ad/sponsor pricing model.. is there one???

[wildo69]

ok, so i think i have hit a point whre i am ready to start soliciting some specific companies for sponsorship and potential advertising.

here is my issue, i am totally green when it comes to any type of internet/podcast marketing, so whats fair to ask for?

i could ask for $x per show that has a "ad or mention of them"
and also for banner space on my site, but i dont know how much to ask for...

so i guess im wondering what other people are gettting, is there an amount that is somewhat of a standard? (i know this may be all too new for standards), but i dont really know wheather i should charge $50 a month or $500 a month.

any insight into this would be great...

[tabulator32]

How many downloads a day for your show and how many hits a day for your site?

It depends on a lot of things including your prospective market, the product or service, the audience size and more. The whole marketing concept for podcasting in general is kinda green right now.

As far as the banner ads on your site, you can compare to the prices offered by a lot of similar sites that offer banner advertising. Look into advertising on other websites and see what they would charge you.

[docsnavely]

for my first time, i gave a .25 per listener quote....

got shot down, then gave a .10 per listener quote....

got shot down. made sure they knew everything was negotiable, and i had no firm set price.....

no reply.

advertising on your own is very difficult from what i have seen. i have one sponsor, but it's just a plug for a website, so i get paid accordingly per month for that.

good luck with whatever you decide, and please keep all informed....

those who do get sponsorship keep very tight lipped, and it just makes it that much more difficult for everyone else to get sponsors in the future since no one knows how to to approach anything.....

[wildo69]

well, i have a very targeted audience (my show is towards a ver specific hobby), which means, there are online companys (big and small) that sell stuff related to the hobby. alot of peopel inthis hobby to online purchases, so in that sense i am on a good path.

my shows are usually downloaded about 400 times within 30 days of there release.
my subscription number through feedburner is about 120-150, depending.. but i know there are many people that download the episodes directly from my website.

i would be able to work the sponsors information right in to my show, so it wouldnt be a 20-30 second comercial that people ould simply fast foward through. i haev also found that anythign less than 10-15 seconds people will skip over. it has to be short and sweet, so that is more work for them to skip it than just listen through it.

so i have 2 or 3 companies i would like to contact, but not sure on the pirice. i was thinking since my show is still fairly small, maybe $25 per show. and i do about 4 shows a month (or one a week). i dont know if this is reasonably, so thats why im throwing it out there.

[ElNacho]

if i got .25 cents a listener, id be swimming in dough. u josh wud b drowning. well actually u probably have to actually pay for stuff. i dont haha yay for youth

[wildo69]

well, a per listner price would be great, but its next to impossible to get an accurate number of listners without loads of work, and undercutting yourself.

(if im wrong please let me know, i would find it extremely helpful)

[docsnavely]

while you're true about actual listenership, there's not much more we can do other than utilize feedburner.....

it may not be dead on accurate, but it does give an estimate that a majority of people use to compare shows against each other....

podtrac has an innovate idea of putting a prefix redirect infront of each individual podcast you post. you have to be registered with their services, and there have been some people complaining of problems with direct downloads. but so far, it sounds to be the most reasonable idea yet....

as long as itunes promises not to cache episodes.... **** itunes. so helpful, yet so frustrating at the same time!

[wildo69]

yes, the feedburner this is great. i just think they need to do a weekly and monthly number along with the daily.
i (and many others) have suggested this, but they are still working on it.

i know that it still wont account for direct downloads.

honestly there needs to be a piece of reporting software that does what feedburner doesm only allow it to be installed on your webserver. so it can track and report on "everything". its a pain, becuase all the information is there in the webserer logs, but its so hard to sift through it all manually...

im sure as podcasting matures, these types of things will get better.

so again, exact numbers aside, do you think $25 a show/ad would be too high or to low as a starting point.

the other thing is that im looking for a sponsor, not just an advertiser. in my opinion they are different.

- A sponsor is a company/group/person who is believes in and supports what you are doing and is going to help fund your show, and in return you give them ads.
- An advertiser, doesnt really care about your show as long as they can generate some revenue by having you play ads.

[docsnavely]

good points on the sponsor/advertiser definitions. i get caught up in just using the buzz word of the week sometimes.

i would say for your FB numbers, $25 wouldn't be too bad of a start. to be honest, i doubt you'll get any bites. some advertisers would still say that $25 is too high.

you never know until you ask though. what's the worst? they'll say no.

[wildo69]

yeah.. i figure its a starting point...
if they say no, i guess i can just move from there...

i will keep you updated as to my progress.

thanks for the input

[ElNacho]

13% of my listeners are through feedburner...with show downloads rounded down and subscribers round up. its really weird.

