Contrary to popular belief, doing ad reads isn’t the only way to monetize a podcast.
TL;DR:
- Ads, Affiliate Marketing, Products, Services, and Keynotes are a few ways you can monetize your podcast
- Each monetization method has its own pros and cons
If you’re a podcast listener, you’re probably used to your favorite podcasts taking a minute in the middle of the podcast to share products with the audience. The biggest podcasts all seem to monetize in this way.
The model is simple, you build a highly engaged audience through good quality content, and once you get big enough brands start reaching out to you to promote their products on your podcast.
Here’s the problem though, getting to millions of downloads per month is no small feat. If you post a podcast episode and you get more than 5100 downloads within seven days, you’re in the 1% of podcasts.
That means that podcasts getting hundreds of thousands or millions of downloads aren’t just the 1%, they’re outliers even within the 1% bracket.
Think of it similar to wealth distribution, there’s the 1% of wealth bracket, but then there’s the Forbes billionaire list which is an elite tier within that 1% bracket.
While this may have taken your motivation to start a podcast away, the good news is that ads are not the only way to monetize a podcast. There are actually many other ways you can monetize - and they don’t all require you to have millions of downloads. Let’s dive into the different ways you can start generating revenue with a podcast.
Ads
How it works:
A company asks you to talk about their product/service on your podcast in exchange for money. If you go with a standard ad directory, you rate will be based on how many downloads you get. For podcasts you can expect anywhere from $10-$30 per 1000 downloads.
Alternatively, you can make your own deals with companies and if your podcast is focused in a specific niche and you have a highly engaged audience, companies can be willing to pay out much more.
Pros:
- You don’t have to build your own products or services, can focus on making a good podcast
- Easy to do ad reads
Cons:
- You need a pretty big audience for this to be a significant revenue stream
Affiliate Marketing
How it works:
You recommend products or services that you think your audience would benefit from and you get a commission on each sale.
For example, if you have a podcast about starting a podcast you can sign up to the Amazon Affiliate Program and include the links to the equipment you use. Any time someone clicks your links and makes a purchase, you’ll get a small portion of that sale.
The difference between this and an ad read is that an ad read is generally not 100% commission based, whereas affiliate marketing is usually all commissions.
Similar to ads, you can make really good deals with companies if you have a niche podcast with a highly engaged audience. For example if you have a podcast about B2B content marketing you could make an agreement with a B2B content marketing agency that for every lead you send their way you get $50, and if they close you get 20% of the monthly revenue. With a deal like this you’d only need a few people to hire the marketing agency to be making good revenue off your podcast.
Pros:
- Easy to get started
- Don’t need to work through legal paperwork and figure out agreements, a lot of companies already have affiliate programs you can sign up for and start making money immediately
Cons:
- The payouts for affiliates are generally the lowest of all the monetization options we go through in this article
Create Your Own Products
How it works:
Its the same concept as ads and affiliate marketing, except instead of pushing other products, you send your audience to your own products. If you have a big audience, this method can be very fruitful because when companies pay you for ads, they’re making more money then the ad costs (that’s why they’re willing to pay for the ad in the first place). When you have your own products, you don’t only get part of the revenue, you get all of it. Essentially your podcast becomes marketing for this product business.
Here are some product ideas that podcasters often use:
- online course
- notion templates
- ebook
- book
- merchandise
- physical products
Pros:
- You keep 100% of the revenue from sales that you generate
- Over time this can be a standalone business that doesn’t require your podcast to stay in business - this gives you the creator tons of flexibility for how you want to run your show and the projects you work on
- Don’t need the biggest audience to make good money since you’re keeping 100% of revenue from any sales generated
Cons:
- Takes a lot of time, effort, and oftentimes money to build a good product
- You have to manage a business along with running your podcast
Offer a service
This is the same concept as creating a product, except instead of selling a product you’re selling a service. This monetization model works exceptionally well if you’re establishing yourself as a though leader in a niche because there’s always a demand for the best in any given market.
Service businesses generally fall into three categories:
- Advisory services - the client does the work, you just make sure they’re on the right strategy and give high level feedback on the direction they’re headed
- Done for you - the client doesn’t do any work, you will do the actual job that is required as if you’re an employee of the company. For examples a marketing agency may offer done for you google ads where they will do everything from research to creating the ad to managing the targeting and the budget
- Done with you - this is a mix of the other two categories. You have some level of coaching and feedback you’re giving the clients, but ultimately its the clients doing the work. If the clients are really struggling you may step in and take care of a few things here and there.
Pros:
- Don’t need as much scale, can charge higher prices per customer generally
Cons:
- Time intensive businesses - generally you’re trading your time for money
Give Keynotes
Once your podcast has started picking up some steam and you’re starting to get recognized as an authority in your niche, you may start getting some requests to speak at industry specific events. You may have to hustle a bit to get your first gig booked, but once you have one under your belt you can use that as proof and get more speaking gigs booked.
Depending on your niche, speaking gigs can pay pretty handsomely. Many keynote speakers make their full time income from giving keynotes.
Pros:
- Will give you even more authority in your niche
- Can give you more exposure to new audiences that may then become podcast listeners or clients/customers
Cons:
- Can often require travel
Conclusion
These are just a few high level options, within each of these are categories and even more options than you can imagine. In your monetization journey its important to realize that your duty first and foremost is to the audience, to give them a good experience. If you sacrifice the quality of your audience experience for making a quick buck you will find that the audience will start diminishing.