Buzzcast
Buzzcast is a roundtable discussion about podcasting from the people at Buzzsprout. We'll cover current events and news, podcast strategy, tools we are using, and dip into the Customer Support mailbag to test our podcasting knowledge. If you want to stay up-to-date on what's working in podcasting, Buzzcast is the show for you.
Buzzcast
3x Ways to Monetize Your Podcast with Buzzsprout
In this episode, we'll recap several new features that just rolled out to all Buzzsprout users including Achievements in your Stats and the new Monetization section.
Special thanks to Anna Jaworski, host of Heart to Heart with Anna, for providing our opening topic for this episode.
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Here's the video Alban mentions in the episode when we're talking about how to effectively pitch yourself to brands.
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Healthy groceries and simple recipes for people that like Blue Apron but want to be different
Samson Q2U (Amazon)
Our go-to microphone for new podcasters
Hungryroot
Healthy groceries and simple recipes for people that like Blue Apron but want to be different
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But the difference is that hunger group is focused very much on healthy food. So you've got lots of pescatarian and vegan and like dairy free or peanut free foods, and everything's just like pretty much very healthy stuff. And what this is I just am setting myself up again for this. It's not all like, Hey, here's just a bunch of vegetables. It's already like I gave you barely say, because I think we just now realizing hunger is just reinvented like a grocery store. Because this stuff is, is partially made.
Travis :Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Buzzcast. In the last episode, we told you to tell us how we should start the episode today. And we had a lucky listener write in and have their suggestion chosen. So we're gonna start the show by entering Answering Anna Jaworski his question, she's the host of heart to heart with Anna, I will leave a link in the show notes, you can go check out her podcast. Her question to us is tell us about a recent podcast you listen to that you liked. So I'll cue it up to you guys. What is a recent podcast you listened to that you liked?
Alban :All right, well, I'll go first, a new podcast I listened to was navall, which is just called navall pot. It's not there's nothing else after that. I've always liked the founder of angel list. He's like a VC in Silicon Valley. And he started this podcast that's kind of based I think off like, a lot of the stuff he posts on Twitter, but he did like a whole series of like, two minute episodes on happiness and like finding happiness and I so I binge through those in like, 20 minutes, but uh, yeah, I thought was pretty good. So yeah, thanks for the question, Anna. Kevin, do you have one
Kevin :Yeah, I will go with. This was a recommendation from Albin. It's the first podcast that I'm paying for. It's called dithering.
Alban :Yeah. Yeah.
Kevin :I subscribed. dithering is with Ben Thompson and john Gruber, john Gruber from he does the talk show. He's got another podcast. Ben Thompson is from what is its trajectory or somebody just hackery. Both of them are amazing writers. And they've come together they do this 15 minute podcast every day. And it's $5 a month. Is that right? Oh, every three days.
Alban :Yeah, they do three, Monday, Wednesday, Friday,
Kevin :Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 15 minutes on the button. Every episode is 15 minutes on the button, the little cool stopwatch thing that they kick off their podcast with. You can hear the stopwatch start and then at the end that comes in at the end they click it. It's pretty amazing how they get them edited down to 15 minutes. And they talk about everything a lot of stuff in the tech space a lot of stuff in the business space. It's fun it Do they have a way to do like a free trial album. I can't remember if I was able to listen to a free trial before I had to pay the $5
Alban :I know Don't know. I think there was some sort of a deal. If you already paid for Secretary then you might be able to like listen to an episode for free. But I just dove in. But I mean, the last few, you know, they did an episode on the Twitter hack. They did an episode on geo, and internet in all of India, which is super interesting. They talked about antitrust preview all day in such stress stuff is happening while we're recording this, of all the hearings in Congress. They talked about Apple and, you know, different app store policies. So if you're into the business of tech, and you especially if you know who either those writers are, I think it's a pretty cool show. And I love the concept of it is a podcast first and only, like there's not some big web presence. There's not all these show notes that you need to follow up on. It's pretty much they do a 15 minute show, and then they post a little clip of it on On Twitter, and that's where the discussion happens on one thread on Twitter once every three days or three times a week.
Kevin :Yeah, so I'm kind of new to it. But I've been a subscriber for a week and a half or so. And it's great. So check it out.
