Securing Sustainable Alternative Podcast Monetization Through Diversified Revenue Streams

Want your podcast and videocast to be seen, heard, found, and rewarded in this noisy digital world, you are not alone. Join the nonprofit community at Podcasters United and podcast industry experts Tom Hazard and Tracy Hazard as they debunk all that outdated and bad advice you've been getting from the podcast gurus and find out what actually works today. Get ready to finish feed your brand with smart cut tactics proven to cast your original voice to the world.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Feed you'd brand. I'm Tracy Hazzard, and along with my co host and partner, Tom Hazzard, we are going to talk about a topic that comes up again and again and again because it's changing all the time and because it's most important to most podcasters out there. How are you gonna create a sustainable podcast monetization process for yourself? Right? How are you going to secure those sustainable alternative podcast monetizations? Get diverse revenue streams, alternative podcast monetizations. And what we're talking about today goes beyond ads.

Now, Tracy, you're kind of chuckling, as you said. Part of that is that because the idea is really just that odd that people think, oh, I'm going to start a podcast, I'm going to make a ton of money with it. I mean, is that why you were chuckling?

It's the most common misconception we all know, right? Like, they all think the two things they think, right? There's two things. Everyone who thinks about starting a podcast is, I start a podcast, the listeners will come, right? If you build it, they will come, right? Right. That's number one. And I'm going to make a ton of money from those listeners or from the ads or whatever their mindset is, because they've heard it from someone else or they've been think, oh, my gosh, look, Joe Rogan makes a ton of money or whoever it might be that they're modeling, they think that that can happen and will happen to them just like that. Right?

And the reality is certainly there are people that do that make a full time living podcasting, but they're very, very few of them. And this is sort of the bubble bursting moment for all of you newbies who are starting, you know, a podcast, researching it.

You say that. And I think that the press and the media, podcast industry and all the trade shows where they bring people up, they talk about the same five people who are no longer making money anymore. So there's a few that do. Obviously, you know, we mentioned Rogan earlier, but we. And everyone mentions them all the time. But that's because he has big deals that secure the dollars. No matter whether or not he has the advertisers. He makes a minimum amount of money whether or not the advertising dollars come in for him. That's Spotify's problem. That's whoever he has the exclusive arrangement. Right. It' network arrangement. It's like having your show be sold to somebody. It's a very different arrangement than actually making ad dollars. So now he did make ad dollars. There's no question in my mind that he did do it. Is he still doing it at the same pace and rate today? I really question that and I think everyone should because I know very few. I mean, look, we have had over 1200 podcasts launched on our platform alone. And we have interviewed, I've interviewed at least 320 or so podcasters that are not in our network. So we've probably talked to and met with about 2,000 or more podcasters. And I cannot name three that make consistent money and make a living off of it.

I can't name three off of the show itself. Yeah. And I think this is the bubble bursting moment. I mean, look, it can be done, absolutely. But they are the unicorns in the podcasting space who do it. And to talk about Joe Rogan isn't really useful anymore because that show has gone so far beyond. It is no longer an independent podcast. It is a podcast that is owned by a huge media company. And of course that's. That makes it easy. They just want him to show up and record a few hours every day, broadcast a few hours every day. And there are other shows like that. In fact, all of the top shows that are cited even in very recent articles are these either our nationally known celebrities who have gotten involved and started a podcast a la Dax shepherd and the guys of smart lists and things like that, or you know, are other people that are standout leaders in their field. Like even Dave Ramsey is on the top of the list currently still for podcasts.

But most of those people in the celebrities aside are the. I'm going to call them the network shows aside. Right. Any independent podcaster that is making money is not making money from the show itself in the, in the traditional way you think about. Right. The ad dollars come in passively and I just rake in the money. They have a core business that is making money because of the podcast advertise itself being an advertisement. Right. Being the connection point being the lead generator. The business is making money. And that's what I want to get through everybody's head today that you have ads might be a part of it, Mike. Right, but you have to go beyond ads. If you do not have a media deal, if you are not that level of celebrity, so you don't have the organizational structure around you to do all of those things, it will not come to you on your own and it will never happen. Never, never, never. There is not one case of it ever happening where you sign up for Megaphone's stupid program for ad placement and you make enough money to support your living for it just never happens. There isn't a single show.

