SaaStr Insider Webinar: Media Partnerships Preview

Welcome, welcome, welcome back to another Saster Insider webinar. If you're new here, if you're tuning in on the live stream on one of our various social media channels, we do these every Thursday at 9. These are our Saster Insider. Really focus on faster partnerships, how to get involved more with Saster. We do these. Yeah. Basically every week at nine Pacific. And yeah, today David and I are going to walk you through media. So we're super excited because we haven't talked about media in a long time and there's been a lot of like cool metrics and I think examples that have come out in recent months. So. Yeah, David. Yeah, yeah, officially, yeah, let me do that.

I'm going to share my screen and we can talk a little bit about media. I think the context here has a little bit to do with a question we get from sponsors. You know, we just wrapped UP Annual in September 8th and a lot of the sponsors, you know, there's a lot of momentum. Attendees had a great experience, sponsors had a great experience and they're often asking us, hey, how do we keep the engagement going with the community? You know, we're planning already for two Saster events next year, London in June, annual in September. But between now and then there's just a huge opportunity to, for sponsors to engage and keep momentum going with the Saster community. And really the best way to do that is through Saster Media. So we'll talk a little bit about that today. You know, essentially our media, you know, actually when I think about Saster, you know, we're really very much a content first company. We're known for our content, you know, whether it's Jason on social, whether it's the Saster podcast, whether it's our newsletters, whether it's our YouTube channel. That's kind of how the world knows Saster probably first and foremost. And our community online digitally is obviously a much larger footprint than even the events, which I often say is where that community comes together in person. So just a great way to reach the core Saster community. Everyone from our events, but also many more people.

Yeah, and I'll just add there too. No, I think it's a good point. Maybe before we get into the differentiators of our different media options and assets, because there are a few. Right. Like, and I would say too, like, our team is always very helpful if, like you have something you want to promote and maybe you're not sure which asset, you know, we can usually give a guiding, kind of guiding hand, if you will, on which One we think might perform the best just based on what you're doing promoting. But yeah, I think certainly to David's point, you know, a few folks have been asking me this lately as well post event, like, you know, how do people find out about Faster and then ultimately, you know, come to the various in person events that we have which are now these kind of like big global events and yeah, faster.com is it, right? It's the thing that's been around the longest, right? Since 2012, so more than more than 10 years now, which is fantastic. We're about to come UP on the 10th annual for next year and the 5th Europa, which is like a huge milestone year and I would say too just paired with the question of how to keep the momentum going that we've been getting from some of our partners and also maybe some newer folks who are newer to the Saster community and just learning about our community and our audience of CEOs and revenue leaders. I would say as well, saster.com usually has a lot of really great traffic throughout the year. So but even more so right now I would say like Q4 is such a high spike time for our traffic especially because, you know, as David's point, like annual just wrapped, folks are ingesting all this crazy good content we put out. And we do put out not only new content that our founder Jason writes, which is very topical and timely and like drives a lot of traffic to the site. We're also putting out full write ups of all this great content from Faster Annual Europa or even faster apac that was earlier this year as well. As you know, we do like new interview pieces like Sam Blonde does our CRO Confidential. So I think there's a lot there and I think that's just something to keep in mind that is maybe a little bit stickier if you will, even though I don't love that word, but it is a little bit, you know, stickier and more long tail than our events which are super great in person. Right. The events are a great way to meet a lot of high value folks in a short amount of time and I feel like the media is a great long tail way to get in front of these people throughout the year, right. It's a great way to keep the momentum going and also create demand, right? Like if you're either newer to the Saster community or you're one of our returning sponsors. Either way, right? It's great to get top of mind for these folks to drive some demand, right? To actually get leads throughout the rest of the year in front of this audience that is continually coming back to Saster, because we keep putting out these really great assets all year long in, you know, in addition to these events that are maybe more timely. So, yeah, I think that's, you know, that's kind of how the dynamic of the content is and how people kind of adjust it, if that's helpful. But, yeah, we've got a few different assets here when it pertains to media that we'll start to get into.

