How To *actually* Monetize Your Podcast (2024)

All right, boys and girls, we are live today. We're going to be talking about how to monetize your podcast. That's right. How in the world to make some money while doing your podcast. And so if you're watching today, welcome to the live stream. We go live like this every single Friday at 1 o'clock. And every week we do a different topic that has to do something around creating content for your business, developing your brand online, etc., etc. Anything that has to do with social media, cameras, growing your brand presence. That's one of my goals, is to help you guys achieve that. And one of those ways is by offering these free live streams I like to call them masterclasses because I do all the research for you. You come here and you get to reap all the benefits. So that's what we're doing today. Today we're going to be talking about this whole podcast thing because that's a huge question that I get like very frequently. It's like, okay, you're doing all this podcast stuff, or why should I invest in doing a podcast? The studio? Why should I become a member? And I always have to kind of frame it in a way like, listen, there's a lot of ways you can monetize this stuff, but the key factor is you're gonna have to go all in and you're gonna have to be consistent or else it won't work. And by going all in, I don't mean post an episode every day. I mean Pick a content calendar, pick a strategy that works for you. If it's 2 per month, that's fine. If you think you can pull off doing 2 episodes per month, then do 2 episodes per month and, and just continue to do that until you can't anymore. And whenever you do this, first of all, the people start to figure out you're there because the first 100 first 75 to 100 episodes, most of the time that's not where the biggest doors get open. That's not where like the craziest things happen. So while you're making your first episodes, and this goes the same for like all content in general, like YouTube, Instagram, your first videos that you make, they're not going to get very many views, which it's a good thing because you don't want to see people, you You don't want people to see you whenever you're making bad videos. And so whenever you put in the work, you put in the effort for a good 6 months, 8 months before they start actually seeing you on their feed, by the time it gets to them, you're already good at making content. And so first of all, I want you to get out of that mindset. It doesn't have to be perfect. Okay, you just got to kind of jump in and start trying to swim. So that's the whole spiel for today's live stream. If you have any questions, make sure to leave them in the comments and I'll be able to answer them live. If you're watching this after the live stream, make sure to join the Howdy Media Insiders group. We go live like this every Friday, like I said, at 1 o'clock. So let's go ahead and get into it. Hey y'all, I wanted to hop on here really quick and remind you guys about our 24-hour podcast set up services. So if you have a space in your office, in your church, at your house that you want to transform into something similar like this, we've perfected the technique. We've got the whole list of everything you need. We'll personally look at your space, we'll do some interior design work, set up all the cables, make a trip out to your location and set it all up for you and train you how to use it. So if you're interested, I'm leaving a link in the description for for you to check out. Hope to work with you guys soon. We got our handy dandy Google Slides here. Howdy Media, how to monetize your podcast. Let's get into it. Okay, before we dive in, I want you guys to be open because podcasting, it's, it's old, but it's also kind of new. Like, the way that people are doing it in 2023 and 2024 It's a new way of doing it, and you don't have to be a celebrity to do it. Everybody can have their own podcast. And so I think it's beneficial overall, and we're going to kind of get into that today. But I just want you to open up your mindset, open up what you think about podcasts, and get it outside of this little box that you have it boxed in. Okay, it's not just an audio thing that somebody listens to. Like, if you do it right, you can use this to change your business, to bring in leads, to make yourself the authority in the industry, etc., etc. If you don't have a notebook, make sure to write it down. A lot of times people stop, they don't remember how to necessarily learn and capture the information that's given them. So if I say something today, make sure to write it down. Because you're way more likely to remember something whenever you write it down. And a lot of us haven't been told that since college or high school, whenever you were in school. And there's a car honking. Sorry if you can hear that in the back. But grab a notebook. Let's take some notes. The first thing I want you to ask yourself as the person creating the podcast before you even open up or set up a camera, who are you serving? Who is your target audience? Because if you don't know this, then you're going to be shooting in the dark. And by the way, Winston's here. Winnie, Winnie! Hey, there he is! Say what up to Winnie in the chat. He's hanging out at the studio. If you don't know who your target audience is, then you don't know like you won't know how to sell to them. And ultimately, that's what you're wanting to do. And you have to sell somebody on something if you ever want to monetize your podcast. If you don't want to make money with it, then you don't necessarily have to take these tips and this advice. But if you do, majority of the people want to get back what they put into it, which is their time and their resources. And so make sure the first thing you, you know, is who you are serving. And then often people ask me like, why should I even start a podcast? Okay, so here are some of the reasons that you should start a podcast right now. And if you're a business owner, this goes