Now, this may not apply to everyone, but it’s always great to know the options. Are you ready to monetize your podcast show? Here are 14 ways to help you get started.
My advice to you is to really spend the time to assess if this is going to ADD value to your audience or not. For me, I rather focus on making sure that anything which gets added to the show must generate value, even if it means saying no to a profitable offer.
I remember when I was first approached to do some sponsorship ads for my show. I was asked to put in a 30s segment in the middle of talking about a specific service that was very much focused on a small section of my audiences’ need.
A part of me felt like it wouldn’t suit and after reviewing the offer I decided it wasn’t a good fit and rejected the offer. I share this experience to let you know that I’m not going to pretend that I’ve done all of these methods, in fact, I never really thought about monetizing my show in the first place!
However, these are just some of the many ways you could go about making some real $$$ with podcasting. But my advice to you is to first think if it would add value to your listeners.
1. Sell Sponsorship Ads
This is one of the most popular options for many podcasters. When your show starts hitting a good amount of downloads per podcast episode (as defined by John Lee Dumas, host of Entrepreneur On Fire, the sweet spot for attracting sponsors is around 3,000 downloads per episode), you can start to think about selling ad space to sponsors.
2. Find Coaching Client
If you have your own coaching service, your podcast show is a great way to attract clients (both as guests & even from your listeners). I’ve personally been able to attract clients through the show, including one from Estonia! Also, I’ve heard from the host of the Breaking Free podcast that even though her podcast show has been around for less than a year, she gets between 4 and 15 emails every week from people who are interested in hiring her. From that roughly 70% of those people go on to become clients.
3. Sell Your Services
What if you’re not in the coaching scene you say?
Then what about selling your service? Like what Denise Griffitt’s does with her show, Your Partner In Success. Although her focus isn’t to directly monetize her listenership, often many people reach out to her and inquire about hiring her for her web development and/or virtual assistant services.
4. Sell Your Own Physical Products
What’s to stop you from selling your own physical product?
This would be especially great for those in the health/nutrition niches to promote your own physical products. Combine it with a Free + Shipping landing page and you’ve just opened up a whole new channel to generating more leads online!
5. Promote A Membership Site
Nowadays, it’s soooo easy to put together an online course through a membership site like Udemy, Teachable and Kajabi. So if your service can be taught to someone in a DIY model then this is most definitely an avenue you must jump into!
6. Sell Mastermind Slots
Whatever the topic or theme of your podcast show, it likely means your listenership would want to hear more about said topic. Having a mastermind of like-minded individuals who want to learn even more about said topic and/or to get individual support on their journey.
7. Create Information Products To Sell
Survey your audience and find out what they’d like to learn more about, then create products to serve them. Just like what Nathan Chan, founder of Foundr Magazine, did to create their recent premium program ‘Start & Scale’. All generated from listening into his audience to figure out what they’d be interested in learning more (and willing to pay for).
8. Build A Mailing List
This would be the most basic CTA (Call-To-Action) everyone should have for their podcast show. It’s a must-have for any host to offer an irresistible free gift to entice your podcast audience into dropping their name & email. Even if you don’t have something to sell them right now, creating an engaged list continues to be a proven and powerful way to monetize. There are multiple ways you could monetize your list be it selling your own products/service or affiliate products. At worse, you can even just tell your subscribers about new episodes, so you can build your numbers up for sponsorships.
9. Sell An Iphone App
I’d only advise this if you already have an app available, otherwise the development costs just wouldn’t be worth most people’s time and money. However, if you do have an app handily sitting on the app store, then why not promote it? Just like I heard Elsie Escobar do on this interview, where she shares the details about how her podcast episodes offers free yoga classes. Which then lead her audience to her app for $3.99 on the app store.
10. Sell Products As An Affiliate
Work with others as an affiliate partner and use your podcast show to recommend other people’s services and products. You earn commission as an affiliate partner and this way, you are also able to offer a wider range of products and services to your audience.
11. Interview Affiliates And Promote Their Products
Another great way to leverage off being an affiliate is you could interview people on to your podcast and then have them offer special discounts (with your pre-arranged affiliate code) to your audience at the end of the interview.
12. Ask For Donations
As the saying goes, you never get if you never ask… Same goes with donations for podcasting. You could set up PayPal donation links, or better yet use patreon (which is a service people can choose to donate to your show on a monthly basis with different rewards for each level of donation)
13. Lead Into Your Own Event
If you’re looking to build authority with a training or speaking career, then the podcast is the perfect place for you to identify your ideal target market. Then, you should produce the content to attract to them to listen into the show and eventually funnel them into your (online or offline) events!
14. Sell Your Books
There are more and more authors entering Amazon Kindle by the hour! Making it even harder to stand out from the online crowd… Yet, if you build your relationship with your listenership (or soon to be your book readers) via podcasting, you’ll create an excellent way to stand out from everyone else. Podcasting is one of the best ways to cultivate a relationship and build a loyal following of people who want to buy your books. It’s even a place to start promoting the idea of your book before you’ve even written a single word!
So which strategy do you think would suit your show?
What are you going to start monetizing with first?
I’d love to hear from you 🙂
For more tips and guidance on how to systemise your business and create freedom for yourself, come visit me at richardphu.com/blog!
