Shownotes
In this episode, I explore the power of podcast memberships and share valuable strategies for creating irresistible subscriber experiences.
Learn how to design a membership program that captivates your audience and keeps them engaged, with tips on content selection, delivery, and promotion. Discover how you can leverage the potential of memberships to boost your podcast's growth, revenue, and long-term success.
Don't miss this essential guide to elevating your podcast's appeal through captivating membership experiences!
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Transcripts
As a serious independent podcaster, diversity in monetisation is the single most
[Mark]:important part of your growth and your revenue strategy. Eggs in baskets can be very
[Mark]:dangerous, so making sure you have them spread to as many places as possible.
[Mark]:Diversity in monetization is one of the most useful aspects of a successful podcaster
[Mark]:mindset that you can undertake. But what does that mean and how do memberships
[Mark]:and tipping feature within this mindset? This is of course the podcast accelerator.
[Mark]:I'm your host, Mark Asquith, and today I'm going to talk about actually What is a
[Mark]:podcast membership? What is podcast tipping? And I'm gonna, honestly, I'm gonna
[Mark]:talk a little bit about what we've done here at Captivate to help with that. But before
[Mark]:I do that, I am just gonna give a bit of a shout out, honestly, to my brand new listener
[Mark]:support page. It's something that I've just built using Captivate's brand new tipping
[Mark]:and membership features. You can find it at mark.live forward slash. support. If
[Mark]:you like the show, you can show your support at that page, mark.live slash support.
[Mark]:And even if you don't intend on getting involved on supporting the show, it would be
[Mark]:useful for you to go and look at that page right now on your mobile or your desktop
[Mark]:or wherever you're listening to this, just so that you can get a bit of context around
[Mark]:what I'm going to talk about today. Monetisation for a podcaster is of course very,
[Mark]:very important, but what we tend to find is that scalable monetisation is difficult
[Mark]:for the podcaster that is not enjoying a huge audience. However, that's generally
[Mark]:because we're thinking about things like sponsorship via a CPM model, which is
[Mark]:where a sponsor will pay you per thousand downloads that you get per episode. And the
[Mark]:problem with that is that we know that that works. That's sort of mass. broadcast
[Mark]:advertising. In fact, that model is based on display advertising, radio, TV advertising
[Mark]:and so on and so forth. The problem comes when we see all of these amazingly powerful
[Mark]:podcasts and podcasters just like you, who have got these really useful and really
[Mark]:engaged and really passionate niche audiences. Audiences that might not be as large
[Mark]:as a big broadcast style advertiser might want to access. who are powerful nonetheless,
[Mark]:who will take action based on something that you ask them to do, if it's within the
[Mark]:niche or the niche that you're talking to. And it's something that they love and they
[Mark]:feel passionate about as well. And that is true for so many podcasts. You see so many
[Mark]:podcasts that have these types of audiences and it's very, very important for us to understand
[Mark]:that there are benefits to those audiences and that actually they make up the vast majority
[Mark]:of the podcast in space. So it's such a shame that... many of the things that we
[Mark]:look to for monetisation, like sponsorships and so on, they feel out of reach for the average
[Mark]:podcaster because most of the podcast world is made up of you and me, the small indie
[Mark]:creator. So what we've done at Captivate is we've introduced a range of membership and
[Mark]:tipping tools that you can use to offer things like exclusive content, like early access.
[Mark]:to content that will later go public, but also other benefits. You can direct sell
[Mark]:sponsorships where people put their card details in and buy a mid-roll or a pre-roll
[Mark]:from you or whatever you want to sell. And they do this on a recurring basis. So from
[Mark]:day one, with an audience that doesn't need to be huge, you can generate really decent
[Mark]:revenue through your podcast. And guess what? If people aren't ready to sign up with
[Mark]:their card or Apple Pay or GPay on a recurring basis, they can leave you a tip,
[Mark]:a one-off payment to say thank you for all of your work. We've just introduced these
[Mark]:features to Captivate. They're available to every Captivate podcaster, and it's the
[Mark]:most useful, highly integrated version of this that you're going to find anywhere
[Mark]:in the world. It is a fantastic platform. So what I want to talk to you about today is
[Mark]:really, like, how do you unlock the potential of memberships? What are they? How
[Mark]:does tipping fit into the mix? What are the things that we can really leverage
[Mark]:as serious podcast creators? And what I'm going to do is I'm going to step through
[Mark]:a number of different things. I'm going to step through, obviously the Captivate release
[Mark]:that I just talked about, I'm going to step through one of the big benefits that
[Mark]:you get with this kind of monetisation, which I think is absolutely huge. I'm going
[Mark]:to talk to you about what a membership really is, what actually is a membership and
[Mark]:how do you sort of benefit from that and how do your listeners benefit from that.