[tabulator32]

yes, the feedburner this is great. i know that it still wont account for direct downloads.

13% of my listeners are through feedburner...with show downloads rounded down and subscribers round up. its really weird.

I'm still trying to learn here. Somebody help me out.

By "direct download" do you mean a show obtained without subscribing (or does it mean a show obtained, subscribed or not, off of your own website and not something like Odeo or Itunes or something similar, and...

Does Feedburner include direct downloads or not?

[docsnavely]

direct download usually refers to someone who downloads a file w/o subscribing.

usually done directly from the source website.

[Marilynfan]

Does Feedburner include direct downloads or not?

No, unfortunately it doesn't. I just found this out for sure when I got ahold of my web server stats for the first time last week. I checked both of them 4 days after I released my latest show and my feedburner number was at 129 but the web stats showed the latest show had been downloaded 302 times. My listeners tend not to be subscribers.

[guscave]

Well it gets even crazier for me. I'm using podomatic to host my mp3. They now offer the ability to see the downloads of each episode (which is very cool). I also use feedburner, however when I look at my total subcribers for the month, feedburner shows I have 1829 while podomatic shows 59. Very whack-out numbers which makes it hard to figure out what to tell possible sponsors. :?

[tabulator32]

direct download usually refers to someone who downloads a file w/o subscribing.

usually done directly from the source website.


Does Feedburner include direct downloads or not?

No, unfortunately it doesn't. I just found this out for sure when I got ahold of my web server stats for the first time last week. I checked both of them 4 days after I released my latest show and my feedburner number was at 129 but the web stats showed the latest show had been downloaded 302 times. My listeners tend not to be subscribers.

Wow! So I may actually have a few more listeners than I thought.

8)

[SFEley]

Well it gets even crazier for me. I'm using podomatic to host my mp3. They now offer the ability to see the downloads of each episode (which is very cool). I also use feedburner, however when I look at my total subcribers for the month, feedburner shows I have 1829 while podomatic shows 59. Very whack-out numbers which makes it hard to figure out what to tell possible sponsors. :?

Where did you get that 1829 figure for Feedburner? I hope it wasn't by adding up all the daily numbers -- most of those will be the same people day after day, simply checking your feed to see if anything's new.

[ElNacho]

no, direct downloads includes subscribers. here's my figures:

low 70s to mid 80s Feedburner
after a week and a half (when downloads plateu): bout 500-600 downloads

550/77=7.blahblahblah

100/7=about 14%

[PupuStudios]

Rob from Podcast411.com interviewed Podtrac. They discussed questions a lot of podcasters have been asking.

[docsnavely]

nacho, i'm not following your logic......

how does a direct download include subscribers?......

if someone is subscribed to your feed, they do not directly download the file, they have an aggregator that does that for them.....

now if someone uses a flash player from your website, or clicks on the .mp3 link for download, then i would call that a direct download....

even the flash player on your website might not be considered a direct download because many who start to listen to your file will click away before the file is finished downloading.

[Mobasoft]

I'll chime in here, with my $.02 as a 'listener', and as a shameless plug for our service.

I own a portable MP3 player, but I don't listen offline since I am in front of my PC all day long.

How many people own portable players? Vs. the Number of people who own Internet enabled PC's?

So for me, if during the playback of a podcast, something is mentioned...a product or a service, or whatever, and it's available online, I /could/ open another browser window and type in the URL.

BUT....I'm lazy and get distracted easily, and that's just too difficult, (lol), so I don't. So any sponsored ad in that capacity would be wasted on me, just like a radio ad, or an offline podcast playback. I'm human, and I have a life, so I get distracted.

Now, the good stuff -
You'll need to think of it from the advertisors point of view. They can reach an audience of tens of thousands of listeners, as radio does, and pay $x.xx for that ad.

So, for you to try to compete using their measurement of saturation, the only thing that you have available to tell a potential sponsor is how many downloads of your episode you might have.

Those numbers, of course, are no where near radio audience numbers.
That's okay, because you are specialized, and have a more targeted and captive audience. But even then, you don't have any trackable statistics other than subscriber counts and download counts (which appear to be inaccurate after reading this thread...).

So, the plug...
Use the AudioMerge post-production process. (www.audiomerge.com)

If you want to get a potential sponsor, go ahead and mention their product, include a product image, and a direct link so that I, the lazy, busy, distracted listener, and simply go straight there and purchase something.

Then take your reports from audiomerge, showing that at precisly 2 minutes and 13 seconds into your show, you mentioned their product, and sent to their website 500 referrals.

