Ep 45: Preparing for Podcast Monetisation: The Key Steps to Success

[00:00:00] Preparing to Monetize Your Podcast – Verity Sangan Discusses Key Steps

[00:00:00] Verity Sangan: Hello there and welcome back to another episode of the Lazy Girls Guide to Podcasting.
[00:00:03] Verity Sangan: We’re talking about monetization in this particular podcast episode and this is going to link together with the next episode as well.
[00:00:10] Verity Sangan: So in this episode we are going to be talking about all the things that you need to be doing before you monetize your podcast.
[00:00:18] Verity Sangan: And then next week we’re going to be talking about actual ways to monetize your podcast.
[00:00:22] Verity Sangan: For those of you who have been here before, well, welcome back.
[00:00:25] Verity Sangan: It is great to have you as ever.
[00:00:27] Verity Sangan: And for those of you who are new to the podcast or new to this YouTube channel, then hello, my name is Verity and I host the Lazy Girls Guide to Podcasting where we talk things.
[00:00:37] Verity Sangan: Podcasting doesn’t get much simpler than that, really.

[00:00:39] Successful Monetization of Podcasts

[00:00:39] Verity Sangan: So without further ado, let’s jump in straight away with monetizing your podcast and most importantly, what you need to do before you monetize your podcast.
[00:00:52] Verity Sangan: Because I think so often people just want to jump straight in, which is fine, we’re lazy girls, we like to just get on with things.
[00:00:59] Verity Sangan: But at the same time, I do think that there’s something times, things that you can do and put in place before you go into monetization to successfully monetize your podcast.
[00:01:12] Verity Sangan: Because there’s a difference between monetizing and successfully monetizing.
[00:01:16] Verity Sangan: Anyone can say that they’re monetized in terms of they can get different deals, but actually successfully monetizing your podcast is a very different ballgame in my opinion.
[00:01:28] Verity Sangan: So the first question I actually want to tackle is can you even monetize a podcast in the first place?
[00:01:33] Verity Sangan: And my answer is yes, you can.
[00:01:35] Verity Sangan: It’s not the same as monetizing a YouTube channel.
[00:01:37] Verity Sangan: There is no creator fund, for example, that once you get a certain amount of subscribers to your podcast or a certain amount of listens or downloads, that you can automatically start monetizing your podcast.
[00:01:47] Verity Sangan: But yes, you can absolutely monetize your podcast.

[00:01:51] Understanding Podcast Monetization

[00:01:51] Verity Sangan: And the next question that I get asked is how many listeners do you need in order to monetize your podcast?
[00:01:57] Verity Sangan: And my answer is normally it’s less than you think.
[00:02:01] Verity Sangan: But at the same time I can’t give you a specific answer to that because there isn’t a specific number that you need in order to start monetizing your podcast.
[00:02:09] Verity Sangan: You will find that for certain brands and for certain sponsorships, the particular companies will work in per thousand downloads or per thousand listens, depending on their terminology.
[00:02:24] Verity Sangan: But I say tend to not all.
[00:02:27] Verity Sangan: So not all sponsors, not all companies will actually care how many downloads you get, even if you’re a small podcast with a small audience, because what they’re more concerned about is whether or not you’ve got an engaged audience.
[00:02:41] Verity Sangan: However, a number of companies will want to know how many downloads you get per episode or per month to the nearest thousand, because they pay per thousand downloads for their adverts and for their sponsorship opportunities.
[00:02:55] Verity Sangan: So that’s something worth bearing in mind that if you are asked what is your download numbers or what are your download numbers per episode or per month to the nearest thousand, that is quite an industry standard question.
[00:03:08] Verity Sangan: However, as I said, don’t be put off by that thinking.
[00:03:12] Verity Sangan: I’m not getting thousands of downloads per episode, I’m not even getting 1000 downloads a month for example.
[00:03:17] Verity Sangan: Be thinking to yourself, well actually, what can I offer?
[00:03:20] Verity Sangan: So you might not be getting those numbers, but what you can put across is if you’ve got a really engaged and specific audience and how that can relate to the brand that you are pitching to.

[00:03:31] How Much Money Can You Make By Monetizing Your Podcast?

[00:03:31] Verity Sangan: So how much money can you make by monetizing your podcast?
[00:03:35] Verity Sangan: Again, this question, or the answer to this question is essentially like the previous one.
[00:03:40] Verity Sangan: I can’t give you a specific amount because different podcasts will monetize differently and different avenues of monetization will bring in different types of revenue for your podcast.
[00:03:53] Verity Sangan: And the different factors that are really going to impact on the amount of money that you can make through your podcast are going to be your audience, your monetization options, the strategy you have in place for monetizing, your social media strategy the effort that you put in the time, dedication and the alignments to the moons and the planets and if the sea came in a certain way.
[00:04:16] Verity Sangan: Now, I’m joking now, but you get the point.
[00:04:18] Verity Sangan: There are so many factors that come into play when it comes to monetizing your podcast.
[00:04:23] Verity Sangan: And because of that, I can’t give you an actual figure as to how much money you can make through podcasting.
[00:04:29] Verity Sangan: So on that note, before you think about monetizing your podcast, there are three things that you need to get in place.
[00:04:35] Verity Sangan: The first one is know your target audience.
[00:04:38] Verity Sangan: First and foremost, you really need that understanding of your audience in place to know that the monetization options that you’re putting in place for your podcast are actually going to speak to the audience that you’ve got and the audience that you are appealing to.
[00:04:51] Verity Sangan: For example, you might get this amazing brand sponsorship in, but if the product that you are putting out there and you are advertising through that sponsorship is of absolutely no interest to your audience, then that sponsorship isn’t going to make you money because it’s not what your audience wants to hear about.
[00:05:09] Verity Sangan: Equally, if you’re putting in affiliate links and affiliate codes for example, to your audience, to products and services that just aren’t aligned with your audience’s values, then that is not also not going to be fruitful for you.
[00:05:22] Verity Sangan: So you’ve really, really got to be aware and know your audience before you look at different monetization opportunities.
[00:05:31] Verity Sangan: And it could be even that you play around with different monetization opportunities and see what lands with your audience.
[00:05:37] Verity Sangan: For example, you might insert some preread ads either as mid roll preroll post roll within your podcast episodes and then you see how successful they are.
[00:05:47] Verity Sangan: You might try sponsorships, you might try brand deals.
[00:05:50] Verity Sangan: There’s a whole variety of things that you can do, but you might want to try a few different things before you realize or come to realize what monetization option is best for you and your audience.

