How to Make Money Podcasting: The 6 Best Ways to Monetize Your Show

How to Make Money Podcasting: The 6 Best Ways to Monetize Your Show

As a podcast manager, it pains me to see excellent hosts who own amazing businesses shy away from openly sharing about their gloriously helpful services and products on their podcast. When done well, not only do podcasts connect with listeners, increase a business’ list of potential clients, share helpful information, and entertain, but they also make money.

Even if you don’t quite have a business yet, there’s a good chance that your podcast will reveal a problem your audience faces that you know how to solve. So, let’s get started!

First thing’s first – I need you to know that podcasting is a long game. People don’t hear you talk about one thing the first time they’ve ever listened to an episode and go hunting for the buy button.

Second thing – Sure, there are lots of podcasts. However, all you have to do is produce one episode every 90 days to remain “active” and create consistently in excess of 21 episodes to be in the top 1% of all podcasts.

The market isn’t saturated yet. Millions are still discovering and increasing their podcast listenership as we speak. There will always be a market for podcasts, no matter what video or digital marketing trends pop up, the opportunity to monetize your podcast will remain. The key to turning your podcast into a full-time job is being inventive about how you use the medium.

So many of my podcast editing clients have asked questions recently about how to make money from podcast advertising, sponsorship, premium content, or by providing additional products and services, so here’s a rundown of the top six ways to make money as a podcast host.

1. Podcast Advertising

Podcast advertisements and sponsorships are the most visible ways of making money podcasting, alongside producing premium content. You can find sponsors or companies to support your podcast in two ways:

1) by linking up with other people in your niche at events or conferences or

2) by using a service that connects you with potential advertisers so you can air a short segment for their product/service on your show to earn ad revenue and make money.

If you can connect with companies that would further support your niche that you personally believe would be a fantastic fit for your audience, that’s awesome!

However, it’s not always that simple to find the right fit, much less negotiate rates or write scripts. This is why for beginners, using a podcast ad network can ease you into making money with your podcast.

Joining a network like Podcorn helps you find companies who want ad space, provides an option to apply to read an ad spot for the ones you like, and does all of the negotiating for you. You can use Midroll or Podgrid too, just to name a couple of options.

You don’t need to confine your ads to a mid-roll or pre-roll section, though. You can leverage your email list, air your episodes on YouTube to attract different audience types and advertisers to your show, and offer exposure via your social media accounts. You may not make your millions overnight via podcast advertising, but you’re likely to generate revenue, even with a niche audience size.

2. Podcast Sponsors

Consider directly offering a company the opportunity to sponsor a season of your podcast instead of thinking of it as a one-episode deal. By offering to share about the sponsor throughout an entire season, you have the opportunity to make more money and get the business even more exposure.

Depending on your show and which companies you’re pursuing for sponsorship, it might be in alignment to produce a sponsored interview where the business rep is a guest on your show. You could host a discussion that is 80% focused on providing super helpful information for the listeners and 20% focused on sharing about how the sponsors’ product or service supports your audience.

Increased podcast revenue can be generated from podcast sponsorships by hosting events or providing a YouTube video version to reach even more viewers or listeners while promoting your podcast sponsor.

Depending on how many thousand listeners you have per episode or how engaged your smaller audience is, podcasts make money ranging from a few hundred dollars up into the thousands for exposure.

3. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing means that you get paid a commission when people click through and buy products or services from your affiliate link. As a podcaster, this is a great way to tell people about the products or services you genuinely enjoy and recommend.

You’ll come across as more authentic to your listeners if you clarify that you’re not just recommending a product to earn money, but that you’ve had a good experience and want to share it with your audience. Most podcast hosting platforms require that you offer a disclosure any time you sell ads, share about affiliates, or receive commission from subscription models.

You can promote an affiliate offer on your own podcast by creating a defined ‘I Highly Recommend …’ spot if you don’t have podcast sponsorship yet. You can also incorporate a mention of your affiliate products as part of your regular content, just as you would a direct sponsor.

Again, you can increase the likelihood of making money from your affiliates by sharing them with your audience in your email newsletters, dropping the links in your show notes and blog posts, talking about them in your YouTube videos, and including them in your social media posts.