You've then shown to 'sponsor-x' that what you are proposing already works.

[Think target markets]
How many elder citizens are online? More and more everyday...do they own iPods or anything else like it? No, not very many of them do. Have you just excluded them? Yes, if you are only doing a podcast targeted for offline listening.

What about the 85% of Internet users who use the computer as a if it were a tool? Check email, write a letter, then turn it off.

Are they included in this thing called podcasting? NOPE
But, do they know enough to click on a link, listen, have interest, and follow through with a purchase? You bet they do!

Ya know...TV's and digital broadcasting are smart enough to put a 'header block' in front of a commercial....the TV could then MUTE and stop recording until the commercial has passed......

Guess why that technology isn't implemented? That's right! Money, and lots of it....superbowl commercial? YUP..

So, I'm starting to deviate from my original intent of this message, but I think that unless you become a podfader, you can make it work out, and potentially make it a full-time gig.

Michael
Developer/Owner
AudioMerge.com

[guscave]

Well it gets even crazier for me. I'm using podomatic to host my mp3. They now offer the ability to see the downloads of each episode (which is very cool). I also use feedburner, however when I look at my total subcribers for the month, feedburner shows I have 1829 while podomatic shows 59. Very whack-out numbers which makes it hard to figure out what to tell possible sponsors. :?

Where did you get that 1829 figure for Feedburner? I hope it wasn't by adding up all the daily numbers -- most of those will be the same people day after day, simply checking your feed to see if anything's new.

Yeah, that was where I was getting it from. I didn't know how it worked until I got an email from them explaining it. I'm going to rely more on my podomatic stats. Seems to give me more of what I'm looking for in stats.

[wildo69]

nacho, i'm not following your logic......

how does a direct download include subscribers?......

if someone is subscribed to your feed, they do not directly download the file, they have an aggregator that does that for them.....

now if someone uses a flash player from your website, or clicks on the .mp3 link for download, then i would call that a direct download....

even the flash player on your website might not be considered a direct download because many who start to listen to your file will click away before the file is finished downloading.

this is not entirely true when looking at your webserver stats.
from your web stats you cant get a direct download number that doesnt include subscibers

you have two numbers that you can view.
your feedburner subscriber number, and your total downloads.
if you are a user of an agregator you are directly downloading it from the site, just like everyone else. yes the agregator does that for you, but who cares. when you review your webserver stats, you will see "all" downloads, from both subscribers, and people whole download from the site, or play it directly.

the key here that i original was refering to, is once you get a "fair" idea on your subscriber count, you can subtract that from your total downloads, to get a rough estimate of how many non-subsribers you have

[Mobasoft]

even the flash player on your website might not be considered a direct download because many who start to listen to your file will click away before the file is finished downloading.

Good point - the current version of the audiomerge player measures your audience's attention span by counting the impressions of each page served during the playback of the project.

Our mini-version, with 'chaptering' included, will be able to do the same thing.

So, you'll be able to see how much of your episode they listen to, and at what point they fade away.


Michael

[docsnavely]

i think you missed my point......

take it as you may

[mpeacock]

Back to the original question, though -- how much to charge?

It's not all about size (now where have we heard that before?) Different audience characteristics have different values. A targeted podcast that reaches 300-500 listeners with a valuable demographic or in a niche that's otherwise difficult to reach could be more valuable than one of the many podsafe music-oriented podcasts that reach, say, 1000 subscribers.

I'm in the middle of a 5-week campaign with ExpertFlyer.com. Greg Galant at RadioTail brought them to me. The ExpertFlyer guys saw the TravelCommons podcast as a good way to deliver their message to a specific demographic -- frequent travelers. I don't have a monster subscriber base, but it is an attractive demographic for a certain set of businesses.

Think of your podcast as a combination of a specialty magazine and direct mail. In those worlds, the price of an ad/sponsorship is driven by both the number of recipients and the demographic/value of the recipients.

Regards,

[wildo69]

yes, that is what i was thinking, but didnt know how to state it properly.
my show is a very targeted audience.. its actually for a specific hobby. so any retailer that would be able to advertise, would be advertising to a coupel hundered hobbiests that are already fairly internet savy...

i havent settled on the price yet, as i havent worked up the nerve to contact the company yet.

[crybabyemokids]

I have around 2000 subscribers and I'd like to believe theyre all teens-early twenties.. All of them ARE internet savvy most of them have their own blogs or myspace profiles. My listeners spend a lot of time on the internet(I presume) and are quite active.

My podcast covers a niche area of emo music and has the potential of attracting great sponsers. Thing is, I'm freaking 17 years old and noone would take anything I say seriously. I'd LOVE to approach sponsers(and I dont say advertisers ;) ) and I know loads of people who'd possibly be interested, but this problem keeps recurring.

