You’ve spent the last year putting all your efforts into creating a high-quality podcast.
You edited the whole thing by hand and then uploaded it to a premium audio hosting platform.
You even managed to get a few influential personalities to interview you. Now that the effort is starting to pay off, you’re wondering how to monetise your content.
Even if your podcast isn’t yet making significant revenue, you’ve certainly gained a huge audience and have convinced yourself that this is exactly what you want from your creative output.
You’ve found your niche and are confident that your work will speak for itself.
So how do you get paid for your podcast?
There are several options including ads, affiliate marketing, and sponsored posts, but before you begin pursuing these options, it’s important to understand what your audience wants.
Without a clear picture of your target audience’s interests, you might end up pursuing opportunities that they aren’t even interested in.
Also, be prepared to commit a large amount of your time to this if you want to earn a decent living from it.
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Podcast Sponsorships
This is one of the most straightforward and popular options for getting paid for your podcast.
Essentially, you will agree to take a sponsor’s product or service in exchange for a small fee. You can negotiate either an upfront cost or a commission based on sales.
Your sponsor will provide you with products that they believe will be useful or attractive to your audience.
In most cases, you won’t need to spend much money to make this work, and the product you receive in exchange for your endorsement will most likely be of good quality.
For example, if a company has sponsored a nutrition podcast, they might send you a box of their protein bars.
Or, if a tech company has sponsored a productivity podcast, they might give you a bag full of their gadgets to review.
You can put your feet up on the desk and inspect the goods as your audience enjoys their product pitch.
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Affiliate Marketing
This is one of the more popular options for getting paid for your content when you have a large audience.
Essentially, you will agree to promote a product or service for a commission, typically 10% to 20% of the sale.
You don’t need to have a large audience to get started with affiliate marketing, but it certainly helps.
You can build a following in a niche market through content marketing and become a go-to source for information on your chosen topic.
When a user visits a site with an affiliate link, the advertiser pays the affiliate regardless of whether or not the user actually buys the product.
If you’re new to affiliate marketing, you might want to consider creating an affiliate program and inviting others to join. This way you can continue to monetise your content with minimal effort.
If you decide to use affiliate marketing to make money from your podcast, be prepared to promote products that you have never used before.
The more you promote, the more you will make.
You can use online tools to track products that have been purchased via an affiliate link and use that information to determine how much you should be paid.
For instance, if 100 people have clicked on a product description and 10 have made a purchase, you will make $2 per person.
You can try affiliate marketing with a free account on ClickFunnels to get started.
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Advertising
If you can build a decent audience, you can invest in high-quality ads that will perform well on your chosen platforms.
There are two types of advertising you can do – display and search.
With display ads, you will put a small HTML snippet on your site that will display an advertisement when a visitor arrives. For example, let’s say you’re selling sunglasses and you built a site about fashion.
You can display an ad for a famous sunglass company on your fashion-related blog posts. These ads will appear on other sites and platforms that are relevant to your audience.
You can also use display ads to promote a product or service that is relevant to your niche.
For example, if you’re an entrepreneur who wants to grow your business, you can put up a display ad on your site promoting a book about starting a business.
Or, if your podcast is about productivity, you can use display ads to promote a tool that will help you become more efficient.
One of the most useful things you can do with your display ad is to target the right audience.
For example, if you’re an entrepreneur and you built a site about business, you can display an ad for a business management app on your site.
Or, if you are a fashion blogger and you built a site about style, you can display an ad for a fashion accessory company.
You can use the remarketing function on Adwords to track the demographics of your website visitors and target future ads to their interests.
This will improve the chance of your ad being seen and increase the likelihood of earning a sale.
It’s also worth looking at the conversion rate of your ads, the percentage of people who clicked on an ad and made a purchase or taken some other action.
This will help you determine the effectiveness of your ad campaigns.
If you get a 6% conversion rate from a campaign with a 5% cost-per-click, you’re making a 500% profit on that campaign.
So, if you want to get started with paid advertising, begin with simple ads rather than expensive paid ads that might end up not being effective.
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Monetising Your Podcast
So, you’ve decided to pursue paid advertising or affiliate marketing to make money from your podcast.
That’s fantastic! However, before you begin building your audience, you need to think about how you will monetise your content.
There are several options including ads, affiliate marketing, and sponsored posts, but before you begin pursuing these options, it’s important to understand what your audience wants.
Without a clear picture of your target audience’s interests, you might end up pursuing opportunities that they aren’t even interested in.
Also, be prepared to commit a large amount of your time to this if you want to earn a decent living from it.
One of the best things you can do for your podcast is to create a Patreon page.
On this page, you will find a donation button. When a listener or reader makes a $5 donation, you will receive $10 in your account.
This is a great way to fund your podcast since you can do this without relying on advertisers or affiliate sales. Instead, you’re relying on your audience to support you.
Patreon is one of the most popular and accessible platforms for supporting creative content, especially podcasts.
You can become a patron of your favourite creative content, including blogs, music, and games. To receive rewards, you must set a minimum donation amount.
For example, you can set a minimum donation amount of $5 and then you will receive $10 every time someone makes that payment.
You can use the money from your Patreon account to fund your podcast or other creative endeavours. Setting up your Patreon page is free and takes less than five minutes.
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Podcast Subscriptions
One of the most popular and straightforward ways to monetise your podcast is to create a membership site.
For a small monthly fee, you can become a member of a creative community that will provide you with content that you can use in your podcast or on your blogs.
For example, you might create a premium article on tech innovations that will be useful to your audience.
Or, you might create videos about fashion trends that will be valuable in your online store.
There are dozens of opportunities for podcast memberships, and you can find a community that will suit your needs.
Depending on your chosen content, you might want to consider charging a one-time membership fee or rolling this into a monthly fee.
For example, if you have a fitness podcast, you might want to consider creating a membership site where people can purchase a yearly pass or a monthly membership.
This will give them access to your content and allow you to monetise your podcasts without having to rely on advertisers or affiliate sales.
It also helps build a bit of a community for your audience which could lead to future monetisation opportunities.
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Other Options
There are several other ways to make money from your podcast beyond the options discussed here.
You can create a course or video tutorial on a subject matter that your audience finds valuable.
Or, if you have a sizable audience on social media, you can explore the lucrative world of sponsored posts on behalf of a company.
Finally, if none of the above appeals to you and you’d rather just focus on creating quality content, you can always look into selling and displaying ads on your site.
However, before you begin pursuing these options, it’s important to understand what your audience wants.
Without a clear picture of your target audience’s interests, you might end up pursuing opportunities that they aren’t even interested in.