Travis :Very nice. Well, I'll wrap it up with my, a podcast that I listened to recently that I probably should have listened to before because me and Alban are actually a guest on this podcast, which is the creating a brand podcast. So fellow Buzzsprout podcaster Alex sanfilippo. He hosts that show and I got kind of hooked it back into it, because I saw they had a guest that is an author that I follow Mike mccalla wits. And so I was like, Oh, he's got a 25 minute conversation with Mike mccalla wits and I listened to it. It was fantastically edited. And so I really, I sent him a text message. I said, Alex, this episode is amazing. And what I liked about it, compared to a lot of the other business podcasts that I listened to, is that it's very intentional with the episode structure So Alex approaches each episode is like a masterclass of like picking the brain of these, you know, specific individuals that are experts in their field and condensing it to like the three to four big takeaways from their book or what they're known for. And it's very, it moves very quickly. And it's very, it's very well produced because a lot of the business podcast is like this free flowing hour and a half long conversation. And you're trying to like pick out the one or two nuggets that are worth remembering. But the whole episode is just gold. And so if you're looking for a new business, or a new marketing or online brand, building podcasts, listen to creating a brand is a great, great option.
Alban :Well, and thank you for your recommendation. If anyone else has a recommendation for a way to kick off the episode, maybe this will become something we do. So shoot those into support@buzzsprout.com and maybe we'll go grab your ideas for the beginning.
Travis :So we recently wrapped up work cycle Yankee, which if you guys have followed the podcast for any length of time, you know that we work in these six week work batches where we have a lot of projects that get worked on. And then at the end of that we, we try and roll them out. And so recently, we rolled out two projects that you will see when you log into your Buzzsprout dashboard. And the first one is an update to our stats, which were already amazing. But we just thought, you know, what, how can we make them just even a little bit more amazing. So Kevin, do you want to kind of explain what we've added to stats?
Kevin :Sure. When you log in, if you click on stats, there is a sub tab under there where you can go into podcast overview episode downloads, apps and devices, listener locations, and now there's a new one called achievements. And so if you've been podcasting with Buzzsprout, for any amount of time you've probably received in achievement email, and then they can be anything from you hit a new milestone in the number of downloads that you've had. It could be like number of episodes published So we try not to just do achievements around, download numbers, like there's more to life than just download numbers. So we also have episodes published. So after you publish your first episode, and your fifth and your 10th, and your 25th, we send these little achievements. And up till now they've just been emails with links that you could share them to your Facebook or show them to your Twitter. And all the time people were saying, Hey, I haven't gotten one for a while, what's the next one coming up, or it would be nice to remember how many I had in the past because I don't, you know, save all my emails, I delete them or something like that. And so we created a little web page where you can see all the achievements that you've received, you can see the next ones that are coming up. So you can, you know, set some goals for yourself or see what you're moving towards. And we also highlight the most recent achievement in case you've gotten rid of the email, but you want to post it to your Facebook or Twitter. There's also some other little information on that page, like how old your podcast is, how many total downloads you've had, how many episodes you publish, stuff like that. So the idea is that you find it encouraging that you Feel it motivating. And it's a quick way for you to be able to kind of share your podcasting progress with your audience, without you having to feel like you know, I'm typing it up myself, like, we're creating these little awards. And so you can feel good about sharing them without, you know, being showy or braggy on yourself.
Travis :Yeah, Alban, I would love for you to speak to this too, because I know that when we first started rolling out those achievement emails, that was a pitch that you put together, was it like last year or two years ago now?
Alban :I think it's years in the making Tom forever. He was like, I love badges. I love like apps that give you badges. I know, on Audible, I've been like working towards like some of the audible badges for like, five years. So you know, it's just like, it's a goofy thing. But for it hits something in your brain that it makes you want to keep going. I realized we really need to get something done for it on Buzzsprout when I went on to Instagram, and a podcaster that I follow, posted an image of all this stats, and I was like, Oh, that's cool. He hit like 100,000 downloads. Don't wait. Those are our stats. He's a Buzzsprout podcasts are like, Oh, that's cool. And like, I was like, you know, I didn't know even he was hosted with us. And I definitely, you know, it's cool to see him hit 100,000 downloads and be able to share that with everyone. And then I went, man, we should make it a little bit easier. So you didn't take like a screenshot out of it the app and do it himself.
