Why You Need a Sponsor Pitch Deck and What It Should Include

Intro: Real quick before we get started, I want to tell you about a free email course I have called Five Fast Fixes to grow your podcast.

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I get a lot of questions on how to get sponsors, how to find sponsors, how to reach out to sponsors, and how to ask brands for money. And one of the things that are easily overlooked, because it’s not really one of the things you are thinking about at first is having a Pitch Deck to send sponsors. But I think it’s incredibly important to have one. It’s going to make you look more prepared. It’s going to make you look like you’re not just emailing people out of the blue and asking them for money. And it shows that you put a little thought into your presentation. 

So as you start to pursue sponsors, especially those who don’t have a personal relationship with, you will surely be asked for more information. And a great way to convey that information, as well as like I said, look professional, organized, and ready to accept sponsors is a Pitch Deck or a Sponsor Deck.

And so that’s what we’re going to talk about in today’s episode. What you should include in your Sponsor Deck, and how to put that information together. And I don’t just wanna leave you high and dry and say, “Here’s all the information. Now, go forth and enjoy.” 

So I am making my pitch templates available to you. If you go to make [moneypod.com/pitch], you can sign up to get my free Pitch Deck templates in Canva, Keynote, or PowerPoint. It also includes some email templates in there. And I’ve used these Pitch Deck templates to generate six figures. I generate 30 to $50,000 per year in podcast sponsorship alone. So again, that’s [makemoneypod.com/pitch] and you can get my Pitch Deck templates. But for now, let’s get on to the intro, and then the episode.

Joe Casabona: Hello, and Welcome to Make Money Podcasting where I teach you how to make your first $10,000 with your podcast. On this show, you’ll learn tried and true methods to increase your revenue and turn your podcast from a money pit into a money maker.

Hi! I’m your host, Joe Casabona. And my podcasts have been making money from day 1 without a lot of downloads. I’ll share everything I know with you here on Make Money Podcasting. 

Okay. So here’s how today’s episode’s gonna work. I’m gonna tell you what a Pitch Deck is. I’m going to tell you what it should include. I’ll talk you through mine and then a few tips on how to make it. And again as a reminder, you can get my templates in multiple formats along with emails I send over at [makemoneypod.com/pitch].

So first, a Pitch Deck or a Sponsor Deck is simply a slideshow of information about your podcast. And it could be a PDF. It could be just a straight-up PowerPoint presentation. It could be a website that you send to people. But it’s a visualization of information about your show, your demographic, what the show is about, and then of course, pricing. So that’s what a Pitch Deck is. It’s something that you can easily send to potential sponsors to show them why they should sponsor your podcast. And this should be informational as well as convincing. You don’t just want it to be like, “Here’s the price”, right? You want it to be a sales deck as well. And part of what makes it a sales deck is yes, your downloads. Now, I’m on record saying that downloads are not the most important thing when it comes to getting sponsors. But people do want to know generally the downloads. But you’ll also include your mission statement and the types of episodes you have and the types of things that you talk about on your podcast, and what kind of alignment you have with the brands you’re pitching as well as information about your audience. So I’m kind of waiting into this a little bit. So, I’m just gonna give you a list of what your Pitch Deck should include. 

Now, this is possibly not comprehensive and it doesn’t have to be in this order. But here are the important things:  