Yeah. I also love the idea of coming to us with your goals. Right. What are you trying to promote, Ari? Do you have a product launch? Are you. Do you have new thought leadership that you want to disseminate? Are you rebranding? Um, are there, you know, is there a new. A new push around a certain theme for the year? And we could help guide you to different assets or combination of assets. So that's just a good way to think about it. Think of us as kind of a, you know, a little more of a consultative partner to figure out how to achieve your. Your. Your goals. And, you know, we talked about Demand Jet. I think one of the other powerful opportunities is building your brand. And I think there's no better way than the Sastra podcast. Um, I think. Emilia, what do we get? Almost 250,000 downloads a month.

Yeah, I mean, listen. Podcasts are always an interesting thing because people are always like, but how many listens? I'm like, listen, if you find a service that will tell you how many lessons. You know, it's amazing that no one has started this yet by the time, you know, we go into 20, 24. I think it's just. I don't know how the powers that be only give you downloads and nobody gives you listens. But yeah, and I would say, again, like, to the point of, like, it's spiky. Like, now's a really great time to get all the podcasts because we're putting up, like, it's always good to be on the podcast, but I feel like now more than ever, it's like an extremely good time to be on the podcast. And, yeah, like I mentioned, so our podcast, for those who maybe don't know about or haven't listened to it yet, you know, last year it was one of the top 1% of most followed podcasts on Spotify. I think that just speaks to, you know, our community and audience really absorbing this content. Right. You don't always have the time to, you know, go to the website, read the full thing, but obviously the podcast is a bit more digestible if you've got a commute or if you want to listen to it or you do other things. And yeah, you know, it's global, so it's a big global audience. You know, it had a, whatever 8 million impressions in the last year. But yeah, no, I think our podcast is a mix of things. So we repurpose some of the top content from our in person events and then yeah, like I mentioned, we also do new content that is actually only like extended exclusively, if you will, on the podcast. Right. We do like CRO Confidential which is always, you know, built as a podcast, which I mentioned. Sam Blondhols, you know, he's the former Crox now partner at Founders Fund. So he brings in like this really interesting dynamic of now being a VC but having, you know, been an operator and really interviewing some of the best operators out in the field. Right. Expansive reach. Really great to also like tap into his network, into the Saster community. He's been a super fan for a long time. You know, Jason also does a lot of really great original content. Recently he's been doing, you know, these series of either five interesting learning. So you'll see those on the podcast. If you've seen that on saster.com he'll usually do like a audio version that's a bit different for the podcast there's like five interesting things you can learn from, you know, some of the most biggest public companies out there today. And then also we do, you know, recently we've been doing this series called what's New at. So we talked to some of our partners, partners on, you know, what's going on, what's top of mind for them, how to solve issues, what they're thinking about now, which I feel like is really fun. And again, kind of a breakthrough from our, our long tail, heavy hitting content. I know a lot of our content is super tactical and a lot of people are like, there's almost too much content. So I feel like those series have been really nice to balance out our podcast themes. And then yeah, I would say too, you know, sometimes we crossroad things with like 20 BC that Jason does. So it's, those are kind of like the core elements of the podcast episodes. But no matter what episode you're on, you know, it, it hits our core audience of, you know, CEO, founders and revenue leaders around the globe. And it's really great because these are evergreen. Right. So what we, what we in particular see about the podcast is, you know, most folks will still listen to the best episodes, months, if not actually even years down the road, like, there are still some people listening to some of our early episodes because, you know, the, the nuggets and tidbits of advice are so. Are that good. So, yeah, I really love the podcast to promote something especially evergreen. Right. Like something that you're always doing, something that's always on, that you just want to keep driving home and have it, you know, multi, touch, touch point. The podcast is a great way to do that.

