3 ways to make money with your podcast

Last updated on November 12th, 2020

Okay, so you’ve drunk the Kool-Aid, bought the podcast equipment, and have your first few episodes in the can. What’s the next step?

Well, that would be podcast promotion, but, not far off is the shiny city on the hill. Monetization.

Close your eyes. Seriously. Do you have any idea how big the podcast industry is as a measure of dollars flowing through the system? Take a guess.

Well, according to Deloitte, no small name in high-level predictive metrics, the podcast industry is set to top 1.1 billion dollars in 2020. And they made that prediction before a little thing called COVID-19 upended our worlds and had us consuming all the media we could get our hands-on.

So you want your piece of the podcast pie. If people are shelling out hard-earned money for someone else’s creation, then why not yours?

Now some strategies work better than others when trying to monetize a podcast, so we’re going to take a look at the strategies that we feel work the best when you are starting out.

Get Clear on Your Niche and Your Why

Monetizing a podcast isn’t a get rich quick scheme. There’s literally no reason you should think you’re going to come storming out of the gate and be raking in a fulltime income.

No, monetizing your podcast is a long, slow, burn. There are a few reasons why getting paid to talk isn’t the most straightforward way to pay your rent, but chief among them is you need to build an audience.

Which means you’re going to need to remain engaged and enthusiastic. Your initial show premise doesn’t have to be set in stone, it does have to be interesting enough for you to stick with it and to serve as a basis for your personal brand.

We’ll get to why this is the case in a little bit.

So niche down. Get very specific and granular about what you want to talk about. The more specific your niche, the easier it is to be the knowledgable expert in your field. Just like how ranking for long-tail keywords in Google is easier than trying to hit a home run on a popular search term. The smaller your pond, the bigger the fish.

Instead, own your niche and get to work producing great content. Once that’s done, you can move onto how to actually monetize your podcast.

1. Run ads

When asked about the business model for outbound media in America, we answer “ads.” That’s how TV works, that’s how Google works, that’s how the radio is still subsisting. We throw the message out there and hope someone will seek out the sponsor of the show.

The easiest way to get started once you have any kind of following whatsoever is ad networks.  With a few hundred downloads a month, you can start advertising with the podcast ad networks.

Start with Podgrid or Midroll to get your advertising feet wet.

Ad networks pay you anywhere from $20 – $100 per 1,000 downloads your podcast receives. Once you feel like you’re gaining enough traction to warrant it, you can start selling private ads on your show.

They’re harder to get, but they pay better than the ad networks which take up to a 50% commission on the ads they serve.

Another low-effort way to serve ads through your podcast is by choosing the right podcast host. For example, Spreaker, offers their podcasts a monetization program with dynamic ad insertion. They handle the heavy lifting and podcasters agree to split the revenue — 40% to Spreaker, 60% to the podcaster.

2. Ask for donations

The next way to monetize your podcast is simply to ask for money. If you’re creating something of value and are filling a void in the market, then people may want to pay you for it. This is why niching down is so important.

If you want to make your first dollar off monetizing your podcast, there’s a good to fair chance that dollar is going to come by way of donation. But you have to make the ask.

The easiest way to get started with making a few bucks from your podcast is to add a Paypal or Stripe button to your website. If you don’t have a website, Patreon is an excellent end-user clearinghouse.

As soon as you get comfortable asking for money and have validated your idea with an audience who is willing to open up their wallets, you can move onto the next, more impactful method of monetizing your podcast.

Now, the money you do get from asking people to subscribe… set that aside for a minute. You’re going to need it.

3. Build a membership

You’re creating good content. You’re publishing on a regular basis, and you are building an audience. You have become comfortable with the ask. Now it’s time to create a membership.

You may not feel like people are going to be willing to go behind a paywall for your content, but you’d largely be wrong. And, as the numbers game goes, you don’t need to be all things to all people. You need to be your authentic self for your tribe where your message resonates.

Then instead of asking for money passively, you’re actively moving them off the platform de jour and into your orbit. You’re moving them off Apple or Google’s platform and onto yours.

Once they are behind your paywall, you can offer up any number of different revenue streams. You can sell coaching, e-books, and other informational products around your niche.

To get started with a membership site, the most cost-effective route that provides the most control is good old WordPress and a plugin like Memberpress or S2 which does offer a free version that should get you started. Sure, this might cost you a few dollars to get started, but hopefully, you will have set aside money from the Ask phase to cover this content distribution.

Conclusion

To wrap up, you need to promote your podcast to enough people to get a little bit of buzz. Just a few hundred downloads an episode will suffice. Once you have enough traffic, join one of the ad networks that will get you comfortable with the idea of a positive number ending up in your account.

Once you are beginning to cultivate an audience, go ahead and ask them for money. Having a small audience of dedicated fans who will open their wallet for you is much more valuable than any social proof.

After your test balloon is paying some dividends, begin fleshing out your content offerings. In this phase, you’re going to focus on moving your core listenership away from social platforms where they can spend their money elsewhere and into your gravity well where the real money starts coming in.

There you have it. The easiest and most effective roadmap to monetizing a podcast.