#AskGaryVee Episode 91: Pricing Sponsorship, Selling Merchandise, & Tim Ferriss Asks a Question

“for custom music, should
I delay them with content?” – Aaron this is a very
interesting question for a very specific reason. If you watching the Meerkat, I kind of had to talk to India four or
five times on this question and I didn’t really, fully get it and then I realized, aha that’s why I don’t get it. Because of the way you position
the question, my friend. If you notice the sentence structure, something I never understood ’cause I have no grammar skills. You say delay them with content. That, in itself, is the problem. It’s the energy that you
approach this question with. Which is that, you’re
saying to yourself do I put out content that
is in my best interest instead of theirs,
hence the word delay. And the way I
always talk about it, is putting out content that
actually brings value to people. And so, when I say a pop-up. You know, when I say,
don’t stop them from going to what they want to, that’s a pop-up ad that’s not bringing them any value. If you put out content
that isn’t the music but maybe it’s
the behind the scenes of you remixing the music, getting the music, your thoughts on the music. If you bring them other value well then you’re bringing value. I mean, people watch this
show to get to the answers. Do they enjoy the
banter that I had before when me and India make
before we get into the show? Or my Jets thing or whatever? You know, I think
there’s a certain subset that does enjoy that. And that’s why I’ve
been able to pull off video show after video show ’cause I’m trying
to make it interesting with other things besides
the hardcore content. Some people think
that’s too much, they don’t like it and
they won’t be there. But at the end of the day, the
fact that you say delay them with content means that
the energy in the seed of how you’re
approaching it is wrong. What you need to do is make
that value added content. Make that part of
the overall experience. Make that the
reason they come. And I think that
that is something that people really misunderstand. I think the Mets have a much
better stadium than the Yankees because of all the added venues and the nuances and the
ambiance of their stadium. I’m there for the ball game. People are there
for the ball game but there’s always a added
value of why you’re there. It might be a
dart board in a bar. Is the dart board
there to stop them from drinking another beer? No, it adds, so
let’s add VaynerNation. Let’s not subtract. It’s interesting the
way he asked that.

How would you price
sponsorships for an episode of a show like #AskGaryVee? Would you go by
the number of views? By the number of sales they get? What do you think? Thanks Gary. – Yes. I think that there’s a
very simple answer to this. My big belief, when
you’re selling sponsorship to something new is you ask
for as much as possible. And I’m not kidding. You don’t know where your ceiling is. If you go by cpm’s and views you’re really in a tough spot because views and impressions
have been commoditized to such a level that you’ll
never hit enough scale. Most people are
gonna make four dollars on their show sponsorship
if they go that route. It’s the association,
notice I don’t run ads or sell sponsorship on this show and if I did, I would
expect substantial bank. Because not only,
it’s not about the 20, 30, 40, 50 thousand YouTube and 50, 60, 70, 80 thousand
Facebook imperssions and awareness and
all that nature. It’s about the brand association. I’m endorsing it by accepting it ’cause I’ve never
done it before. And so there’s an
extra value on that. So I think, the thing that
you really need to think about is if it’s a small
business, start up, you need to negotiate. There needs to be just a
price and you start high. If it’s a media buying agency, you’re already in trouble
because they’re looking to buy scale and they’re really looking
to commoditize your traffic and that is not gonna make
sense for 99.9% of the people listening and watching
this show and so my advice is to price it– and then the second
part of your question about the conversion of sales. You don’t wanna
be in direct response, conversion based
business either. What you wanna be is in the
brand association pricing, right. You can’t put a price on a
small business-oriented solution being a sponsor of this
show because they’re getting to entrepreneurs and
executives through this channel and there’s more depth than width. So I would price it as
high as humanly possible and let it land to where
the market actually says. I think one of the big mistakes
that a lot of my friends who watch this show and lot
of people that negotiate in general, they don’t
price accordingly because they ask
for what they want. And usually, you should
at least double or triple what you want to leave
room for the negotiation. Or, you know, a lot of times
you’re limiting your upside by not recognizing
that you missed or underpriced your value prop. – [Voiceover] Bunch of
Deckheads wants to know,

– [Voiceover] Bunch of
Deckheads wants to know, “If you’re selling merch,
like t-shirts, “how would you go about doing it?” – Well, Deckheads, I mean– This is a very good question. I like this question. I don’t wanna beat dead horse but I would say
Facebook dark post is incredibly interesting. The targeting capabilities
of what’s going on in that platform are incredible. I think Pinterest
and promoted pins is another place
that I would spend a ton of time and energy. And I would say
traditional digital even though it’s something
I like to pick on. I think SEM, Google AdWords and I think banner retargeting, you know, people
landing on your site, you pixeling them
and cookieing them from the traffic that you
got from the other places and then retargeting
them on banner and things of that nature
have all been proven t-shirt, hoodie, hat selling. I think Facebook dark posts,
though are incredible. The fact that you can
target people that are fans of Teespring or BustedTees
or all these kind of Threadless, JackThreads,
all these places where those kind of things
are sold, Johnny Cupcakes. The fact that you can target
to that level, just incredible. I mean like, you know (scoffs) It’s really a funny
thing to do this show because I keep
pounding this narrative and so many of you
continue not to do it. But a couple of you are
starting to email me saying, hey, thank you for this because
this is what’s happened. So that makes me happy,
makes me continue to wanna spew the best advice
possible, and to me 50% of my money
would be allocated to Facebook dark posts but
the other 50% allocated to things I just told you about. By the way, Staphon,
this whole episode