That's correct. And I have some data to put to that to share with everyone. Tracy. And this is. We're going to get off of ads pretty quick and, and on to, I think more meaningful and practical ways podcasts can monetize through alternative means to ads. Okay, but let me just frame a little, put a little data to this for you for ads. And this is in a very recent article that I will cite in the blog post for this episode. But that sponsorships for people that do have ad third party ads on their podcasts, the average for 10,000. When you have 10,000.

Listens or plays per episode, okay, you can, and you're doing a weekly show, you can make somewhere from 500 to $1,000 a month, depending on the rate of that ad paying. And honestly, I think that amount of revenue is pretty realistic. And I know of some that make less. So you.

I know some that make a lot less.

You're. You're not going to make a lot of. No, I'm not talking 10,000 for all your episodes of all your shows, just 10,000. When you have an average of 10,000 downloads per episode. Okay, you can monetize with ads sooner than that. And there's several different ways. You can if you want to, but you'll make even less money. So just to put some perspective on the kinds of ad dollars that most podcasts are making, and I want to.

Say this, you're hearing this and we're going to talk about all these things that go beyond advertising because Tom and I are not anti ad. I, I know we kind of sound like it here, but it's a waste of energy and money. And here we are, we developed an ad platform. It is the first thing that Poditize was about that we did when we developed it. We developed an ad mixing system because we were taking advertisers on our own show and we saw a need. But what we realized in that process is that the process of taking ads. Doing them in these generalized and these broad brush ways with these low dollar amounts that you end up netting at the end of the day was not the way to go. And that's why we built our ad system to take advantage of all the other alternative ways you might and where you might use an ad to reinforce those alternatives like sell a course, sell a program, sell a book, but highlight a partner, write what, whatever those things might be. That's what our ad system really was at the end of the day. It wasn't this, you know, generalized, what we would call broadcast advertising model because we don't believe in that. And the reason Tom and I don't believe in it isn't because we're anti ad. It's because it is not worth giving away your hard earned audience for so little money.

In a lot of cases that's absolutely true. So it can be one portion of your overall monetization strategy if you're willing to allow ads for random things to be played in your episodes. And that isn't going to hurt your listening audience and there's some question as to.

Or if you're willing to do the work. Right. If you're willing to do the work. That's what we did.

Right.

We put in a lot of work in making network connections in the 3D print industry with our very first podcast. And it took a lot of effort to get every advertiser we had. Now we charge those advertisers enough money to make it worth our while in our time. So it was really worth it. But it was a huge amount of our energy ourselves to do that. So when you split that with someone, it becomes not worth it. And that's what we really discovered.

Right. And so again, that's one way that ads can make sense. Obviously when they're relevant, they're not random national brands, you know, that are advertising something that's not relevant to what your show talks about. And some shows are not very niche down and maybe they don't have something and only it's a general topics and so maybe you would want only third party brands like that. But when you have a niche show and most podcasts are niche shows, there's probably a very well defined listener base for the show and things are interested in. When you can broker those kind of deals to put ads on your own show, you're going to make a whole lot more money from those ads. Not the 500 to 1,000 a year, but I mean, that's right, 500 to a thousand an episode. I said that wrong. But then you can make actually many thousands of dollars per episode or thousands of dollars a month from a single sponsor on all your episodes. And that's what we did with wtff, but still advertising. I want to now get quickly Tracy to share the seven, and it's a lot. I'm going to run through them quick, but seven alternative monetization methods to consider.

Right. So I want to preface this by saying, look, we used to work with a partner when we developed our 3D start point website, right? And the partner would have 30 ways to monetize your website. So Seven's not that bad, Tom.

Well, and I don't want to. The reason I chose seven is I want to overwhelm the audience and make this a huge, huge list. I'm going to. I'm going to stay with each of them are, and then we'll go through each one to spend a little time on it. There are others. Yes, there are others.

So but these are the ones that you think are most viable for most podcasters. Right?

