Listen In: How to Monetize Your Podcast [Part - 3]

This is the Part 3 of our podcasting series: Listen In. In this series, we reach out to various podcasters to cover a variety of different ways to make your podcasts successful. You don't want your podcasts to go in one ear and out the other. We're here to help, so all you need to do is: Listen In!

Click here to read Part 2, which gives advice on how to grow a podcast audience.

So, you've now learned the importance of Transcription services for building a podcast audience, as well as the many different ways that you can develop a strong following of listeners. If your podcast is starting to gain a community of listeners, you may be asking yourself: "Now what?" Well, now it's time to monetize. CHA CHING!

Podcasts are a fantastic way to gain popularity and generate a decent revenue, once you build your audience up well enough. The struggle that a lot of podcasters have is figuring out how to generate revenue from their podcasts. Or rather, how to turn a podcast into a legitimate business venture.

This is difficult to accomplish in our current day and age, because the internet has effectively convinced people that they should be able to get any service for free, so charging money for podcast downloads isn't always a viable option if you haven't already established your podcast among a large audience. This means that you will need to strategize through other means of monetization.

Monetizing your podcast not only produces a great return on your investment, but it also allows your podcast to grow by potentially improving production quality and creating opportunities for more prominent guests. What's beautiful about this is that your audience will grow even further as a result, allowing for opportunities to generate more revenue. Sounds pretty nice, huh?

The tough part is knowing where to start. We reached out to 6 leading podcasters to comment on the strategies they use to monetize their podcasts.

John Dumas, EO Fire   

1. Products and Services: This one will start off being your smallest source of revenue, but as your audience grows…it will quickly turn into your largest.

2. 1 on 1 mentoring: Over the last 2 years I have personally mentored over 40 Entrepreneurs who were looking to launch their Podcast.

3. Sponsorships: EOFire has generated over $400,000 in sponsorship revenue since April of 2013, the first month we implemented sponsors. Our first month, our total revenue was $12,350 (30 episodes). Since April 2013, our monthly income from sponsorships has risen to over $46,000 each month.

You can start a podcast today about a niche you are passionate and knowledgeable about (the knowledge can come), work hard for a significant amount of time (6 months… a year?), build a captive and engaged audience, and then have sponsors beating down your door to get in front of your listeners."

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Sarah Fraser, Hey Frase

Tammy Cannon, Cannon Social Media

Using this approach allows listeners to easily get what they need and I have "
an email I can bring value to."

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Taunia Soderquist, Backstage Pass Radio Program

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Matt Wilson, Live Different Podcast

We have experimented with sponsors and affiliates but found that the listener develops a relationship with the host and will buy a product (in our case travel) that the host is willing to put his blood, sweat, and tears behind."

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JV Crum, Conscious Millionaire

• Sponsors who pay you
• Affiliate sponsor where podcaster promotes the sponsor and has a special link that is their affiliate link
• Selling your own products, services, and events by sending to a landing page
• Adding to your list through a free lead gen that goes into a sales funnel that sells them
• Develop strategic partnerships or joint ventures with your guests that result in new products, podcasts, programs
• Becoming an affiliate with guests to sell their products/services/events to your listener/list and to sell your products/services/events to their listeners/lists
• Leverage your fame as podcast host to get on other podcasts, tv, events, stages to sell your products / give away your lead gen and thereby get more people into your funnel
• Get paid speaking events by networking based upon your podcast"

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We hope that the above advice and stories have started turning those gears in your head on how you will start generating revenue for your podcasts. As you may have noticed, there is no one sure-fire way to monetize, but discovering what works best for you, your podcast, and your listeners are just a part of the battle.

However, the key takeaway point is that you can't just expect to start a podcast and instantly begin generating revenue. It's common for someone to fall under the impression that building an audience is equal to building a monetary value for your podcast. The problem is that it's not that simple, because money doesn't just fall into your lap for every thousand downloads you get. You have to strategize in order to monetize.

Strategizing involves knowing your audience. If your podcast tailors to a very niche group of people, then you're limited in the kinds of sponsors you can obtain. No company wants to advertise to an audience that would have no interest in their product.

Knowing who your audience also allows you to know the industries that you should be developing relationships and partnerships within, as well as the types of products that you could advertise and sell to your listeners. Test out as many relevant monetization options for your podcast to discover what works, and soon you'll be reaping the rewards for your hard work.

Stay tuned for the next part of our Listen In series.

P.S. If you want to try using transcription services for your podcasts, we have a special program for podcasters to receive a perpetual discount off transcripts. You can get transcripts done for as low as 98 cents per minute! Apply Here.

Previous posts in this series:

• Listen In: Transcripts Can Increase The Life of Your Podcasts [Part -1]
• Listen In: How to Dramatically Grow Your Podcast Audience [Part -2]