The Truth About Getting Sponsors for Your Health & Wellness Podcast

You do not need sponsors for your podcast. That’s what I originally wanted to call this episode as more of a clickbait title, and we are gonna cover why I would say that today. But really what I want to get into is the details of if you would or would not.

Want to consider sponsorships for your podcast. They make sense in some cases. Not all. This is profits through podcasting where we help health-focused entrepreneurs generate leads and revenue for their businesses through podcasting. I’m your host, Joel Oliver. So if you’re a regular listener of this show, you most likely have some sort of health and wellness business, probably online, but maybe not.

And of course, a podcast to go along with it as a marketing tool. Meaning that the ultimate goal is for people to come purchase from you.

Either, uh, physical product or some sort of digital service, perhaps like online coaching. That could look different whether you are using the podcast as more of a trust builder or for networking with potential clients as guests, or even just selling to your audience, the, the audience of listeners.

But regardless of that, the funnel that you have is for people to come buy something that you sell. And that, of course, is a very viable way to use your podcast to market and grow your business. But there is this other side. Sponsorship money. Another potential avenue for revenue. When you look at podcasting now, I’m not even gonna get into the model here of relying 100% on sponsorship revenue because it’s not really what we talk about on this show.

Like I said, it’s for entrepreneurs who have businesses, but we do have many podcasters supplementing. Their business revenue through podcast sponsorships in situations where it makes sense. So we’re gonna go through the pros and cons of all this and explain what I commonly see being done and, and what works versus what I think is the type of sponsorship trap to avoid.

The starting point here is a myth that I’d like to dispel that I commonly hear from newer podcasters in particular, but not all the time. It could be podcasters that have been doing this for a while as well, but they have this eagerness to get a sponsor. They think that’s the ultimate goal. The ultimate achievement is to get sponsorship money without really knowing why.

They just assume I’m supposed to get a sponsor, and that is totally understandable. Like anything. We are there to learn. So especially starting out, you might just assume you’re supposed to get a sponsor, but uh, you may not know at that point really what your model is or if it actually makes sense. We just don’t have all the details, uh, especially as new podcasters.

So yeah, commonly with podcasting, I hear this excitement to get a sponsor, but. If you have your own business, you certainly don’t need sponsors, and it really only makes sense from what I’ve seen in certain situations. Okay, so let’s define sponsor. A sponsorship could exist in a variety of ways when it comes to podcasting, but to keep it simple, you as a podcast host, receive money from some other business or brand to run ads for them.

In your podcast. Now this could be a flat rate payment or it could be something commission based, although that would be getting into the affiliate territory. Then if you’re not getting any base pay in particular, if you only get paid through sales of this third party product, uh, it could be just promoting their product.

It could be more of a sponsored episode where the whole. Episode is actually, say someone comes on as a guest to represent their brand and you talk to them and you get payment for that. There are a whole bunch of possibilities and it can work very well for both the podcaster and the brand. Now, where I would suggest caution or we’re seeking a sponsorship doesn’t really make sense.

First of all, if you’ve got a solid business model in place and you just need more clients, that’s a good message to focus on, and we want to be very, very clear with our call to action in your episodes for Here’s what I offer, or Here’s my free guide. I. That’s the message you want to get out. You don’t want too many messages, and this can even involve things like, please leave me a review.

Please do this. Please do that. Please follow me. We don’t wanna be getting into too many things because too many options will stifle decision. We wanna be very clear on what it is we want our listeners to do. Okay? So you have the business already. You’re essentially your own sponsor.

You’ve already got a way to convert your listeners. Into revenue. So we wanna be careful not to dilute the message or waste , the little bit of the attention span that we get , from listeners, especially if it’s gonna be something that we don’t actually make much revenue on. And that in particular is where this assumption that I need a sponsor can get you in trouble. Especially with a newer, smaller podcast, because at that point, if you’re a smaller podcast, you don’t have too many downloads, you’re not gonna be able to get a whole lot of money for anything in terms of a sponsorship anyway.

And then you are essentially just giving attention away for almost nothing. Okay. It’s not justified. There are a variety of ways that you could get sponsorship money at any level when it comes to, say, just running ads in your podcast.

But, uh, a couple that I want to focus on here in particular is first of all, the type of ad where it’s like a pay per download of the episode essentially. So let’s say an ad runs in your episode, a hundred people download it. You get paid a per download rate.