Yeah. And right. They last forever in terms of those ads. Right. They're embedded and yeah, it's. It definitely has a big long tail effect. And then our newsletters, right. And today, you know, Sastra has three different newsletters, each of which have sponsorship opportunities. We'll talk a little bit about the differences here, but, you know, essentially, like the Saster Weekly is the original Saster newsletter. It's our, like, it's our largest list. I think it's a little over 90,000 people get the Saster Weekly every week and there's just a great opportunity to reach the community there. So again, the largest list, big impact. Saster Daily has grown a lot. It comes out three times a week and it's, you know, a little more like, you know, again, more frequent. It's a smaller list size, but still substantial. I think it's about 70,000 people on there. So that's. That's another option. And then the last one is Saster Insider, which is really great. The Saster Insider, we often call it, like a twofer. So actually the content lives on LinkedIn and the subscribers are through LinkedIn, where we have a really vibrant, you know, social community who follow Saster, follow Jason. And so when you subscribe on LinkedIn, you get, when every time a new issue comes out, you get an email in your inbox and you also get an alert like in your LinkedIn app. So that's really cool. And then the content on there has a bit of a viral nature to it because it's often shared and commented on, etc. So those are the three different options. And I have some examples coming up for the Daily and the Insider of what some sponsors have done in the past couple months that have been pretty successful. So, yeah, I think we'll dig into that. Sounds good.

Yeah, let's dig into it. I feel like our newsletter too, worth noting, we have not even updated this yet because it just happened yesterday. The LinkedIn insight, the Saster insider, which goes on, on LinkedIn, which to David's point, is a super right I feel like we've been getting this question a lot lately of like, you know, partners are like, how do I tap into specifically Jason's network? The Insider is published via his LinkedIn profile, so it's his authorship and actually as of yesterday, he was just named the LinkedIn top voice. So, like, that's super exciting. I think it gives it even more gravitas to the Insider and it's the best way if you specifically are like, I want to tap into his social media presence. Like, that's the way to do that. Right. So people do ask us for that, actually. No, specifically. And so that's where they've seen good traction on the Insider.

Yeah, yeah, we can. Let's start right there.

Let's.

Let's go a little bit. Yeah, yeah. It's going out, you know, two or three times a week. I think I've seen it. Usually three. Yeah, yeah. And you get a really large, you know, ad unit which is embedded in the content and also in the email. So. And that content, again, lives on LinkedIn. What's really great is you get a lot of frequency with this and you get a lot of impressions. So let me show an example. So Saster Insider, you know, when we were selling this about a year and a half ago, There was about 25,000 subscribers at the same price that we offer today. It's now hit, and this is from a few days ago, almost 44,000. And I think with Jason's Top Voice status, that's going to grow even faster. So you get a pretty nice list size that you're hitting three times a week over the course of a month. This is a look of a. Of an ad that Align had embedded in the Saster Insider that was running for a couple of months. And one of the things that really stood out to me and stood out to them was the high number of impressions that they got due to that frequency, due to the both email and LinkedIn presence. There was over 500,000 impressions of the ad per month that were being run. And it looked great. It was a really nice big unit, like you couldn't miss it. And they got some great results from that. So that was something that they actually did earlier in the year, then came back and ran it again as it got closer, leading up to annual. So they kind of, you know, saw the success from it and came back and ran it again.

Yeah, I would say the Insider, with it being a twofer. Right. Which is an interesting use case, I think. Also too, the content is a little bit varied. From our Daily and Weekly, which we'll get into next. But the Insider is our top content, so it's new top content, it's evergreen top content. So again, it's always heavy hitting, very on brand, very topical, and it is our largest ad unit. So if you're looking at doing a newsletter and you're like, I want the Billboard style thing, the Insider's the place to do that is. I mean, you can tell from the screenshot it's a huge app. Like, it's giant. Like, it literally, it's hard to miss. Right. So, yeah, no, we, we like it for that reasons too. Of like, and honestly, like, this is the Insider, where a few times too, like, I feel like we've, you know, worked with folks to see what they want to promote on the Insider, to make sure it matches and aligns with like, the brand voice that we already have on on the Insider via Jason's LinkedIn. So that's one thing to bear in mind to be. I wanted to call out that this is our largest ad unit. So if you like that kind of big style, that's definitely the one to go for.