With each suggestion on how to monetize a podcast throughout this article, get creative on how you can repurpose content, share on more platforms, collaborate, and include your sponsors or affiliates in more areas than just audio production.

4. Niche Courses and Services Podcast Listeners

Many popular podcasters create online resources to help their audience solve a specific problem related to or discussed on their show. This is one way to monetize a podcast without external paid content or sponsorships. Essentially, you become the sponsor for your own podcast.

There are several ways that you can help your audience and supplement the conversations that take place on your show while also enabling yourself to make money with your podcast.

• Create an online course — Podcast monetization can be achieved as you walk listeners through solving a specific issue. Many entrepreneurs start out just having conversations about a particular topic of interest, only to discover that they can provide people a solution and teach them how to achieve a measured result.

  For example, maybe your show is all about family financial planning; you could offer your listeners a way to streamline and revise their household budget or a create a signature course that will support families on their way to achieving financial freedom.

  Online courses are a great way to teach something in an easy-to-follow format where podcast listeners can get a specific result once they’ve completed it.

  Obviously, you can promote your courses to your podcast audience, but you can also let podcast listeners know about your course via free content like live events, webinars, Instagram Reels, or TikToks.

   

• Offer services that complement the content on your podcast — As an established expert in your niche, you can utilize monetization methods such as offering freelance writing or blogging, and getting speaking gigs at industry events.

  You can offer your skills to other podcasts keen to generate money, grow their presence, and find podcast sponsors. Podcast monetization doesn’t begin and end with your own show; you can use the position you’ve built as a creator to invent a revenue stream that supports your podcast.

   

Branch out into coaching and consulting services to make money — Podcast hosting can lead you toward generating income as a coach simply because as people listen to your voice, your perspective, and your conversations, they develop a deep connection and dependency on your guidance. Instead of doing the work FOR your client, you guide and support them to improve themselves.

As an experienced podcast host, you could even make money by offering new podcasters coaching sessions on using podcasting tools or equipment. Many podcasts lend themselves to coaching clients, particularly financial, fitness, and wellbeing.

5. Premium Content Membership for the Successful Podcast

You can make money by offering premium content as a podcast host. There are many ways you can monetize a podcast, particularly if you have a highly engaged, yet niche audience. By offering exclusive content such as:

• Additional interviews

• Early access to new episodes

• Ad-free listening

• Discounts on online courses or other products

• Subscription to private episodes either through your hosting platform or on Apple Podcasts

   

You can also create a membership site to make money; many podcast hosts use membership groups to provide their listeners with a space to be together to discuss the topic or to find accountability as they work toward solving a particular problem. As part of the private membership, you can develop workbooks with premium content for that membership group to generate a few dollars.

6. Branded Merchandise

Another way to add an income stream to your podcast is by selling merchandise from a print-on-demand service to your die-hard fans. Many podcasters offer branded merchandise to their audience at low price points, and designing t-shirts, mugs, or other products can be a fun way to maintain an engaged audience and keep your brand top of mind.

Even if you choose to also monetize in additional ways with sponsors, courses, or coaching, having a “shop” is always a great way for listeners to offer monetary support without making a large commitment.

How to Make Money Podcasting in 2022

As you can see, podcasts make money in a multitude of ways. When you first start podcasting, you’re just focused on figuring out the tech, recording high-quality audio, and sharing free content about a topic you’re madly passionate about.

In time, you win listeners over, they engage, share your show, and continue to hope for more ways to support your amazing work. Some podcasters sell courses, services, or solicit donations right away while others don’t. There’s no right or wrong way to monetize as long as it aligns with your topic, your audience, and your passion.

In 2022, it is still very possible to make money from your podcast, whether through sponsorship deals, advertising, offering premium content, or selling your own merchandise.

This article contains six main ways that podcasts make money, but by no means should you allow this to be the limit. It’s YOUR show, remember? You can do whatever you want!

I will say, however, that you should get used to advertising something right away, because the longer you put it off, the harder it will be to introduce ads to your show, especially for your own products or services. On the other hand, if you start sharing about products you love, your services, or your merchandise immediately, it will be “normal” for your listeners. Marketing is all about removing the friction between potential clients/customers and your product/sales.

So, what can you do today to segment or style your next episode to include an ad spot about your own services or products OR other services or products you love? Your listeners can’t wait to hear about it!