Ten Ways To Make Money With Podcasts Besides Ads

Hey there!

In a recent video, I talked about the disparity of ad income between radio and podcasting.

I then got a question that asked if ads are the only way to make money with podcasts.

Hardly. Here are ten ways you can monetize your podcasts.

Links to my podcast training classes:
Mastering Audio Podcasting (Parts 1 and 2): https://www.vo2gogo.com/podcasting

(Click/tap ↑↑↑↑↑↑ that red YouTube button to subscribe to my channel. You’ll get notified when I release new videos.)

Hope this helps!

David

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hey there it’s David H Lawrence the 17th
one of the videos I recently did was on
the disparity between the amount of
money that radio makes on advertising
and the amount of money the podcasting
makes on advertising considering how
much share of our listening
each has and I got a question right
after that saying hey I want a podcast
but is advertising the only way that you
can make money on podcasting I mean I
keep hearing about all this stuff and
it’s like I don’t know who would want to
advertise on my show it’s a great
question and the answer is new hardly
there are lots and lots of ways to make
money with podcasts and what I thought
I’d do is in the spirit of giving away
my best stuff this is taken from part 2
of my mastering audio podcasting classes
which are part of the vo2 gogo
curriculum and it’s on monetizing so
let’s talk about this first of all
advertising is a great way to make money
if you have a listener base that will
attract an advertiser but if you don’t
it’s kind of hard to scare up
advertisers in general who want to
advertise on your show so there’s a
couple of different ways to make money
with podcasts in terms of types one is
direct monetization where somebody pays
you a fee for doing something involving
the podcast and then the other is
indirect monetization where the podcast
serves a purpose that may not be direct
remuneration but may lead to other ways
of making money so let’s talk about
direct monetization first advertising
absolutely and this is kind of like
anybody who wants to advertise on your
podcast can but again as I said you need
to have the numbers and if you don’t
have the numbers and you know somebody
to sell the advertising if not you it’s
hard to get ads then there’s sponsorship
no sponsorship is different from ads in
that sponsorship is usually a direct
response kind of thing where
you know this podcast is brought to you
by so-and-so and you know they’re not
looking for a an ROI that deals with the
number of sales they’re looking to give
you the gift of being able to do your
podcast that’s one way of doing it and
then there’s brand sponsorship which
basically is making the brand of aware
to earn the listeners or viewers of your
podcast again without actually selling a
product more institutional thing so
there’s a slight difference between
advertising and sponsorship but again
they’re both based on the number of
listeners that you have and so they’re
hard to attract when you’re first
getting started now
another way to do it is crowdfunding you
can go on Kickstarter you can go on
GoFundMe you can go on IndieGoGo you can
say hey we’re gonna be doing this new
podcast we’re gonna do the first five
episodes beginning you know this is this
this winter and we’d love to have you as
one of our initial funders to help us
get started and there there’s no
expectation that you have a certain
audience level they are basically giving
you money to get you started
usually because they trust you or
because they like you or because they
are attracted to the concept the product
or the the topic or the service that
you’re gonna be talking about so that’s
another one crowdfunding donations now
via patreon or Kickstarter you can take
donations have a tip jar say look if you
like what you’re hearing please you know
pay for a cup of coffee for us and it’s
it’s kind of a hat in hand hey I’m a
nice guy I’m a nice woman take care of
me you know that kind of thing
but it can be very lucrative if you have
a huge base once you get to the point
where a tip jar or you know donations
excuse me are actually making some
serious money you should look at whether
or not you can now attract advertisers
because that means a lot of people are
watching you you can sell swag another
way to make money is to sell swag
t-shirts and and buttons and stickers
and you know who knows what with the
logo of your podcast and then finally
indirect monetization membership or
subscription models
and it’s not about gaining access to the
actual podcast itself we did that with
with secrets of screen acting we only
allowed people who had paid us $10 a
month to get these really great tips on
acting and now we sell Patrick and I
sell the the whole archive of 300
episodes over it’s secrets of screen
acting calm which we’ll get to an
indirect but we had a subscription model
you subscribe for 10 bucks a month we do
20 episodes 25 minute episodes a month
and you and only you as a subscriber
would get that there’s other ways of
taking care of membership and
subscriptions if you join a membership
or if you join as a subscriber you get
early access to the podcasts maybe they
come out a few days earlier and then the
general public gets them that don’t pay
to be in the membership or maybe you do