[Mark]:I'm going to talk to you about how to think a little bit bigger. with this kind of
[Mark]:thing. I'm gonna talk to you about some of the benefits you can offer. I'm gonna talk
[Mark]:to you about the differences in the types of content you can offer, how it works
[Mark]:with RSS feeds, how do people listen, what kind of pricing structures you can use.
[Mark]:I'm gonna talk about some of the pitfalls when it comes to a podcast membership and also
[Mark]:why that diversity in podcast monetization is key, all right? So let's get into this.
[Mark]:It's gonna be fun. I'm looking forward to that. So let's talk about memberships, all
[Mark]:right? A podcast membership is where someone Pairs you a recurring monthly fee for
[Mark]:access to something that you give them. All right. A listener pays a recurring monthly
[Mark]:fee and you give them access to something that they didn't previously have access to.
[Mark]:Now that could be exclusive member only content where they're literally the only ones
[Mark]:that get the content that you publish to those members. Or it could be early access.
[Mark]:to content that will become public later. As an example, this episode today, this one
[Mark]:that you're listening to right now, publicly for free, I could say, well look,
[Mark]:actually I'm gonna put this out to my listeners on the 18th of May, but I'm gonna
[Mark]:give it to my Early Access members four days early, or two days early, or a day early,
[Mark]:or a week early, whatever I choose. That is called Early Access, or you'll sometimes
[Mark]:hear that called, windowing. And it's used by some of the most powerful podcasts
[Mark]:in the world. It's used by Wondery, it's used by Global, it's used by so many other
[Mark]:high tier podcast publishers that you should be using this potentially as well. But
[Mark]:you can also do other things with your membership. You can offer other things. So
[Mark]:you can offer like laptop stickers. We do that with Sparker Rebellion. You can
[Mark]:offer access to meetups or shout outs on your show. Whatever you can maintain, whatever
[Mark]:you can do, whatever people want. you can give them access to using memberships,
[Mark]:and you can power this all using Captivate. It's all built in, okay? What is a membership
[Mark]:and how does it differ from a tip? Well, a membership is something that people pay for
[Mark]:on a recurring basis, where a tip is a one off thank you. It's like a, you know,
[Mark]:validation for all the work that you do. Thank you for doing this show. We really
[Mark]:appreciate it. Here's 10 bucks. Go and buy yourself a beer. All right. It's that kind
[Mark]:of setup and it works. Works really well. It's really useful for people that like
[Mark]:you and know you, but they can't financially commit to a longer term month of recurring
[Mark]:commitment. No, are they ready for that? They might just simply not be ready. They might
[Mark]:have got to know you. They may have come to find your content and got to like you
[Mark]:and really understand what you do, but they're not, you know, they're not yet fully
[Mark]:super fans. They're not fully ready to commit to a month of recurring payments.
[Mark]:So they give you a one-off tip and it works really well. Again, it's something that
[Mark]:you can do through Captivate and you can do that just today. You can just sign in
[Mark]:and do that, all right? So that's the difference between a membership and a tip.
[Mark]:The biggest thing, the biggest thing about memberships and tips and monetising in
[Mark]:this particular manner and using something like your hosting platform Captivate to do
[Mark]:this is that you control every facet of that monetisation. You're not beholden to
[Mark]:a brand or a sponsorship partner, you're not beholden to someone saying our budgets
[Mark]:have been cut so we're going to cut your entire level of funding. We are not beholden
[Mark]:to someone saying you have to hit a certain number of downloads in order to open
[Mark]:up our sponsorship money. You can do this from day one of your podcast, whether
[Mark]:you're a brand new podcaster or a veteran that's ready to get started with monetization.
