How to make money from a Podcast in 2021 | Techbieb

How to make money from a Podcast in 2021: 22 different ways

Podcast has grown more and more popular through the past few years that target audiences like a young, educated, marketer.

According to a study by Statista, podcast listeners could reach up to 100 million in the United States by 2024, from 75.9 million in 2020.

In the third quarter of 2020, Swedish audio streaming provider Spotify touched 320 million active users globally, an increase of over 70 million within just one year.

According to data compiled by PwC, Podcast ad revenue in the U.S. is expected to pass $1 billion by 2021.

Points to remember before monetizing a podcast:

Assuming you’re starting your first podcast, so you will not have a clear vision or proper strategy to step forward or monetize.

But time by time as you keep uploading, you should follow and maintain some rules that can smooth your monetize process.

Things you should keep in mind:

• Follow a strategy: creating a strategy and stick to it is the way to face success in this competitive industry. You should figure out a few strategies to monetize your podcast and follow this until you get success.
• Maintain consistency: You should be consistent with your content whether you’re uploading daily or weekly or bi-weekly.
• Trial and Error: There are multiple ways to make money from podcasts, if one way is not working for you then try another way and keep exploring until a way is working for you.
• Analyze results: After applying a method don’t forget to keep tracking of that process whether that monetization process is performing well or not.
• Learn from mistakes: Don’t scare of making mistakes. Doing mistakes is not wrong rather ignoring them is a mistake. Keeping improving yourself.

Multiple ways to monetize a Podcast:

Let’s come to the main point. There are many parameters in the case of Podcast monetization.

I have categorized the ways into a few categories:

• Active monetization
• Passive income
• Product selling
• Digital Products
• Offering Services

Let’s dive deeper into each category.

Active Monetization:

This way requires quite efforts to make money from Podcast. But it will pay for your effort if you put your effort in the right way.

You can get sponsorship deals or charge a guest to appear in your podcast. Also, you can charge money if someone invites you to their podcast.

It’ll make more money as your Podcast grows as well as you can charge more as your listeners increase.

1. CrowdFunding and Donations:

If you have a perfect amount of active listeners, then you can say them to support via donations to improve the quality of contents or help you to buy a cup of coffee.

In this case, Patreon can be the most effective way to get donations.

They provide various membership plans (like Gold, silver, etc.). You can make the plans at a low price so that everyone is most likely to pay that.

Suppose you have 500 Patreon members and you’re offering a minimum membership plan at $2 per month. So, you can earn $1000 per month($2 X 500= $1000).

Also, you can add international payment methods such as Paypal to make the donation process smooth.

2. Sponsorship Deals:

Once you got a Brand for promoting their products or services it’s become easier for you to make money from a Renowned brand.

But, initially looking for a brand to sponsor you is a painful process.

Rather you can do one thing!

Make your brand value and increase your listeners by providing great value to them.

Once you got a large follower base then the Brand itself will approach you to promote its products.

Either you have to recite their sales pitch provided by them or they will place an ad in between your Podcast and you can charge them handsome money for that.

3. Guest Charge:

Another way to make money from a podcast is to charge money for guest who wants to join you in your podcast to promote their brand.

If your podcast is popular enough then you can publish a form in your social media handle and say them to fill up who want to join as guest in exchange for money.

It’ll also benefit you in another way, you can gain knowledge and experience from the guest and maybe the guest has a fan base who are also watching the show will finish up by subscribing to you.

if you are making an interview podcast then this process is already known to you.

Guest can also give you free access to their products and offers a discount for your audience, which is another benefit. 😜

Entrepreneurs on Fire Podcast charge $3500 to appear on their show.

Passive Income:

Everyone wanna earn passive income from a Podcast no exception for you also.

Nothing wrong with that. But you should have a proper idea about that.

This is the only earning that can generate money 24/7 without doing a lot of work or doing a little work.

Here’s the way you can earn passively from a Podcast:

4. Affiliate Marketing:

One of the most profitable ways of making money from a podcast is Affiliate Marketing.

Affiliate Marketing means getting a special link from affiliate platforms and if anyone purchases products from your link you can earn a little commission.

Just search for any brands that are offering their affiliate program and register yourself. then once you get the special link of tracking code you can put that into your podcast description.

It’d be best if you promote relevant products of your topic.

If you have a huge fan following then you should not promote any products before verifying. Because that may lead your audience to lose their trust in you.

One pro tip here, before promoting a small brand verify doubly whether they doing something illegal or not.

Initially, you can start with Amazon affiliate then explore other platforms further.

In the case of promoting a physical product (eg. books, electronics gadgets) the commission rate bit lower almost 8%-10%. But if you’re aiming for digital products like online courses, e-books, software then the commission rate is quite higher like 20%-30% or more than that.