And that anybody can do. Now, you cannot now, ad selling ads on your show is not one of the seven, because that's not alternative. That's pretty much straightforward. But you can still do that, and especially if you do it yourself. You have a brand you believe in, you use, you go and you pitch them. And we support our podcasters with this sort of stuff all the time. I mean, there's a brand called Cozy Earth that sells like bed sheets and things, and there is a. One of our podcasters that brokered a deal with them and put ads on their own show just for this holiday season. And it happened all the course of like, three days, like from closing the deal, putting the ads, putting them in the podcast. And that customer is like, we brokered our own deal, was making some significant money that was worth her while to do it, and it was a brand she believed in and was willing to endorse. Okay, so you can do stuff like that, but let's get to the goods of the alternatives now. So they are affiliate marketing through your podcast merchandise sales. And I don't just mean merch like T shirts and hats of your own show. Okay, yeah, I mean, that can be fun to do. And. And why not? If you've got fans who would like to wear your, you know, T shirt or have, you know, your ball cap with, you know, ball cap with your show name.

Product sale.

I mean, product sales. But it is merchandise. In the world of, you know, affiliate.

You have to have a store to Sell it in. It's an item.

You can sell things. Right. Then Don is another one we have to put in there. Especially non profit shows do this a lot. But a lot of shows can, can take donations. And we have some podcasters who really cover all of their done for you production costs every year and more through donations. And the one I'm, when I get there, I'm going to share what the show is because it's a good example. That show didn't exist before. I mean, how do I say this? The nonprofit was created because of the show. So it's not like the nonprofit existed before and took donations and they added a podcast. No, this nonprofit was a vision born out of the vision for the podcast. So that's a good one. Donations, live events. Okay, that's another one. Network distribution, premium content. And then the one that I believe the most, and I think Tracy does too, selling what you already have to sell or in and are in business to sell. You know what, you're in business to sell your own stuff. So that's the seven. All right, so let's get back to affiliate marketing. Now. I think a lot of people have heard about affiliate marketing and know what that is. It's basically you're not going to be paid ahead of time for something to put an ad on your podcast or to have a link on your website and but when people buy from you, endorsing them from you, raising awareness of their product, you get a commission on that sale. And the world of affiliate marketing is serious and extensive. And the affiliate, there are people that are full time affiliate marketers and they are finding every which way to raise awareness of all this other stuff. And by sharing a lot of different things that people can use in their, you know, personal lives or business lives or whatever it is, having links to them and then little commissions they make, they end up making enough money to earn a living on it. But it's a lot of work, like Tracy said about, you know, even brokering your own ads. It's a lot of work to set that up. And you'll notice a common thread through a lot of these alternative monetization tactics that we're talking about today. One thing that's incredibly important to have to be successful at really, I think pretty much all of these alternative monetization methods is you have to have your own website. So many of these things really require your ability to drive traffic either to a unique landing page on your website where there's referral links and all that, or you need to sell Merchandise through your own website or you know, you can do it through a podcast alone, but you're going to be very limited in your ability to do a very good job of it. So you've heard Tracy and I on past episodes of Feed your Brand say, if you're serious about podcasting and being successful, no matter what you define as success, and it may not be monetization, okay, but to be successful, you really need to have your own website that for the show or a home for your show on your business website, on a website somewhere where you can do these things. So affiliate marketing, you're gonna have an affiliate code or referral link for whatever different products, services, event, ticket sales. I mean, there are. Affiliate marketing is done for all sorts of different things. You raise awareness, drive people where they get to that third party company through you and are identified as coming from you. When they buy, you get paid. Does that make sense, Tracy?

Yeah. You know, the, the only thing I want to say here is this is number one on your list, but it's not like number one, like I want to be clear, this is just the list you're going through in this order. Like it's not our number one thing. And the reason it's not our number one thing is because I think that most of you out there are weak in the area of marketing. You might be weak in list generator, generating lead generation. If you want to think about. That's why you're starting a podcast, because you think it's going to bring you the leads that you're looking for, the missing link for you or your week in follow up emails and all of those follow ups to nurture those leads into a sale. Right. So this is. If you do not are not excellent at those things, affiliates will not work in the volume for the amount of effort. Like you won't get the amount of dollars for the amount of effort you have to put into it. If you not good at that, that's the reason to find a good joint venture and affiliate partner who's sharing you, not you sharing them. And so be really careful about how you're looking at that. It's just a lot more work than it is dollars achieved. And unless it's your core forte, like you're really great at it, then go for it. This one can be really good for you.

