Should you use Podcorn to monetize your podcast?

Travis:   0:00
Today on 5 Minute Mondays, you'll learn the pros and the cons of monetizing your podcast using Podorn.

Travis:   0:09
Welcome to 5 Minute Mondays, where we bring you the best tips and strategies for building your podcast in five minutes or less. So if you're new here, consider subscribing

Travis:   0:16
Now in this week's episode, we're gonna be talking about Podcorn, which is the newest platform that connects podcasters with sponsors. I guess that's the way you describe it. They've been reaching out to a lot of podcasters, inviting them onto the platform, so we just wanted to cover kind of the pros and cons of using a platform like Podcorn to monetize your podcast.  

Travis:   0:35
And so, in a nutshell, Podcorn connects brands and sponsors that want to spend money promoting their products on podcasts with podcasters that wanna earn money from promoting products and services. And so Podcorn essentially just makes that relationship happen. And then they take a cut of whatever you earn through the sponsorships as a way of keeping the lights on. And there are some pros and cons from using a platform like Podcorn. But let's go and start with the pros.  

Travis:   1:01
Number one, Podcorn will make it easier to find potential sponsors. One of the most difficult things when you're trying to pitch a sponsor is getting an email that actually works and leads to the person making the buying decision. So with a platform like Podcorn, you find brands that you think align with your podcast, you're able to pitch them directly. And you know the person reading that message is in a position to make a decision on whether they want to sponsor your podcast.  

Travis:   1:28
The other thing that a platform like Podcorn will give you is they will handle all of the financial elements of doing a sponsorship. The brand gives the money to Podcorn. Podcorn holds on to it. Once you've actually facilitated the host read ad or whatever it is that you're doing, then Podcorn will give you the money.  

Travis:   1:46
And then the third thing that Podcorn actually does exceptionally well is it gives you a variety of ways for you to promote different products. So oftentimes you as a podcaster are able to deliver more value to a potential sponsor than just doing a 30-second ad read at the beginning of an episode. Maybe you want to do like a really creative product integration, where you basically model the whole episode around this product. Maybe you wanna interview the founder or a spokesperson from that company for your podcast as a way of introducing it to your audience. Those different approaches to promoting products are actually built right into Podcorn, so brands will give you options of ways that you can incorporate their products beyond just the host read ad. You're able to integrate products and services into your podcast in a way that just feels more natural.

Travis:   2:34
But when you use a service like Podcorn, there are certainly some cons that you should be aware of. The first con to using something like Podcorn is that whenever you get into a sponsorship relationship, you're typically negotiating rates based on a CPM model. That's the amount of money you make for every 1000 downloads that each episode of your podcast receives. And so if you get 1,000 downloads per episode, then you can expect to make about $20 to $25 per episode to do a sponsorship. And so if that's a good number for you, if that sounds about right, then a sponsorship can be really, really great. But if you have a smaller show, let's say that you have 200 really passionate fans and you want to make more than $4 per episode, then you probably don't want to go the CPM sponsor route. You want to use something like affiliate marketing or selling your own products.

Travis:   3:18
The second thing you should be aware of when using a service like Podcorn is that they will ask you to add a prefix to your RSS feed. And essentially all the prefix does is it's something that you put in front of your RSS feed URL and then when somebody downloads your episode, it goes from that app to Podcorn and then to Buzzsprout and then Buzzsprout sends it back to whatever the app is they requested it in. So we don't have a lot of visibility on what they do with that information, what they do with your listener's data. And you can only have a certain number of prefixes on your RSS feed before Apple Podcasts will stop updating them. Because they don't want to see your podcast go through 17 different people to then get the file that they need. So you have to be really careful about adding a bunch of prefixes just for the sake of it. If you want to use Podcorn and install their prefix, then you'll need to make sure that you're not gonna run into that issue with having too many prefixes in your feet.

Travis:   4:13
And then the third con is that while it is certainly easy to connect with sponsors, it does not necessarily mean that every sponsor you pitch is going to want to sponsor your podcast. And from the reviews that I have seen from people using Podcorn, you're batting average is probably about 10% on the high end. So that means for every 10 sponsors that you pitch, one will begin negotiating with you. And then if that sponsor agrees to the CPM rate, then you can start moving forward. So you will spend a considerable amount of time pitching sponsors to convince them that your show is worth sponsoring. So just be aware of that going in. It's no different than if you did this outside of Podcorn, but it's not like using a platform like Podcorn automatically means all the sponsors will be tripping over themselves to try and sponsor your podcast.  

Travis:   5:01
So should you use Podcorn? Well, if you've looked at all the monetization strategies that are out there and said, "You know what? I really want to go with a sponsor model." Sure, go for it. There's not really a lot that you have to lose here. Just don't expect it to make you rich overnight. Any monetization strategy requires that you have an audience first. And so if you're just getting started with your podcast or if you're still growing it beyond a couple of hundred listeners, then that effort will probably be better spent growing your audience instead of trying to monetize the people that are currently listening. But if you're getting hundreds or thousands of downloads per episode and you want to do the sponsor model, Podcorn could be a good solution for you.

Travis:   5:38
Well, that is it for today. Hit the subscribe button if you're watching this on YouTube, or you can subscribe to the 5 Minute Mondays podcast in your favorite app to squeeze even more podcast-related content into your life. And if there's something you want us to cover on a future episode, you can click the like in the show notes to submit your question. Thanks for listening and, as always, keep podcasting.