[00:06:01] Strategizing the Monetization Plan for Your Podcast

[00:06:01] Verity Sangan: The second point that I’m going to make is probably the most overstated yet least taken up piece of advice on the internet, which is about having quality content because it really, really matters.
[00:06:14] Verity Sangan: Audience are not coming to your podcast because of the monetization option you’ve got in place.
[00:06:21] Verity Sangan: They are coming to your podcast for the quality content that you can give them.
[00:06:24] Verity Sangan: Whether or not that’s education, if it’s a how to, if it’s entertainment, if it’s some fact, there’s always going to be some kind of need that a podcast is fulfilling.
[00:06:33] Verity Sangan: And yes, podcasts do always fulfill a need.
[00:06:36] Verity Sangan: Even if it’s entertainment and something light hearted and humorous to listen to, that is still a need that is being fulfilled.
[00:06:43] Verity Sangan: It’s not always that we’re learning through podcasts or the how to podcast for example, but having quality content is what is going to make your audience recommend your podcast to other audiences and in turn going to bring in new audience members as well.
[00:06:58] Verity Sangan: Remember that your online presence may look very, very different to another podcaster’s online presence and that is absolutely fine.
[00:07:05] Verity Sangan: What’s important is that you do have an online presence and that it is relevant to your podcast.
[00:07:12] Verity Sangan: So this might be held in a variety of ways.
[00:07:15] Verity Sangan: It could be that you have a website.
[00:07:16] Verity Sangan: It could be that you’re very active on Instagram, on TikTok, on LinkedIn.
[00:07:20] Verity Sangan: It could be that you’re on a whole range of social media platforms, it could be that you’re on only one or two social media platforms and that is absolutely fine.
[00:07:27] Verity Sangan: It could be that you are growing an amazing email subscription list.
[00:07:32] Verity Sangan: It could be that you’re really active on online forums such as Quora or Reddit.
[00:07:36] Verity Sangan: It could be that you’re active on podcasting apps such as Goodpods.
[00:07:40] Verity Sangan: It doesn’t really matter as long as your online presence aligns with you, your podcast, your podcasting strategy, your promotional strategy.
[00:07:49] Verity Sangan: Also obviously your monetization strategy because you’re going to need some kind of online presence in order to push your podcast to get people to listen to it and then for those monetization options to be successful.
[00:08:01] Verity Sangan: So I’d really, really urge you to just consider your online presence.
[00:08:04] Verity Sangan: This is something that I’ve done a lot recently.
[00:08:07] Verity Sangan: And whilst you might see whilst you might see the Lazy Girls Guide to Podcasting being advertised on several different social media platforms, I actually only focus really speaking on two social media platforms, and the rest is just copy pasted and then put through a content scheduler thing, because I feel like that is jack.
[00:08:26] Verity Sangan: Works for me.
[00:08:27] Verity Sangan: But, I mean, at the moment, the ones that I’m going all in on is Twitter, because I enjoy the platform regardless of what people may or may not think of it.
[00:08:34] Verity Sangan: But I enjoy the platform and I love the podcasting community there.
[00:08:39] Verity Sangan: I am a firm believer that it is better to be on one or two social media platforms, go really all in on those, and really enjoy being on those platforms versus being everywhere and the content is just a bit mediocre and you’re not enjoying it because that’s not going to bring people into listening to your podcast.
[00:08:57] Verity Sangan: It’s not going to build your audience either.
[00:08:59] Verity Sangan: So those are my three tips for things that you need to do before you implement a monetization strategy for your podcast.
[00:09:08] Verity Sangan: Make sure that you tune in next week because in our next episode, I am going to be giving you ten ways to monetize your podcast for free so you can implement any of the ten podcast monetization strategies without spending a single penny.
[00:09:24] Verity Sangan: So you are going to want to tune in to that episode on either podcast or YouTube.
[00:09:31] Verity Sangan: So make sure you are subscribed wherever you listen to your podcasts or if you’re watching on YouTube, make sure that you are subscribed to the channel and hit the little bell notification thing so that you are informed as soon as the episode goes live on YouTube and also as the audio podcast.
[00:09:48] Verity Sangan: Otherwise I will see you next episode.
[00:09:50] Verity Sangan: Thank you so much for spending time with me and have a great morning, afternoon, evening, wherever you are in the world.
[00:09:58] Verity Sangan: Take care.