your podcast will be a smart investment.
Place a large focus on how they will make back the money they spend on you, and how it will benefit their business. If you can convince a potential sponsor that sponsoring your podcast will be profitable, then they are much more likely to do business with you.
2. Do the Research Beforehand
Research the sponsors you are considering and see if they line up with your audience. If your podcast speaks to men for example, it might not make sense to target sponsors that cater to women.
The exception to this is framing the pitch as men buying gifts for women for holidays and birthdays. You can get creative with your pitch, but you can’t frame your proposal properly without doing research ahead of time.
3. Use Marketing Elements That Get Results
Just giving your sponsor a shoutout on your podcast may seem like a good way to promote them, but the truth is that unless you have a large audience, it may not be enough to convince a sponsor to pay you.
One way to convince them to work with you would be to add elements like these to your pitch:
- Sharing your sponsor’s information in your show notes with a unique weblink
- Mentioning your sponsor to your email list (again, with a referral weblink)
- Directing your listeners to your sponsor’s website with a special code that gives listeners a discount (this will help your sponsor track who came to their sales page as a direct result of hearing about it on your podcast)
4. Present the Terms of Your Deal Clearly
When you send a pitch, you want to present a clear picture about how the sponsorship will work.
While they may not agree to everything, and some changes may need to be made, giving a detailed list of deliverables will at least show them that you’re a serious business professional rather than a random person trying to get money.
Things to consider include:
- How long the sponsorship will last
- How much you’ll charge your sponsor
- How often they’ll pay you
- When and where you will mention them
i.e. the beginning, middle, or end of your show, on social media, in your email list, etc. - The manner in which you’ll mention the sponsor i.e. pre-recorded ad that is approved, unscripted organic mention, interviewing someone from the company, etc.
5. Emphasize Your Listener/Subscriber Count
While this tip kind of falls under the umbrella of research, your listener/subscriber count is by far one of the most important factors when it comes to getting a company to sponsor your podcast. In fact, you can sometimes get them to agree to sponsor based on the number of subscribers alone. The reason for this is that everyone knows that the more people their sales message reaches, the more sales they’ll make. It’s basic math.
If you don’t yet have many listeners, we highly recommend promoting your show more. Doing things like adding your show to podcast directories, being a guest on other podcasts, and getting mainstream media attention for your podcast are all great ways to grow your audience.
Check out our post “Recipe for Success: 9 Proven Tips to Effectively Market Your Podcast” for even more ideas. The more you can grow, the better your chances are of leveraging your numbers to yield sponsors.
If you’ve already landed a sponsor for your podcast, that’s great, but there may come a time when you want to find more. When this happens you can find new sponsors much easier if you’ve tracked your data from your current sponsor.
This is effective because presenting the sales data from your previous sponsors will show your prospects that your show gets results. Of course, this only works if you actually achieve results for your past sponsors. Therefore, it would be wise to make sure you’re doing everything you can to help your sponsors make money. Having social proof that working with you is profitable is money in the bank!
Now that you know what to include in your pitch, try pitching your first sponsor for your podcast. You may get several rejections in the beginning, but if you keep working on building your audience, and making pitches to companies whose target market lines up with your listeners, eventually you’ll land a sponsor.
