A podcaster explains how to sell sponsorship slots before publishing episodes by creating scarcity and reaching out to past sponsors early. Lock in 80% of yearly revenue in the first week, then deliver measurable ROI through rigorous sponsor qualification and personalized relationship-building that makes the sponsor's internal champion look good.
Chapters
And then when you and I talked, you talked about the idea of selling inventory for like the, like a full quarter. Tell me about that. Are you, are you still, is that still a way of thinking that you, that you teach when you're working with creators?
Definitely. I'll actually give you the story of how I discovered it and how we implemented it. So one of my favorite shows is Million Dollar Listing, and like, I basically watch all of them. And so I was watching this episode and it's Frederick Ekman. He's like selling out a building in New York, right? And it was really interesting because he's like, he's not just like, oh, like building is available. He's like, no, I'm going to make an event out of this. I'm going to make it a party. So he basically throws this huge party and then it's him and his team in this like office or whatever. They have this chart where they're just like marking off when it's sold, right? And then he's like calling people, hey, we had like 100 units available. only 60 are left. Next day it's like, only 40 are left, only 20 are left. I was like, hmm, why don't we do this as creators? And so most creators, especially in podcasting, have a limited inventory, right? So in the case of Mixergy, it was 3 episodes a week, 52 weeks, 104 total sponsors because we were doing 2 sponsors per episode, and then 312 total slots for the year. See, I still remember that math. And so I was like, okay, like, this is what we have. And so one year what I just did is around September, and I did it in September because it was right before Q4. So I was like, okay, this is— they're probably thinking about next year. Let's get us in early. Let's lock in these deals before even like other creators come. I basically emailed all the sponsors that we worked with and I was like, hey, we're planning for next year. And so can you talk in this week about next year's sponsorship? Would love to just kind of like check in and see how things are going and talk about next year. And I did. And I scheduled all of the calls in the same week. And on the call I was like, okay, how are things going? Okay, cool. Let me know what you think. And every call I was basically like, and I think I expect to like sell out Q1 within the next 2 weeks, right? So like it created the urgency.
Yeah.
And then like brands started coming back and then lo and behold, like I think we tested this out a few times and I think it was 2019 or 2020, we, the first week of the year, 80% of the inventory for the whole year was sold. Like, imagine coming into that as a creator.
Oh my gosh, that's game-changing.
And the best part, I'll share another quick story. And there were some times where like a brand would email me and they'll be like, okay, um, we want to sponsor. I was like, okay, I like, uh, it's the next episode is in April. And then the brand didn't email me for 2 weeks and they came back and I was like, oh yeah, um, now we're at September. Like, what? Like, I wasn't kidding when I told you it's sold out.
Yep.
So now guess what happens next year? They're emailing me being like, hey, can we get in before you like start selling this? Because I know you sell out really fast. So now the brands are coming to me so that they can get their episodes in before inventory starts selling out. So now I'm not chasing them, they're chasing me.
It actually puts you in more control instead of just waiting for people to come to you. You know, like, this is what we're— this is, this is what we offer. You can take it or leave it. You know, it's sort of like the way people sell, like, courses. You know, people say, hey, it's available for this week at this price. Next week it's going to drop, and then the following week it's not going to be available for another 6 months. And that creates that urgency for people to buy.
And here's the thing though, right? All of this depends on your sponsorship working. If you can't give a brand an ROI, yeah, stop taking sponsors. Stop, stop messing it up for the entire industry because brands will sponsor podcasts, not get a result, and be like, podcasting sucks. No, it's, it's the, the, the campaign that you created that sucks. Um, yeah. Okay, so we really like delivered, which is why we were able to do all of these things.
Okay, no, that's a great point. Let's talk about delivering, uh, because I think that like some creators can have anxiety about that. Like, okay, now I got the money, Um, how do I, like, how much do I stress out about actually delivering on this? And, and how do I, how do I go about that? Like, um, that's a, like, I don't know what the question is. Uh, but like, how do you—
I can give you an answer that I have in mind right now.
Tell me the answer to the question I did not even say.
So I'll share like 3 things that we did to like sort of like Once the deal was signed to really make sure that the sponsor had a great experience and they would come back. So the first one is like what I said earlier, right? It's like client selection. And so Mixergy was a well-known podcast and we would have a lot of brands come. And I remember calls where I would get on a call and a brand would be like, okay, we're ready to sponsor. I saw this is how much it would cost and let's go. Like, hold on, hold on, hold on. I want to make sure this is a fit for your brand first. Because if it's not, you could offer me a million dollars, I'm not going to take it because we don't want sponsors that we don't deliver for.
Qualify.
Right. And the brand just goes, who the fuck are you? Like, you're— I'm ready to give you money, you're not taking it? And so again, that just turns the table, right? So like, the first thing is just really making sure that you can deliver an ROI for a brand. And if not, don't take them, right? If you're not sure, tell the brand, hey, um, this is what we've seen in other campaigns, this is how I think it would perform, but I'm not sure. So I really want like both of us to go into this with an experimental mindset and we'll test out a few different things to make sure it gets delivered, make sure we can deliver, right? And so now you're not like lying to the brand. You're basically coming in as a partner to see if things are going to work. That was the first thing. Second thing I was— was I really like wanted to get out of the transaction and build a relationship with not just my sponsor rep, but the company as a whole, because I knew one, if we did that, they would be more likely to help during the partnership. But then when they're cutting, when they even like cut partners, they're not going to cut the one with the relationship, right? So like one thing we would do is I would have the creator record a very specific video, which is, hey brand partner, the person's name and company, thank you for sponsoring the podcast and what it would mean to them or what it meant to the creator, right? So now guess what happens when you send it to the creator rep or the brand rep?
They send it to the whole company.
They send it to the whole company. 'Cause who else does that, right?
Yeah, it makes them look— that's something that I talk about. Make the point of contact you're working with look good. Because if you make them look good, they're gonna tout this partnership to as many people as far and wide as they can.