exclusive episodes where you only do an
episode for members or ad-free maybe you
have ads in the episode but you if
somebody signs up to be a member or a
subscriber then they get the ad they get
to the podcast without the ads inside so
there’s a number of different ways to
skin that cat in terms of membership and
subscribers but you can see already and
we haven’t even gotten into the indirect
stuff you can see already that there’s a
lot of different ways to make money with
podcasts so let’s talk about indirect
maybe you’re using a podcast to attract
a tribe and so you’re building your list
so in your podcast you say hey sign up
for my newsletter you can do so with a
link below you’re building a list that
is akin to what you’re talking about so
for example I could build a list of
interested voiceover or on-camera
performers or marketers or efficiency
fanatics
you know people that want to be
productive you know I could build that
leads or paid clients often people do
podcast because they want to show
Authority they want to build Authority
and when they do that when they show
people that they know what they’re
talking about they can attract leads for
the work that they do for the practice
that they have they can attract paying
clients by doing a free podcast
repurposing the content so again like
what we did with secrets of screen
acting we didn’t know we were gonna
repurpose the content but we ended up
doing it because it was a direct shot we
took all of these episodes that we had
done live that we’d done over the course
of the months that we had the podcast up
and running and we put them all together
in a in a package that we now sell for
just shy of 300 bucks it’s about a
dollar an episode for actors who really
want to take their work to the next
level when it comes to on-camera working
and you can do the same thing maybe
you’re repurposing a content because
you’re doing parts of lessons of a
course maybe you do those free and you
kind of work things out as you do the
free podcast then you take the podcast
down and you sell those as individual
lessons so repurposing content can be a
great way of making money has nothing to
do with advertising a community building
and foundation support maybe you’re
working for a community service
organization or a foundation that has a
mission and your podcast is akin to that
mission so maybe you’re talking about I
don’t know drinkable water around the
world and how hard it is for some
nations to get that how hard it is for
some cities in the United States to find
drinkable water and maybe charity water
will be a sponsor for you I don’t know
but it’s not necessarily sponsorship in
terms of selling something but it’s more
of a foundation or a community support
more of a public service kind of thing
and then finally and this is number 10
we’ve done we’ve gone through nine
number ten is live events so maybe
you’re gonna do a concert you’re a
musician or you’re a part of a band or
you’re a speaker or you are someone who
runs an organization that does live
meetings or webinars or seminars and
you’re using the podcast to create
demand for going to this live event
whether it’s online or in-person and you
can use a webinar to again build
Authority and to build authenticity and
to build a tribe who then you say hey
I’m gonna do this live event you want to
join me here’s how you get tickets to
this live event so there’s lots of
different ways to monetize podcasts and
by the way there’s an 11th
option and that is just doing it for the
experience for the fun it’s a different
currency the currency is experience and
exposure you can do that as well but
when we’re talking about monetizing you
know you’re not monetizing with money
per se which is kind of a an oddity
you’re monetizing with people finding
out about you people finding out what
you’re like people becoming familiar
with your art or with your work or with
your your approach right so there’s lots
of different ways to take a podcast and
make it work for you other than just
doing great content I hope that’s helped
if you’ve thought about doing a podcast
or all of these things things that
you’ve already thought about or any of
these new to you if you’re doing a
podcast how are you actually monetizing
your podcast tell me what you’re doing
tell me how things are going I’d love to
find out so that’s I don’t have anything
that I’m selling with this podcast I’m
not gonna ask you to join my list unless
you want to join my list to be notified
when these when these episodes are
available this you know this isn’t
really a podcast but it could be it
could be a video podcast it’s just a
series it’s just a challenge that I’m
doing one a day to get really good at
doing these to get agile at doing this
kind of work and by the way in just a
few episodes I’m gonna do an episode
where I basically show you the path the
workflow that I do to put these together
from the start to the finish I’m gonna
show you everything that I do to get it
ready for you to see everyday alright so
if you want to subscribe to my youtube
channel go ahead and click on my face
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latest episode click on that frame
YouTube will play it for you I’m David H
Lawrence the 17th I thank you so much
for watching and I’ll talk to you
tomorrow.

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