Before we look into some of the monetization options within Podcasting 2.0, let's consider those that are traditionally recognized as income streams for podcasters.

In this episode, Sarah Ferris and I discuss the pros and cons of:

• Paid advertising
• Sourcing sponsors
• Subscription models like Patreon, Buy Me a Coffee and Apple Subscriptions
• Affiliate marketing

We also ask:

• How much can podcasters expect to get paid?
• How much extra work is needed – for example sourcing sponsors, preparing extra content for subscribers?

Find podcasting resources, links and extra listening at Creativityfound.co.uk/podcasting

Disclaimer

Things change. Technologies improve. What is discussed in this episode is correct as of end 2024.

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And those are pennies to the dollar. You need to be getting thousands and thousands and thousands of downloads to be really making much money out of that.

In podcasting, the relationship between advertisers and podcast is quite inequitable for the space that they claim as real estate. Inside your podcast, what are you getting back for it? I spend maybe half a day a week concentrating on those outreach emails.

Wow.

The thing that I would say is you need to maximise every strand of possible income and not just rely on one.

Welcome back to Podcasting 2.0 in Practice. I'm here with my very good podcast pal, Sarah Ferris. Hi, Sarah, how are you?

I'm so glad to be here. I feel like we've been planning this for so long, but I've been looking forward to it.

Thank you. Me too.

Tell me first, Sarah, about yourself and your podcasting background to give a bit of context about why I chose you to be my guest expert today.

I don't know why you did, but we're here. As I say that, my headphone pops out. That's about as professional as I am. Two seconds.

Oh, I hope you edit, because that just popped right out of my ear.

I do edit, but I also like to keep these kind of things in.

Oh, good. Yeah, brilliant. Yes. Well, technical difficulties.

So I am Sarah Ferris and I have a podcast production company now that's called sarahferrismedia.com you can go to the website. It all kind of came about accidentally because I wasn't a podcaster. I'm not a journalist. I don't have that background at all.

And what kind of came out of that was we ended up hitting record as it unfolded and sat on that content that we'd recorded for about a year, and then to and fro about what we can do with it, because it was like living in a Netflix drama at the time when we knew it was a crazy story. And we also knew that we wanted to stop other people becoming victims of con artists.

And then since then, I have got six podcasts that I have produced and hosted, four of them being true crime, one of them being A wellness podcast called the Bravery Academy, which I produce for my sister, and a sustainability podcast called the Guilty Greenie. So yeah, it's quite a broad spectrum, but definitely the true crime is where I kind of really sit.

Yeah, what I wanted to talk to you about, Sarah, because of your experience, is about monetization. Now I hear people. This is something I hear a lot with people who are just starting a podcast. And I don't roll my eyes or anything.

I just sit quietly and nod and that is that, oh, I'm doing it for fun to begin with. I don't want to monetize straight away. Now I know for a fact that monetizing isn't easy and it takes up a lot of time.

Also, people will say, how do you monetize? So I want to ask you, Sarah, what does monetizing mean and how can you do it?

Well, it's an interesting journey that I've been on, working out how to monetize from the very beginning of Conning the Con through to now.

And I've just recently, I've recently just released one called Watching Two Detectives, which is a really good example of how we're monetizing that because it's a brand new podcast, so presumably didn't have an audience to begin with. The thing that I would say is you need to maximize every strand of possible income and not just rely on one.

So downloads is one having a lot of downloads. You get paid per thousand downloads if you are on a platform like Acast or Megaphone with Spotify.

So you get those dynamic ad insertions that you will hear in any podcast, pre roll, mid roll, post roll. And those are pennies to the dollar. You need to be getting thousands and thousands and thousands of downloads to be really making.

So really that's about a numbers game.

So that's from like a platform that you get some numbers and you're on that platform and they put some ads in. Do they just put ads in willy nilly?

Yeah, you can. When you set up, you can choose what industries you might want to exclude.

For example, like, I mean, I do a podcast with my co host in the US called Stop the Killing. We talk about mass shootings. She's former FBI. We've actively chosen not to be having Remington gun like adverts pop up in the middle.

You know, just something that isn't a bit too jarring.

But having said that, sometimes a few of them slip through the net like on the, the con ones that I've done clueless and con in the con, I've had people say, yeah, there's a financial advisors ad in the middle of your con story about your crooked financial advisor. So you've got to be sure you check those boxes to be in line with your brand, essentially.

Yeah. Okay, so then other people will talk about. I don't know if you've had experience of this, going out and finding sponsors.

Oh my God, yes, I have had a lot of experience.

I think that, I mean, if you're talking about ways to make money out of a podcast and you don't have huge downloads, this is what you need to focus your time on.

Because you can have a niche podcast that might not have thousands and thousands of downloads, so won't be making you that revenue from the cpm, the dynamic ad insertions, but it might align with a certain brand that wants your voice doing host read ads. And therefore your sponsorships can be far more valuable and they pay a lot more because they, they want to align with the brand.