[Mark]:You can do this today. And the real beauty with this, the real power comes basically
[Mark]:from the fact that you do have that end to end control. All right. You can use
[Mark]:Captivate to... provide early access to provide exclusive content and you do that
[Mark]:from all one place. You do it from your current platform. You do it with a range of
[Mark]:check boxes. It's dead easy to do. But the real power is that it's a relationship
[Mark]:between you and your fans. It's a relationship between you and those who already love you
[Mark]:and those that will come to love you in the future. This is why it's so important
[Mark]:because you get the full level of control, end-to-end control over this entire monetization
[Mark]:option and you get the ability to more effortlessly scale this. Now, I'm not saying
[Mark]:this is easy, but it's easier to scale this because all you have to do is focus on
[Mark]:what you were already focusing on, which is find more listeners, marketing, audience
[Mark]:growth. And as long as you design this well, and as long as you tell people within
[Mark]:your episodes, go to, for example, with me, mark.live slash support, where you can
[Mark]:leave a tip, then people will hear that. Yeah, people will hear that and it becomes
[Mark]:just part of your natural episode flow. So the control aspect of memberships and tipping
[Mark]:is a huge benefit over other types of monetization. However, the real goal for serious
[Mark]:independent podcasters like you is that you get diversity in monetization. All right.
[Mark]:I talked about this at the beginning of the episode. If all your eggs are in one
[Mark]:basket for monetisation, and I've seen this with podcasters where they go after sponsors,
[Mark]:they write an amazing sponsor pitch and it's full of all these extra benefits and
[Mark]:they get the deal and it's brilliant. However, budgets get cut. Episodes don't perform
[Mark]:quite as well because we're trying new formats or whatever. There's Covid hits or
[Mark]:something affects the way that people listen or... Times just change, renewals come
[Mark]:around and they've not seen as a sponsor the sales that they want to see because sales
[Mark]:is a really tough thing to measure against a podcast. So what they do is they pull the
[Mark]:sponsorship for the next year. So it's all well and good when you sign the sponsor
[Mark]:but what happens is you've got to keep pitching that sponsor, you've got to keep adding
[Mark]:benefits and adding value and then you've got to find another sponsor. You need that
[Mark]:second pre-roll or that second mid-roll and you've got to do it all again. and then
[Mark]:the year after all again. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's the way of
[Mark]:sponsorships. That's the way of sort of, I suppose, thinking of podcasts as more
[Mark]:of a B2B mechanism, business to business mechanism. Whereas listener support, this diversity
[Mark]:that I'm talking about, if you use listener support, memberships and tips and so on and
[Mark]:so forth, yes, do the sponsor work, that's cool, all well and good. Do the pitching,
[Mark]:whatever you wanna do. If that fits for you, brilliant. However, if you've also
[Mark]:got some eggs in baskets that's listener support, the rest of it sort of becomes a little
[Mark]:less urgent because you're not having to worry so much about renewing the next sponsor
[Mark]:deal or having to provide more value for the same price the next year. And so what
[Mark]:you find yourself doing is you find yourself with freedom in monetization. You
[Mark]:find yourself with opportunity to say no, if you want to, because memberships and
[Mark]:tipping. is underpinned by your fans, it's underpinned by the people that love you
[Mark]:and will turn up regardless, they are there for you because they have been there
[Mark]:since day one or from day one that they found you, okay? And what this means is that
[Mark]:they are much more likely to continue the commitment because they've got a relationship
[Mark]:with you because you're piping into their ears, you're piping into what they want
[Mark]:to hear from you and that relationship is so strong that if you've got eggs in this
[Mark]:basket... the opportunity to be freer with your monetization and not necessarily
[Mark]:be beholden to all of the different elements of sponsorship or brands or companies
[Mark]:that have got to go through red tape and bureaucratic processes to get you that
[Mark]:invoice paid. You don't have to worry about that as much because it gives you opportunity
[Mark]:if you diversify your monetization. Now, there are other ways that you can diversify.
[Mark]:You can sell merch, you can sell other products, you can sell guest spots, whatever.
