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How to make money from a podcast! (And you don't need ads!)
Episode 1411th April 2024 • The Podmaster: podcasting growth advice and insights for people and brands • The Podmaster (Neal Veglio)
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Making Money in Podcasting: Tips and Tricks for Podcasters

In this episode of The Podmaster I'm going to talk about how to make money from a podcast!

Hi, I'm Neal Veglio, founder of Podknows Podcasting. And for more than 20 years I've been experimenting with podcasts. Along the way, I've learned a thing or two about how to help people like you grow podcasts legitimately, with highly targeted real listeners. Not bots from clickfarms.

And that brings us nicely on to this episode's topic - how to monetise that audience once you've connected with it.

Get ROI from your podcast

Are you pouring your heart, soul, and possibly the contents of your wallet into a podcast but can't seem to find that sweet spot where your labour of love actually starts to love you back... monetarily?

Well, if you're about to chuck your microphone out the window in sheer frustration, hold on a mo.

You're about to get the equivalent of a podcasting lightning bolt up the arse from yours truly, The Podmaster.

You see, this episode isn't just another ramble through the world of podcasting for beginners; it's a meaty, juicy, potentially wallet-fattening dose of podcast monetisation advice.

And by the end of this, you'll know exactly what options are on the table.

You're going to learn the difference between a podcast being a cash vacuum and a cash generator.

What does work then?

Methods for monetisation in podcasting

Stick it out, as I map out a strategy that goes beyond the humdrum of CPM rates that'll have you earning more per listener than most podcasts with pre-roll ads longer than their actual content.

And it doesn't matter if you're well-known or niche.

And if after listening you'd like to talk about how I help people like you to turn their listeners into customers who'll be excited to give you their money, book in for a free call with me.

Timestamped summary:


00:00 Maximise ad revenue without upsetting listeners.


03:17 Utilise mid-roll ad for own services.


06:49 Podcast content value varies, worth considering investment.


10:22 Unlimited earnings from podcasting, invest in marketing.


Mentioned in this episode:

Podmaster Free Tips



This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Transcripts

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One of the biggest challenges of doing a podcast

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is figuring out how to make money from your podcast.

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It's not easy, but it is very doable,

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provided you take the right strategy. And right

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now I'm going to take you through exactly what that strategy

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is.

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When most people think about monetizing a podcast, what they're

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probably thinking about is advertising and sponsorship,

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those pre roll ads that you hear on some of the big

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podcasts in the world. But there's a reason why

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those podcasts are monetizing in that way.

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It's because they come with baked in audience. These

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advertisers know that these big podcasts will have

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huge audiences based on their brand equity. Well, what if

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you're a bit lesser known? Maybe you're somebody

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that's an influencer in a very niche space, or perhaps you're a

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brand that isn't a household name. What can you do to

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monetize a podcast then? Well, there are several ways that you can do

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that. I advocate personally

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for having the podcast being the marketing

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platform rather than the product. You are

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the product. You the person that brings all the genius and

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insight to your people, to your tribe, as

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the Gary Vaynerchuk crew would say. But

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before we get more deeply into that, let's talk about all the

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options that are available to you when it comes to monetizing a podcast.

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We've already mentioned sponsorship and ads. Now, if you're getting

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around about 5000 downloads

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per episode within the first 30 days of release, then

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you're eligible to start looking at that as a revenue generating

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model. You're not going to make a fortune from it because the

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CPM rates, as in cost per melee

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rates, are very low. You're looking at around about

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$25 per every 1000 listeners you

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have. If you've only got 5000 downloads per

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episode, that's not going to be a lot of money for you unless you've

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got loads of ads in your podcast episodes. And if you're only

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getting 5000 downloads per episode,

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you might need to have that conversation with yourself about

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striking the balance. Are you going to upset your

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listeners? The few listeners that you've got?

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Comparatively, given you've got 5000

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downloaders, are you going to upset them? If

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you load their content with ads? There's a real balance to be

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struck here, and the ends are weighted between

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continuing getting trajectory for your podcast reach in

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terms of new listeners and getting money from those that you

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have. I'd almost always suggest not having

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a pre roll ad on a podcast unless it's absolutely huge. And I'm

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talking millions of listeners. Even then, I

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would get you to seriously consider whether or not a pre roll ad is a

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great idea. A mid roll ad can be really

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useful, but here's where I think the

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nuances. If you use a mid roll ad to advertise a third

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party, as in a sponsor or advertiser that wants

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to use your podcast as a platform for their marketing

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messaging, then you might be

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possibly hurting yourself because the listeners aren't invested

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in your advertisers, they're invested in you. So for

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me, I would say if it's only about revenue generation

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and you're looking to grow your revenue base with

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income from the podcast, consider using

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that mid role slot to advertise your own services. And

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if you don't actually have a service offering or any kind of offering

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for someone to pay for, then maybe think about getting that

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started. Coaching can be a great product

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for certain industries and certain service providers.