Okay. So that’s one way it can work. There can also be. Well, I’ll call it more of a, a direct sponsorship, which let’s say you just get a deal through their, there are a variety of means this could happen. But let’s say you directly approach a sponsor and you say, Hey, I’ve got this podcast. Uh, I want a hundred dollars an episode for a 32nd ad.

And they pay you. So you get that flat rate regardless of the downloads as opposed to the models where it’s actually based on specific. Download numbers. Now you, you can have that other model as well where you get, say, a per episode rate from a sponsor, but it’s based on like a, an average or estimate.

Number of downloads, that’s a bit of a different thing, but in any case, you, you see my point here, just how we look at making money through the sponsorships. Uh, there are affiliate situations as well where you can just be getting paid for direct sales, as I touched on briefly already. Basically, you get an affiliate link or a promo code, you promote a product in your episode.

You don’t get any money from that company or that sponsor unless. You make sales and that’s, uh, barely called a sponsorship at that point. It is a way to monetize, but unless you’re making any sales, you don’t get any money. So it’s completely reliant on you. So little risk for the company, not really any risk for you, but you’re not getting paid unless something happens.

And this is my point here, is if you’re taking that attention span that you have with your listeners and wasting it on other things, that’s a problem. Okay, so these, these little scenarios maybe where you get a little bit of money coming in depends on your business stage, your journey as well. Like this, I’ve seen in cases where it’s just enough money to help subsidize, say the production of the podcast or something like that.

So it, it benefits the host in that way where they just don’t have the budget. They need that little bit of sponsorship money and it helps, but you just wanna be careful and, and think it through because. If we’re just throwing away , this limited attention span that we have from our listeners, it’s not beneficial.

Like, let’s assume with your business you’ve got a proper high ticket program set up so you can make thousands of dollars. From a successful conversion of a lead into a client, that’s great. So we want to be really driving that message forward for them to come get into your funnel, whether make a purchase from you, get your free guide as opposed to think about now if you’re getting pennies .

Per listener who hears an ad and you have only a hundred downloads an episode, you’re not making a whole lot of money from that. And you could have used that airtime and that moment you had their attention to focus on selling your high ticket multi-thousand dollar program. I. So why dilute your message and, and put these ads in your episode that are potential tune outs?

That they’re just moments where listeners are not paying attention. It’s just, cluttering up your episode with stuff that doesn’t matter and it’s not really relevant to them. Not not to disparage sponsorships or ads or anything like that, but. You know, it’s not the podcast episode. So if we have that thing already for you to focus on, which is your product, and then you start adding sponsorships in here for very little money per episode, it just doesn’t make any sense. Okay.

So that’s the main caution there. To summarize that point is this. Notion that, Hey, I have to get sponsors for my episode. I just assume that I do. Then you run out, you take the first one, or you, you sign up for, if you’re using, say, buzz Sprout, you sign up for their ad program, you just get a few bucks per episode to have ads run in there for stuff.

It’s just why, you know, it takes, it detracts from the overall image of the podcast as well if it’s not a good fit. Like, I’m gonna get to here where the sponsorships do make sense and we see a lot of good, mutually beneficial situations where a sponsor sponsor really makes sense and compliments a podcast.

But if you’re running some of these lower. Cost ads in your show where it’s not even relevant.

It could be for some other podcast, I don’t know, a, a slap chop, like it could be just something that’s not actually related to your show at all. And now your listeners are hearing it and just why, you know? There’s no point. It just makes you look amateur as well. So be very careful in, in that regard. So let’s move on to what I do see working well these days is sponsorships where it compliments the podcasters business.

Like I was just, uh, alluding to there, especially moving into the influencer realm you’re established, you’ve got a larger audience and you can actually sell even outside of the podcast, like on social media and. The packages, the sponsorship packages that you’ll get into would often include that, like, it would perhaps be, uh, a month worth of sponsorship on your podcast episode and three social media posts, that kind of thing, like they, they would pay for all of that.

So it’s not only limited to the podcast episode. For something like this, you really do need a, a big enough audience, especially if you wanna work with an agency because to, just to make all the numbers work. You can’t have a tiny audience. But the more people you have listening, the more money you can command, the more help you can get.

But there are levels. To it. . And depending on the niche, it doesn’t necessarily need to be a massive audience for you to be able to make sponsorships work and make it beneficial for you and the sponsor. But yeah, particularly if you are considering or hoping to work with an agency who can go out there with their connections and get you sponsorships and guest placements and that sort of thing, you’re gonna have to have a minimum level of of download.