Travis :Yeah. And the thing that I love about the achievements is one, it does introduce, like some gamification to podcasting, because so much of podcasting is just like you by yourself. And it's like, okay, am I on the right track? Am I making good progress? Am I on the right path to being able to reach my goals? And so just having these these small mile markers that just kind of reinforce that? Yeah, you're on the right track. And yes, this is something to shoot for. And this isn't the next thing to aim for. And this is the next hurdle you want to jump over. Just as a way to help you build momentum and to build confidence in what you're doing. I think it's it's fantastic. And I know that this is I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, Robin, this is probably one of the things that gets shared the most related to Buzzsprout to Twitter into Facebook and other social media platforms.
Alban :Now Yeah, we see him all the time somebody shares, like I just hit 4000 downloads in the share it. And the coolest thing is people will share it and then all their audience that follows them on like Twitter or whatever. I feel like I see Twitter a lot. They're all like great work. So proud of you keep it up. And it's like these moments where you know, the podcasters are not getting a ton of feedback normally. And then all of a sudden, they're getting a ton of feedback around this little milestone. So it just opens up this opportunity for your community to respond. And it's so encouraging, like I log into the Buzzsprout Twitter account, and you know, we see I see five of them all shared. And then a few of them have just got like dozens of people saying nice things about the person who shared them, and how much the podcast means to them. So yeah, It's just a cool project. I don't think we ever expected it to be this big and it just keeps getting bigger. And so that's always, you know, fun to see.
Travis :And one cool thing when you share these achievements, like, let's say you share it on Twitter, it has a link back to your podcast, as well. And so when somebody clicks on it, let's say that they weren't listening to your podcast before, but they follow you on Twitter, or they're friends with you on Facebook. And like, Oh, that's super cool that this person's podcast at this milestone, let me go check it out. We made it really easy for them to find your podcast and start listening. So it's also a really good way to grow your subscribers and to grow the grow your audience. So yeah, achievements are really cool. We're big fans of them. And so we're happy that now it's not just the emails telling you about these achievements, but now there's a place in your Buzzsprout dashboard, where you can check in see what your most recent achievement was, see which ones are coming up and then give you something to aim for, to just keep you going and keep you motivated and keep you inspired to keep podcasting
Alban :Alright, so one of the The other things that got changed inside of Buzzsprout recently is there's a new section called monetization. And I know these are a lot of things that are near and dear to Kevin's heart, and he's pushed for for a long time. A lot of times all the monetization was kind of mixed in with what we called the resources section. But a people are into making money now. So we've got a couple different options at the monetization section. Kev, do you want to share a bit about what's in there?
Kevin :Yeah. So as as the opportunities to monetize your podcast and Buzzsprout helping you do that has increased and made sense to move the monetization stuff out of a couple other sections, like the support the show link used to live under podcast settings, and the affiliate marketplace used to live under Resources. So now we have three of them. We've got a sponsorship tab, we've got affiliate marketplace tab in the support the show link. They're all going to live now under this monetization section. And resources has been broken out to its own section in like the top right section. Anyway, make sense when you log in and see it. Probably a little confusing as I'm explaining it. But what's under the monetization section are one brand new tool. And then two things that we've had before that were just kind of scattered in different places. So the biggest change would be to the sponsor section and the affiliate marketplace. And so we'll talk through those two. And we can start with affiliate marketplace, because that's something that we're all familiar with. But there's been a really cool update to the affiliate marketplace. We have always said that affiliate marketing is a great way to start monetizing your podcast because it's not you're not relying on a sponsor to take a risk on you. Especially if you're starting your show new or you don't have a lot of episodes or a lot of downloads yet. It doesn't mean that you can't start speaking on behalf of somebody else who has an affiliate program because there's no risk to them. There's very little risk to you as you're building your show. And if you happen to send a customer their way then they will compensate you for that. And so we've had four different affiliates in our affiliate marketplace. That Really great companies, great products, they do cash payouts. It's a very simple process to get approved as an affiliate. And it's a really simple way for you to step into affiliate marketing. But we know a lot of podcasters have their own brands that they love their own products that they want to talk about, and have their own affiliate links. And well now we've added the ability to set up a custom brand. So if Buffy or allswell, or instacart, or Buzzsprout isn't a good fit for your podcast, and it's not something that you feel or you feel there would be something I'd be a better fit. Now you can go out and find a product