And particularly for, for Stop the Killing, which is an American based audience.

I mean it's global, but we have a very strong American based audience and we're talking about things like school safety, building safety and things like that.

We have had sponsors in the past that are like PA systems, you know, that kind of thing that aligns particularly well when you've got the former head of the FBI's Active Shooter Program endorsing it. So that is the way that I focus now is sponsorships is where you want to spend your time and they're really hard to get.

And if you're doing it by yourself like I am, sometimes that's good to try and outsource those things. So that's why I joined another Evergreen network to try and plug in that monetization side for me.

And I'm working with a company in New Zealand at the moment that's dealing with Australia and New Zealand sponsorship options as well. So if you can plug that in and concentrate on the content, then that's a win. But it is a slog and it is peaks and troughs.

So you might have, you know, one month where you've had a really great sponsorship and then the next month you've got nothing and you're just relying on Patreon or Apple subscriptions and dai, the dynamic ad insertions. So yeah, I know what you're gonna ask. Segue.

Yeah, you did that really well, but now I'm gonna break it. So you said CPM , what does CPM mean?

Oh gosh, now you're really testing me. It's basically the cost per mille, I think it is. Did I get that right? Yeah. So it's the cost per... You get paid per thousand downloads.

Yeah.

Adds to the total.

And I guess different companies, when you're approaching them for sponsorship, are going to look at different things.

But like you say, I know the most important thing is that you're approaching the kind of company that suits your show and in some cases they might not be too worried about the downloads, but generally it's certainly what you hear banded around everywhere. If you're keeping an eye on your podcast, news and social media and such like, it's all about the cpm.

So, yeah, you mentioned Patreon and Apple subscriptions. So what's that side of things, please, Sarah?

Yeah, well, I've kind of dabbled in, you know, so the subscription model is that people who listen to your podcast can get access by signing up to something like Patreon or Buy Me a Coffee is another option. They sign up and they get access to, you know, different benefit levels by paying a monthly subscription or a yearly subscription.

Things that are pretty standard in the Patreon community would be ad free episodes, bonus content and early access to the episodes. Perhaps a week early.

Or in the case of Watching Two Detectives, for example, we drop the entire season behind the paywall so people don't have to wait week by week because it's, you know, one of those binge kind of things. So.

Yeah, and I found that Patreon is better in my opinion than Buy Me a Coffee when you're building a community, Buy Me a Coffee is very much a drop in. Thanks very much. Listen to the content, jog on. It's a one off kind of thing. Haven't had that, that much success with that.

But it's probably also that I've put that on podcasts that are just select seasons, they're not ongoing shows.

But Patreon, you know, you can build that community, you can communicate with your community that's there and you can also release like videos on it as well.

So for Patrons, they also get video versions as well as the audio versions on Stop the Killing, for example, which is different from Apple subscriptions, which, well, luckily I have got such a fantastic group of podcast friends in the world that I happened to be speaking to one a couple of years ago, a guy from New Zealand and he was like, oh yeah, it's been great having Apple subscriptions. I was like, well, I don't even. I haven't done that. This would be a good year ago, at least now maybe two. And I was like, what is this?

So I, I didn't realize that you could also do a sort of Patreon version. I mean, now it's far more well known, but at the time it was a bit kind of under the radar for me.

And it's the same kind of thing as Patreon, except it's so much simpler for people to subscribe because it's.

If you're listening on podcasts on their Apple podcast app, it's a double click and then they become subscribers and again, paying monthly or they can choose to pay annually. The only difference is that you don't really get access to that community to talk to them. So there's that kind of wall there.

But obviously you can, you know, add bonus content that they can only see which will be on their feed. And you can see if you go into any of like for example, Stop the Killing, you'll see subscriber only will be above some certain episodes.

The other thing you can't do on that is add video content.

But you are doing a bit of extra work for that because you're producing extra content that those people that pay get.

Yeah, in different ways. So for example, right now we are off season of Stop the Killing, but I still give Patreon episodes every week that are just little bite sized chunks.

So it's not as much effort to produce, but they're still getting the value for money and they're getting that behind the scenes kind of content, which is what they want to engage with. It's a little bit like you give them more. What is my American co host would say inside baseball. So they kind of get behind the walls there.

And the same with Watching Two Detectives.

The bonus content that I give for that after a season has dropped is we'll do a behind the mics conversation between myself, who produces it and the two detective hosts. And that is a lot more relaxed in terms of it's not structured in the same way as the very produced narrated podcast.

Yeah. So yeah, I have to say at this point that Sarah's podcasts are beautifully produced. I was so impressed with Conning the Con.

I told you at the time when we first met, it was your first foray into this and it was so beautifully produced and it's a very good story. But everything else that goes around it that you've built up around it, I can see it's a lot of work. So then the last one I hear about is affiliates.

And is that something you do as.

Well I have in the past. But I found that affiliates is something that's dropped off my radar, for one. Well, a couple of reasons, really.

