How to Monetize Your Business Podcast Through Sponsorships, Products, and Premium Content
Executive Summary:
If you’ve been a good student and looked at the first, second and third instalments of this ACrew4U step by step guide to business podcasting you’ll have learnt so very very much.
Now let’s get you on your next step of the wonderful voyage to become a triple-dan black-belt practitioner of the arcane art of the podcast. Wax on, wax off!
In this fourth guide, let’s see how your podcast can be more than a passion project—it can be a revenue stream. Here’s how to turn your episodes into income.
This learning zone guide looks at:
Let’s dive in shall we?
Step 1: Attract Sponsorships
If you have followed the previous guides in this series, chances are that you’ll have created some good solid and engaing content, and it will be well edited and ready for sharing on platforms.
Once it’s got some traction, perhaps you could interest a sponsor. That might take the form of a channel partner, pharmaceutical firm or supplier or even client depending on what you have created.
Let’s have a look at what that might involve:
Build a media kit with listener demographics and download stats.
Before you can sell your sponsorship opportunities, you need to have some solid collateral.
Getting a media pack together, with a synopsis, information on listener demographics and personas as well as attained or projected download/ streaming statistics is pretty much essential.
Pitch sponsors that align with your audience’s interests.
Identifying potential sponsors that share interests with your audience should be made a lot easier if you have done your homework well enough.
Having your media pack makes it much easier to get meetings or calls and also allow your gatekeeper to themselves pitch your sponsorship proposals to the powers that be withing their organisation.
Offer ad slots, branded segments, or episode takeovers.
You might want to offer a variety of opportunities.
An ad slot is just what it sounds like.
More oblique approaches might take the form of a segment of your podcast that is sponsored by a relevant supplier or client.
Episode takeovers allow you to create content that aligns with your sponsor’s mission and the interests of your audience personas.
Step 2: Promote Your Own Products or Services
Applying the same logic, YOU could be your own sponsor. However, beware of overdoing the branding.
Nothing is more of an audience turn-off than laying the advertorial on like plaster.
You still need to deliver some quality content that gives your listener or viwer some real value.
As long as you’re doing that, you could consider:
Using episodes to showcase case studies or client success stories
But maybe let the happy client or someone who benefitted from your good deeds tell the tale?
Include calls to action for consultations, courses, or products.
If you’ve just had a first person testimonial to the efficacity of your latest doo-hickey, by all means offer a free trial perhaps?
Create podcast-exclusive offers or bundles.
This is a nice one. Maybe expand the podcast into a whitepaper, or turn an existing whitepaper into a podcast to promote it after the fact.
Step 3: Offer Premium Content
If you’ve got some really special content, why not consider offering some premium material to your top subscribers.
Here are some ideas for you:
Launch a Patreon or subscription model for bonus episodes.
As well as your main podcast, you might consider hiding some podcasts in a walled-garden subscribers only environment.
You could expand on a topic covered more briefly in mainstream content, or deliver some high-value insight or training.
Here are some other things you might want to consider doing;
- Provide early access, ad-free listening, or exclusive interviews.
All things that have real value to your most loyal listeners or viewers.
- Host paid webinars or workshops tied to podcast themes.
This is a great way to move beyond the podcast and into the real or virtual event world. And don’t forget, this can all be recorded and recycled into yet more content.
Step 4: Explore Affiliate Marketing
If you cover allied services or solutions in your podcasts, perhaps the people you speak or mention would like to get onboard and offer your engaged audience something useful?
- Maybe you could recommend tools or services with affiliate links
- But be transparent and only promote what you genuinely endorse.
NB- It’s always important that anything you offer by way of affiliate links of offer have a genuine resonance with and use for your audience, as well as aligning with your core podcast themes and of course your own brand values and tone of voice.
Conclusion
The key to making money from your podcast is about keeping value exchange at front of mind all the time.
Anything you link to your precious content must be useful and valuable to the listener or viewer. There is no quicker turn-off than undisguised advertorial or payola. Everyone can see through it, and someone investing their time in your podcast should be treated with the utmost respect. People aren’t stupid.
However, providing your podcast delivers consistent value, listeners and sponsors will be happy to invest.
Want to know more about podcasting or ACrew4U?
Want to learn more about Podcasting?
- How to Launch a Business Podcast That Builds Your Brand
- How to Script, Record, and Edit a Professional Business Podcast
- How to Grow Your Business Podcast Audience
- How to Monetize Your Business Podcast
- How to use your Business Podcast for Thought Leadership
Find even more resources at our Podcast Learning Zone