on Amazon or b&h or any other site like my son does. He's 12 years old, and he does a movie review and TV review podcast with his friends. But they're all swimmers and they buy a bunch of stuff from swim outlet. Well, they went and found on swim outlet that you can become an affiliate, and they got their own affiliate code and so they say hey, any swimmer friends out there if you guys listen to podcasts if you need to buy a new goggles or something for your swim team, use our link in our show notes. notes, and it helps support our show. Again, he hails no nearly 12 of their friends to listen to each episode. But wait, what's it what's the show called? It's called the kid critics I think I've talked about on here before. But that's the thing is that you don't need it's it's you're not reliant on, you know, building your show to a certain point before you can start doing this. These are just 312 year old kids who are talking about movies and some of their friends are listening and some of them are swimmers. And if they end up buying a pair of goggles to their link, these kids are going to do backflips when they get there, you know, $5 commission from swim outlet. And so we didn't build this tool specifically for them, but they're a good use case. And that if you have a product or service that you use and you feel passionate about and would be a good fit for your audience. Now you can come in and you can click the link to add a custom brand. And you can upload a logo and you can put a headline in the description and then your affiliate URL. We will drop that into the show notes of your episode. And on your Buzzsprout web page will show the logo with a link and a favor. he clicks any of that stuff and then ends up making a purchase, you're going to get a commission. So that's a really simple and very effective way to start monetizing your show. Before, you know you grow your show to the point at which sponsorships make more sense for you. And again, when then we can start talking about what we've done for sponsorships next.
Travis :Well, and what I love about this new ability to add your own affiliate, is that when we first started talking about this idea of the affiliate marketplace, we always knew this was kind of the 2.0 version of it, that we needed to start with something that we could make sure that it works that it was helping podcasters. But we always knew that once you get started with affiliate marketing and you realize the power of it, you will start to identify and find brands that you want to become affiliates for. So like recently, I was I was talking to one of our Facebook moderators who has a Dungeons and Dragons podcast, and he's like, I'm looking for ways to monetize. And I was like, Well, have you heard of Loot Crate? It's this website that's specifically for in their own words, nerds. And gamers. And it's like every single month, it's a box subscription. They just send you awesome stuff. And you can be an affiliate for that. And so he's like, Oh, that's awesome, that totally fits with what my audience is into. That's a great solution. And so you can find these affiliate programs, you can find these companies that really align with what you love, what you personally use, and then also what you know, your audience is going to love. And now you can bring all that into the Buzzsprout affiliate marketplace, add those brands, add those affiliate codes, and then use the tools like add a brand mentioned in your episode, to make sure that you have all the right disclaimers in there that your code is copied and pasted incorrectly every time. You know, and and that everything works and it's just seamless for your listeners. So I'm a huge fan of this new upgrade and I think it's really going to serve podcasters that are currently looking at affiliate marketing. It's going to allow this to grow with them as they start incorporating more and more brands and companies into their you know, their their kind of what's the word? I'm looking for. into their cadre of options that they have.
Kevin :Yeah, that you do look a while for that word.
Alban :I feel like Travis is scraping the bottom of the barrel like give me that good word, baby.
Travis :Oh, and I'm gonna leave that silence in there too. So people know. I worked for that word. And even though it sounds smart, I didn't sound smart coming up with it. Yeah,
Alban :someone is gonna write in and just ask for us like segment like a new words with Travis segment.
Travis :We'll add it right to the HDTV recommendation segment.
Alban :There we go.
Kevin :Okay, so we talked about the affiliate marketplace. We've also got something called sponsors. Hang on, before we move on to sponsors. Did you guys want to drop some affiliate links in to this episode, so that our listeners can take a look at our show notes and then you can possibly click through the Buzzsprout website for Buzzcast and you can see what these look like I was thinking we could create a couple of custom affiliates. For this episode, we've got
Alban :a couple we won. I worked for this company called Buzzsprout. So we could drop that one and that's a that's an affiliate marketplace. If you sign up you will. I don't know how kosher it is for me to make money off of this podcast. Kevin, I can talk about that off the air. But I'm already being paid to do it. Maybe you can put a Buzzsprout link in there. I've got another brain. Am I allowed to throw something into my own Kevin? Throw it in, man. All right. Well, this one's right up the alley of normal podcast advertising stuff. Everyone knows what Blue Apron is. And you probably know of like the 12 to 15 other Blue Apron. Adjacent companies. And my wife loves these. So we've been getting shipments of food, make meals for years, and she's got a new one, which I think might be the best yet called hungry route.
