A lot of these videos get recommended to me, and although I haven't done hardware designs in 10+ years at this point, it's pushing me to get back into it again - and PCBWay lives in my head rent-free for when I do. If it were a one-off sponsorship I'd have forgotten about it, but the consistency across a load of different channels really cements it.

To be honest, without the sponsorship from PCBWay I would probably have stopped making videos on my channel.

It’s not a lot of money - but there is an informal commitment that I will try and produce a video a month. It’s also very on brand for my content - hobby electronics with a focus on embedded (ESP32 range of microcontrollers).

I think the videos are entertaining and educational. Actual viewer numbers fluctuate wildly and despite over 50K subscribers - a “successful” video for my channel is around 3000 views (channel is in my profile).

I still find it amazing that I can get PCBs manufactured at such an affordable price. Even SMD assembly is reasonably priced. Short production runs are more than doable at the amateur level.

Some of them just seem like a good deal. Imagine how much value is generated from Marco Reps revealing where the ppms are kept to thousands of young engineers a year in exchange for a few one-time payments. Value for PCBway from planting customer seeds and value for society by cultivating people who can actually do things.

The value of this kind of sponsorship is not as much about becoming know to the target audience but creating the environment to grow the number of audience.

The Coca Cola company still makes advertisements, even though everyone already knows about Coke. You have to keep your name in the top of your target audience’s mind.

At this point I think it's about creating new audience. I've been to a talk where a jlcpcb teached programmers how to build an NFC business card - most of these guys wouldn't know where to start with electronics but some of them are dabbling in them rn.