even more for you. So first of all, you have your brand awareness. If you build a personal brand in 2024, at least to start in your business ventures. Building a personal brand builds brand awareness. You gain trust with your viewers, which hopefully that's what I'm doing by doing these live streams. Um, and if you're watching this, if you just hopped on, welcome to the stream. Uh, I want to know where are you guys watching from, but it builds trust, it builds a relationship. It puts yourself as an authority in the space that you're in. So if you're a realtor and you're talking for 30 minutes to an hour on a podcast every single week about very specific topics and you target it towards first-time homebuyers, eventually once it starts to pick up traction, there will be some first-time homebuyers who end up watching the podcast. If you answer the questions that they want to know the answers to. Now, if you're targeting first-time homebuyers and you're talking about like investments, then it's gonna be kind of hard to convert them and a lot of them aren't even gonna listen because they don't care about the investing side. So that's another reason it's important to know who your target audience is. So authority, trust factor, brand awareness, your reach. You, once you start posting consistently online, your reach of people will continue to grow. And the keyword that I say there is consistent. Okay, it doesn't always have to be the best video. Um, obviously put in the work and put in the effort beforehand so you can be prepared. So whenever you do put something online, it's polished and it's ready to be shared with the masses. And so that's one thing I do with these. I, I get a presentation ready. I do the research beforehand so you don't have to. So reach, authority, trust factor, brand awareness, and personality. People get to know you a little bit better whenever they're sitting on the other side of that phone. It's like you just— that camera is them in that room. Pretend that is them sitting there because that's how they should feel, like you're just hanging out. Even though it's a little bit weird for you to talk to a camera, like they are literally just being a fly on the wall in the room that you're in. And that's what I love most about podcasting, because it shows how real you are, how knowledgeable you are. It shows your personality. If you make a joke or something, it shows them that you're human and you're not just this random, like, edited, cut-up version of yourself that's being thrown up on YouTube Shorts and TikTok all the time. And so it just makes the realness factor go up and you become an actual human who they can trust after they watch you for a while. Okay, so cool. Having a podcast is the way to go, Darren. I know, I understand, but how do I make money? Okay, so I narrowed it down to 7 main ways that you can bring in income with your podcast. Let's get into number 1, which is coaching and consulting. So that's one of the first things that you probably should be offering because everybody's an expert at something and everybody else is trying to find somebody who's an expert of the thing you are an expert of. So if you're an expert in cleaning houses, if you have a cleaning business, for example, you have been doing it for 5 to 10 years, you know exactly the best methods, the best products to use. If you can bring value to people who are starting cleaning businesses, there's potential for them to pay you money in order for you to show them how to skip, skip, uh, phases 1 through 5 of the growing pains in a business. And so if somebody came to you and they were like, hey, I see what kind of business you're doing, I see what you're, you're doing with real estate, whatever it is, and they're like, teach me how to sell houses so I don't have to go through all the trial and errors myself, that's your opportunity to be a coaching consultant. So not only are you able to monetize your knowledge, but you're also able to serve and help the people that are around you and your clients. So how do you get somebody to want to be coached by you? You make a bunch of free content, which is literally what I'm doing right now. Hit their pain points for free. Keyword for free. Then make an offer to help them after you fix their pain points, give them answers to their pain points. During the free content. So your free content, and a lot of people are worried about oversharing the knowledge and the information you have. I don't think that's true at all. So whenever people are watching our videos, I don't gatekeep anything because everybody's scenario, everybody's context is different. And so you're not paying for the knowledge at that point, you're paying for the implementation. To your specific context. And so that's why I'm such an advocate for offering a bunch of free things and helping people out. That's strategy number 1, which is coaching. Strategy number 2, online courses and programs. This kind of goes alongside the coaching and consulting, but this— you have pre-made videos, you have pre-made curriculum that you came up with, and you can sell it to them like they're taking a class. Now, I prefer to do programs over courses because programs you can put a time limit on, and if they ever want to take the program again, you can do it with updated information, updated trends, that sort of thing. Once you make that online course, it's kind of stuck there and you got to go through the whole production process again in order to make an updated course. And then that old one is just gone. And so programs are beneficial in that way where you can do, say, hey, I'll help you for 6 weeks. We're running a boot camp, which I'm going to be doing soon. We're running a personal brand boot camp or whatever. And it's a 6-week program for X amount of dollars. Here's what you'll get. Here's what you'll learn. Here's what you'll walk away with. And then if you do that, they can come back. If they feel like it's valuable, they'll come back and they can do the