Kevin :And Alban told me about this before we started recording I am not I mean, it might be a great product. It might be wonderful food they send you but I the name sounds terrible.
Travis :It's either a branding Miss, or it's the bullseye and everyone who's in their ideal target audience is like, yes. Finally, someone appreciates routes like I do.
Kevin :Yeah, it just, it just feels like I'm just gonna open a box of beats or something.
Alban :What about like, I mean, what about carrots?
Travis :What potatoes? Will potatoes fall on the roof? I
Kevin :don't know how many root vegetables
Alban :he does technically, like count as a fruit are they like
Travis :they're starting or whatever. I remember we're going off the rails. I remember at one point, I was
Alban :this is off the rails.
Travis :I was like wait potatoes, they grow in the ground. Does that make french fries a vegetable? And I was like, Oh wait, I have to go with us right now because if it does, I no longer have to feel any kind of guilty about eating french fries at least seven or eight times a week. Unfortunately they're not but I was like all for it. Okay, back back on the Train.
Alban :Alright, I'm looking at different root vegetables. Now I know we're definitely off the topic. Okay? So here's the difference, like you're getting meat, you're paying money and you get a box of stuff to make a meal. It's the same as every other one. But the difference is that hunger group is focused very much on healthy food. So you've got lots of pescatarian and vegan and like dairy free or peanut free foods, and everything's just like pretty much very healthy stuff. And what this is, I just am setting myself up for this. It's not all like, Hey, here's just a bunch of vegetables. It's already like I barely could say, because I think we've just now realizing hunger is just reinvented like a grocery store. Because this stuff is, is partially Listen, I went in, you can like grow your own food and make a meal. And then you could have somebody like ship you like the ingredients halfway done. And then before you go to like ordering at a restaurant, there's hunger hungry greed is, is they're sending you like a bag of brussel sprouts that have already been cut and so that it's easier to cook it. I'm realizing basically this is just a spectrum of how much cooking you want to do. And we have hit the sweet spot of like some cooking but not too much cooking. Nobody is signing up for this now. You can see it like that in the description. I think it's pretty good.
Travis :So this is like when you go to Publix, and it's like you can either buy the whole watermelon and cut it yourself. Or you can get the chopped up watermelon. That's like three times as expensive and you get less of it but you don't have to do any shopping.
Alban :Yeah, that's hungry. Basically, they're shipping you chopped up a watermelon And level preparedness,
Travis :right? So if so if you want to eat healthy food, and you don't like cooking, but you like some cooking, but you like some cooking because then you feel good about it satisfying the root. So there's certainly that end of the spectrum of like you can find affiliate programs of specific companies that you like that you want to endorse the other end of the spectrum and this works just as well with the custom affiliate mentions would be if you used an affiliate marketplace like Amazon, or b&h, which is one that we use when we're recommending products for podcasters. Where it's not just like one specific thing, but you can say, Okay, well this is a microphone I really like so for this episode, the affiliate link we're going to put in the description is for the Samsung q to you, which is a microphone that has become our number one recommendation for new podcasters since the ATR 2100 hundred had to get all fancy at a USBC port and then double the price. So that is now our most recommended microphone. But b&h sells lots of us Other kinds of gear and equipment. So you can also find Amazon affiliate programs or other affiliate marketplaces where you don't necessarily have to get signed up with every single company individually, you join a marketplace that has lots of products. And then you can take those unique URLs and codes and add those as custom affiliate mentions as well. So there's a number of ways you can do it. And I think what's great about being able to tailor it to specifically what you're trying to do, is that these new custom affiliate mentions cover the gamut of all the things you could possibly want to do with affiliates.
Alban :Alright, so we got affiliates. We've also got a section called sponsors. Kevin, do you want to help us understand what's the difference between an affiliate and a sponsor?