[Mark]:But the point is... that you've got to start thinking about diversity in monetization,
[Mark]:all right? And that's why unlocking and unleashing the power of these memberships
[Mark]:and tipping functionalities gives you a bedrock. Okay. I've just turned it on today
[Mark]:for the podcast accelerator, mark.live slash support. You can go and, you can go and
[Mark]:leave me a tip. If you like this episode, you can thank me for this episode. All right.
[Mark]:Brilliant. I'd love it if you did that. Cause I mean, I can buy a beer. I can buy some
[Mark]:of beer. She loved that. If you're listening, Sam, and if I do get a tip. I'll definitely
[Mark]:give that to you as a beer. Why did I say that? I thought myself out of a Mareti.
[Mark]:That's unbelievable. That is not like me. So the point of this is I just wanna drill
[Mark]:this home. I really wanna hammer this home is that you are a serious independent
[Mark]:podcaster and your audience enjoys what you do and loves what you do. And you are deserving
[Mark]:already because of the work that you put in, deserving already of a high quality
[Mark]:diversification in monetization. So many times I see people in the Captivate group
[Mark]:on YouTube talking to me at events saying Mark I wish I could just generate enough money
[Mark]:to cover my podcast hosting because that would take the pressure off. It would
[Mark]:stop it being an expense and it would turn it into something that I could break even
[Mark]:on and maybe after a couple of months I could buy a new mic. Maybe after a few months
[Mark]:extra I could buy a camera to start doing YouTube stuff. This enables that from
[Mark]:day one, from today. All right, so just take that for what it is. It's really important,
[Mark]:I think, that you realize that that diversity is there and that memberships and
[Mark]:tipping can be a really strong element of that diversity, okay? Let's think about
[Mark]:how we might work with memberships. Memberships are really powerful when it comes
[Mark]:to monetising your podcast, but they can be quite tricky because you've got to get
[Mark]:that pitch right. You know, what are the benefits? So with Captivate, what you can
[Mark]:do is you can set up different tiers of membership. You can say like tier one is
[Mark]:free, tier two is like five bucks a month, and then tier three is ten bucks a month,
[Mark]:up to whatever you want, as many tiers as you want. OK. And then you can stack the
[Mark]:benefits up. So you can say on the lowest tier you get... a shout out on the episode.
[Mark]:On the next tier up you get a shout out on every episode. On the tier after that
[Mark]:you get a shout out on every episode plus you get a laptop sticker and on the one
[Mark]:after that you get a laptop sticker, invites to meet ups and early access to public
[Mark]:episodes. And on the tier after that you get early access to public episodes plus
[Mark]:all the other stuff but you also get exclusive member only access. So what you can
[Mark]:do is you can compound these tiers up. You can say right we start with this base and
[Mark]:then we build them up on top of that, all right? And that's a really powerful way
[Mark]:of doing it. Now, some of the things that you can do, I think the important part
[Mark]:to understand here is when it comes to memberships, it's vital to only work within
[Mark]:your means and your boundaries, okay? So what I mean is that one of the risks with
[Mark]:podcast memberships is that you set out to say, I'm gonna provide an exclusive
[Mark]:episode to my members. every single week in addition to the public episode that
[Mark]:I'm already doing. Now, what's the biggest problem that indie creators like you and me
[Mark]:face? It's either money or it's time, and it's usually time. We're hobbyists. I'm
[Mark]:talking about Star Wars on my other podcast. It's this is this a labor of love.
[Mark]:I do it because I love doing it. It's not because I think it's going to make me rich.
[Mark]:Yeah. Does it pay for itself in hosting? Yeah, that's great. But I'm not going to get
[Mark]:rich off it. So finding the time to put. into that, when you've got a family and
[Mark]:when you've got work going on, it's quite difficult. Let's not pretend that it's
[Mark]:not. So for you to say, look, I love the idea of memberships and I love the idea
[Mark]:of offering exclusive content, but you've got to ask yourself, okay, can I dedicate time
[Mark]:to this? Now you might be able to. I know I could with this show because frankly,
[Mark]:what I would do is on an episode like this, I would do like the main episode, and
[Mark]:then I'd do a 10-minute extra episode at the end, which was of this topic but just...