It takes a lot of volume of traffic of people, either listeners or web traffic or social exposure, social followers. I mean, you can build that through your podcast. Absolutely. It just takes time. Okay. This is not going to be A quick hit. It's really more of a long term, what I would call more of a marathon than a sprint of being able to achieve meaningful money with it. But you can achieve it. Yes. Okay. Merchandise sales, selling other people's stuff. Now affiliate is where they're going to buy from them and they send you a commission. And that can be a small single digit percentage, up to maybe a maximum of, you know, 10% at the. For only some affiliates. Okay. But merchandise sales, if you actually sell them through your website, you collect the money and pay that other vendor for it. Now you can negotiate much higher percentages, 20, 25% or more. Okay. So that there are ways you can. And there are companies that do sell merchandise through their own website and obviously use your podcast to drive. You have to have that transaction happen somewhere on your website. So you raise awareness in your podcast, drive people to purchase through your website, and then you companies will always give you a larger percentage if they don't have to close the sale.

So I think about it from this perspective. Where we've seen the most success with product sales are things that don't advertise well in social media. So biohacking supplements, things that can get kind of shut down or on the edge of what's boosted. And being the ability to advertise or co market for them in social media does much better on a podcast because they need access to your audience. But here's where, if your show is not niche down, it doesn't work well. If your show is just generally anything and then you try, you know, like it's generally anything, entrepreneurship and then you try to sell them a supplement, it's much more difficult than it is if your show is completely health and wellness focused. So thinking about that as, as to how your show works, what products make a fit here? And Tom and I are really big on product market fit. Right. And so you want to sell what you know your market wants selling anything and everything. Just because they have it for you doesn't do you any good. It's got to be a right fit or it's just too big a heavy lift to get someone to come off the podcast and go to a website and place an order.

I agree, Tracy, that's a really good point. Thanks for sharing that. All right, let's move on to donations. So I'm not a big fan of independent podcasters that put out on their website or say in their episode. Oh, and you know, if you'd like to buy me a coffee, go here to give me some money. Right. I mean, that. That's. That's never very successful. Or have a Patreon, you know, monthly subscription thing on your website all the time.

Whenever I hear, whenever I interviewed somebody on the Binge Factor and they would say they had a Patreon or to buy me a coffee, right? I go, did you make any money like, I have yet? And I said, well, if you know someone who made some money, I want to interview them. Like, I've been asking for it for four years, and I have not yet found somebody who makes more than 100 bucks a year off of it that is like, you know, makes significant money. It's just not going to happen. And it's, to me, a distraction to your audience, unless you're a nonprofit and you have a donation base. And I love this, this model of it for that. I mean, here we are.

Feed.

Your brand is actually a donated show to Podcasters United, and we don't even make a donation plea.

I agree, we don't. Well, here's the thing. In order for donations to work, I really do believe you have to, as a person, as a show, as an organization, be all in on this, live it and work it every day. And I'm going to give you an example now of a podcaster who does so. Tina Fornwald of Widowhood Real Talk with Tina Podcast, started her podcast, I think it's about two years ago now, and had this vision, because she is a widow herself, of supporting others who have lost a spouse maybe earlier in life than most people do, and, you know, supporting them. And so it's her mission in life to do that. And when you go to her website, which will be linked in the blog post for this episode, but it is widowhood-real talk with tina.org just to put it out there, you will see in above the fold, on the homepage, there is a donate button. But when you listen to her show and when you go through her website, you really realize she is all in in the nonprofit. She started a nonprofit. She has a board of advisors. They all work it together. They're trying to serve people, and they do serve people worldwide. And in fact, what you'll see on her homepage this month, and those of you that are live are watching this now, and by the time this is out of the podcast, it'll actually be too, too late. But we'll have a screenshot of it for you on her homepage. She actually has a donation drive she's doing for children who are parents that are widowed and have, you know, Only one parent and you can donate a toy to a child who is in need to help make them have a special, you know, Christmas, you know, if, if you're practice, you know, Christmas. So my point is she eats and sleeves and sleeps and breathes the nonprofit she's created that's a part of her podcast. And she is making enough donations that cover all her expenses doing the podcast. And her vision is for this organization to go far beyond the podcast and have such a large budget that it helps so many more people. The podcast is just how she raises awareness of it. So when I talk about donations, it's alternative monetization for podcasting. Yes, but again, this isn't put up a link and say, hey, would you give me a little money so I can keep the lights on the podcast. That's not going to set the world on fire.

