Podcasting is not for the faint of heart. It’s hard work. If you want to do it seriously, then it’s a full-time job. This is why knowing how to monetize your podcast is so important.
Otherwise, there might be a bit of creative burnout on the horizon.
To avoid that terrible fate, it’s essential to have at least a basic idea about monetization regardless of whether you’re a new podcaster or a hardened veteran of the trade.
We’ll discuss how you can monetize your podcast via paywalls and other common techniques.
Monetizing Your Podcast: The Basics
While it’s essential to have —at the very least— some knowledge about monetization early on, make sure that you don’t take the plunge too early.
Skip the aggressive monetization techniques until you have at least aired from 10 to 15 episodes with a small (but loyal community). In addition, we’d advise having a standard of 500-600 downloads per episode before monetization.
Once you’ve reached that level, here’s what you can do.
Placing Premium Episodes Behind a Paywall
After getting to know your audience, and figuring out your top-performing episodes, there is a high probability that they’ll pay for premium versions of your content.
However, before you go ahead and put content behind walls, make sure you’ve diversified your content availability.
Content availability is about ensuring that your regular content is still easily available to the general public.
For example, if you have a daily episode for every weekday, then you can select the one posted on Tuesdays to be placed behind a paywall. The rest of your episodes will be available with no changes.
The type of your premium content can be as unique to your brand as you would like, but here are some examples of what this premium content can be:
Behind-the-Scenes discussions
Early access to episodes
Ad-free episodes
Q&As with special guests
Furthermore, you can make this into a membership program with exclusive conference calls, special events that your audience can RSVP to join. Of course, with the added giveaways and meetups, you’ll be creating a community in no time at all.
Do keep in mind that you’ll in complete control of what goes behind your paywall as well as how aggressive (or not) you’d like it to be.
Putting Your Show on YouTube
This is a great way to earn more money using content that you’ve already created. Simply publish your podcast episodes to YouTube as videos.
It adds a human element of seeing people on the screen as well as their non-verbal cues. It also opens the door for more people finding out about your show and becoming fans.
It’s also quite a simple process. All you have to do is enable monetization in your account settings, then Google will take care of the ads and its profits.
Moreover, you can learn a bit about YouTube SEO, so that you can ensure that your videos pop-up for those looking for them.
If you happen to be shy, not confident in your videography skills and don’t have the budget to hire a videographer; then adding a single image to your episodes recording is all you need to do.
Sell Sponsorships or Ads
This one is the most popular and common way to monetize your podcast.
It’ll depend on you setting up a deal with a sponsor for your show. In addition, the deal’s parameters will depend on how many people listen to your show as will your revenue.
Thus, it might be a better idea to hold off getting a sponsor until you have a stable average of listeners per episode.
Ready to Learn More About Paywalls for Podcasts?
With more avenues available for monetization, it becomes hard to implement the right ones for your podcast and its brand.
Now that you know more about the methods of monetization, the common and the unique, you’ll have a better grasp of what they can offer you.
With paywalls, it has to be tailored to your podcast and your listeners. Make sure to schedule a demo and our team will show you what it can bring to your podcast.