“What’s the biggest way, right now, “you are hypocritical of
your won advice?” – (sighs) Edward, this
is a really, really, really, good question. Edward, this may be my favorite question. You know what, Edward, you’ve also solved something else for me, that is tremendous. Which is people always ask
me, you know this Steve. “What’s the one question
nobody ever asks you, that should ask you?”
(laughs) I think this is really it. Edward, it’s a moving target. Right now, luckily, ’cause
I’ve built out infrastructure a lot less, right, I’m
putting out content. I’m doing a consistent show. Andy K. doing a ton of
Facebook dark posts. We’re doing a ton of
influencer stuff on Instagram. I would say maybe a little bit, we need a little bit
more umph on Pinterest but even that we’re doing, huh. I would say this, in the historical track
of me giving advice since 2009 in business, this is easily the least hypocritical, least not following my advice that I’ve ever been in because I finally hit
scale where I can afford this incredibly good-looking team. Show Steve for the good-looking stuff. – Hello there. – And so (laughs). And so… What do you guys think, actually? This could be a lot of fun. I’m trying to think of like
what we’re not crushing on that we believe in so much. We’re really doing well right now. – I think, I don’t know. – [Gary] Go ahead, it’s okay
you won’t hurt my feelings. – Okay, I think that we could probably be jabbing on Wine Library better. I think that a lot of– – No, I don’t well, by the way, come back to me. Wine Library is like out of the, I think for sure. Wine Library’s got Instagram
that it could be doing better. Pinterest. Wine Library’s got its
own spiel of re-orging in a way that I think can do better work. Wine Library for sure. I’m talking about our world where I have a little bit more control because I’m day-to-day Wine Library. What do you think is the, India? Anything? – [Voiceover] Hmm. – I think SlideShare. – [Voiceover] Yeah. – I’m a big, right, SlideShare. I think we’ve really, that’s me and you. – [India] Yeah. – And maybe I could be
giving a little bit more time and access to India and Steve
for the follow up content. I’m just like grinding so hard. I mean like… There’s just like not a minute in the day. I’m mean like, we’re literally
like talking on Sunday nights – [India] Yeah. – It’s pretty intense. 6pm this last Sunday. So, I don’t know. I don’t know, I’m feeling
really great right now about it. As good as I’ve ever felt. Wine Library as a whole
could be doing better. Definitely on Instagram. There’s so much upside
for wine businesses there. I could be giving a little bit more access to following up on content. I don’t know. – [Steve] Could be making more episodes of
The #AskGaryVee Show. – More episodes. We’re grinding pretty good right now. But I want that question
asked once a quarter

Cheers, top of the morning to ya. And I have a question because I look like Al Pacino after a bender. I am launching the Tim Ferriss Experiment and it is a hell of a thing. (laughs) How do you think television
shows will be launched two years from now? Both in terms of distribution and in terms of commercial? That is my question
because there’s gotta be many better ways (laughs). Thank you. – Tim, great to have you on the show. I know so many of the
people in the VaynerNation are huge fans so that’s a lot of fun. I’m sure a lot of you enjoyed that. And everybody in the VaynerNation should actually check out Tim’s Tim Ferriss Experiment on iTunes. Staphon let’s link that up and YouTube. And I’m sure it’s easy
to find for all of you that are listening on the podcast and on Facebook, if you’re watching. Can one of you maybe jump in with a quick comment up when this episode pops up on Facebook and link to iTunes? Tim Ferriss Experiment. Timmy, I think that a
couple things will happen. One, I think there’s gonna be a crap load more over
the top services, right. So, you’ve got Netflix but
I think you’ve got Vimeo starting to make some noise. I expect a lot of traditional,
old-school digital leaders to get in this game. Microsoft’s gonna have to be in this game. Yahoo!’s gonna have to be in this game. I think, Snapchat is clearly
a television network. I think Facebook in a lot
of ways goes that route. I think everybody that
can own video is gonna try ’cause all the money’s there. I think launching it will happen in the way that you’re
doing it now, right? You’re asking this question
in a micro community, where I’m now giving exposure to it. And so the days of going to the Today Show or running commercials on a big show. Or trying to get print or
radio like campaigns going, there’s now all these fragmented societies and niches, Facebook dark posts. Making infographics for Pinterest. Getting a ton of Instagram’s influencers, having me on Mike’s show. I’m sure you’re probably
hitting the podcast circuit tremendously hard. You’re probably gonna
show up on 15 podcasts over the next week or two. Which is something you wouldn’t
have done 24 months ago. And there will be five
to seven other things that none of know has the
attention of the consumer. Maybe an app that comes
out on the watch, right? There’s so much coming. And so, here’s what I can tell you. I don’t predict, I react. But I do know this, in 24 months, there
will be some new shtuff. Shtuff. I almost said shit and then stuff. Shit and stuff means shtuff. That’s how it comes out of my mouth. Question of the day.