How To Write the Best Podcast Ads

0:00
You’re listening to your favorite podcast and then “boom”! All the sudden you’re hit with a podcast ad. Most of us put up with ads, because we want to support the shows we’re listening to. But I think there’s a better way. What if ads were actually entertaining? You know, like Superbowl ads? How do we go from having listeners fast forward through our ads, to having listeners look forward to our ads? In today’s episode, I’ll give you lots of tips on how to write the best ads for your podcast. Take it away, Mr. Radio man. Podcast Your Business!

0:47
Hey, everyone, welcome to Podcast Your Business. I’m Sunny Gault. I’m a podcast coach and mentor. I’ve been podcasting for 17 years. I’m the founder and CEO of Independent Podcast Network, and I am here to help you create amazing podcasts for your business. We do this by mastering the five P’s of podcasting. The five P’s of podcasting. So this is something that I talk about in my online course, it is called how to launch your profitable podcast in 30 days. So let’s quickly review these because each of the episodes we do for podcast, your business focuses on a different key, the first one prep, should you even start a podcast? What questions should you be asking yourself plan? What is the look and feel for your show? You need to do a little bit of research on what you like and what you don’t like, produce? How do you create amazing content week after week, or whenever you release your episodes? Promote? How do you tell everyone about it without breaking your back and breaking your bank? And finally, profit? Yes, we are about the bottom line here. How do you make money and more specifically for this podcast? How does it make money for your business? Because if you have a podcast for your business, it needs to make sense and needs to help you in various ways. So that’s what we focus here on our show. Radio man, what are we talking about today?

2:06
Profit. Absolutely. How do we make money with our podcast, and specifically today, we’re talking about how to write podcast ads. If you do this correctly, your podcast will be more profitable for sure. If you don’t, you’re going to annoy your listeners and probably have a lot of advertisers turn over because they’re not going to get the ROI they expected. So here are some of the questions we’re going to answer in today’s episode. First, what is a podcast? And what is the difference between a baked in podcast ad and a dynamically inserted ad? What is a pre roll mid roll and post roll ad? And this is what we’re going to spend the bulk of the conversation talking about today. What is the four step process for writing a podcast ad, I literally use these steps. Every time I write an ad, which is multiple times per month, I’m either writing ads for my own podcast, or I’m writing ads for shows on our network. Because we have an ad program where the podcasters don’t have to write their own ads. I can write it for them. So I use this four step process all the time, I’m going to share it with you. And then finally, how often should you change up your ads? Because you don’t want things to get stale, right? Because then people just fast forward. And we certainly don’t want that. All right, we’ll get started right after this quick break. Love them or not so much. Ads play an important role in the podcasting space, it may be the sole reason you’re able to listen to your favorite podcast for free. So let’s make the most of this let’s talk about how to make great podcast ads that your listeners will appreciate. First of all, what is a podcast ad, because a lot of people think that it has to be an ad from a company and they have to produce it and needs to sound a certain way. That’s not true. An ad is anything you promote on your podcast, anything that you give a certain amount of time to. Now that could be your own products and services. It could be a membership club that you have for your podcast that you’re trying to get more members for. It could be affiliate products that you’re promoting, that you really believe in, or it could be outside advertisers that you’re working with. All of these are ads for your podcast. And if you have a podcast for your business, you’re probably focused more on selling your own products and services as well as affiliate products. So you really need to know the information that we’re going to give you today. Hope you guys are taking notes.

4:38
What is a baked-in ad versus a dynamic ad? So there’s basically two different ways to put ads into your show. You can physically edit them into your show sothey’re not going anywhere and you would have to physically remove them and edit them out in order for the ads to come out. That’s called a baked-in ad sometimes it’s called an embedded ad. Then you have dynamic insertion, also referred to is also referred to as dynamic ad insertion, DAI ads, all of the above. So what dynamic ads do is they allow you to use technology, and use little ad markers in your show. So you can put ads in at a specific time, whatever date time of your choosing, and remove them whenever you want. And switch up your ads as often as you want. And also be able to geo target different listeners, maybe there is an ad, that it’s only relatable to someone in a specific city, you could geo target and add to only play for listeners in a certain city. So it is definitely more sophisticated. It’s something radio and TV have been using for a long time. It’s been available for podcasting for a while too, but it is now becoming more and more commonplace. And we’re now seeing more and more shows do dynamic ad insertion, which I’m very thankful for. If you guys heard the episode where I talked about how I 10x my podcast revenue, that episode is about me switching to dynamic ad insertion. So if you haven’t heard that episode, go back and listen to it because it’s a game changer, I’m telling you. Now another thing that gets lumped into baked in versus dynamic. It’s something called programmatic ads, we’re not going to focus a lot on that today. Programmatic ads are ads that are pre produced, and either from your podcast host providers, sometimes they create it, sometimes the advertiser creates it, but you are literally the distribution tool and nothing else. So you’re not writing the ads. It’s not formatted for podcast necessarily. It’s just inserted into your show. Okay, we’re not going to focus on that today. But that is a form of ad and I want you guys to be aware of it.

