How do you pitch your podcast to a network?

Voice Over: 00:00:00

Got dreams of being a professional podcaster but have no idea what you're doing. This is impossible. That's about to change. A new kind of school. Welcome to the Pod School Podcast.

Rachel Corbett: 00:00:10

Hello, welcome to the show.

A few weeks ago I did an episode around what the benefits of partnering with a podcast network are, and I had a lot of questions from people asking, okay, well, if you feel like you hit some of the requirements of a network, which is usually in Australia, the that your podcast is getting 10,000 downloads per episode and ideally that it's in a commercializable category. But often you don't know that until you have reached out to a network.

If you are hitting those audience metrics, then how do you go about pitching your show to a network? For a start, if you've got one and you want to pitch me, hit me up on LinkedIn because I'd be more than happy to take your pitch.

But the interesting thing and the distinction I think, is about whether or not your show exists or not. I have a lot of conversations with podcasters who come to me wanting to pitch their show, but it doesn't exist yet.

They also don't have a huge amount of audience. The idea is often really, really good.

But one of the frustrating things about partnering with a network is that really good ideas are sometimes not in categories that brands are looking to partner with. And a network is all about monetizing content.

And so the idea might be creatively wonderful, but a network knows there's really not a lot of briefs that come through the door that this show would answer. So when you are just starting out and you're pitching, the network doesn't know what your audience is going to be sitting at.

And even if you have an existing audience somewhere else, that's massive, that does not necessarily translate across into audience. This happens no matter where in the world you are.

I have had conversations with creators and networks in Australia, overseas, and the same rules apply. If you have an audience somewhere else, they don't automatically come over to your podcast. They are there because they followed you on that platform.

I think the other thing about Instagram is often I'll work with creators who have a lot of heritage followers that probably aren't highly engaged with their page anymore. They follow them years ago. And then who goes through and culls their followers like or following?

You know, you don't really go through and go, who have I followed lately?

I mean, if you do have the time in your life to do that level of granular life admin, then I am jealous Because I cannot imagine that the to do list would ever get done enough that I would think, you know what? I really need to clean out the people I follow on Instagram.

Imagine I've just had like a real moment where I've just thought that would actually be my idea of paradise if I had that kind of time. Oh, I'm gonna have a fantasy about that this afternoon. What a dream world. But, you know, you never do. You never clean out that kind of stuff.

So there's often a lot of people that are following people, and they've benefited sometimes from the boom years of Instagram, where it was actually quite easy to build up a bit of a significant following. But those people aren't engaged enough to come out and check out your podcast.

So if you are coming to a network, you don't have an audience, you have a concept, but you don't have anything to show for it yet. It's going to be very hard to make that network want to invest resource to create that show unless they can see a really clear path to monetization.

And honestly, as an independent individual, that's often not going to happen, because more often than not, you're using your podcast to build your audience.

That's really only going to happen if somebody comes with an existing name and an audience and the network thinks, okay, we can actually bring these people across. And even then it's no guarantee.

So I think really, if you're going to be pitching a network at a very base minimum, you have to have your show out and it has to be getting those minimum downloads because that's what a network's going to be interested in. There are, of course, if you are not hitting those download levels of a thousand, sorry, ten thousand downloads per episode.

I think it actually, I read an article the other day that it was only 15,000 in the US but I'm thinking that can't be right because the audience over there is so much bigger. I feel like it must be more than that. That's really only if you are going to be partnering with a network.

If you have an audience that's less than that, you can monetize that audience with a whole bunch of other monetization options. You might have a substack that you get subscribers to. You might have paid subscriptions in Spotify and Apple.

You might have a buy me a coffee link on or podcast, or have Patreon subscribers and give them a little bit of extra content. You do not need to get to that level to start monetizing. Full stop.

That is really just the level at which a network is going to be able to offer value in terms of a partnership with you. And that's really what it's about. From my perspective, having run networks, it should all be about value. Right.

If you have a creator there that's created a show that has an audience, then as a network, that partnership is really valuable for us because we then get to take that audience out to advertisers and offer it to them. And you have done the work to build that audience. But similarly, the value exchange for you is commercial.

It's revenue, it's boots on the ground in an environment that you might not be somebody who wants to go and knock on doors. And there's a lot of brands that you can't access when you're an individual, that you can access as part of a network. Network.

So there is real value there if you've got the numbers, but you just need to kind of make sure you've got that audience there. And then in terms pitching, I would reach out to the appropriate people.

Usually it's like a network director or a head of content at a certain network and just be really clear about why you want to join the network and what you have to offer. The audience is going to be key. I get so many pictures where people do not tell me their audience.

And then when I ask them, because I'm like, this conversation is kind of pointless unless I know what kind of audience we're working with. And I'm always really clear around. Here's where the audience needs to sit.

These downloads need to be au, because we're predominantly monetizing Australian downloads locally because that's what the local brands are looking for with sponsorships. And those are the kind of ads that you're looking for sponsorships because they have a higher CPM or cost per thousand downloads.