Kevin :So the easiest way to think about it is a sponsor is going to be an arrangement that you set up with a product a company or brand or something up front, and they are going to agree to pay you a certain amount for something in return in the podcasting world. That's usually an advertisement. It can be a pre roll Mid roll or a post roll, which just means they're going to talk about their product at the beginning of your podcast in the middle of your podcast or at the end of your podcast. The challenge with sponsorship is, there's more risk on the sponsor now, right, and we call them brands in Buzzsprout lingo, there's more risk on the brand side, because they're going to pay you say $100. For let's say, they buy four episodes, and you do a weekly podcast and they want for pre rolls. So before your next four episodes, you're going to talk about this brand, before you get into your show. They're going to pay you $100 to do that, and it sounds great, except it there's a lot of risk on their side because they're trusting that that's going to be effective that if they pay you $100 to do that, that they're going to generate at least $100 or more of business in return for that. There are a lot of crazy models out there. cpms I mean works for some people doesn't work for everybody, but we've thought long and hard about that and we don't feel like CPM is the best solution for that. We say meaningful monetization for podcasters, independent podcasters, especially if you're just starting out. So if you start getting into the 10s of thousands 50,000 hundred thousand downloads per episode, moving to a CPM model might make sense. But the vast majority of podcasters are well below that. So the question becomes, what monetization options exist for the rest of us. There are searching and discussions and stuff we've gotten in contact with a company called popcorn. Popcorn is a really nice solution because they've created a podcast sponsorship marketplace and marketplace just meaning a place where they've collected a whole bunch of brands together that are saying that they're interested in podcasts advertising, so they list themselves in the popcorn marketplace. And then you can browse all the brands you can find ones that either you have a personal experience with, or you feel like would be a good fit for your audience for your show. And then you can reach out and submit a proposal to them so you can say, here's what my show is about. Here's what we talked about every week. Here's how often we do episodes. I offer pre rolls and mid rolls and would love to do an For your show, typically, they're 15 to 30 seconds, but we can talk through the details, here's what I charge, and you can submit that to them, they would take a look at it. And if they feel like it would be a good fit, then you start a dialogue. So they accept your proposal. And then they move you into a work room, where you can have a direct conversation with the brand about what you would offer and what they want, and you work out a deal. And so it doesn't have to be a CPM deal. It doesn't, you know, if you only get 100 listeners per episode, at a CPM model, that would be really hard for you to make any money like they would, you know, pay you $1 or something, it just wouldn't be worth either party's time. But if the hundred people that listen to your show every week are an exact fit for the product, then it might be worth them paying you 10 or $20 or $50 or, you know, it could be anything. It's I mean, if they're selling luxury yachts and you have 100 people who are in the market for a luxury yacht, they might pay you $10,000 just to talk to those hundred people because it's a really high end product, right? They sell one luxury yacht from that ad and it has Absolutely pays for itself. And so we like what popcorns doing, we like the way they think they align with what Buzzsprout is trying to do. And in helping independent podcasters like, really think through meaningful monetization, not just things that you're wasting your time on to get a few dollars every month, but really understand the value and the connection that podcasters have with their audience and that trust relationship and that value. So we partnered with popcorn, we've made it really easy for you to click through a link inside of Buzzsprout set up a popcorn account. And now there's a checkbox right inside of Buzzsprout that allows you to share your stats with popcorn because something that's going to have to happen when you enter into relationship with one of these brands is they're going to need to verify your download numbers. So if you're saying I get 5000 downloads per episode, they might not just want to take your word for it. They need some verification. So we'll share your stats with popcorn if you tell us to and then you can browse their marketplace you can find a brand and you can start discussing if there's an opportunity for you to work together. With the brands that they have in the marketplace,
Alban :if you're going to go this route, and I think it's a great way to get connected for both sides. So like on the brand side, it's really great to be able to connect with podcasts that you align with. And then for podcasters, it's a way to set up a relationship with a brand, who already know is interested in podcasting, and they understand the value. Because I think for a lot of podcasters, that's the part that's a little bit scary is I'm trying to go to a brand and say, hey, I want to include you on my show. I think you should pay me and then they're like, I don't really listen to podcasts. I'm more of an email guy and like they don't want to be involved. With this. You already know the brand that understands the value. They understand what they're getting. And you just most of that works been done for you. I would like to highlight. There's a really good video that I watched this week from href. The head of marketing at href spent $200,000 sponsoring podcasts over the last year and they did this Video mainly directed at companies saying, Hey, here's all the stuff we learned. And from what we learned, here's how we recommend thinking about sponsoring podcasts. And so I think we should link at the show notes and it will help you as a podcaster. Get a feel for what brands are thinking when they're sponsoring your show. You guys cool if I get a couple of takeaways from the video? Yeah, I won't go to all of them. I mean, a few of them are pretty basic, like you really sounds like a lot of podcasters trying to hide their downloads from the brands, or maybe are dishonest about them. That's all taken care of with popcorn because the stats are verified. This is the key one for me. Lesson number eight in the video, help the host understand your product. And so what they were doing is they're setting up an hour long call with everyone who they sponsored the podcast. They got the host to do an hour where they walked through the product. They found that that was really important for the host to understand what the product they were talking about did, instead of just reading an ad, like they were giving a endorsement for this product. And I think that as a podcast host, that's something you can really bring to the table. If you're on popcorn looking for a brand, and then you're pitching and you're saying, hey, I want to do an ad for your product. Make sure in that pitch, you're making it abundantly clear. I know what your product is, I know that my audience actually will not be turned off by hearing about this product. And I'm going to be able to talk about this in an intelligent way and give an honest account of the pros, cons and purpose for your product. Does that make sense?
