Are you planning to start a podcast and want to know how to make money with your podcast?
Do you want to learn how you can increase the earnings from your existing podcast?
There are lots of ways that you can use to make money with a podcast. Some are great for those that are just getting started while others are perfect for those that are established with a large audience.
No matter the group you fall into, you will find one or more method that’s suitable for you in this article.
Without further ado, let’s get started.
1. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing (also referred to as performance marketing) is a form of marketing where you earn a commission for referring people to other products or companies. You will earn money when someone that you refer makes a purchase.
Affiliate marketing works effectively when you promote or services that you have used and are thus familiar with. This makes it easy for you to promote the product.
If you don’t have the audience size that traditional sponsors look for, you can create your ad spot to promote affiliate offers. You can also mention the product or service that you are promoting in your content.
There are lots of affiliate programs and you can find one for your specific niche. Examples include Amazon and ShareASale.
To promote affiliate products, you need a plugin like Thirsty Affiliate. It allows you to easily create and manage affiliate links that will redirect traffic to your affiliate offers.
Also, you need to create a WordPress blog where people will easily learn more about the products or companies that you’re promoting.
Read Also: Best Affiliate Networks and Platforms
2. Sponsors and Advertising
You can also make money with podcasts through advertising and sponsorships. These are the first things that podcasters usually think of when starting a podcast.
Many podcast ad networks can give you access to advertisers. The networks will help you do all the hard work of finding advertisers, negotiating rates, and getting the script amongst others. You need to have a large audience of at least 5,000 or 10,000 listeners every month to work with these networks.
One of the ad networks is Midroll. Another network is Authentic. Most podcast hosting companies also have their networks.
If you have a smaller or more niche audience, an option that works great is to directly get in touch with companies whose services align with the interests of your audience.
3. Build Networks
Some people may not see relationships as an important element of a successful podcasting career. Whether you are hosting an interview-based podcast or not, you need to focus on building good relationships or networks because they are very powerful in building a successful podcast career.
Networking is one of the main reasons why many authors, coaches, entrepreneurs, and marketers decide to delve into podcasting.
When you are looking for those that you will interview, don’t focus only on their status; you should also think about your business. Although there is nothing wrong with interviewing A-listers, you need to be strategic and interview those that you may collaborate with and do business with.
Read Also: How to Start a Podcast
4. Sell Products and Services
Before you go after sponsors, look at the products and services that your business is selling already. If your product is relevant to the needs of your listeners, look for ways through which you can strategically leverage your podcast to boost sales.
You can even offer an exclusive discount for your audience; this will go a long way in increasing the sales of your product. Don’t forget that the fact that your audience is listening to you shows that you are powerful enough to build authority. It is also an opportunity to portray yourself as an authority in your niche.
You are building your brand and image through your show, so be confident enough to promote products and services or offer discounts, provided they are relevant to your listeners’ interests.
Start considering your show as a strategic avenue of marketing your products and services. Your show is a great avenue to turn your listeners into loyal subscribers, and then turn the subscribers into paying customers.
5. Create Courses
If you love teaching others the nitty-gritty of a subject matter, then this is an opportunity for you to make money from such passion.
Here, you will make things simple and explain them in the form of a course. The course can be in the form of video, audio, or written content. There are different platforms that you can use to get this done.
Examples of such platforms are Teachable and Thinkific. These platforms will help you create a course in a very simple and attention-grabbing way.
The products that you create on these platforms can be of high value and are capable of bringing in three or four figures every month.
A drawback of this approach is the time it takes to put a course together. This can consume a lot of your time and can take up most of your podcasting time. You may also need to keep updating the content of the course depending on your niche and the subject matter of the course.
Read also: How to Create an Online Course Like a Professional
6. One-On-One Coaching
If you love getting on calls and talking to people through processes or teaching them one on one, then this is a great opportunity that you can use to monetize your podcast. This approach is easier than creating a course because you don’t need to build anything.
If you decide to take this route, you need a booking form that will help you to receive payment and schedule a time. You can use Book Like a Boss for this purpose. It can be used to set up times in your calendar. You can then connect the times to different appointments and easily manage the entire process.
This approach is effective in creating good relationships with high-value clients as time goes on. These relationships can give you access to other money-making opportunities as well.
However, you need to be available to make money with podcasting via one-on-one coaching. This means you will be less flexible and won’t enjoy much freedom and holidays.