But the level of digging that I need to go on to get some audience data from people, because I sometimes think they didn't anticipate being asked. They don't really want to tell you because the audience numbers aren't very big. And that doesn't matter. Like I'm.

It's like, it's nothing embarrassing. You know, there are some really successful shows that have less than 10,000 downloads an episode that are monetizing.

But from a network point of view, that's just the level it's gotta be at, you know, otherwise, at least in the network that I run, we wouldn't. We couldn't even put you on the rate card to sell You. Because we know that clients wouldn't be interested in anything lower than that.

So it's really important that you are comfortable with sharing that audience data up front. And I would just, in your first email say, this is a bit about me. This is a bit about the show. Here's the downloads.

If you've worked with brands before, I think that's really valuable information. There have been some shows that have pitched us that we've been unsure about how we can fit them in or where they would fit.

We haven't really had briefs come through the door that perfectly fit that show, but then they have actually sent us through audio of commercial content that they've done before with brands. And.

And that is the reason that we took them on, because we could hear it, we knew how they worked it in, we understood the kind of brands that now we could associate with them. But it wasn't like it was a business podcast coming in or a insert other sort of simple to fit somewhere show in.

The audience was there, but we just couldn't work out commercially where we would fit them. But then them telling us, well, this is what we've done before, really helped us to paint that picture of what we could do.

So I think if you haven't worked with commercial partners, that's fine, because often I found a lot of podcasters that have created these shows that have become something from an audience perspective. Often they don't know what they have, and they're sort of like, oh, I have this many downloads. And you're like, wow.

And you've never done anything with it. And that's just because you've been creating the content.

I certainly, you know, if I was monetizing my show with ads, I'm not a salesperson, you know, anybody that's heard. I mean, I can barely sell my own business, you know, and I know that that provides value for people. Like, I'm atrocious at selling anything.

And so if I was just going to make money from ads on my podcast, it wouldn't make any money because there's no way I could go out and knock on doors, because it is not a skill set that I have. If you've got a show that's got audience there and it's not monetizing, that's understandable. Sometimes it's really hard to work out how to do that.

But I think that's the kind of base level that you need to be thinking about. That then makes people go, oh, well, I'm so far off that. And I understand but there are other ways that you can monetize.

I have another episode in the feed that talks about monetization options for your podcast. The great thing about this space is there are a lot of different ways to make revenue.

And monetizing your podcast is not just about selling ads, especially when you're small. It is the least lucrative way to make money. And it's not going to be an option for most people when they're small.

But there are other really compelling options that can help you turn your show into a business. And if you've got an audience that is really in love with your content, there are ways to actually generate revenue.

When you have built that before, you've gotten to the point where you've hit the numbers that a network would need. But it's really important to understand at that point you are going to have to show what your numbers are.

I say, you know, I can tell you all the thing of like, give a good pitch, you know, that is basic 101 stuff, right? And also I would say don't include the 50 page presentation and the blah blah, blah with the 700 slides. Just give people the one pager about.

Why is this compelling?

What's the audience, what the commercial partners are, who are you as a person or who are you as co hosts and, and let them decide from them for themselves. But you do need to be comfortable sharing your audience data because that is everything that a network works off.

And if you've got the audience there, then there's a really great value exchange that can happen. You can have a whole sales house working on selling your podcast.

You can focus on creating your content and have a bit of money that's coming in to pay you for this thing that you love without actually having to go around and do the rest of that stuff.

So if you are hitting those thresholds, hit me up, hit me up, find me on LinkedIn, send me a message, say I listen to your episode about pitching to a network and here I am. First line, these are my downloads. Because I'm gonna warn you now, I'm gonna come ask him for em and it's a very important.

It's not being nosy, it's just that at a certain point there's no point having a conversation, you know, so hopefully that's helped you. And if you have built a show to that level by yourself, may I just say congratulations, because that is not easy.

People think 10,000 downloads is not a big number because you're used to hearing about, oh, a million over here. A million over there. It's got a hundred thousand followers over here. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So everybody thinks, oh, these people must.

You know, when you get into podcasting, you must have 20,000 people overnight. Even if you've got a massive audience sometime somewhere else, you might not be able to get 10,000 people to download your show every single week.

That is a massive number. And if you have done that by yourself, well, well done. That is really to be applauded.

It is incredible building that, and you should realize how rare that is because the vast majority of people do not get to that space. So if you've done it, I'm clapping. I'm clapping loudly for you because it's a brilliant achievement. Thank you so much for listening to the episode.

Of course, all of the information that you need about it is in the description, including links to how you can work with me and my equipment guide that you can download to help you get set up for your podcast. If you've got a question that you'd like me to answer on the show, you can also submit it there because I'd love to just hear your questions.

You know, I'm always interested in what people are grappling with in podcasting. And let me see if I can come up with an answer for you. I think I can.

I'm pretty confident I've been doing this for long enough that I think there is a few, few questions that I couldn't answer. So give me a try. There you go. There's a challenge for you. I'll see you next week.

Voice Over: 00:13:03

That's all for today.

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