I'm sad now :(

[tabulator32]

Back to the original question, though -- how much to charge?

It's not all about size (now where have we heard that before?) Different audience characteristics have different values. A targeted podcast that reaches 300-500 listeners with a valuable demographic or in a niche that's otherwise difficult to reach could be more valuable than one of the many podsafe music-oriented podcasts that reach, say, 1000 subscribers.

I'm in the middle of a 5-week campaign with ExpertFlyer.com. Greg Galant at RadioTail brought them to me. The ExpertFlyer guys saw the TravelCommons podcast as a good way to deliver their message to a specific demographic -- frequent travelers. I don't have a monster subscriber base, but it is an attractive demographic for a certain set of businesses.

Think of your podcast as a combination of a specialty magazine and direct mail. In those worlds, the price of an ad/sponsorship is driven by both the number of recipients and the demographic/value of the recipients.

Regards,

Good insight!

Also, I wanted to let you know I filled out the survey on your homepage, mpeacock. You have a good show with a lot of good information. I enjoy each episode.

[SFEley]

My podcast covers a niche area of emo music and has the potential of attracting great sponsers. Thing is, I'm freaking 17 years old and noone would take anything I say seriously. I'd LOVE to approach sponsers(and I dont say advertisers ;) ) and I know loads of people who'd possibly be interested, but this problem keeps recurring.

You should check out Podtrac (http://www.podtrac.com). Their business model is to solve that problem for podcasters. They're still unproven because they're so new, but I've talked to their CEO and in my opinion they seem to be going about things the right way.

[crybabyemokids]

To be honest..
I really am not looking for mainstream sponserers and I don't know if it's just me, but I like to be in command of who I choose because I'll put myself in the shoes of my listener and only pick out those products which a: i genuinely believe in(so i wont be doing like acuvue or anything) and b: something I know that my listeners would need and/or consider as something that appeals to them AND related the show.

The reason I say this is because, I'm a member of the Teen Podcasters Network and Podtrac has seen interest in the 'teen market' and theyre kind of in the process of making a deal with us. Michael would be able to explain this better.. but anyways, I realise that my audience wouldn't consider themselves as the 'mainstream teen audience'..so basically adverts that appeal to most teens may not appeal to them... I hope you're getting what I'm trying to say here..

Again, who am I to know about marketing strategies..

[SFEley]

I really am not looking for mainstream sponserers and I don't know if it's just me, but I like to be in command of who I choose because I'll put myself in the shoes of my listener and only pick out those products which a: i genuinely believe in(so i wont be doing like acuvue or anything) and b: something I know that my listeners would need and/or consider as something that appeals to them AND related the show.
You're echoing the sentiments of most podcasters. That's why Podtrac doesn't lock you into any deals; you're welcome to say no to anything they propose for you.

But whatever. I don't have a relationship with them myself right now, and I'm not here to pitch them. I just mentioned them as a potential answer to your complaint that you felt disempowered. If you also have a conviction that you don't want any help, that's cool, but the outcome shouldn't be much of a surprise.

[crybabyemokids]

Well I really don't know untill i've actually tried it out myself. I'll ask companies now but I really don't know how to make a pitch...

Would you trust a 17 year old with a podcast ?

[SFEley]

Would you trust a 17 year old with a podcast ?
That would depend on the 17 year old.

[crybabyemokids]

From what you know of me?

haha i bet thats a rhetoric question :oops:

[SFEley]

From what you know of me?
I've never seen you engage in business communication. I assume (well, okay, I hope) that your style in a professional context is different from your communication style on Podcast Alley.

[crybabyemokids]

Yes it is..I hope :/

I don't sound like a regular 17 year old do I? (Unless I'm pissed but that's another story :twisted: )

It's like expecting El Nacho to have decent typography 3 years down the line. Nottttt gonna happen.

[jbisjim]

Well what do I charge?
I have a sponsor who wants to put advertising in our show. Where is a good place too start

What about banner adds.

Does anyone have a basic model or they just don't want to say

[SFEley]

Well what do I charge?
I have a sponsor who wants to put advertising in our show. Where is a good place too start
Anecdotal evidence from a number of sources suggests that major deals right now are being made at a rate of $40 to $50 CPM. (Which means "cost per 1,000 listeners.")

That doesn't mean you have to conform to that guideline, of course. You could charge a lot more than that if the sponsor's willing to pay, or less if it's a small-time sponsor or someone for whom you feel like doing a favor. Also consider the budgeting needs of your own show, and what you would do with the money.