A long commute home from work is best dealt with by listening to a podcast. With over 546 million listeners worldwide, podcasts are where people can share their opinions, create thought-provoking conversations, and influence the masses. All of these reasons are probably why you’ve started your podcast. If you’re a budding podcast entrepreneur, you probably have a good number of steady listeners. Still, if you’re wondering if you can sustain your business, the question is when and how you can monetize.
Monetization is a goal for many podcasters and creators alike. With another source of income, you can become more financially stable, achieve specific financial goals, and ultimately grow your podcast to inspire more people. In the creator world, earning money from your content is often about how many followers, listeners, or subscribers you have. The larger the audience, the more attractive you seem to brands. Yet, this isn’t the only way to make money.
In this article, you’ll learn how to turn your podcast into a cash-generating machine. You’ll also get expert advice from Danielle Desir Corbett, Podcast Marketing Coach, Host of The Thought Card Podcast, and co-host of Road Trip Ready Podcast.
The Often Overlooked Advantages of Being a Small Podcaster
If you have under 10,000 listeners, consider yourself a small podcast. Surprisingly, according to the Muck Tack State of Podcasting report, about half of the published podcasts out there also have an audience of less than 10k. Also, if you’ve gotten a few hundred downloads in the first week of publication, you’re doing fine because only the top 5% of shows reach more than 1,000 downloads in the first week.
Podcasting, unlike high school, isn’t a popularity contest. It’s about creating a community of engaged listeners. When you have this community, it can be just as powerful as having a large audience. According to Corbett, there is mutual support between small podcasters and their listeners. “Listeners generally want to see you win, so they’ll support you where they can, whether clicking on your affiliate links, nominating you for an award, sharing an episode with a friend, or signing up for your service.”
It’s like a small-town start. With a small podcast, you have more creative freedom, can experiment by implementing listener feedback, and ultimately, allow your creativity to flow.
Now that you see your podcast’s potential and power, let’s explore how to leverage it to generate income.
Pitch Your Podcast Skills
What you may lack in audience size, you can make up for in your skill set. Producing a podcast is a skill that not everyone possesses. Therefore, whatever skills you’ve used to put together your podcast, whether it’s audio editing, SEO description writing, interviewing guests, social media marketing, or any other aspects of production, you can pitch those skills to brands and businesses. Look for businesses that may have a podcast but aren’t consistently producing it. Seek companies that have a podcast but lack social media coverage.
Ultimately, search for brands that need help putting together their podcast. Leverage your podcast as an example of your work and offer your services. Like consulting work, you would create the podcast content that other businesses need.
Explore Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is when an affiliate( potentially you) earns a commission for marketing another person’s or company’s products. Affiliate podcast marketing can look like placing a specific link to an online store in your podcast notes or description. When a listener clicks on that link and purchases a product, you get a commission.
For Corbett, affiliate marketing was her go-to monetization source when she first started in 2018. “I tried reaching out to brands with no luck, so I stopped pitching and gave up on brand deals, she confesses. “Instead, I leaned heavily into affiliate marketing, which worked well for me. I generated enough income within a few months to pay for editing services.”
Selling Your Own Products and Services
A podcast is a great platform for selling digital products such as ebooks, workbooks, digital artwork, etc. If you offer coaching or consulting services, you can personally advertise and share these services with your audiences.
Paid Subscriptions
Another way to make money is through subscriptions. Using platforms such as Patreon and Gumroad you can offer subscribers extra episodes, behind-the-scenes footage, special guest interviews, etc.
Sponsorships
Podcast sponsorship is when a brand pays you to advertise your podcast. This could look like:
- Including pre-recorded ads in episodes. A brand will create an ad that you’ll play at the beginning, middle, or end of the podcast.
- A host-read sponsorship is a commercial message read by the host on behalf of a brand during a podcast episode.
- Dynamic ad insertions are ad recordings inserted, moved around, and deleted over time.
The catch-22 is that brand sponsorships are usually more appealing to creators with larger audiences. But don’t throw in the towel just yet. It all depends on the types of sponsorships you seek. Start by surveying your audience to see which types of brands or products they are interested in. From that data, you can research if those brands would work with creators of your audience size.
When pitching or reaching out to brands, make sure to highlight how your audience already knows about and is interested in their brand. Also, highlight your audience’s engagement. A small, engaged audience is better than a large, passive audience. It’s all about showcasing your audience’s potential. In 2021, Corbett monetized her show primarily through podcast sponsorships and brand deals. “I invested in coaching, strengthened my pitching skills, and created a repeatable podcast sponsorship workflow that now generates 30-40% of my income.”
Tailoring your content for profit
Understand the long-term goal of your podcast. Is your podcast something you want to do full-time and be your primary source of income? Or is your podcast more of a side project that can help you earn some extra cash or promote your business? Decide a clear purpose and outcome for your podcast to help you determine your next steps or monetization.
Focus on your audience. Your audience is the glue that holds your podcast together. As you start to gain listeners, stay open to what they want to hear. If you notice an episode is outperforming others, create more episodes around that theme. Use polls to see which topics and themes listeners want to hear. Create opportunities for listeners to engage with our contact through ratings and reviews, shares, downloads, or signing up for your email list.
Stay consistent. You can’t gain trust and grow your audience if you’re not consistently showing up for them. Consistency doesn’t have to mean recording a podcast every day. It’s about creating a production schedule and sticking to it. This way, your audience can tune into your show.
Regardless of your podcast’s size, don’t underestimate your potential. Experiment with these different ways of monetization and see which works for you.