But we have found many nonprofits that we've worked with in the past can go to their donors and ask them to sponsor the show as a part of what their donation dollars go to. Because it's a directed donation to what's happening, they feel better about it. And so we have seen that very successful saying, hey, we've been doing this podcast. We now need someone to sponsor the next six months of a production or the next six months of whatever it is, and here's how much it is per can you do that? And then they make a pledge and it works out for them. So that is something that you can also do, especially if you've got this nonprofit model. But also being really straight with your investors or partners, that might be something that you want to do as well, is if you're a startup with partners, you could say, this is what I want your dollars to go to. Can you make an added investment into this, which doesn't need to be paid back, hopefully. Right. You make that more of a donation model. And so any of those things that you do, really do can make a differ difference. But this is something you really have to do yourself. This isn't a casual invite your audience to go buy you a coffee. Like that's just too passive to expect that to make you enough money to fund your show.

Okay, moving on. Live events, one of my favorite things, these could be virtual online events. They can be in person events. They can be your own event because we do have some podcasters that put on their own events. Or you could be raising awareness of somebody else's event and just that you believe in and make a commission on those ticket sales. So there are many ways to use or to make money through raising awareness of live events. I think again it helps number one if they're your own events and you're lead generating through your audience for that event of your own. But again doesn't have to be and those are, you know, premium ticket sales that can be a great way and we have many podcasters that do that with both with their own events and also raising aware of others events. But you need again to be driving ticket sales through either affiliate links or links to your own website where you're, you know, have a page about that event and the people that do best with this there are events on a regular basis and they raise awareness of one event and the day that event ends, by the way, all those links on the website change and all of the ads within their podcast change to promote the next event or whatever the next thing is. And that's why having a good ad swapping system to be able to do that, not have to re edit all your episodes is important.

But and general redirects like this is Tom and I are the king and queen of, of replacing links and ads and using 41301 redirects because like we really believe in this. So like it just makes so much more sense for you to go from promotion to promotion to promotion or like we do here, coaching call to coaching call to coaching call. It's consistent. Our webinar links are consistent. Making a system and understanding how you're going to use this and making it not a one time thing is really important because the amount of time and effort you put into promoting an event needs to be on the promotion side and not on the technical side.

Yeah, it's a good point Tracy. There are a lot of tricks that and tips to doing this in an efficient way so that it is isn't overwhelming. But again does take some effort. I mean you're going to see there's a common thread with a lot of the alternative monetization things. It's again, it's not put the podcast out there and it's just going to happen. You have got to put the effort in and design it to work for you and your audience. But there are many, many different ways to do it.

And we're just to make sure that you all heard this out here. When we're talking live events, we mean it could be virtual live. It just means like, like we're doing here, like you're, we're live, we're actually recording this and talking to you at the same time.

Right.

So like It's. It's a live event from that perspective. It's something that only happens at this time. It's got the time urgency that's the key to these live events. If you've got something that's happening all the time, something that they're just joining into, it doesn't have that same sense of urgency. These live events do better with that. It's going to disappear tomorrow.

Another thing about the live events, depending on what you run your live event on, what kind of platform, Pretty much every good live event platform has a way to charge for tickets through that organization and that system. You don't even have to set up your own ability as an individual or a small business to accept credit cards and process charges and things like that. I mean, Zoom, for instance, we'll do it through them, you know, and you don't have to do this if you want to use Zoom webinar for your events or. But lots of other platforms that do that. And I'm not an affiliate for Zoom. I'm not trying to push them. It's just one example.

No, we're definitely not.