5. Monetize with Podcast host:

This is the basic way of monetizing your Podcast by uploading it to a podcast hosting service.

But most of the podcast host does not provide this ad service and also not available around the globe.

But there are few platforms available that are offering this like BuzzSprout. BuzzSprout will cut their commission and you’ll get 15% of the total purchase.

I have listed the 10 best Podcast Hosting services including BuzzSprout, Captivate, Transistor you can check that out.

6. YouTube Video Ads:

YouTube is getting popular for visual content. This is a great way to drive traffic to your podcast.

After recording your podcast you can make an animated video of that Podcast. People are most likely to consume animation over normal video.

Adding subtitles to the video making viewers understand every line clearly.

If you are interviewing someone on your podcast then rather than uploading the full episode in a single video, you can upload few short videos of that long show that specifically solves a query.

As an example, rather than uploading a 1-hour episode named “Episode 16: Jay Shetty on Meditation and Procrastination” you can upload two videos by naming those such as “Jay Shetty Speaks about Meditation” and “How to overcome Procrastination by jay Shetty”.

After getting eligible for Youtube Monetization, you can earn money from YouTube channel as well as drive traffic to your Podcast.

7. Earn from Transcript Website:

Again a good source to earn passively from your Podcast with giving a little effort after uploading each Episode.

See, the scope of blogging is never gonna fade up. Now also you’re reading a blog article to learn those tricks.

More Professionals choose reading over listening or watching a video on youtube.

Only just you gotta do is make a free website using a CMS like WordPress and upload your Podcast transcripts to that website.

Now, the question is HOW TO GENERATE TRANSCRIPT OF MY PODCAST?

There are a lot of Softwares available like Sonix that generate Transcript automatically through AI(Artificial Intelligence).

After getting a good amount of traffic on your website you can apply for any Ad Platforms like-

• Adsense: It’s a commonly used Ad service for bloggers.
• Ezoic: you need 10,000 monthly page views for applying to this platform.

Also, you can go for Google Blogger that provides free subdomain and hosting if you’re not willing to pay the domain and server fee initially.

Premium Access:

Offering premium access to your subscribers is a way to make money from podcasts. Multiple things can be served through this Plan.

When your podcast gets enough listeners then you offer this service but if are thinking to offer a premium plan initially then you might not get more premium subscribers.

8. Paid Subscription:

After getting a boost you can offer some of your podcasts for free and put the contents of the rest behind the paywall. As a premium subscription you can offer:

• Premium Podcast before Releasing.
• Behind-the-scene recording.
• merchandise.
• Live stream shout-out.

9. Consultation:

You’re tired of working with any brand. OKAY!

You can provide consulting services and help them to grow faster.

Now, things come to your mind “Why would someone pay for Consultation ?”

Here’s the solution:

• They might not have time to digest all the contents over the web.
• One cannot be good at everything, so they a professionals in their niche.
• Hiring an experienced one or getting consultation from professionals can boost their growth as well as revenue.

How can you offer them your service:

• One-to-One call: you can instruct them how to do and what to do to improve through a face-to-face video call and charge them accordingly.
• Meeting: A meeting can be a great way to manage a group of people at the same time, which can help to save time as everyone can share their approach to reach the goal.

There are many ways you can try on your own and see what’s most profitable for you.

10. Private Forum:

Creating a private discussion group or forum is a trend nowadays. This also helps the members in multiple ways like:

• Instant access to you whenever they are stuck into a problem and get a solution directly from you.
• If your services are good then the group members can approach you to consult with them or they can refer any company to you and you can charge them.
• Passing solution to others can help you to sharpen your skill, again and again, that leads you to more experienced ones.

You can use Discord to make your private group.

For accessing your group you can add a subscription method that will generate money for you additionally doing almost nothing.

Product sales:

Selling products to your audience is another process of making money. You can promote them to generate leads.

If you’ve launched your merchandise then make sure you wear that shirt/t-shirt in every YouTube Podcast video and don’t forget to put a link to your store.

Also, there are many ways:

11. Fulfillment by Amazon(FBA):

If you’re a shop owner or book publisher and want to sell your product online then FBA will be great for you.

You only need to have any products to promote in your podcast and making people aware of that product.

After selling products from your store, Amazon takes care of everything need until delivers to the buyer’s doorstep.

This model can help you to grow your local business without spending a single on Ads rather than promoting on your show.

If you can get success in this way then you can promote other’s Physical products in exchange for charging money.

12. Write a physical book:

Assuming you’re doing a podcast for recent few months or years, so now you’ve enough experience to write a book on your niche.

I’m not telling you to write a novel, but you can easily write a book of 150-200 pages by giving few hours every day.

after finishing the writing process get your book printed from any local book printing services.

Now, just promote that book in your show or your private group. You can give few pieces for free to review the contents of that material.

if your audiences are likely to buy that book, enlist your book in Amazon and start earning from it.

