So you have the podcast and the listeners – the next obvious step is to make some money on it. Before you can even start thinking about monetizing your podcast, however, you need to make sure you have a proposal that will rip off the socks of potential sponsors.
To be well-equipped to write that all-important pitch, you need to have a thorough understanding of your podcast – your audience, the hard stats, and your value as a marketing channel. To make it as easy as possible for you, we’ve put together a three-point checklist that will ensure you are ready to reap the rewards from your podcast!
Know your audience
The ability to define the audience of your podcast is fundamental to entering into a sponsorship deal. Do you feel confident that you can talk through your “typical” listener? Where are they, who are they, and why should your sponsor speak to them? These important demographic and geolocal stats will help you with that Identify the type of sponsor you want to targetand give you the tools to highlight the power of your podcast.
If you are not a technical expert, you may be wondering where to get this information. Spreaker’s updated CMS system allows for easy, manageable access to this type of data and, in turn, knowledge of the impact and reach of your podcast. This information should then be used to find an effective way to sum up your audience in one sentence – THAT is your sales pitch with your sponsor.
Choose your advertising format
Once you can define your target audience, you are one step closer to understanding how best to reach them and their value to advertisers. Advertising can be completely tailored to your listeners and offers a number of formats to choose from. The two most common types of podcast advertising are a 15-second pre-roll spot or a 60-second mid-episode spot, which are as self-explanatory as they sound! Entrepreneur on Fire’s John Lee Dumas explains that your content is pre-roll and that you would discuss the sponsor’s product or service for 15 seconds. Instead, mid-roll (which is generally more flexible) will be in the middle of your podcast and last 60 seconds.
While these are the most common forms of advertising, you can pretty much create the ad format that works for your podcast. For example, try a longer, medium-length ad of 90 seconds or an ad at the end of your podcast for 120 seconds. Experiment and see what works best with Your audience taking into account factors like podcast length and style. First of all, we always recommend starting simply, as this inevitably makes it easier to sell to potential sponsors!
Show your metrics!
When you have impressive numbers, why not shout out loud for everyone to hear? Your metrics should be clearly displayed so your sponsors know how valuable your podcast can be to them. How many Twitter followers do you have? What are you pulling on social media? How many chapter clicks do you get each month? You can retrieve this information again using Spreaker’s CMS system, giving you access to your games, downloads, and more.
If you’re not ready to take advantage of podcast chapters, they might be just the right tool for getting some extra insight into your audience. By breaking down your podcast, you can understand what your audience is interested in and have a chance to target them more specifically. Additionally, they provide a nifty way to add links to offers and coupons that might be of interest to your listeners.
Now you have a guide on how to find the information that is already available. However, remember to keep asking yourself: What can I offer a sponsor? What is my USP as a person and podcast? What makes my podcast an attractive marketing channel for sponsors? Knowing the answers to these questions is key to monetizing your podcast!