Read Also: Best Appointment Scheduling Software You Should Start Using Today
7. Sell eBooks
Don’t forget the time and energy that you have invested into your content. You may have a huge number of blogs, podcast episodes, and maybe YouTube videos that you can compile and share with your audience.
As a kid, you most likely learned in a way that is different from the classmate that sat beside you. This is also applicable to adults. We learn differently from others and some of your audience will prefer eBooks to your podcasts.
By diversifying your content and converting some of your podcasts into an eBook, you will be creating more opportunities to make money.
So, how can your podcasts make you money via eBooks?
You can use services such as The Flipping Book, Venngage, Canva Ebook Maker, and the VISME eBook Maker to easily assemble an eBook within a short period. You can also find a ghostwriter on Fiverr or Upwork to do all the writing and designing for you.
Once you’re through with the eBook, simply go to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, Barnes & Noble Press, or Blurb to self-publish your eBook within a short period.
To monetize your eBook, link it everywhere from your site, create an Instagram call-to-action for it, and use it as a signature in your newsletters. If you focus on promoting your eBook consistently, you will be able to build a recurring source of income.
You can monetize your podcast by selling premium content to your listeners. Unlike memberships, premium content is more in-depth and also longer.
Premium content may be another episode that cannot be found on your podcast feed. For example, you can create two podcast episodes every week; one will be free while the other will be for premium members. You can also turn your podcasts into case studies, webinars, long blog posts, checklists, or product guides.
In some cases, people search for tangible content that is detailed enough to enable them to have a better understanding of what you teach on your podcast.
Let’s consider an example of content that you can turn into a guide. If you see frequently asked questions in your blog’s comment section, you can create a guide that will offer detailed answers to these questions.
Let me give you another idea…
Let’s assume your industry is technical like coding or Facebook advertisement, you can create a detailed tutorial that will show your audience how to do these tasks on their own.
You can easily organize your premium episodes by using a service known as Patreon. You facilitate this setup by using a page that is protected by a password for your premium content so that it can be separated from your free content.
This option helps you to earn from your listener but it may not be much of a project when compared to services or coaching.
9. Memberships
In addition to the previous section, you can also layout your premium content in a membership model. For instance, let’s consider how Netflix uses this approach.
Netflix made about 25 billion dollars as the annual revenue in 2020 from subscriptions.
Just like Netflix, you can offer memberships for different levels of your premium content at various prices. You can include options such as behind-the-scenes footage, a question and answer section, ad-free content, or a community where members can interact with others and learn from them.
You can use slack or a private Facebook group for the community section because many people are used to these platforms.
This method of monetizing podcasts gives you the flexibility to keep evolving the available content. For instance, Perpetual Traffic (Digital Marketer’s podcast) refers to their memberships as The Lab (free membership), and The Lab Elite (paid membership) in their episodes.
Since Digital Marketer changes the content of their paid membership regularly, it stays fresh and also remains relevant to their listeners. And since they refer to tools that their audience needs, they become more curious and are more willing to become a member.
Memberships are a great way to groom and educate the audience you have and create better and stronger relationships with them. The stronger the relationship you have with your audience is, the longer they will stick with you and the more money they will make you.
Read also: Best Membership Site Platforms
FAQs
How many listeners do you need to make money on podcasts?
Many sponsorship firms need you to have between 3000 and 5000 listeners for every episode before they can consider you. But if you don’t want to earn through advertising agencies, you can make a decent income once you have more than 300 listeners, especially if you are targeting a particular niche.
Is it worth it to start a podcast?
Yes, it is. Podcasting is not only a new and fun medium that can explode in the near future, podcasts are also great avenues for producing and reproducing content. If you already have classes (either in audio or video form), you can easily change them to podcast episodes.
How can you attract more listeners to my podcasts?
Here are tips that you can use to increase the number of listeners your podcasts attract:
- Build an email list before you launch your podcast.
- Record about 3 to 5 podcast episodes before launching your podcast.
- Choose a specific date that you intend to launch your podcast.
- Create assets such as clips, images, and shareable quotes.
- Launch your podcast.
- Send a message to your list and ask them to listen and review your podcast, and
- Be consistent in publishing new podcast episodes.
Read Also: 10 Best Podcast Hosting Sites – Which Should You Join?
Conclusion
It is not enough to know how to make money with a podcast, you also need to remember what the driving force of your podcast is; it should be sharing what you are passionate about with your audience. This will make it easy for you to attract a community of loyal fans.
With these in mind, coupled with consistency, you will be able to make money from your podcasts without any hassle.
Thanks for reading.
