Building a sponsorship kit, one step at a time

I opened the Sponsorships page last week to try the new listener locations box. I typed in my top cities, hit generate, and stared at the screen.

It worked. But I built that page, and even I had to scroll up and down to remember what went where. Show stats, topics, places, downloads, prices, communities, comparable shows. All stacked in one long column, with no hint of which parts mattered.

If it confused me, it was going to lose a host who has never pitched a sponsor.

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What changed

The page now walks you through it.

It opens with a short card that explains how sponsorships work in three plain steps. Then you move through four:

1. Your show. What PodGlue already knows from your episodes. Check it looks right.
2. Your audience. Where your listeners live and how many downloads you get. Sponsors buy an audience, so this is the part they read first.
3. Your offer. What a sponsor gets and what it costs. You set every price. PodGlue only does the math and the wording.
4. Who to pitch. Communities you can reach and shows like yours, which PodGlue turns into a first-five list.

Each step has one line on why it matters. The last three say Optional, because they are. If you just want to see what you get, click "Build with what I have" from any step.

When the kit is built, it opens on its own: Copy kit, Download, or go back and edit. Next time you open the page, it takes you straight to your kit.

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A small example

My first pass, I only filled in step 1 and built the kit. It was fine, but generic.

Then I went back to step 2, typed "Reston, VA, Austin, TX, Honolulu, HI" on one line, and rebuilt. The kit now had a "Where listeners live" section with real Census figures for each city. That one line also exposed a bug: PodGlue read the whole list as a single place it couldn't find. That's fixed too, so you can type your list however you like.

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What's next

I want to see where people stop. If most hosts skip the offer step, that tells me pricing is the scary part, and that's where I'll spend time next.

If you've got a show and you've never pitched a sponsor, open Sponsorships in PodGlue and go through the four steps. You'll have something you can send by the end of it.