Yeah. Okay. So live events, that's another big one I'm going to. Well, network distribution is next on my list. And this one comes with a caveat to buyer beware or participant beware, because there's an awful lot of networks out there that are trying to take advantage of the podcaster, and there's really, in their model, greater benefit for their organization to have more podcasts in their network network than it is for the podcaster to be in the network. So you need to make sure the value proposition is good for you and there's a fair exchange of value for you being a part of the network. And are you exclusively a part of the network or is it just one more place your show is available? I kind of like it when it's one more place your show is available and not the only place. But being part of a network, they can provide you a way to be a part of the network. And they broker ads that would go on your show or have other ways to monetize. And it can be also through events or affiliates and other things, but the network is handling most of that. So you're a little hands off, but you're going to trade off a percentage of revenue in that because they're going to take a big cut because they're doing all that work and you may have to do less of the work, but. So network distribution is another way. Yeah.

Earlier this year, we did an episode on how a podcast network could be developed that would actually provide value and create money. And that's because we saw and met with so many networks that failed everyone that they ever enrolled. And so we saw that too often. So we flipped that and we talked about how you could actually create a valuable network. And I do think there is alternative monetization to be made for you to create that type of network. I have yet to see someone take our advice. The link for that episode is. Is in the blog post for it@podcasters united.org and you can just search on Podcasters United. How to create a podcast Network that actually provides value and makes money. That's the name of the. Of the episode we did. And when you're looking at that, that I think is really key here. The problem is, is that it's not a value exchange. It's a let me soak you for what you've got. And I just need more content. So I don't really care about you personally. That's where it fails so often. But there are some real keys to making the network work. So my answer to it is today, based on the networks that I see out there, if they're not paying you to podcast, then you shouldn't join the network. And if they're not guaranteeing the listener base and that listener base value to you, in other words, click through conversions, that kind of thing, that they're. They're real listeners and not fake listeners, they're not giving that guarantee to you. And you don't have access to us to see those stats for real on your show. Like you're. They give you your stats and you don't actually see it. Right. If that's not there, then you need a clause in your contract that lets you get out as whenever you want, because otherwise you get stuck in these content to the point at which you will give up your show. That's what I've seen happen. People will just go, I give up. I'm not going to podcast the show. And I lost all the value I put into it it. Because you have to surrender it to the network. So be very careful here.

Okay? So obviously there's a lot to unpack with that one. I'm glad we have some of the resources for you to check out. But still, I think it's worth mentioning network distribution can be another good alternative monetization. All right, now, premium content, I think.

Maybe should have done this like, you know, like David Letterman's top 10 list, and done it in reverse like you get down to two and one, because these are two of the best ones. The next, the next two are like two of the ones that I see make more money for people.

Well, my thinking was to save the best for last, quite honestly.

Yeah, I'm just saying we should have reverse numbered.

Maybe so. But anyway, premium content, okay. What's really important about this is especially when you've created a podcast that is free and has a certain listenership and then you've also hopefully got a good website for your show and you're putting it an episode landing page for every episode on your website. You're creating a lot of content that's generating traffic both from web and from social, but also your podcast. So then you're providing some good value for free. But you can provide premium content, something special, not for everyone, for a price. And I have actually a lot of podcasters, especially this year, we've had several podcasters who have a primary show and then are creating premium content with a private podcast feed. And actually not just the podcast, but they have other things they're offering premium content wise also as a, a business or a, you know, as a entrepreneur. And so you raise awareness to the podcast. But then if people want the premium content, you have a membership area of your website. That's the easiest way to do. This is a private area of the website where the premium content is the premium podcast. Some people do it through newsletters and distributing. You know, you can distribute a podcast through a special player for just an episode or a module of whatever your private offering is through email. You can provide a link that they only get when they're paying and they're in the email and they click that link and they get that one episode and it listens through a browser. There are many ways to do this. There's not one right or wrong way. But, but premium content, you've built trust, you've built an audience. You give them a certain amount for free. And I would sometimes liken this to. You could give them an appetizer or a small meal, a lunch, you know, for free, but then you want the full seven course meal. You're going to pay to be a part of the membership and premium community.