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Otherwise you could do things like retreats. You could do

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one to one sessions, you could even do group

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webinars and charge tickets for those

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there's affiliate marketing I'm not personally a massive

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fan of affiliate marketing because for me I feel it lends

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itself to people advertising for the sake of getting the

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revenue rather than just sharing a good product

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and endorsing that because they truly believe in it. Any article

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you see on this website or on any of my podcast episodes, any

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mention of any brands or products, it's because I

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use them personally and can recommend them based on that

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use. You'll never catch me running an affiliate campaign for

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any product I haven't either used myself extensively

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or still use. Another

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option for revenue generation is merchandising. That could be

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anything from t shirts, mugs,

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pens, you name it, any sort of stationery. A lot of people

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probably think about setting up an Etsy store or any other kind of e commerce

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website and have listeners buying those products.

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And that's the revenue generation model. But I'd like you to think about

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this another way. Perhaps you could use the

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merchandising as a gift in return

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for the podcast listener helping you to grow your

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show, as in recommendations, sharing of

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episodes, reviews, proving that they followed your show in Apple

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podcasts or Spotify, and maybe even getting their friends to do the

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same. That way what you're actually doing is instead of

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selling the merchandise, you're rewarding listeners

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with the merchandise and you're ultimately going to get

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more revenue benefit in the longer term anyway because you're going to be

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able to get free advertising for your podcast. What better

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way to build a business than have your listeners

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as your biggest advocates in business? They call this the

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ladder of loyalty, and if you can get someone at the top of that

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ladder, you're on to a winner.

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Crowdfunding and listener support. Yeah, we've all heard of those

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websites that charge a membership in return for exclusive

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content. Patreon is one of those. You've got superfans and all these

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other websites as well. Buy me a coffee. That is another

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useful tool for generating revenue from your podcast

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content. The problem with this is a lot of people come into this thinking it's

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going to be really easy money. But if you

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think about it, it's actually a lot harder than offering your

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own service as an offering and using the

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podcast as a marketing platform. For that, we're back into the

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domain of the podcast being the product.

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There's no one side fits all to this. What one person might

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see value in, in terms of your content, someone else might think, well, why am

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I going to pay for that? So if you're looking at early releases of

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episodes, one set of listeners might think that's a brilliant thing, that's well

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worth investing money in, whereas other listeners would be like, well, I might

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as well wait until it's for free on the free version of the feed.

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So you've really got to think quite hard about how you're going to

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make this offer worthwhile investing in.

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You could do behind the scenes content that could be valuable to somebody,

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maybe even exclusive content that only paid members

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get. But of course, you've then got to bear in mind the conversion rates. So

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you might be putting all that effort in to create content that

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only five to ten people will ever hear. And if your main

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audience is thousands, sometimes it could

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be quite human for you to concentrate all that effort

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on the thousands of people that aren't giving you money and

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cutting corners with the few people that

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yes, they're giving you money, but they're not giving you those dopamine

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hits. Well worth thinking that one through before you follow

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down that path. As a revenue generation model,

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live events and workshops is another

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feasible way of you getting some revenue from your podcast.

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I'm talking about charging listeners to come to a live

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event and see the podcast playing out in person, or maybe

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workshops around the theme of your podcast. If you're a

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business coach, this could be a really, really good way of

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generating some new leads for one to one coaching by having a

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group coaching session at a predetermined location that they

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can show up at. It's a great way of offering listeners a

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taste of what your products are.

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So we're going to come back to my favorite type of

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monetization model for podcast episodes, and that

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is you as the product offering your

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services and your products with the podcast being the marketing

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platform. The great thing about this is it's really easy to

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funnel. You can start off by offering a free download that sort of acts as

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an introduction to what you do and who you are. Once they've downloaded that free

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product, you can then start upselling them because they'll be on your email

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list. You can start talking to them and nurturing them and

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educating them as to what you do. Those bigger

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problems they have that you can solve. You can help them

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identify those things that you can solve for them in

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real time, in regular communication through your email

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that's updating them about new podcast episodes. See how this

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works. So that's why that's my favorite method

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of monetizing a podcast, because then you

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don't have the ickiness of dealing with advertisers and making sure

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that their ads are going out and that you're getting paid for them and all

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that complicated paperwork that's going to be involved in that. You don't

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have to worry about memberships and keeping your listeners entertained and

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ensuring that they're getting the value for money from those special bits

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of content that you're having to record for them. You're definitely not having to worry

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about growing volume of audience in order to make enough

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money to survive and keep the podcast paid for. There's

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no ceiling on your earnings with this method. You

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earn as much as you decide, and that's down to

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how much you invest in the marketing of your podcast. And if you need

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to know more about how to grow a podcast in 2024,

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then you should definitely check out this other article that I've created

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on Podnospodcasting Co. Uk

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blog. The Podmaster is a Podnos

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podcasting production. Find out more about us at Podnos

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Co. UK. That's

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podknows. Co. UK.

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