[Mark]:extra content, it was something from a different perspective or a different angle.
[Mark]:If I'm doing an interview with James Cridland like I've got coming up next week,
[Mark]:we talk about YouTube and whether or not you should be using it, whether it's a
[Mark]:good thing for podcasting or not. What I would do is, I would say James, let's stay
[Mark]:on 10 minutes afterwards. We're going to stop the recording. This is for the public
[Mark]:and it's a brilliant episode. It's an hour long, but we're going to do 15 minutes
[Mark]:or so that is just for my exclusive members. Okay. And that can work because what
[Mark]:I'm doing is I'm bundling it in terms of time and workload, bundling that in to what
[Mark]:I'm already doing. But a lot of people make the mistake where they say, oh, we're
[Mark]:going to do another one hour podcast every week. Well, you can't because it's another
[Mark]:one hour podcast every week. That's just, it's, it can be hard to do that. So one
[Mark]:of the biggest pitfalls that people find with memberships is... that they bite
[Mark]:off too much, all right? So what I would say when you're designing your memberships
[Mark]:out is think about what you can reliably achieve, all right? What can you consistently
[Mark]:do? Because remember, it's easier to add tiers. So it's easier to start with things
[Mark]:like, here's a laptop sticker or a shout out on the show. Here's access to meetups and
[Mark]:invitations to events that we might go to because we already go to them. Here's
[Mark]:early access because I'm publishing my episodes Anyway, so I may as well, you know,
[Mark]:it's fine if I give you early access because I've got to do that episode anyway
[Mark]:Leave it at that for now. Maybe all right And then in the future it's better to
[Mark]:add on exclusive content as opposed to saying to yourself I'm gonna do exclusive
[Mark]:content from day one Realize I can't keep up with it and have to cancel it because
[Mark]:that is not a great experience for people All right, the people that are paying you the
[Mark]:money. It's not great for them All right, you lose a little bit of trust with that. So
[Mark]:just that's one of the biggest pitfalls is biting off too much offering too much as
[Mark]:a membership, offering too much as a commitment from you that people then sign up
[Mark]:to that you can't deliver on. So ease yourself into this and you'll be surprised
[Mark]:because people are fans of you, they love what you do. Anything extra doesn't have
[Mark]:to be a big grand gesture like here's a brand new one hour episode every week. Anything
[Mark]:is great because they're such big fans of you that they are so deeply connected to
[Mark]:wanting more of what you do. that extra is enough. It doesn't have to be a big grand
[Mark]:gesture of a full one hour episode extra every week, all right? So think about that.
[Mark]:How do you design that? How do you go about that? And also, how can you provide low
[Mark]:cost things to your patrons? So I know it sounds a bit sort of, I suppose a little
[Mark]:bit odd, but like old school things, like send them a sticker, send them a pen,
[Mark]:send them a mug, you know, these are like two pound, three pound. or in the US,
[Mark]:like three, four, five bucks things. You don't have to do big things, okay? Send
[Mark]:them a sticker, that costs pennies. It costs pennies to get stickers made, all
[Mark]:right? Or like 100 stickers is barely anything. You can send them even just a handwritten
[Mark]:thank you on a compliment slip will cost you pennies. But think about how much
[Mark]:that will mean to people. It will mean the world to people. It will mean the world.
[Mark]:to people, okay? So think about how can I?
[Mark]:How can I, as someone that has a duty of care to my fans, which is what we have when
[Mark]:we have people loyally following us, we have fans, it can be quite difficult to
[Mark]:accept that fact as a creator that people like you, we've got to get over that insecurity
[Mark]:a little bit. How can I give the very best extension of my podcasting experience
[Mark]:to my fans? OK? So. How can I make them feel great about being a member? How can I
[Mark]:make them feel like they've got more access to me than they had before they were
[Mark]:a member? How can I make them feel part of my group, of my crew, of my crowd, of my
[Mark]:people? How can I make them feel like one of us? And that doesn't have to be big
[Mark]:grand gestures, all right? Exclusive content is wonderful, and I'm going to talk
[Mark]:about those differences in a little bit more depth, early access and exclusive
[Mark]:in just a second.
