Podcast Moneymaker Issue #2 : I had 2,000 downloads. I had sponsors.

First, The Scoreboard

Week one is in! Here's what happened when I did it to you. (ahem, sorry)

Six dollars and eighty-four cents. That's the sponsorship money. I want to be clear that this is real, it is tracked, and I'm not rounding it up to seven.

Two things about that open rate. First, 9,986 is a list I merged from every event, class, and Kickstarter I've run since 2014, so a chunk of those people (you people) haven't heard from me in at least 2 years. Under 20% on a reactivated list isn't great, but it isn't a dumpster fire either. Second, the fix is the thing I asked you to do: reply. Thirty of you did. Gmail noticed. Thank you!​I also wanted to mention that since sending, two companies have offered to sponsor my newsletter, each for $1.14 per signup. (That means when you subscribe, I get $1.14.) ​I receive an email saying "X wants to sponsor your newsletter!" and then in the email, I review the offer and am asked to accept within the Kit app. I'll have another one below - and unlike Morning Brew, I've actually used both Superhuman AND Hubspot and I am pretty impressed with both. The ad is at the end of the newsletter.​Check it out ⬇

Now, the story I promised you.

The Show That Started It All

Before She Podcasts, I had a podcast called Lady Business Radio. It was the first business podcast for women, actually, and it got about 2,000 downloads a month. Not per episode. A month. Some months, less.

It had sponsors from almost the first episode.

Not because I was a genius at selling. (But I am.) It was because of the math I'd been doing as a salesperson for newspaper websites, way before podcasts even existed. When I started that show, I already had an online business, and I'd been posting and emailing and chatting with people since day one. So by the time I hit record, I had roughly:

Call it 15,000 people who could see me, on a show that 2,000 people could hear. The sponsors didn't buy the podcast. They bought the platform, and the podcast was the excuse to talk about them.

Who The Sponsors Actually Were

This is the part everyone gets wrong, so pay attention.

They weren't brands. There WERE no brands. Podcast advertising as it is now didn't exist. They were simply other women business owners I already knew, who had courses and programs and services to sell, and whose customers looked exactly like my listeners. I was their audience's audience. A mention from me was a warm introduction to a few thousand people who already trusted me, and that was worth more to them than a slot on a show with a tons of downloads and listeners who were strangers.

So the pitch was easy, because it wasn't a pitch. It was, "I'm starting a show, my people are your people, want to be in it?"

Why This Matters if Your Show is Small

Because it means you're allowed to start now.

You do not need 5,000 downloads an episode. You need one channel where people actually talk back to you. One. An email list with a few hundred people on it who reply. A Facebook group that isn't dead. An Instagram where the comments are from humans you recognize. Any of those is a platform, and a platform is what a sponsor is paying for.

And if you're thinking "a few hundred people is nothing," try this: picture 150 people in your kitchen. Picture buying lunch for them. It's a lot of people. It only feels small because you're comparing yourself to Alex Cooper, or Crime Junkie, and they are not the comparison. The women who sponsored Lady Business Radio would have been thrilled to reach 150 of the right people.

What to Do This Week

Count your platform, not your downloads. Every place people can see you, and roughly how many. Email, socials, group, whatever. Add it up. That number, and not your download count, is what you're selling.

If it's small, the fix isn't more episodes. It's more conversation. Post something that asks people to talk about themselves ("what's the one tool you can't run your business without?") because humans love giving advice and love talking about themselves, and an audience that answers you is an audience a sponsor can sell to.

Next Week

One of you wrote and asked me, "How can I monetize my ACTUAL CONTENT?" and I'm going to explain it all, just like Clarissa.​

One Favor

Hit reply with your platform number. The total, from the count above. I'm not judging, I'm collecting, and I'll share the range next week so you can see where you sit. Don't wanna? Reply with your burning monetization questions instead!

Talk Tuesday,XO Jess

P.S. The whole system for finding sponsors, pricing yourself, and getting a yes is in the Podcast Moneymaker Crash Course. It's $67 and it's here. It's the thing the $6.84 is supposed to eventually pay for, so you see my incentive.