Kevin :Yeah, I mean, you have to recognize that when you browse popcorn, you're not the only one browsing and so when you're submitting a proposal, how do you make your proposal stand out? Amongst the many that they're probably getting. And so that one, that's a great tip for saying, either I understand your product fully already, or I've got a slight understanding. But I'd also be willing to not only do the ads but meet with you for a half hour or an hour, and get a really good understanding of your product. I'd be interested in, you know, buying a sample of your product and using it myself before I do my ads, anything creatively that you can think of to set your proposal out among the pool that they're getting would be very valuable.
Alban :Yeah, what are their other tips that they talked about was, uh, just the ability to be interviewed on shows some of the hosts proposed, they're like, Hey, why don't you sponsor my show for four weeks and pay this amount to do that? But you're actually like, I like your product. So why don't I interview you for the episode? And I was like, for a lot of podcasts. That's actually kind of a nice thing if you're inviting them on because you know, they bring value and you're like, this is now I've got an interview set up for me. So that's a nice value add you can put it in there. And the brand will probably be really excited about that exposure.
Travis :Yeah, and popcorn makes all those variations of ways that you can pitch sponsors, easy to do, because oftentimes, those sponsors will list out all the different ways that they're interested in sponsoring podcasts or somewhere like you can do a product review, you can do a product highlight, you can interview, the owner, you can do a pre or mid roll. And so they also will list out all the different things that you can pitch to. So you can say I would be interested in doing these three things that you are interested in doing as well. So we're big fans of popcorn if you're looking to jump into sponsorships, and you need to make that connection with the brand. And to know that they're actually have the mindset of I want to sponsor podcasts that are a good fit for our audience. The last thing that we've highlighted in the monetization section, which before was kind of buried in your podcast settings, was the support the show link. And I know that this is another thing that's near and dear to our hearts for independent podcasters Is that another one Way to very quickly start monetizing your show is to give your audience an opportunity to support you directly. So Kevin, do you want to just jump into real quick, why the support the show link is powerful or helpful. And then also just some some things to keep in mind as people are looking to implement that strategy?
Kevin :Yeah, so it's really very simple. It's just a link to a payment site that you would drop in to Buzzsprout. And then we would automatically add it to the show notes or episode description for every episode that you do. And then as you feel comfortable in each episode, you can say, hey, if you want to support the show, there's a link at the bottom. If you want to send me a little bit of cash to keep this thing going on would really help I'd really appreciate it. There are a lot of people who say you know, I don't really need the money, I'm not doing it for the money. I don't necessarily, you know, feel the need to drop in a link to do that. And I would just push back on it a little bit. Something that you think about is that a lot of people who listen I want to thank you like and you might not be doing your show because you know, I want to make some money on it. You might just be doing it because you enjoy it or it's a passion project for you or your you have other goals that don't involve you actually getting cash from your audience. But it is an opportunity for a lot of people out there say, Hey, man, you dropped this tip last week and I implemented in my business or, or something, and it was so helpful, it would just make me feel good if I could just, you know, send you five bucks or something. And so just think about it from that perspective as well is that it might be a way to serve your audience and not yourself by providing a way for people to thank you. And so there are some really simple sites that you can go to patreon one of them pod fan, buy me a coffee, or even something like a PayPal link or a cash app link. Just giving people an easy way to either support you if you're asking for support. And if not, maybe just thank you if they feel so good. So it's as simple as dropping a Lincoln and Buzzsprout does the rest and then you can mention it as often as you want in any of your episodes as a call to action.