But here's the problem with most of you who do this out here. Most of the ones who go in with this mindset that that's what their show is about is this isn't, isn't a lick. It needs to be a full bite. Right? Like, you know what I mean? It's, you can't Just, I see authors do this all the time. They'll be like, oh, you have to buy my book to read it. Oh, you have to take the webinar. Oh, you have to do this to get the answer. Do not do that to your audience. It's the fastest way to lose trust.

I agree. You've got to be providing some real good value in your podcast. That's why this is something I think is good to do after your podcast is established and you're providing some good value. Because first of all, you need to have a decent sized audience to be able to offer the premium content to really make any money. If you try to launch a show on day one and do this, it's probably not going to work very well. So. But it is a legitimate way. I mean, like I said, several podcasters offering a different kind of value, a different kind of content for a price, a premium, and usually combined with some other things. And again, this works much better when it's related to your business. Which really brings us to the last item.

Right, right. But before we go into that, I just want to say is like, if building a membership community, using yet another program to like enroll people and do things in it is too daunting. Start smaller with the premium content. Come up with something that you can just drive them to that you could deliver in a download or you could deliver in a video that's private that, that they could access. Like, you know that you. I do masterclasses all the time as premium content. They pay a little and then they get the masterclass and then I give them more. I give them actually a whole playlist and I just add to it on occasion and I tell them to hit subscribe. And so when that playlist gets updated, they get an alert. So they get something in the future, remembering they paid, you know, 10 bucks for this and now look at all the value they've gotten. So when you do something like that, make sure that you try it first and not expect to have hundreds and hundreds of people making you money and you put all this time and effort into building this membership portal and community that you just don't have that level of conversion traffic. Even if your podcast show has it. Are they going to get off the podcast and consume something in a different model or is it podcasting for them?

All right, great points there, Tracy, to add. Thank you. All right, so the last one really is going to work best for those that are already in business in some way, shape or form. And what I find is most independent podcasters that are subject matter experts that have enough experience and mind share to offer real value in a podcast tend to be in business in some way already. And they have things to sell, they have courses, they have books, they are consultants, they'll do group consulting, one to many or one on one consulting at a higher price. They could be doctors that have a practice. And we have a new podcaster we're working with right now that is a, has a physical therapy practice and is doing, has launched a wonderful podcast around that.

And then masterminds are great. You know, all of those types of programs.

Also just quick on the physical therapy practice, you would think, oh, that's, that's local. That's a lot. They need local people. Well, sure, they would like local people. But this practice has just gotten authorized first of the year to do telehealth physical therapy in about 13 other states. So you can, you can see how this can expand. And you can monetize your podcast, use it to market and grow your brand, your business. Now, you do still always need to serve first, provide real value in that podcast to people, but you can raise awareness for the other things that you have to sell. And when those people need that, are they gonna go and seek you out? Yeah, you bet they are. Because they know you, you're in their ear every week. They trust you, they're gonna go to you when they need that. Right? So selling what you already have, raising awareness using this loudspeaker that you have, being the host of your own podcast and distributing your stuff everywhere in the podcast ecosystem, probably on YouTube, taking clips, putting them on social, all that's wonderful. But what are you then sending those people to or inviting those people to do now that they know who you are and they're listening to you? If you're in business, the first thing I would be doing is raising awareness of my own stuff before I ever sell to some third party advertiser to distract my audience away from me and my business. Right?

Or even do affiliates. This is why I'm not a fan of them. Because when you're selling your own stuff, there's consistency in your messaging and in your brand and in everything that you're doing. So you're maximizing what you're promoting, right? So if I am constantly selling my podcast hosting services and I am advertising about that in the promotional posts that I create on social media mixed in with the podcast posts that I'm creating, and they're all supporting each other and they're not counter to each other, it makes it Easier for you. Everything has a consistency, but not everything feels like advertisement and promotion, right? Some of it feels like giving and content, which makes people stay, stick around longer and actually hear the promotional messages, actually want to buy something from you.