So I was doing one with a company that you would get a kickback for people using the code. So the code is really specific, but like changing 200 plus show notes to change affiliate codes in and out was just. No, that was no.

There's no time for that in my life anymore. And to get maybe a couple of, you know, kickbacks and that kind of thing and then, you know, things with those is.

I remember I was like, wow, this affiliate code's really working well, it's brilliant. But actually it had been leaked onto one of those voucher sites, which was quite interesting.

I mean, it worked for me because I was just like, oh, my God, everybody's buying it. But I'm sure if you were like, this is the affiliate links I'm going to do from day zero.

It's going to be in all my show notes done do that from the beginning. But for me, just step too far at the minute. Yeah.

I mean, as a note to the listener who may not know, when you have an affiliate link, it's directed to you so that when somebody uses your link, the company that they're linking to knows that it's you, and you do get a little bit of money back. You have to actually say when you're talking about this affiliate that you will get that some money back.

I feel like in podcasting, the relationship between advertisers and podcast is, is quite inequitable for the space that they claim as real estate inside your podcast. What are you getting back for it?

Like, they're getting that brand recognition every time somebody's listening to it. But the conversion rate might be quite low on an affiliate link 1. Whereas if you've got a sponsor, they're getting that brand recognition every time.

But you're not being paid reliant on somebody clicking your link, even though you know that you're giving them that brand recognition.

So it's difficult to quantify that, isn't it?

It so is.

Because I'm saying, yeah, I know this company, but I'm not going to buy from them for another 10 months or something, you know, and you have it keep being in your ear, oh, yeah, I must do that. Oh, yeah, I must do that. But that is not then recognized by a sale that the company receives.

No. And I think, you know, there's been brands that have built up their entire businesses through that kind of process. Like, you Think about Better Help.

Yeah.

Hello Fresh, Emma mattresses. All of those ones that are really.

You hear them and you know, I wouldn't go back and hunt for the affiliate link from the person that I'd heard it from necessarily, but I'm still very aware of it. But, yeah, I mean, I think if it. If it works for you and it's your.

Don't take anything off the table until you have kind of honed in on what works for you, I guess is what I would say.

Yeah.

You need every little branch because one month you might not have host read sponsorships and the month you will, but you want to still have that income stream coming in if you can, regardless.

So how much. And I know you've said you're outsourcing some of this, but put you right on the spot here, Sarah.

How much extra time on top of the time you spend producing a podcast do you think you or the person you outsource to puts into finding ways to monetize it?

I mean, like, honestly, I'm. When I say that I outsourced, they get paid a percentage of anything. They. I don't pay them up front. It's literally always a percentage.

So I don't know how much time they put into it. I would suggest some not so much, but you could do a little more people. But yeah, we'll be having a chat tomorrow.

But the personally, I spend maybe half a day a week concentrating on those outreach emails.

Wow.

And it depends.

I will say that over the last couple of months, so it's been summer in the uk, not that you'd know it now, I'm sitting here in a sweatshirt, but I've taken the choice to take summer not recording, but to be actually content creating. For me, content is king. The more content I can put out there, the more downloads I get, the bigger it grows, that kind of thing.

So I haven't been chasing sponsorships over the last three months, but we've got a new season, for example, coming out of Stop the Killing. I want to have three main sponsors in place before I release that because I'm.

Wow.

You know, you've got to the point where you've like spent all of these four seasons and you're still producing the content. You're still producing the content and you might be making pennies to the dollar if you don't have a sponsor in it.

So I'm kind of like getting to the point where I'm thinking, well, I'm going to make that season. It's 12 episodes. I want three decent sponsors. One mid, one pre, one post roll. You're only signing up for 12 weeks and that's the sponsorship deal.

And that means that I'm not going. Okay, Well, I should probably make another, you know, make the season a bit longer. Keep those downloads going or what have you.

Yeah, which is all very time consuming and you don't get specifically that money back unless you've got decent sponsors. Yeah, but I mean, you know, it's hard yards.

Yeah, completely understand. That's a lot of time and energy. Thank you so much, Sarah, for explaining all of that to me.

Tell us again about your shows and how people can connect with you.

Oh, amazing. So if you go to my website, sarahferrismedia.com you will find links to all my podcasts there.

I also do podcast consultation if people are starting out on the website. There's information about that.

But my podcasts are called Conning the Con, Klooghless, the Long Con, which is spelled K L O O G H L E S S and Stop the Killing, Watching Two Detectives, Guilty, Greenie and the Bravery Academy. And you can find me on Instagram @conmunity. See what I did there with the N. Conmunity podcast is probably the best place. So, yeah, that's me.

Perfect. Thank you so much.

Thanks for having me. Always a joy.

Visit creativityfound.co.uk/podcasting to find out more about my guests and access lots of useful podcast resources.

If you'd like to get in touch, you can send a boost, but if you haven't got to that lesson yet, feel free to reach out to me on my Instagram account @podcasting2.0inpractice.