← The How To Podcast Series - Podcast Co-Hosts, Practical Podcast Tips, and Podcast Community
The How To Podcast Series - Podcast Co-Hosts, Practical Podcast Tips, and Podcast Community
E589 - Podcast Monetization Myths and Options - The Podcaster’s Path, 24 Steps from Beginner to Pro
00:19:23
Loading summary
Transcript1 lines
- [00:00]
A
Okay, we're rolling. Hey, welcome back to the how to Podcast series. It's Dave with you. We are plugging through here on our path from beginner to pro the podcaster's path. Yeah. And I'm glad you're here with me because it's a lonely walk by myself so you and I can do this together. We are getting closer and closer to the finish line of this path and yeah, I hope this is helpful for you if this is your first time here. There's a lot of great content going back as we walk through from beginner steps in creating your podcast all the way to pro level conversations around podcasting. This is meant to be kind of a starting point guide for new people coming to the show. So welcome. Glad to have you here. If somebody sent you here, then they really like you because they thought this would be helpful for you. So go. Good on them. Good on you for pressing play. Glad you're here. I want to talk a little bit about podcast monetization myths and some options for you as a new creator, relatively new creator, new podcaster, as you're trying to navigate the very intricate and sometimes confusing world of making money with your podcast. Now, a caveat. You don't have to make money with your podcast to be a credible podcaster. I have listened to podcasts about podcasting where they've said the exact opposite of that. They've actually said that if you don't make money and if you don't turn your podcast into a business, you're not a credible podcast. Well, they're wrong. The majority of people do not make any money with their show at all. They don't have a product or service, they don't have sponsors, they don't have ads. You notice in this podcast, no ads ever. Why? Because I don't have ads. That's why I've chosen to not. Even though people have offered to pay to be on this show and get their products in front of you to sell, I've turned them down because I don't have ads on my show. My personal choice doesn't reflect on you. You can do whatever you want. Again, remember, it's podcasting whatever you want. But for me, I've chosen to go ad free for everything that I create and my audience has stepped up to help with some of the costs of the show. Not every day, not all the time. I would love more. It would be wonderful. We'd all want a little bit more, right? But my audience has been super generous and very helpful and very encouraging and that's what I'm hoping for you and that's what we're going to talk about on the episode. So glad you're here. So don't worry, I'm not coming for your wallet. I don't have something to sell you right now. There's not an ad for my course, my certification to be a certified podcaster, none of that stuff. I'm not coming for your money. I'm just here to help. So let's talk about podcast monetization and debunk some of the myths and give you some options as well. As a podcaster, most new podcasters dream of sponsors calling you up out of the blue and saying, oh my gosh, I love your show. Here's some money. And you know, you create a couple podcast episodes and you're like, well, can I make money now? There are ways. There are ways to make money with a show. Whenever anybody asks me about making money with their podcast, one of the first things I ask them is how much money are you looking to make with your show? Like enough money to buy a coffee at the coffee shop? Or are you looking to pay your mortgage, put your kids through university, pay off your three cars, get a boat and a rental property? Okay, those are two different ends of the scale. So yes, you can make coffee money relatively, relatively soon as a podcaster. You don't have to have hundreds of episodes. But when you're talking about making life changing money, we just to understand for a second that we're not talking about the majority of people in podcast make life changing money solely from their listeners. No, just so you know, that is not the majority. It might feel like that when you go to a conference or you listen to podcasts about podcasting, or you listen to anybody that talks about making money with their show. Seems like everybody's making like making bank through their podcast and it's not true at all. And I question even some of the people who are super vocal about how much money they make, because I wouldn't be telling everybody, like, what's the point of that? So be a little cautious when you hear people throwing out numbers because people tend to lie. You know, it's, it's a thing people do. They, you're not going to get a sponsor right away that's going to make you life changing money because you don't have an audience yet. One thing we have to understand is podcast podcast money is divvied up against the shows with the biggest audiences. Why? Because the people that buy ads on podcasts aren't into spending a thousand dollars. They spend a hundred thousand dollars, $200,000, $500,000. They buy an ad on the super bowl and for 30, 60, 90 seconds, they'll pay thousands and thousands, thousands of dollars. Why? Because the audience is there. These same people aren't going to pay you hundreds of thousands of dollars to talk to 20 people on your show. That's not gonna happen. That's not how it works. They're about scale, the economy of scale and reaching