So I had this epiphany with a customer within the last week that was meeting about trying to actually get more out of their podcast. And I came to discover in that call that this person, I knew, he was an author, but I didn't know, you know, you know, like every other entrepreneur you meet has a book they've made once, and it's. You can buy it on Amazon and it's print on demand. All right, well, this guy I learned, is a legitimate author, and he sold 30,000 copies, like shipped books of his book in the last. I don't forget what it is, however long, you know, more than a year. And I was like, so why are you not making. Raising awareness of the book in every episode and sending people to that book page on your website? And we even took it a step further, and I've added a little player with his most recent podcast episodes on the book page because there are other things he has driving people to the book page. So.

So, you know, so now he's driving him from the book page to the podcast, which keeps him connected for hopefully the next book.

Right? And so obviously we righted that ship, but oh, my goodness. Real opportunities when you're in business already to cross promote and to, you know, get more value and make money as a podcaster. But it's not, again, selling ads. I mean, that's only one piece, and that's okay, but that's not one of these seven alternatives. So to recap, we talked about at beyond ads, affiliate marketing, merchandise, product sales, donations, live events, network distribution, premium content, and again, premium content, and then this last one we think are the most viable and the easiest for a podcaster to adopt and to start using. Make money selling your own stuff that you are already in business to sell. Why you got in business in the first place for most people was not to become a podcaster. But now that you are a podcaster or you're becoming one, you will reach more people, you will build an audience if you do it right. So why not raise awareness for more that you have to offer through the show? You'll make more money that way, sooner with a smaller listening audience than you will trying to build an audience and get to that holy grail level where you're getting 10,000 downloads an episode to then be able to make 500 to a thousand bucks a month because of that. Is that really the goal? I don't know.

Well, I am really glad we went over these things, but I do want to say in recapping them that there's a theme to what we've done here, and that is that if you do them in reverse, all the next logical steps actually come for you. So if you focus on selling your own stuff first, then you can figure out what that premium content is. Then you could figure out if a network makes sense for you, because maybe you need a network to gain a bigger audience. Maybe that's the next step, is for you to gain access to more people because the other parts are working for you. So you have more to gain from doing that. And then maybe from there, because you now have this larger audience, you can drive more people to live events. Donations are kind of on a little path of their own because they might be something that you just don't want to do. It doesn't make sense in your business. So you knew that product sales, right? Like, are you going to add products? Let's make some new products. Tom and I are big product fans, so, like, this is it. But don't make something to sell unless you're sure you have sales and conversion happening already. It doesn't make sense, right? Build a store, do all that work, and then nothing. No product sells. And then. And now your last thing is going in reverse. The affiliates, do they make sense? Am I confusing my audience or do they make sense? Are they bringing me more audience? Is their product serving my audience? It makes sense in determining what affiliates and joint ventures you want when you are in that stage of already knowing. So that's why we tend to get our clients to focus first on something that aligns best with their current message, their current business, their current nonprofit, whatever that might be. We want to make the alignment happen from the beginning because shifting it back and tightening it up just means more work later. Right? And if you start tighter, it's easier to loosen up later.

So true. You know, Tracy, we could go on and on here, but I really don't want to run the risk of overwhelm. We probably have already done enough of that in this episode. We're passionate about it. That's true. We've not taken the deepest dive into each of these. We've taken some deep dives in some of our other episodes. We've mentioned a few of those, and there will be links and information where you can take that deeper dive into those specific episodes from the blog post for this episode, which is located@podcasters united.org it's also linked in the description of the podcast wherever you're listening to it or on the YouTube channel if you're watching the video. So I think we should wrap it there. And I think this is a great time of year, end of one year, beginning of a new year for podcasters to be, you know, taking stock of, hey, am I enjoying what I'm doing? Am I reaching people? Am I hearing from them? Hopefully the answer to that is yes. And then what am I going to accomplish in the new year to actually get some return on this value I've been providing to my audience for free? And that's really why we want to talk about this today, right?

Yep, exactly. So, well, thanks everyone for listening. Don't forget, you can go to podcasters united.org and find all the links to everything we've been talking about today and many, many other tips. Everything is free on that website for you to access. There is nothing premium behind a gate. Everything is out in the open for you. So go join us there. Thanks everyone for listening. I'm Tracy Hazzard, along with my co host Tom Hazzard, and we'll be back next week.

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