Yeah. And like, like Emilia said, the content's coming straight from Jason, so it's really just closely aligned with, with his, with his voice here. And then, you know, we'll talk about the Daily for a minute. You know, where it's now, I think over 70,000 subscribers also going out. It goes out three times a week. When you are a sponsor here, you get a minimum of five newsletters per month where your ads are featured. And also, you know, the format's a little different, so let's, let's kind of dig into that a little bit and show an example. So this might be a little confusing, but, you know, I just wanted to kind of point out here, right in the middle, you can kind of see the format of the newsletter and the content. This is kind of the Saskra style and theme. And this is what Emelia was talking about earlier. An article from Jason on five interesting learnings from Semrush. Another one Amelia posted, which is, you know, the first rule of building software. Another Q and A from Jason. And then we had the ad unit right along the feed. A definitive guide to six product LED models. And you could see, like to me, and one of the things that the sponsors have really liked here is that it's sort of a native feel, right. It goes within the stream of the content. It's got the same format with a headline, with an image, with some text below. And a blue call to action button. So it really has that again, native feel to it and I think that this sponsor instructed a really great job leaning in to make the content sort of fit in that same style. They really focus on content that was valuable to the SaaS community, valuable to founders, and it was a seamless ask. Right. It took you right to a guide on a really hot topic within the community of PLG and it worked out really well for them. They were Getting minimum of 200 leads per month from this and so they just did a really nice job on the landing page, on the conversions, on the form fill. And so, you know, looking at the whole experience, it worked out really well for them to drive a high lead volume. And that's not everyone's goal. Right. Some people just want brands, some people actually don't put anything behind a form wall. So again we could talk to you depending on your goals. Some people just want site visitors and they want to have as frictionless experience as possible and that's, that's worthy. Right?

So yeah, no, I think those are really great call outs on the daily look. I personally really like the daily. It's something that has, you know, to David's point, grown really quickly. I think especially right now. Again, you know, being so close to that. There's a lot of folks digesting this content because it is, you know, such topical content of the moment. The daily is always fresh. Right. It's why originally the daily was actually every day but we actually scale it back a few days to keep the content fresh and improve kind of the readability of it. So yeah, no, I love that when, you know, ads look native, those are the ones that perform the best. So, you know, the instruct one is a good, a really good example of, you know, it is something we, we, we do talk about product libraries after. Yeah, it's nice that, you know, it is promoting something that can have that native feel. It doesn't mean it needs to be an ebook. It's something I'll call out. Right. We've had other folks have a native feel like I know booking.com just did both the daily and the weekly and there was more like it looked native but it was to promote, you know, booking their travel to Saturday annual. Right. Which is highly topical, you know, top of mind for a lot of folks in the month leading up to the annual event. It looks like a native ad the same way this one did and that one still got a lot of clicks. Right. Even though it was not a strict like download this Ebook. So keep in mind it does not have to be an ebook. You know, we've seen limited time offers to our audience work well. I know a while back like Snowflake did one that was like a startup challenge that also, you know, look native also did really well. So if you have something that is newer, like a new again, new ebook, new product launch, new something you want to promote, limited time offer with, you know, the holidays or Q1 coming up next year, that's where the daily really shines.

I'll just, you know, comment that these same units are available for the Saster weekly. We have some options there if you just want to do display or if you want to do this more native feel content that's available to you too. So I didn't highlight one of them here, but you know, that's available in that as well. And some folks come in and they just want the weekly or they want the daily. And yeah, they're all good options. Yeah, all good. After we did the Insider already, you know, this is the weekly that we just spoke about. And so, you know, here are the details. And then also the podcast, right. You know, I definitely recommend tuning check, going to wherever you get your podcast. Right. I listen to them on Apple. Um, and you know, you can hear like the 15 second pre roll, post roll ads that our sponsors have. They're all professionally recorded in terms of a voiceover. They're really easy to execute, really low lift. Like you really just need a pretty basic 15 second script about your product. And you know, again, great for branding and we have plenty of examples that we can point you to if you're interested.