• Who you are: Information about your show like the mission statement, the purpose, your format, and the topics you cover. Your primary audience and demographics. I strongly recommend that if you have a website, you have analytics installed and you tap into tools like charitable or Podtrack, as well as your audio host’s demographic information because you’re going to want to include this information. And one source might not have all of it. So I get some from Google analytics. I get some from Charitable and I get some from my Audio Host. Whether it’s Buzz Sprout or Castos, you wanna combine that information, highlight the best parts of it, and put it in your Pitch Deck. 
• You also wanna highlight the goals for your primary audience: Again, with a sponsor, you want to show them that you help your audience solve the same problem that they help their potential customers solve. So if you list the goals for your primary audience, you can show those brands, “Look, we have goal alignment.” I talk people through fixing their tech. You sell kits to help people fix their tech, or I help people ride a bike and you sell bikes or you sell bike repair kits, whatever. I guess I’m…I’ve got repairs on my brain today. But the goals for your primary audience along with the mission statement are going to show those brands that you have goal alignment and that you have a similar target demographic. 
• You also might wanna mention the type of sponsors you’re looking for, right? Because it shows that you’re not just emailing anybody who has a big fat checkbook, right? You’re saying I have chosen you because I think that we have aligned goals. 
• You’ll also wanna include downloads per 7, 30, and 45 days. The sweet spot is the first 30 days. You wanna include that information. Now, I haven’t done an episode on CPM yet. But, we’ll talk a little bit about pricing and I’ll elaborate in a future episode. But…or you can head over to [podcastliftoff.com] and find the resources there on what I call, Overall Reach. But you want to..people are going to wanna know approximately how many people they’re reaching. Again, these could be qualified leads, right? So if I talk to a hundred people, but they are all like your ideal people, then it doesn’t matter necessarily. Right? Because I could talk to 10,000 people. But if they don’t care about bike riding or, you know, soap or whatever, then it doesn’t matter how many downloads I have. So again, your mission statement, the goal for your primary audience is going to be a little bit more important I think, than downloads. But you wanna include downloads. 
• You also wanna list your overall reach. I’ve alluded to this a little bit. But for independent podcasters like us, we’re not getting millions of downloads per episode, right? We’re not getting Joe Rogan numbers. We’re not getting stuff. You should know numbers. But we probably have other places where we have other audiences like newsletters, like social media. And we want to include those numbers because it shows us that we’re willing to promote those sponsors in other places. But it also allows us to reach more qualified leads for those sponsors. I’ve had people convert because of my newsletter spot for a sponsor and not necessarily because of the podcast sponsor. But they get all of that included in my packages. And I’ll walk through my packages too. 
• And then you’ll wanna include pricing. Pricing is a tough thing to talk about. It’s a whole other episode. But you probably have some price in mind. If you’ve never priced a sponsorship before, I recommend making the first couple stupid low. Like almost, it would be dumb to say no low. And that’s because one of the other things is you wanna include logos of previous sponsors and testimonials. If you can get them, testimonials can be from listeners. Previous sponsor logos are gonna help though. So make that first couple super low, basically, so you could use their logo in your pitch. 

So that’s everything that you should include:

• Who you are
• Your mission statement
• Your primary audience and demographics
• Your goal for your primary audience.
• The type of sponsors you’re looking for downloads per 7, 30, and 45 days.
• Your overall reach that is audience numbers and other places like your newsletter and socials 
• Pricing
• Previous sponsor

Take that information. I like to lay it out in like a Google doc or I use Craft for my notes. I lay that information out. Just kind of linearly first and then I’ll put it together in any slideshow application, right? So PowerPoint, Keynote, Google slides. My latest iteration is in Canva. I love Canva. It makes design super easy. 

I’ll include a link to Canva. It’ll be an affiliate link. But I think I just get like store credit. So like, it’s an affiliate link. But I don’t actually think I get like real money from it. So it’s maybe I just won’t include the affiliate link. But no matter what you do, you should export that Pitch Deck as a high-quality PDF. High quality. You don’t want it to look like crap. And you wanna use a PDF because it’s the most portable. Bigger companies who are sending it to their higher-ups are probably not gonna wanna use Google slides. Maybe they don’t have a Keynote or other way around, right? If it’s like a startup sort of type of people, they’re not gonna use PowerPoint. They probably prefer to use Canva. A PDF is gonna work for everyone.

And when you design it, it doesn’t have to be like super eye-popping, right? You don’t have to be like some really good designer. I’m almost said [Inaudible 12:17.40] I don’t know why he’s designing a slideshow but it doesn’t look…like it doesn’t have to look like Apple designed it. right. It shouldn’t be totally plain or boring either. This is why I love Canva because they have a really good starting point for a lot of stuff. And you should use colors and fonts that make it memorable, but not distracting. I try to use my brand colors, right? The same colors and fonts from my artwork. But you want it to be legible. 

And so again, if you’re not sure where to start, you can get those free resources, [makemoneypod.com/pitch]. 

So the last thing I wanna do here is walk through my Pitch Deck. And I’ll just kind of talk through. You can’t see it obviously, unless you’ve already downloaded the resources. But this is what my Pitch Deck looks like as of September, we’ll say late 2022, right? So the title slide says Partnership Opportunities. This is kind of just…what’s the word I’m looking for? It’s a word about words, right? Pedantics. This is the… But I’m using partnership opportunities here because again, as a smaller podcaster, I want my sponsors to be partners. I wanna help them. They’re helping me by funding my show. I wanna help them get whatever type of metrics they’re getting. And this is something that you’ll see in the emails. Right. I always ask what makes this campaign a win for you? Cause sometimes it’s not direct sales. Sometimes it’s an awareness campaign. Sometimes it’s just they want you to say nice things about them because then they could use that information. So I always ask, what’s gonna make it a win for them? And I think that is what kind of makes it a partner.