Travis :Yeah, it's a very low hanging fruit. Right? There's not a lot of time required in your end to set it up. And it's an easy way. Like Kevin said, even if you're not like trying to necessarily profit from your podcast, maybe you can start that as a fund to pour back into making your podcast better. Maybe you do want to invest in something like a road caster Pro. And you can now use this support the show link as a way to start a budget, that when you hit that dollar amount you can execute that knowing that's going to help make your podcast better. And so your listeners are also investing in their own listening experience. And so even if you're not trying to necessarily profit from your podcast, you can use that as a way to continue to make your podcast better.
Alban :Yeah, and let people be the ones to decide whether or not they give you money. I can think of podcasts I've listened to that have ended up shutting down because to them, the number of listeners wasn't enough to justify keeping the podcast going. But there were shows that like I looked forward to every week, and if they said at any point, hey, there's a link in the show notes. Go ahead and support us. I 100% would have and I definitely now I'm thinking like there's a few shows I pay another five bucks to get an episode a week out of them again. And like I don't know if I'm one of 1000 people that was thinking that now they've got like a nice Very healthy podcast that's making good money. So setting this up now may allow you to continue podcasting. Even when your life is a little bit more hectic and you've got more going on. Maybe now you're bringing in a couple hundred dollars a month from your podcast and you go, Oh, no, I want to keep that going. It means a lot to people.
Kevin :So at the end of the day, you know, our goal with Buzzsprout is always provide the best premium podcast hosting solution available. And we know that there are other options for hosting podcasts, and some of them don't charge as much and some don't charge any. And we try to provide a much better experience with what we're doing with Buzzsprout. And the idea of hosting your podcast there for some people is a very easy decision because they have the income to be able to buy a Buzzsprout plan and get all the benefits of using a premium podcast host versus having to go with a less expensive or free option. But what we're trying to do is make it more and more accessible. So even if you don't have the disposable income to be able to spend on a passion project or a side hobby or something Like that, there are now ways built into Buzzsprout, to be able to cover the cost of your hosting and possibly equipment and more. So I'm really excited about it, whether support the show link is the right way for you to step into it, or affiliate marketing or sponsorships, that's all built into your Buzzsprout account. Now, that doesn't mean that you have to do any of it. Again, if you no budget wise, it's it's not a stretch for you to buy your own equipment, and to pay for your hosting and you just love doing it. And you've got other goals. We're not pushing you to monetize. But there are a lot of people that out of necessity or because it is one of their goals to have their podcasting goals align more with some monetization options, that we're super excited to be able to offer this to everyone. And it's super simple, just like everything that we do in Buzzsprout we try to keep it really easy and not just make it easy for you to start but scalable as well. So you might just start you know today with the support the show link and then a couple months from now, you might say hey, I'm gonna try an affiliate thing and and you make a few bucks out of that and then you say, Hey, I'm going to pick one of these popcorn sponsors and you know, they can go even beyond that, you know, to the point where you're doing deals, or people are, you know, inbound deals, people are contacting you or you're contacting people outside of popcorn or the other marketplaces that we've linked to. And the tools still support that again. So you can always the ad sponsor tool that's in Buzzsprout. It doesn't have to be somebody that you find through popcorn, it can be somebody find anywhere. So we're excited. We're going to keep revising it. We want to hear your feedback, but we hope it's a super valuable tool to those who are interested in monetization of what they're doing with their podcast.
Travis :Well, that's another episode in the books if you want to let us know what your thoughts are in the new monetization tab and all the options that you have. Or if you like that, now that you can see in your stats, your achievements and how you're doing, definitely jump into our Buzzsprout podcast community over on Facebook. It's our online community of podcasters. You can jump in there, let us know what you think and interact with other podcasters get help when you need it, support one another, encourage one another. It's a great community to be a part of and make sure Send us an email at support@buzzsprout.com with ideas for how we should intro the next episode. And you could be just like Anna and get a shout out with a link to your podcast. Well that does it for us for this week and we'll catch you in the next one.
