Starting a podcast is a wonderful way of engaging your passions and your creativity. Anyone can start podcasting about any subject that takes their interest, but making money from the endeavor is a whole other story. If you have an increasingly-popular podcast on your hands but aren’t sure what to do with it, here are 4 ways that you can turn it into a bona fide moneymaker.
Sponsorship
No matter what your podcast is about, there is always someone out there who could benefit from sponsoring you. Needless to say, you will need to have an appreciable audience before you can think about approaching sponsors for potentially lucrative deals. However, once you believe you have a following large enough to justify the investment of another organization, it is something worth considering.
Don’t limit yourself when it comes to sponsorship either – be prepared to think outside the box. For example, if your podcast deals with economics or business-related subjects, then perhaps a university would be interested in partnering with you to promote their online Business Degree Programs. Or, alternatively, you could approach a publisher who specializes in business-related publishing.
Link it to a Business
If you are the entrepreneurial type, a podcast can present you with a unique opportunity. Many podcasts are born as a means of augmenting an existing business and increasing interest and user engagement. However, it’s just as possible that you could do things the other way around and build a business on the back of a successful podcast.
The most immediate way of doing this is through merchandising. If your podcast already has a loyal audience, there’s a good chance that some of them will jump at the opportunity to show their support and keep funding the show. Setting up your own merchandise store has never been easier. You can also sell items on a made to order basis, meaning you don’t need to invest in any stock upfront.
Donations
Perhaps the simplest way of getting money to fund your podcast is to just ask people for it. Once you have a decent-sized audience and have established some long-term listeners, asking for donations is a viable means of securing funding. If you offer your podcast to listeners for free, they are more likely to be receptive to you asking for donations. If you already charge a fee for each download, you are going to find it harder to justify asking people to give you more money without getting anything in return.
Crowdfunding
As well as asking for donations generally, you can use crowdfunding in order to fund individual projects and ideas. Many content creators, podcasters and otherwise, use crowdfunding platforms like Patreon in order to make money from their content while offering it to users free of charge. Some people have been surprised by just how much money some of these content creators are able to make on the back of these voluntary contributions from users.
A podcast is a golden opportunity for any entrepreneur. If you set out to make a podcast just to make money, you will likely be disappointed. However, if you can produce an engaging podcast on a subject that you are passionate about, monetizing it is remarkably simple.