Yeah, and I would say listen, like again, if you're confused by the newsletters at all, like which one is the best, right. We can help guide you towards. You may have an inkling based on what we've said. But if you're like, hey, you guys, tell me like this is what I want to promote. You tell me where you think you would have the most traction. We do that a lot with our newsletter because there are three of them, right. I think if you're like format agnostic and you're looking at, you know, newsletter plus podcast or one or the other. I would say the newsletters that perform the best do have some sort of driver, right? Again, a limited time, offer an ebook, some something new. You're promoting a webinar. We've had people promote their own webinars on it something or digital events, right? Like something where you can drive folks and actually capture names for like purely gen, those work really well in the newsletters. I would say those are harder to work well on the podcast because it's an audio format. Right. So just one thing to bear in mind is like, it does work a little bit better for something that's evergreen. It does also mean, to David's point, it's a bit of a lower lift to do the podcast because you don't have to ask, you know, your marketing team to go make a landing page, track the utm, do all that, refresh it, you know, get new ad creatives, all that kind of stuff, switch it out. Like it is some work, right. To do these newsletters, right. And have them perform. And when they, you know, we have had people do that and they've obviously performed really well. I think when I looked at booking, they had like, I don't know, their daily ad had like 700 clicks in like the month, pre annual. It was a lot, right, so, so yeah. And then, you know, the podcast, though, if that seems a little bit overwhelming, it's a lot easier. You just come up with a script and that is it. Like you, you know, usually in their scripts, folks, you know, like, you know, visit whatever, Twilio.com for more details or something. Not to say that you, you shouldn't make a landing page as well on the podcast, but if you don't have the bandwidth to do that and you really want something plug and play to just drive somewhere existing on your website, the podcast is a really great way, low lift way to do that, right. You just come up with a script or if you're even like, you got here, here's my thing, you come off the script, we can do that too. And then, yeah, we voice it over, we cut it in. It's really easy. Like it literally takes 10 minutes sometimes for folks who are like, here's my script, and then that's it. Yeah, it's quite easy to do if that's something where you want to drive. Again, more awareness, but maybe don't have as much bandwidth or marketing resources. The podcast is fairly easy to execute on.

Cool. So in terms of spots, we, you know, spots typically sell out about a quarter in advance. So right now is a good time to be thinking about Q1. There are a couple spots available in November and December in each of the publications or the podcast. So really recommend that you reach out to us and let us know what you're thinking. Let us know, you know, what some of your goals are around marketing for the quarter and a year push and Also thinking about into Q1, another thing that folks do and typically what sells out are the months right before leading up to an event. So with just looking ahead with Saster Europa happening in June, I definitely expect April, May, June to be really booked up with sponsors looking to build momentum heading into the London event. And then the same thing goes for annual. We see sponsors typically booking up July, August, September to make sure that they have presence in addition to the event. So that's something that has been popular every year and definitely recommend to start having those conversations. And if anyone wants this deck, you know, we'll make it available. Just let us know. And yeah, I think we covered, I think we covered it all.

Yeah, no, I think thanks for doing this. We've been trying to keep these to about 20 minutes or so as we've been doing this preview and kind of like wrap up. Yeah, thanks for spearheading this and shouting out media again. You know, I think Zaster is so big and we always forget sometimes too. Right. We've got this entire media arm that folks sometimes are like, can I promote that? Can I get in on that? And the answer is yes. But yeah, you know, again it's. Some folks have used it like complimentary to the events, but not to say you have to. Right. Like because of how we do our content, there is high traffic year round, especially I would say Q4, which is now and then Q1 upcoming. Right. People are trying to start these year, trying to get, get their boots off the ground, etc. And all that. And so it's always a good time for our content. And then, you know, the, the events kind of take us through the other two quarters of the year. So that's kind of a nice natural fit. But yeah, no, I think these are, these are really great assets either way. You know, I think we always say about our events that there's no bad booths for sponsors. I would say for media, there's no bad placements for media. You know, you're gonna get the faster audience no matter which one you do. It's just a matter of which one. You know, we can work together with you on to see which one might have the most impact on whatever it is you want to promote. Right. So yeah, there's no bad ass that, you know, you're either getting on the faster podcast, which is an audio format that's a bit more evergreen, or the newsletters, which are more lead gen, more timely. Right. Which is never a bad thing either.

Amazing. Well, Amelia, thank you, good chat. Thanks everyone for tuning in and. Yeah, we'll see you next week.

We'll see you next week. Thanks, everyone.