program again. Courses on the other hand, like I said, you have to re-update them. It's just starting to become an idea that is more from 2015 to 2019. Pre-COVID. After COVID, the courses became oversaturated almost, but I'm not saying you can't make money with it. I'm just saying it's a little bit oversaturated. So you may want to aim more towards a program. So depending on the value, you can charge as much as you see fit. If you have a solution to somebody's problem, that's going to make them $100,000 in the next year. You can charge $10,000 for that program. If you're, if you have a solution that'll save somebody 2 hours whenever they're shopping for their groceries, if you're a nutritionist or something, and that 2 hours of time is worth $500 to them, you can charge them $200, $300 for that program. And so it's all based on the context of that product, the context of the value. And you can, if you frame it right and you do sales well, you can frame it in a way that anytime you bring it up, they'll be like, yeah, sure, take my money. So that's strategy number 2. Strategy number 3 is going to be a thing called affiliate marketing. Okay, so whenever you're filming a podcast, and this is something we do on the channel, we've made some money with it. I'll put a link. For example, like Amazon, we have an affiliate link for every product off of Amazon. And so if we're reviewing a product, if we're reviewing or even just doing a podcast and we're like, hey, this is what microphones we use, this is what cameras we use. If you're doing restaurant consulting or like how to cook meals in the evenings for a family of 5. Whatever video that you're making or whatever your podcast is about, make sure to have affiliate links in the description because a lot of times people will see what you're using and they're like, man, I want to use what that person is using. I want to use that blender because it looks high-end. It looks very nice. This person is using it, so obviously it's a good product. Make it easy for them to go down in the description and hit a link, buy it right there, and then you get a commission. So a lot of people are doing this big time on TikTok, and it's not necessarily the podcast, but with TikTok you can go live and people buy a bunch of stuff from what's called TikTok Shop, and they just review it. And thousands of people are watching these live streams, and it's basically like a modern QVC. That's basically all it is, but that's using affiliate marketing. A lot of companies purely run their business off of this. So strategy number 4 is going to be brand partnerships. So brand partnerships and sponsorships can sound like a very intimidating thing, and I will tell you, majority of the time you're already— you're going to have to be required to already have an audience for this because no brand is going to pay you to have airtime on your show if nobody's watching it. So if you're a smaller show, reach out to the local community brands first because if you have personal relationships with them, the odds of them paying you and sponsoring you just to support you are way higher. So if you're just starting out, I would say do local, local ads only. Um, now once you start to build a bigger audience and let's say your specific target audience who watches you on the daily, say you have 100,000 followers of moms, between 30 and 40 who are trying to learn how to do yoga. Like, that's a very specific thing. So this brand, this yoga mat brand, approaches you and is like, hey, we'll pay you $25,000 for X amount of airtime for these— this many ads to promote our specific yoga mat on your channel. And the reason they'll do that and offer that much is because you have 100,000 followers that are watching your stuff every day that love yoga and learning how to yoga. So it becomes very valuable in that brand's eyes. And then you can get into like the influencer marketing and like all those different programs that Instagram offers, that TikTok offers. But as far as sponsorships go, that's pretty much how it's going to work. If you're a small channel, you're going to have to focus on the local sponsorships at a local level. Once you start to gain an audience, then you can start reaching out to these bigger brands and they will pay you money to have airtime on your show. So if you've ever heard like, this show is brought to you by blah blah blah brand with yoga mats or whatever, that is because they had a partnership going or a sponsorship deal prior to the episode because they wanted their viewers to to see their product so that they can buy it. So strategy number 5, and if you're watching, if you've learned something that is valuable to you, make sure to leave it in the comments. Whether you're watching on Facebook during the live stream or if you're watching significantly later on YouTube, make sure to like this video, make sure to comment, make sure to hit the subscribe button. It would be much appreciated. Anyway, strategy number 5 is going to be having physical products and merchandise or merch. So if you do a podcast over faith, Women in Faith, you need to start developing Bible studies. You can have shirts, you can have coffee, you can have coffee mugs, you can have hats. All of these things Whenever you set it up on your Shopify or wherever you choose to host your store, you can throw that in there as your own ad on your podcast and be like, hey, we're selling merch. Or if you even just wear a hat, most of the time if it's a cool hat, they'll be like, hey, that's a cool hat, I want to wear that. Plus it's the same one that person wears on the show. And so that's what we tell the members of the Podcast Studio. It's like, make sure to have some way and something to sell, even if it's like not your primary income. That is— it's a good way to at least cover the cost of producing the show, right? And I don't know of anybody who would say no to an extra $2,000 to $5,000 a month in merch— in merch purchases. But have something set up where people can buy a