How I made it, Part 1: Sponsorship
I first set up the BAD SEX newsletter so that I would have a means of publishing podcast episodes privately and exclusively. If you recall from my crowdfunder, anyone who donated more than £10, received “early access” and I needed a platform to facilitate that. Substack seemed like the easiest way. It also allowed me to update you on the production progress and offer “behind the scenes” insights.
As time went on, I began to see the benefit of having a record of how I made the podcast; an honest account of what went well, and what felt challenging. It’s so easy to forget the work that goes into our achievements. It’s so easy to brush them off as “oh that thing I did a few years ago” and dismiss the huge amount of energy that went into their creation. Furthermore, I wanted to be able to put the information out into the world for anyone else who might be thinking about making a podcast series, wondering how to approach it and, crucially, how to finance it.
So this is the first of three “How I made it” newsletters which will look at the money and marketing behind BAD SEX.
How I made it, Part 1: Sponsorship
The first thing to say about podcast sponsorship is that it almost certainly won’t be enough to cover the costs of making it. I mean, maybe if you have a crazy popular podcast averaging thousands of downloads a week. But my little indie podcast, series three of which had exactly 4,285 downloads (not per episode - total!) at the point of pitching, was never going to command megabucks from advertisers. But I went into the sponsorship pitching stage knowing that every extra pound I could raise would help towards my goal. Not only that, but I knew having a sponsor attached would elevate the profile of the project and boost my crowdfunding chances.
In the end, it actually worked both ways! Having a sponsor already signed up lent legitimacy to the series, which definitely helped when I launched the crowdfunder. Then the momentum of the crowdfunder itself created a buzz which helped attract the other two sponsors.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. When you’re trying to get people to sponsor your podcast, or indeed any kind of project, the first thing you usually have to do is email them. Nobody likes cold-pitching but the more you do it the less stressful it feels (a bit like talking about sex!) and you can also reduce your risk of making a tit of yourself by targeting brands whose products actually compliment the messages of your show, or whose business is actually relevant to your listeners. Where you set your bar on ethics and integrity is up to you but at the very least you should question the optics. If you’re approaching a high street clothing brand to sponsor a podcast on sustainable fashion, I’d maybe think again.
I’d been writing about sex and relationships for a long time, so I had a pretty good sense of the brands I wanted to get in touch with. The next thing to do was find the right contact, ideally the head of brand, head of marketing, head of partnerships or something along those lines. Most of this can be gleaned from LinkedIn but sometimes I’d end up emailing someone and they replied saying “I’m not your man but I’ve forwarded this on to our collabs team” or something.
This is the introductory email I sent when approaching brands to talk about sponsoring BAD SEX. It’s a brief outline of what I’m doing, who I am and why me and my podcast are a good bet, and an offer to send over the full pitch deck, if they’re interested in continuing the conversation.
To be clear, LOTS OF PEOPLE SAID NO AT THIS POINT. The vast majority of brands replied and said some variation of “Thanks but no thanks”. Some replied saying “Sorry your podcast is too small, we only work with shows that have X number of downloads” and some never replied at all.
But *some* replied and said yes, please do send over the pitch deck. And so I did. Here’s what I sent: Sponsor The Second Circle Series 4
As I said at the beginning, my podcast was tiny at this point. My download figures were laughable. Convincing brands to sponsor my show was never going to be about them reaching the *most* people, so it had to be about them reaching genuinely invested people. I didn’t have the biggest platform but I knew from my newsletter and from the connections I’d made on social media that the people who did read and listen to my work were really engaged with it and they trusted me. I had also done a survey of my newsletter readers in the summer of 2021 to find out a bit about who they were and what they were interested in and it occurred to me that they were probably representative of the people who would listen to my podcast (if you supported my podcast after reading about it in my newsletter, hello!) so I included some of the key stats from that.
The basic template for the pitch deck was one I got from attending a (paid for) podcasting workshop. I then adapted it to fit my podcast, my beat, and my strategy. For example, the “Plans for growth” section is heavily weighted towards using my existing profile as a sex journalist to promote my podcast. Reading back over this I can see that I didn’t actually do everything I promised! I said I was going to pitch myself as a guest on Millennial Love, on Huffpost’s Am I Making You Uncomfortable? and Hannah Witton’s Doing It and I did precisely none of that. But I did place articles, give interviews, and get reviews in various mainstream publications, which I’ll expand more on in Part 2 when I talk about marketing, so I think I fulfilled my end of the bargain. I think the important thing at the pitching stage is to show that you have specific and achievable ideas on how to market your podcast. And I did.
Likewise, if you look at the series overview, it looks a little different to how the final series turned out. I did not, for example, end up interviewing all the people I listed. Sometimes this was because the person was not available for interview at the time of production, sometimes it was because I found someone else who felt like a better fit for the subject matter. Before I put together this pitch, I was told by other podcasters that brands like to see high profile guests because of their potential to bring in larger audiences. From my point of view, I definitely saw spikes in episode downloads on the days when someone with a large following recommended the show, but only if their recommendation was genuine. Someone quote-tweeting my post saying “I was interviewed for this podcast” did not do much for listener figures.
My strategy, and indeed advice, would be to go for a mix. If the best person to speak on a subject is someone with six followers, absolutely interview them. But guests with large social media followings can help bring in listeners and, when it comes to pitching, you’re once again demonstrating that you really understand your audience and your marketing strategy. Overall, I think I got the balance right. I had some “big names” for sure, but all of them were people I felt had something unique and important to say on the subject. They were not just there to help me pull in listeners.
Money and integrity! It can be done, pals!
The final thing to say about my pitch deck is that, in lieu of a gigantic platform and audience, I needed to make it clear that I was a capable and safe pair of hands who was going to deliver something people really wanted and would enjoy. I did this partly by quoting the professional feedback I’ve had from editors and awarding bodies, and partly by sharing reader and listener comments. My aim was to show that I am both an authoritative reporter and an engaging voice; someone people respect and connect with. I’m not sure whether or not this comes across in the pitch but I think (hope) the relative success of the podcast shows it to be true. <3
If you listened to the podcast you’ll know that BAD SEX had three series sponsors. Yes! Lube, an independent online sex toy boutique called The Pleasure Garden, and sexual health startup iPlaySafe. Yes! came on board before I launched the crowdfunder and agreed to sponsor three episodes. During the crowdfunding process, the team from The Pleasure Garden got in touch after seeing me talking about the podcast on Twitter and asked to see a sponsorship pack. They then signed up to sponsor another three episodes. Finally, in the very last week of crowdfunding, iPlaySafe saw my videos on Instagram, and called me to say they wanted in. At that point I still had about £400-500 to raise and, if you don’t hit your target, all the money goes back to the donors. When I explained that to them, they immediately donated the remaining amount, and agreed to top it up later to £850, the cost of sponsoring the full series.
I don’t think I’ll ever forget that final week of fundraising. In the middle of the February 2021 lockdown, in the midst of everything being just so awful, I’d done a thing!
Once I had my sponsors lined up, I needed to lock down the terms of our agreement. I sent each one a contract like this and then got to work drafting copy for the ads. I sent this draft to each of my contacts and they replied with amendments. We went back and forth a couple of times until they were happy and once they’d signed off on the copy, I invoiced them for the payment. I later recorded the ads and the results you can hear for yourselves on the podcast.
With this sponsorship money on its way, and the cash from my crowdfunder already in the bank, I could finally get to work!
What’s next
Part 2 of “How I Made It” will cover marketing. Then, in Part 3, I’ll publish my full budget breakdown so you can see exactly where the money went and what it paid for.