as many people as possible. That's why people buy, put their faces on a parking bench or a bus bench or a bus shelter or the, the back end of a bus. The more people who see that, the better. And it's very hard to track to know that that bus on that day turned into somebody calling the office and hiring you. Pretty hard to measure. So they feel like if they can just show that face to as many people as possible, somebody might say yes. That's how radio works. We have an audience of 3 million listeners. Well, 3 million people aren't listening to the radio at the same time. I can tell you that it's not happening. So it's kind of inflated, it's kind of a guesstimate. And sponsors are looking to get in front of the biggest audience possible. So if you got 10 downloads in five episodes, sponsors aren't going to be calling for you, most likely. And what we found through research and talking to other podcasters and listening to podcasts about podcasting generally in general, broad terms, three years of creating content before you're going to see anything significant coming through financially. Now there's anomalies. There's people who do things and they're successful right out of the gate. Those are usually famous people and they already have fame and fortune. They have a name and they have followers before they even hit record for the first time, they already have a built in community. So they're not going after sponsors, sponsors are going after them. And that's the difference. When you first start your show, nobody knows who you are, no sponsors have ever heard of you, and they're not really willing to take a chance on you. So monetization for a new podcast is hard. But if you're looking at making a smaller amount of money, then yes, there is. There are tools for you that you can leverage. And we'll talk about that a little bit here. It's not an exhaustive list, but it's a start. When we talk about making money with our show, what actually seems to work when we use quiet Offers tied to coaching and simple digital products that can be served to your loyal audience. These work sponsorship myths set us up for frustration, I find. And real podcast income tends to build from alignment not with the size of your audience. It's not how many people are listening, it's about how many active people are listening. So the truth about podcasts revenue paths here. I got a few things to bring up. Podcasting offers four main roads to earn money in general terms, not specifically. There's always. There's always things to tweak here. But here's some general concepts for you if you're thinking about making money with your show. They're sponsors. Brands pay for reads. They want you to read their ad and. But you need about 5 to 10,000 downloads per episode. Not all combined. Some people will give you that number. No, no. Per episode. 5 to 10,000 downloads per episode. And they want to have an audience that's super focused on what that vendor sells, what they're promoting. So start here after you've proven trust with your audience, and that's when your sponsors are going to show up and that's when those opportunities will present themselves in general terms. Also, we can use products as a way to earn money with our podcast. Sell your own expertise directly. Your ebook, your templates, your gear guides, your voice becomes the sales pitch for your own product and services. You're. You're a coach. Great. Sell your products. If you are a real estate agent, you've got services, right? We'll talk a little bit more of that in a second. But your products are the things that you create that are unique to you, and then sell those. That seems to be a frequent way to build income through a podcast. It's not directly related to somebody pressing play to listen to your show, and that's what generates the income. It's more about what you can sell to your audience, your products, and the other part, your services. Where we leverage our episodes as proof. Coaching calls that turn into episodes, editing or consulting podcasts for other people like I do. This flow flows naturally from just having a show and being part of the podcasting community. We do things to help solve people's problems and we have the services to help you. So there you go. A real estate agent would also fall under services. Hire me. I'll help you buy or sell your house. You're making money because of your podcast, not through your podcast directly. There's also membership opportunities and communities where a paid subscriber gets their own dedicated bonus content that nobody else gets, or special access to groups that are behind a paywall, meaning if you don't pay, you don't get in. You can charge 5, 20 bucks, 5 to $20 a month, for example, for bonus content, Q&A's special access. You can also leverage online support channels like Buy Me a Coffee Patreon, places where people can pay, give you money for access or just to support the show. So that's another alternative. That's what I use is Buy Me a Coffee. I tried Patreon, but it didn't work for me. And Buy Me a Coffee actually has a Patreon like model where people can donate to your store, from. From your store to you on a regular monthly payment plan. So that's an option. Some of the hosting sites have options as well where they'll sell ads for you and put ads into your show. You can kind of direct them on what types of ads you do want and don't want, but they're in there to try to get as many ads into podcasts as possible. So you're going to have ads if you go that route. If you're okay