[Mark]:It doesn't have to be the be all and end all, you can do other things. All right,
[Mark]:so think about that. How can you design that? Now, we've got a great set of options
[Mark]:for you to dig into. We've got some fantastic ideas for you over on the Captivate.fm
[Mark]:blog. You can go and check that out. Sarah and Ben have put together a wonderful
[Mark]:tutorial that gives you some Kickstarter ideas, all right, gives you an idea set that
[Mark]:you can use to build upon. All right, it will detail some benefits and some options
[Mark]:that you can use to give to your prospective member. So go take. a look at that. What is
[Mark]:exclusive content? What is early access content? And how does that play with RSS feeds?
[Mark]:Well, first of all, let's just quickly revisit what an RSS feed is, all right? An
[Mark]:RSS feed is all of your content from your podcast packaged up neatly into a box
[Mark]:that the apps and all of the places that people get their podcasts, whether it's
[Mark]:Global Play, whether it's Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever, they access this box of
[Mark]:information called an RSS feed and they take data out of it and give it to listeners.
[Mark]:Every time you publish a new episode, a new episode goes in that box and that includes
[Mark]:the episode title, the mp3 file, the description, any links, any show notes in there,
[Mark]:an Apple global, Spotify, they go in and they say, oh, there's a new episode there,
[Mark]:let me pop that in the directory and people can listen to it. And that's what an
[Mark]:RSS feed is and Captivate compiles and builds those RSS feeds for you to submit to
[Mark]:places like Global Player and Apple Podcasts and Spotify. So that's the relationship
[Mark]:between you, your voice. an RSS feed and the outlets, the apps, okay? So that's
[Mark]:what an RSS feed is. We know that you're experiencing RSS feeds if you're a podcaster.
[Mark]:But what about this exclusive and early access? Surely that can't all work on the same
[Mark]:feed. Well, you're absolutely right, it can. Because that box of content, that RSS
[Mark]:feed, is public. That goes out everywhere. You couldn't obviously put exclusive content
[Mark]:in a public box. It's like putting something in your safe at home and then putting that
[Mark]:safe. in a box outside on your driveway. It just doesn't work. It's the two opposing
[Mark]:ideas, okay? So early access and exclusive content are delivered by what we call custom
[Mark]:private RSS feed. You don't have to worry about where they come from. Every time
[Mark]:you get a member and that member signs up to a early access or exclusive benefit on
[Mark]:your membership platform powered by Captivate, you... are going to see that the
[Mark]:person that subscribes to your membership is going to receive a custom RSS feed that
[Mark]:is generated uniquely and solely for them. Only they have access to it and they
[Mark]:can listen to that RSS feed and the content they're in using something like Apple
[Mark]:Podcasts or whatever else, okay? They can go and listen to that custom content in
[Mark]:their podcast app of choice
[Mark]:It works. It just does. Okay. That's how they get this private exclusive early access
[Mark]:content. Okay. Side note, Captivate builds in what we call anti-fraud monitoring.
[Mark]:So if someone like say, let's say that you subscribe to the podcast Accelerator membership,
[Mark]:you get your exclusive content via an RSS feed that is unique only to you. You then
[Mark]:share the RSS feed. and you give it to someone who isn't paying their membership,
[Mark]:but they're getting that membership content for free, naughty, that's piracy, all
[Mark]:right? That's naughty. That is sharing RSS test feed, that is fraudulent, okay? We've
[Mark]:built in some fraud monitoring tools, so what that allows you to do is see how many
[Mark]:times each episode has been downloaded by each individual member. Because if someone's
[Mark]:downloading an episode 10 times, Well, they simply don't need to do that. They just
[Mark]:don't need to do that, all right? So we build in fraud monitoring so you can see.
[Mark]:You can then regenerate their RSS feed if you think they're sharing it, regenerate
[Mark]:it, kill the old one, automatically send them a new one, all right? So that's how
[Mark]:protection works. That's a little bit of a side note, but it's useful to know. Early
[Mark]:access and exclusive. They're sort of two sides of the same coin, okay? They both
[Mark]:work delivering content via an exclusive RSS feed, so a private... member only RSS feed
[Mark]:that only each member has unique access to. The difference between the two is this.