13. Localized Services:

If you run any local services or agency, let people know about those in your show.

Suppose you’ve got a gym center, share solutions regarding those service queries. Your local listeners can join that program if they have been provided value.

Digital Products:

Nowadays creating any digital product as simple as creating an account on Facebook.

As everyone is preferring most to consume online courses rather than offline universities, so there is a huge void for creating online content such as podcasts, Blogs, animated content, etc.

In this digital era, if you haven’t created your online presence till now then bro you’re missing a great opportunity.

There are so many ways you can produce digital products and promote them in your Podcast such as:

14. Make Online Course:

Everyone has their expertise in any topic. No exception for you too.

Find your expertise in a niche and make a course containing everything you know about that can pass values to your listeners.

After making your course video you can upload that to your website or go for any third-party course providing website such as Udemy, Skillshare, etc. and host that course there.

You can talk about your course in your podcast, if the audience likes your content, they will also purchase your course no doubt on that.

15. Offer an e-book:

Smartphones are making their presence in everyone’s pocket. It’s not possible to take a book everywhere.

But, if it is a digital book or e-book you can get access to that everywhere just you need a smartphone or PC or laptop with you.

Amazon provides a free mobile app called “Kindle” that comes with millions of e-book to get access.

You can provide an e-book of your physical book and says some key-feature of that in your podcast that can generate an income passively.

16. Launch affiliate program for your Product:

Launching an affiliate program for any product means increasing income by 2x, 3x, 5x, and so on.

You have created online course and e-books, now it’s time to launch an affiliate program to let other promote your products.

You just have to share a little amount of your product price with them.

Also after paying them affiliate money, you’ll see you have earned quite more as compared to before.

Here you just have to focus on your product and keep improving them and your affiliates will take care of your sales part.

17. Offer bundle package:

For example, suppose you have created 10 courses of $50 each that giving you a poor conversion rate.

Here you can make a bundle of 5 courses for $150 rather than charging $50 each. You will see better conversion.

Following this smart strategy you can multifold your income that most people are doing.

18. Create a digital tool:

As many industries are shifting to digital, you can provide software, web templates, SEO tools, and many more.

Create software and offer a free trial and if they like your product then they’ll become a lifetime customer of yours.

You can also offer a Website template or theme so those who don’t want to waste their time on making a new one can buy that from you and you can generate money.

If you give a trial version to your private group members then they will try and refer others to purchase that software or tools.

Marketing Services:

Marketing your services simply means offering a bunch of services at the premium level that simply increases the rate of income.

19. Conducting live webinars:

Conducting a free live seminar online is a great way to get audiences. Zoom provides various plans where you can host meeting of upto 500 participants.

You can teach them or let them know about your product can help you grow together.

You can make them fill up any form to get their email list or contact numbers, later you can offer them your services.

If they are satisfied with you then they may buy or refer someone.

20. Freelancing:

Besides making your podcast you can work as a freelancer for others.

You can help them to set-up a Podcast, audio-recording, editing, Uploading in the right way, and also optimizing the Podcast page.

Initially, you can charge a bit less, and as grows then gradually increase your time-value.

Remember keep improving yourself, don’t just run for the money.

“MONEY IS BY PRODUCT”

21. Create an agency:

You can create an agency to grow differently.

An agency not only provides great solutions but also generates huge revenue.

If you’re in the podcasing niche, your agency should provide every solution from setting-up an idea to get success in the podcast industry.

22. Promote Mobile app:

You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to create an app. Nowadays many drag-and-drop platforms available that do not requires coding knowledge to develop an app.

Put your services or area of coverage on that app and talk about your app in Podcast.

As the number of app users grows you can monetize your app through Ads and start earning money.

How much money you can earn from Podcast?

As I’ve shown you so many ways(22 ways) to earn money from a Podcast, you just have to figure out your way/ways to monetize your Podcast and start getting a paycheck from it.

As per research, Podcast Ads revenue in the U.S. is expected to touch over $1 billion in 2021.

Joe Rogan from “The Joe Rogan Experience” is estimated to have earned over $30 million in 2019.

As the data from Podtrac shows, iHeartRadio has over 266 million downloads in October 2020 while NPR hits 219 million.

Just stick to one thing and keep creating good content, success gonna hit you soon.

Conclusion- Wrapping up everything:

Throughout this article, I’ve covered almost every possible approach to make money from a Podcast or monetizing a podcast.

Every way written here is very natural so try every possible way and figure out which suits you best. Then follow those steps and start earning money.

STOP Procrastinating and start today!

There is no best time to start.

Keeping consistent can lead you to success and make you feel proud.

Thank you for reading till the end... 🙏

Feel free to ask any doubt in the comment below and also write whether you’ve earned any penny from Podcast or not…

HAPPY PODCASTING...