with that, great. If you don't want it like me, then don't do it. So one thing we're going to talk about is the audience size and the alignment and trust that we have as podcasters with our community. Downloads tend to dazzle everybody, but 500 aligned listeners beat 50,000 casual, unconnected, distracted, disengaged listeners. Sponsors, they chase numbers. Real money comes from trust. If your dad focused show builds relationships with health authority, those 500 dads. Buy your member mindset course or buy your book or offer that to a group of a million faceless people and you might not get any response. Focus episodes on pain points and solve them weekly. Mention your offer once or twice or here and there. These compound over time as your podcast audience grows. So focus on building an audience that is reactive. They actually do the thing. When I sit down with a new podcaster and they want to go in a monetization route right from the beginning, what I do is I get them to train their audience to accept ad breaks in the content. We don't have ads at the beginning because we're brand new. So we build in breaks where we take a break from the content, step away and promote something like your book or a product or a service that you love. Maybe you have an affiliate link, which means I click your link specific for you and I get a discount or whatever, but you get credit for bringing me to that platform. So I have an affiliate link. For example, for Pod Match, I have an affiliate link. For Captivate fm, I have an affiliate link for Buzzsprout. These are all links that if you click it, I will make a small amount of money depending on their terms and services. Make sure you read up on that. And that's one way to make your you can make those turn those into ads. Don't specifically say this podcast was sponsored by, because that's not really true. You're just using a link. So just be careful about the terminology you use. But that is a way to put ads into your show. Why are we doing that? We want our audience to be prepared for the future appointment when we actually do get ads, so that we can then swap out those placeholders with actual ads for our past content. But we can also then use that idea that our audience is trained to know that we break for ads. Even if we're not promoting a mattress, we still break for ads. So I build that into the content from the start, if that's where you want to go. So we we're teaching and training our audience to expect ad breaks however we use them while we're still building our audience. Keep that in mind. Our action step so here around making money with your show, I've one thing this let's close off with this again with the paper and the pen, right? List three ways that your podcast supports existing work or a simple offer. For example, Episode Tips becomes a $20 $27 checklist PDF that you put on your website to be able to download or on your Buy Me a Coffee. They have a storefront and you can put it there and people can just pay for it with Buy Me a Coffee and they'll get a download. Great. No ads are needed for this. It's simply here's something valuable, here's the price. If you want it, here's where to get it. Awesome. And share one in your community when you build this so people know about it, your first revenue idea starts today and your voice already sells. So make it easy to buy and create something your audience is anticipating and build up the anticipation of future ads today. If that's your goal to make money with your show, start now, don't wait. Start now and start training your audience to be receptive to future ads. That's how you're going to grow. Don't spring it on them later. Surprise. We're going to have ads. No. Build it from the beginning and you'll have a better result. Need any answers to any questions about making money with your show? I'm happy to explain how I do it and happy to walk with you. If you need any help how to podcast ca, come back. We got more for you on this pathway from beginner to pro podcaster's path. Thanks for being here. If you're looking for more information about podcasting and you're looking for a community around podcasting, come check out howtopodcast ca. It's my website where everything we do around podcasting, the show, our community or meetup resources. There's a lot of great stuff there for you, A whole list of free tools that you can use as a podcaster to save yourself some money. That's based on my website, podcastforfree.com which just leads you back to my regular website. And if you want any more information as well, there's a calendar link on my website where you and I can meet anytime. It's always there. It's always available. Whatever you see available on your end. I'm ready to talk podcasting with anybody. I'd love to help you no matter what your questions are. We can grab a virtual coffee and we can talk through what your big idea is. Maybe some of your struggles in podcasting, maybe some motivational things, maybe some growth things. Happy to help you over at howtopodcast ca come check out the website. Let's connect. Stick around because we have a bunch more episodes here on The Podcaster's Path. 24 episodes here in a row. That's meant to be kind of your starting point for your journey as a podcaster or if you're going to start a new show or you want to refresh your journey and catch up on maybe some of the things you might have missed. That's what this show is about. I'm glad you're here. My name is Dave. Love to help you reach out anytime. HowToPodcast CA take care. Talk soon.