physical product. Whatever it is, a meal prep plan, a devotion with like that you wrote, a book, free LUT packs for photographers, like whatever it is, make sure to have it available on everything that you post. Strategy number 6, I went ahead and split this one up into two. Um, because it should be 6 and 7 honestly, but we'll just stick to this. So you can set up what's called a Patreon. And now Patreon is a company that is specifically designed for creators who are trying to monetize a little bit more off of their audience. Now a lot of times creators don't get paid anything other than like the AdSense on YouTube, for example, which can be okay, but it's not as consistent because as soon as they stop posting or getting views, they stop getting paid. So Patreon is like basically a service where you can have your viewers subscribe to your Patreon and they'll be donating X amount of dollars per month, or if they want to do a one-time donation, that's a spot to do it. And I think the fees vary. There's a couple platforms to do it, but Patreon's the most well-known one. So there's Patreon and the donations, or the second part of this slide says for smaller channels, interview your ideal clients. So what do I mean by this? If you're in a specific niche and your target audience is business owners, which this is kind of an example that I've, that I use, this is exactly what I do for my podcast a lot of times. The people that I invite on, it's very strategic, it's targeted, and I'm inviting my target audience. So I'm like, in my mind, who's the perfect person who, who would buy this product or this service? And then I go find those people and then I invite them to come on the show because we'll be talking about what they're doing, we'll be promoting their stuff. Their business, their service. But at the same time, we're sitting there for an hour with them just talking and building that relationship alone. You're able to develop a friendship and a business relationship. And so once they get to trust you, once they know what you're about, and you can kind of do this nonchalantly while you're on the podcast highlighting their business, right? They'll eventually probably want to work with you at some point because now they know you, they know what you do, and they like you because they know you're real, you're authentic, and you're genuinely interested in helping other people. So if you're a small channel, that's a way to really monetize. And, and you don't have to have a billion views to make money with the podcast. That's what I'm saying. If you have something to sell, if you have a business that, that it can funnel into, that's ideal. So strategy number 7, this is going to be YouTube. And I talked about a little bit of AdSense and the way that YouTube pays out. So every ad that's played, YouTube pays you about 50% of each ad. That plays on your videos. So did the math, about $3,000 is your payout whenever you hit around a million views. Now this varies from industry to industry, from niche to niche. Um, if you're in a higher-end niche that costs more, you're gonna probably get a little bit more from those ads. If you're in something that doesn't have a lot of revenue stream, that's purely entertainment, you're probably not gonna get as much. In Google AdSense. So definitely do not sleep on YouTube because the amount of money that I've seen people make on YouTube is— it's honestly mind-boggling at this point. I didn't think it was real till I saw it with my own eyes. And if, if you're like, no, we just want to do my podcast, it's an audio podcast, we're just going to put it on Spotify. Don't do that. Put it on YouTube because you're already going to be sitting down filming— or I mean, not filming, recording yourself. Might as well throw up a camera and get paid for it from YouTube. And the more you do this, the more viewers you'll get, the more subscribers you'll get. And once you hit— gosh, once you get that 1,000 subscribers you'll be monetized. And so what that means is you'll get paid from then on, on the views that you get on your channel. So YouTube is good for that. It's also good for collaborations. It helps you get in front of other people's audiences. And it can also be a massive lead funnel because people use YouTube as a search engine. They'll be like, how to tie my shoes, how to, or what is the best way to dress during the fall. Like, anything that you can think of can be a lead funnel. And, and if they're searching this, and if your video is one of the top ones to pop up whenever they search it, there's a high chance, if you have a good title and thumbnail, that they'll click it and they might end up buying something that's in the description. So strategy number 8, which is a bonus one that nobody even asked for, but I'm gonna give it to you anyways. You can partner with an expert on this and it will speed up your results significantly. So if you want to make money faster, you can partner with somebody who knows what they're doing already. So that way you can skip the line, you can skip to the front, right? You can save time learning all about all the gear, all the software, how to edit and do everything on your own. What's up, Taylor? Welcome to the livestream. Thanks for hopping on from Anson, Texas. I saw you earlier and it wasn't raining, but is it raining now in Anson? I want to know. You can save time. You don't have to figure out how to work all the gear because the expert will do it for you. You won't have to figure out where you need to publish everything. There's solutions to this stuff. And this can speed up the process. Um, if it's us, if it's another company, if it's one of your friends, whoever it is that knows what they're doing, partner up with them and you'll see results way quicker. So if this is you, if you're ready to level up your content brand or not your content brand, your brand awareness and your content, we are a resource for that. I just feel like I should offer that and extend that, especially to the Insiders