So this is not gonna be starting out. In most cases, unless you already had a big following when you started your podcast and you brought them all over as listeners. Typically Around 10,000 downloads a month is where you could work with an agency at that level.

There are, of course, other options along the way. you could be working with brands directly, or there may be someone else out there who can help you get sponsorships locked in.

That’s not an agency necessarily, but you know, you can make it happen. Just the benefits that I’ve seen that come with agencies is better connections, so they just make it a lot easier. They command more money, they know what they’re doing, and you can kind of just sit back and focus on what you’re supposed to be doing rather than out chasing down sponsorships.

So I mentioned, I see this working quite well where the sponsorship compliments the podcast. That’s a no brainer really. But the point is it doesn’t step on what the podcaster, the entrepreneur, is already trying to sell and it actually enhances what they’re selling and their audience is most likely gonna need some of these products.

So, uh, first example, and we have actually quite a few of these who we work with is, uh, a hormone coach. Who will also promote supplements on their show or other health products. Listeners need that anyway. So while they offer, let’s say, a hormone coaching program, they’re also gonna be promoting supplements in the episode.

And if, uh, one of their clients needs a product that’s gonna be helping in what they’re doing, what they’re working on together, this podcaster has a recommendation already. They’ve tried it themselves, they trust it, they know that it works. And then. That just naturally makes sense that a health conscious individual they’re working with is gonna be interested in something that one of their sponsors is providing.

Now, in all of these cases, , all of these entrepreneurs, podcasters, they are very strict on the products and sponsorships that they take on. They don’t just take money from anyone. They want to try it themselves first. They wanna really believe in it , and see the results for themselves before they’re willing to put their name, associate their name and reputation with it and say, I recommend this product.

But it definitely makes a lot of sense and works quite well because they’re finding these products that they believe in, that they see work, then they can recommend to their audience who, whose problems would be improved or resolved by these products.

Another example, I have a client who is a therapist and has had an ongoing sponsorship now for multiple years from a very popular clinic management scheduling software. So it’s, it’s very popular within that industry and it’s very complimentary to her audience, which is other therapists. So she helps as a business coach for therapists and.

By the way, I have this, uh, great sponsor here who is this practice management software, . It just makes sense those people would be interested in that. She uses it herself. She really believes in it. She went out and approached this sponsor, having been a client of theirs. So it wasn’t like she was just hunting down any money she could get.

She uses it day to day, believes in it, loves it. And could wholeheartedly recommend this to her audience. And it’s a natural thing that comes up anyway. Like even if she wasn’t being sponsored by this company, when she’s working with people one-on-one, I’ve heard these conversations where they don’t have a software like that already to help manage the clinic, or they’re using something else that’s not as good.

So she would be recommending it anyway.

I’ve seen with quite a few of these podcasters as well, they will accept sponsored episodes. again, as long as they feel the brand is in alignment with their values, they feel that the products actually worked. They are comfortable doing this, which is accepting, uh, a form of payment for an appearance on their podcast.

So they may have a whole hour dedicated to a certain company where a rep from that company is on there talking about a product, but adding value at the same time, not just only talking about their product. It’s gotta be done in a way that the audience will still accept and appreciate and find valuable.

But absolutely, this is a great form of sponsorship as well. Because it doesn’t even necessarily get in the way of what you would be promoting normally in your mid role or your post role for your coaching program or whatever you’re selling. It’s an episode in itself. Although it is a promotion, you can still promote your own thing in there too,

so that about does it for this, what I really wanted to get across today was that sponsorships definitely make sense in certain cases, but not all.

And you don’t wanna fall victim to that trap of thinking. I, I need a sponsor, of course I have a podcast. I would get a sponsor. ’cause you don’t necessarily need one. And it’s not right for everybody at. Every time in their journey. But, uh, if it makes sense, I’ve seen a lot of benefits come from it. I’ve seen many podcasters become much more viable as a business or just have so much more revenue coming through there that helps ’em do other things or help their audience more.

They didn’t even realize the potential. In some cases, they didn’t realize what their podcasts and their download numbers were capable of. When they spoke to an agency or some expert on advertising, realized, whoa, I could be making that much through this podcast, and it’s not going to have any downsides for the audience.

Why wouldn’t you do that? So we just wanna make sure that we’re not causing any of those negative downsides or causing people to tune out or negatively impacting your show. But if it makes sense, it makes a lot of sense. So hopefully this was helpful. Most important thing is not going in blindly and just saying, I need to get a sponsor at any cost.