Then I have information about the show when it airs. How long it is, and who I interview. So I interview with creators and small business owners for my main show, How I Built It. I also mentioned previous guests here. I’ve been doing this for a long time and as the mission of my show has changed, so as the previous guests. So when I was looking at companies really like Squarely in the WordPress space, I had big names from the WordPress space. 

Now, because it’s for creators, my previous guests include Wes Kao, Peter Hollands, Rochelle Moton, and Mike Curley who are big names in the creator space. Wes Kao runs Maven and is big in the cohort-based course space. Peter Hollands, a huge YouTuber. Rochelle Moulton talks about authority through content creation and Mike Curly runs a very popular podcast. 

And then I have the show’s focus on who I help. I help two groups of people, creators, and small business owners. So I talk a little bit about that and like why and how I help them. This helps the sponsor see, Okay. Well, Joe is helping creators become more consistent, right? Or make money through membership. I have a membership product. Joe helps small businesses drive sales through lists. I help people make email lists. So right there, they’re gonna use this text to try to see some brand alignment.

I also have a generic slide about podcast listeners, like in general, right? So things like they’re largely 18 to 54 affluent and educated. They’re on social media more and this is stats. These are stats that I get from Edison Research. It helps to set the table with podcast listeners in general especially if a brand hasn’t sponsored podcasts before. Because this might be uncharted territory for them.

After that, I have information about my audience. This is information I’ve gleaned like from my analytics. But also I send out a survey regularly and I say, “Hey, if you listen to my podcast, can you just go here and answer a couple of questions? It’s gonna help me create better content for you and find better brands to help you.

Then I have my download stats. I have the total number of downloads. How many downloads I get per episode and how many monthly downloads I get? I do the monthly downloads because I always recommend them while I require four episodes, at least. And so if people are like, oh, I have to sponsor a month,. they know about how many downloads they’re gonna get over the course of that month.

Then I have my social reach. This is my overall reach, right? So I have email subscribers, Twitter followers, and YouTube subscribers. I’ll talk about my packages in a minute. But YouTube is important there. I have a social trust slide so I have a bunch of previous sponsors. And then I get onto the opportunities where I have upcoming episodes, right? So I actually have multiple sponsorship opportunities. We’ll dig deeper into this in a different episode. Download the Pitch Deck to get a closer look. But depending on the package, right? or for how long they sponsor, they can get a YouTube video included, right? So that’s why YouTube is part of the social reach.

And then I also have bundles. Bundles are clutch, right? Because if people say, “Hey if I sponsor for three months, I could save 10%. If I sponsor for 12 months, I can save 15%.” That might entice them to get a longer sponsorship. 

I also have exclusivity available, right? So if somebody wants to sponsor the show exclusively, I’m not gonna tell them they can’t but it’s gonna come with a bigger price tag.

And then after the bundles, I have a little bit about me as well as a picture and how to get in touch. If they have this Pitch Deck, they probably already know how to get in touch. 

So what should you do? I recommend you take my pitch template in whatever program you are most comfortable using. Change the information and then update the look, and feel to include your artwork. And you don’t use my picture. Use your picture and your bio. And if you’re unsure how to price, again, I recommend starting really low.

Now, I’ll also just say here that this Pitch Deck is one small piece of the whole puzzle. If you want to get the…if you wanna get kind of all of this today, my course Podcast Liftoff is available, over at [podcastliftoff.com/course]. I will link it in the show notes as well. But if you just want the pitch template resources, those are totally free and you can get them over at [makemoney.pod.com].

But that’s it for this episode. I hope you found it helpful. I think a Pitch Deck is really important. 

If you liked it, share it with a friend or give me a rating and review on Apple podcasts. I’d really appreciate that. I am getting some ratings and reviews. And if you review, I will read your review on the air. So I’ll say your name. I’ll give you a big shout-out. So if you leave a review, let me know or I’ll be watching and I’ll read it.

And again, if you want those pitch templates, head over to [makemoneypod.com/pitch]. 

Thanks so much for listening to Make Money Podcasting presented by Podcast Liftoff.

I’m your host, Joe Casabona. And until next time, I can’t wait to see what you make.