Group people. Like if you ever have any questions or if you're wanting to start your own podcast, if you're wanting to have help and expertise on these topics to help you grow not only your brand and your authority, but also to monetize off of it, it could be very beneficial for you or your company. So if you struggle finding time to do this, there's a couple different options we have. You can become a member of the podcast studio we have downtown, which is right behind me. Basically, you come in, sit down, we'll record you, we'll edit, we'll distribute it all for you. All you have to do is come and talk. Another option is we can do more of a consulting type thing. You can film it, do whatever you want, but we'll give you advice on gear, on how to do it. We'll teach you what we know, and then you can go and implement it in your own space. If you have a space that you're like, man, we need a spot, or we have an extra office that we're wanting to put a bunch of podcast stuff in, we're wanting to start our own in our own location, we offer that too. So we can build your studio, we can teach you how to use it, or we can produce it for you. Here in studio, whatever you wanna do. I just want you to know that we are a resource for that. We are an option. It's a very new concept. It's a very new business type, but I am a big believer in it. And there's been countless conversations that I've had where people have been like, I have these stories, but I wouldn't have been able to get them out there unless we would have partnered with you guys. And, or it's on the other side. It's like, we have all this equipment, we have this room, but we don't know what to do with it. And so I'm like, I— all I can see is a vision. And I'm like, man, you can use this as a podcast room, you can double as a content room, because everybody needs to be putting out content. It doesn't matter what you're doing. But if this is you, we are a resource. Um, if you want to try and do it on your own, go to our YouTube channel. We offer lots of free stuff. Also, if you're part of the Insiders Group, we all offer lots of free stuff like these live streams to help you. But that's pretty much it. So thanks for hopping on to the live stream today. I'm gonna wrap it up. I only have about 2 more minutes left. If you have any more questions, leave them in the comments. Um, if you're watching this after the fact, make sure to leave what you learned. And what you want to learn about next Friday. Because look, listen, we go live every single Friday just like this, just me and you, Q&A time. We talk about topics that can help your business grow. We talk about how to use camera gear, how to use lighting, how to do everything with video in order to promote your brand. If you want to read about this, I also have a book. It's called Content That Converts: Building a Personal Brand Online Through Video. It's a quick read. It's about 14 minutes. I'll leave a link in the comments and in the description if you're watching on YouTube. It's quick read, super quick and easy to understand. I try to break everything down that we do in the basic principles that we use in order to grow our company and our brand. Are you able to help figure out how to make personal conversations and business conversations in a podcast. That is one thing that makes me nervous about having a podcast is that I don't want to be solely business related. I like my life to mix well. So that's part of creating the personal brand. Great question, Taylor. Um, so in my book, I talk about the big three. And so whenever you figure out what three things define you as a human being, whether that's— mine is like creativity through music and video and cameras. It's business and it's the Lord. My family is amongst in there, sprinkle on top of everything. But those three things I've intertwined and that is my personal brand. And people will watch you because you're unique. There's nobody else like you. And you can talk about your personal stuff. You can talk about your business. And all this encompasses you as a human being. So that's how I want you to think about it. Think about, think about it as your personal brand. Don't think about it as your realtor podcast. So like, for example, if Taylor, you were to start a podcast, don't, don't call it Taylor the Realtor Podcast. Call it Taylor Talks or something along those lines. Then you're not limited to just talking about real estate. Then you become more personable. People start to trust you more because they don't feel like you're trying to sell them something or, or sell them that you know more than the other realtors. You're just a real human being who has kids, who has a life outside of work, who loves their job, but, and also wants to help people. So like intertwine all of that within your podcast and honestly talk about things that don't have anything to do with work. And a lot of the times, or even if you bring guests on, like you can talk about some work things, talk about some personal things, just have conversations with people. So I don't know if that helped at all, Taylor, but thank you for the question. A lot of times people treat podcasts as an interview, where I like to treat it as a conversation. Like, don't just sit there asking them questions and have them do all of the answering. Like, converse, have a conversation. It's two-way street. Um, but yeah, that, that's how I would say to go about it. Uh, if y'all ever have any questions, like I said, put it into the Insiders Group. And this community is growing. I think there's 166 people now a part of the Insiders Group. And so shout out to you if you're in it. If you're not in it, make sure to hit the link in the description and make sure to join where we go live every single week. Talking about things and video and how to grow your online brand through this stuff. So anyways, thanks for watching, you guys. I hope you learned something today. Make sure to hop on next Friday at 1 o'clock, and I will see you guys then. See y'all.