Whether you’ve been podcasting for a while, or are just thinking about starting, the idea of being able to monetize your podcast has likely crossed your mind. There a number of reasons why you may or may not want to earn money from your podcast, and a variety of strategies are possible.
Podcasting for the Right Reasons
If you take one thing from this article, it should be that getting into podcasting just for money is the wrong choice. The simple fact is that many podcasters do not “make money” from their podcast in the traditional sense. Most make none at all. If your goal is to start a podcast and start earning money within a few weeks, that’s highly unlikely! Not to mention, measuring or quantifying results is challenging or even impossible.
While there are some cases where people with existing followings start a podcast and have a pretty substantial audience right away, for most it will be an uphill battle. Like anything worth doing, growing an audience for your podcast takes time, dedication, and hard work.
When considering if you can monetize your podcast, one of the first things to think about is what you’d actually do with some extra money. Would you re-invest it into the podcast to purchase new equipment and generate a better product? How about paying for ads or giving away prizes to try and earn new listeners? Keep the money to pay yourself for the hard work? There are many options!
How To Monetize
There are many routes to take when it comes to monetizing your podcast. There’s dynamic ad-insertion, you could sell sponsorships directly, link to affiliates on your site, or use a crowdfunding platform such as Patreon. You may not even directly attempt to monetize your podcast at all, but simply use it as a channel to bring you more followers, revenue, or leads.
Some of the most popular ways to monetize a podcast are:
Dynamic Ad-Insertion
If your podcast has enough listeners, it could be eligible from some providers to dynamically insert whichever ad happens to be available at that moment. You get paid a small amount for each listener who hears it. For these to supply you with any sort of significant income, you’d need to have a substantial audience, and they can tarnish your podcast while providing little value.
Paid Sponsorships
Whether you use an agency or solicit a sponsor on your own, this is a fairly straight-forward option. You make a deal with a specific sponsor who pays you to promote their business based on defined terms. Rates will usually be better than the dynamic ad-insertion since you are working directly with a sponsor and likely catering to their niche.
Affiliate Programs
Affiliate programs can be great, especially for podcasters just getting into running ads. It gets the audience used to hearing sponsorship material, but a large audience isn’t required. In fact, often times, there’s no minimum audience requirement. With affiliate programs, you typically promote a unique referral code to a business and share a portion of the sales. If there are no sales, you get nothing, but the business also has virtually no investment to make, and therefore no risk.
Crowdfunding
Whether it’s Patreon, paid subscription podcasts, or something else, there are a plethora of options out there to crowdfund your podcast. These generally make more sense for creative-type podcasts as opposed to business or professional podcasts. If you have an engaged and passionate audience, no matter the size, this can be a good model.
Non-Monetization Monetization
For lack of a better term, this is something we see quite often. Essentially, just having the podcast and trying to share content and build an audience leads to people who may then want to learn more or avail of your services. Self-promotion may in fact be the very best way to monetize your podcast if you have a business! You can run a quick commercial in your podcast, or even just do a live read talking about your services. So, you’re not directly getting paid by a sponsor, but leveraging your podcast to promote your own profitable business.
Pros and Cons of Monetizing Your Podcast
We know that podcasting costs money, so some help with those bills certainly sounds great.
On the other hand, bringing money into the mix may complicate things. Have you thought about taxes? Will advertising detract from your message? Maybe you’re just podcasting as a hobby – nobody says that you must earn money!
There’s lots to consider, and there’s really no single correct answer. It all depends on your situation, your audience, and your goals.
We hope that this has given you some food for thought when it comes to deciding whether or not to monetize your podcast.
Monetizing your podcast starts with ensuring that your content sounds great and professional. We can help. Send us a message or schedule a free call today!