6:52
Now let’s talk about pre-rolls, mid-rolls and post-rolls. So within the length of your podcast, there’s different places where you can insert ads, a pre-roll happens usually, before your content starts, although the definition of this is kind of changing a little bit. So within the first minute or so is also considered a pre-roll. Personally, for all of my podcasts, it’s a true pre-roll, which means it happens before the content even starts. That’s a pre-roll. Okay? Mid-rolls happen throughout your podcast, they’re in the middle of your show, but not necessarily like right in the middle. That’s a that’s a misnomer. Okay, just needs to happen after your content starts. And before it wraps up. And then you have post-roll ads, and post-roll ads are at the end of your show. After you say goodbye. It’s pretty much the last thing people hear. Most advertisers are not going with post-roll ads, those have been reserved for cross promotional purposes and things like that. But I do think it’s a good idea to have an ad marker or space available. If you’ve got dynamic ads, that you do use that spot, you can still use that for cross promotion purposes.

8:02
The first thing you should think about when you’re writing podcast ads is what is the style of the show you’re writing the ad for. Because every podcast is a little bit different. And the best podcast ads are going to follow the same format that people are already listening to. So for example, now I know you guys are primarily doing podcasts for businesses. But if you had a true crime podcast, and you were trying to promote an advertiser, and you know you’ve got this creepy music going on, right, and everyone’s into the story, and then you’re like, we’ll be right back after this quick commercial break, right. And then you go into some sort of programmatic ad, it is going to break up the storytelling. But instead, if you pause for a second had some sort of transition, and then had more spooky music, and then did the whole ad and some sort of, you know, True Crime theme. Okay, now you’ve got my attention. Now you’ve kept with your theme, and people really do appreciate it. So consider the overall style of the show.

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There are four steps that I use when I’m creating ads for my own podcast and this format, you guys works really well. That’s why I’m sharing it with you today. Okay, the four steps are relate, info, opinion, and action. Start with relate. As you start your ad, you need to find a way to connect or identify with your audience about whatever the topic is. If you’re promoting tax software, perhaps you can share a quick story about how you overpaid an accountant to handle your taxes. If you’re talking about music lessons, maybe you share a story about your amazing experience getting a standing ovation at your piano recital, right? The goal here is to relate to your audience. Explain why you’re sharing this information with them and always be authentic info educate your audience about the product or service you’re promoting. Many times when you’re working with advertisers, they’re going to send you a document with a bunch of bullet points. So that’s a good starting point, right? That tells you those are pieces of information that they want you to promote to your audience, feel free to elaborate on those points. Bring in your own personal experience, wherever possible. I don’t recommend reading the points verbatim, because that’s really boring. And for most of us, it’s going to sound like you’re reading. So don’t do that. You know your audience the best take the information and translate it into a style that they will understand and appreciate opinion. So you’ve just introduced your audience to this product or service. Now you need to share your opinion, you obviously like it, or you wouldn’t be creating an ad for it. But what exactly do you like about it? How would this product or service make a difference in your life, even if you haven’t personally tested it, because sometimes with advertisers, you don’t get a chance to get your hands on the product, you can still share your thoughts based on the information they provided, you need to be 100% honest with your audience about how you feel, please don’t exaggerate. If this isn’t the most amazing product in the world. Don’t say it is be real. And action. Tell your audience how to purchase the product or service through your podcast. This is called a CTA- a call to action, you’re asking your audience to do something so the brand can determine if these podcast ads are working. And many times they’re gonna give you something to say verbatim. Say it clearly. I think it’s a good idea to even do your calls to actions a couple times during the ad. Because remember, people are listening to a podcast, they’re not reading it, they don’t get a chance to go back, you know, I guess they can rewind for 10 seconds or whatever. Most people aren’t going to do that for an ad. Okay, it needs to be crystal clear the first time. Okay, so there you go. The four steps are relate, info, opinion, and action. And again, I do have that PDF that’s going to break these down for you.

12:10
Now the last thing that I want to touch on really quickly is how often should you change up your podcast ads, I get this question a lot. If you’re doing the baked in ads, right, where they’re edited into your content, and you’re not using technology to add them and remove them, then every ad is going to be a little bit different unless you literally just wrote something out and read it verbatim. I wouldn’t do that. If you’re doing baked in ads, just have some bullet points, try to riff off things a little bit, and then make it a little bit different each time. That’s my suggestion. However, if you have dynamic ads, where you pre recorded something and you’re using technology to insert the ads, you don’t have that kind of flexibility. So my recommendation is to change it up at least every month. But please check with the advertiser first, because they could have special sales and discounts coming up. And they may want the ad to reflect that. Make sure you ask the advertiser for new ad copy at least once a month. Sometimes they give it to you in advance. That’s fantastic. Sometimes you have to ask for it. Who all right we got through guys. So how many of you want a copy of those four steps that I mentioned earlier. I’m also going to give you some samples of ads that I’ve created in the past so you can kind of see what I’m talking about. I’ll explain how you can get these items for free fter the break.

13:31
I have a great PDF that I’d like to share with you all that highlights the four steps I use when creating my own podcast ads. Remember, relate, info, opinion, and action. This is a very helpful guide that you can print out and follow as you’re writing your own podcast ads. Now to get that guide, as well as a couple of sample ads I’ve created in the past. Click on the link in the description. For those of you who have already launched your podcast. Hey, how are things going? Are you feeling stuck at all? I do offer one on one coaching sessions online as well as a free podcast strategy session to see if podcast coaching is a good fit for you. And you can sign up for that free strategy session using the link in the description. Until next week, remember…. you should start a podcast!