[Mark]:Early access content is content that you will release publicly later. So I could
[Mark]:take this episode, like I said earlier, release it on Thursday the 18th of May, but
[Mark]:choose actually to give it to you, the member of the podcast accelerator, a week early
[Mark]:or two days early, and it will go down your private RSS feed you will get it before
[Mark]:anyone else and then eventually whenever I tell it to, whenever I set it in Captivate
[Mark]:to, it will switch over to being public. So that's a big benefit for you. It's exclusive
[Mark]:to you until that window ends. And that's very, very common. Very, very common. Exclusive
[Mark]:content is essentially member only content. It is content that will only be published to
[Mark]:your members. So it will never go from being exclusive to being public. This is fully
[Mark]:exclusive content and that tends to be extra content. Okay, where early access
[Mark]:is early access to normal content, exclusive content is different content. Okay, that is
[Mark]:huge. That is huge. All right, works really, really well. So that's the difference
[Mark]:between early access and exclusive content. I highly recommend that you take a look at
[Mark]:these because you can be using them today to generate revenue from your podcast.
[Mark]:There's a lot to this subject and I am going to be putting out more and more episodes
[Mark]:about this particular topic. Next week we've got an interview with the wonderful James
[Mark]:Cridland about YouTube and it's foray into podcasting and what that might mean for
[Mark]:us, the serious indie creator. And then we're going to be back with another episode
[Mark]:on really how to work with memberships and tipping more specifically. So this is really
[Mark]:an overview introduction episode that I wanted to bring to you quite early. And to
[Mark]:close up... on this. I want to really, really just hone in on just the idea that this
[Mark]:is about diversity. It really is about diversity in podcasting and about diversity
[Mark]:in revenue. Okay. If you are a serious independent creator, if you want to create
[Mark]:content that really resonates with your audience but that will give you a return on
[Mark]:that time investment, then I highly recommend that you look in to memberships and
[Mark]:at the very least, activating tipping on your podcast right away. It's so important
[Mark]:as a serious creator to get rewarded for our time and for our efforts. What we don't
[Mark]:often realise is that our fans are ready
[Mark]:that validation and to give us that thanks. We just don't always have an easy means
[Mark]:of asking for it or more importantly, a secure, safe and easy way to financially
[Mark]:transact with us. Now we do. Built into your Captivate Dashboard is all this goodness,
[Mark]:all of these features that I've just talked about. It's all powered by Stripe Marketplace.
[Mark]:It's all safe. It's all secure. It's all powered by Apple Pay and GPay and card
[Mark]:transactions and you can do so much with it. I've talked about some pitfalls. I've
[Mark]:talked about the differences between exclusive and early access content. We've talked
[Mark]:about RSS feeds. We've talked about some base level structures that you could use.
[Mark]:And you can find more about that on Captivate.fm forward slash blog. And we've
[Mark]:talked about generally. how and why you should be activating memberships and tipping
[Mark]:functionality for your podcast today in order to begin that diversity in monetization.
[Mark]:Please take heed of this. It's very, very important because I truly believe that
[Mark]:now is the time for creators like you and me to spread our wings, to open up a range
[Mark]:of options for monetization and to start being fairly compensated for the time that
[Mark]:we put in. And our fans are more than willing to do that. We just have to ask them.
[Mark]:Our fans, let me say that again, our fans are more than willing to help us and to
[Mark]:support us and to thank us for all we do. We have to be just willing to ask. So go
[Mark]:and ask. Go and get this set up. Get started with memberships, get started with
[Mark]:tipping and go and check out mark.live.com forward slash support and you can leave me
[Mark]:a tip if you want me to buy some that beer. But until the next time, I'll be back
[Mark]:next week with an episode. featuring the wonderful James Cridland where we go deep
[Mark]:into YouTube for podcasting. And if anyone is at the podcast show in London next
[Mark]:week, maybe we'll use some of that tip money to buy you a beer as well. Until next
[Mark]:time, keep up the great work, enjoy what you do. Keep on sharing your voice because
