Felice from Action Packed Travel asks, "How can I monetize my podcast without doing ads or affiliate promotions?"
Ads and affiliates are two popular ways to monetize your podcast, but that doesn't mean they are always the best strategy. Depending on how large your audience is and the payouts offered by the affiliates you choose, you might be better off trying something else.
So in this episode, we'll share our three favorite ways to generate revenue from your podcast without running ads and affiliate links.
Links from this episode:
Record your podcasting question at Speakpipe.com/Buzzsprout to be featured on a future episode.
Felice from Action Packed Travel asks, "How can I monetize my podcast without doing ads or affiliate promotions?"
Ads and affiliates are two popular ways to monetize your podcast, but that doesn't mean they are always the best strategy. Depending on how large your audience is and the payouts offered by the affiliates you choose, you might be better off trying something else.
So in this episode, we'll share our three favorite ways to generate revenue from your podcast without running ads and affiliate links.
Links from this episode:
Record your podcasting question at Speakpipe.com/Buzzsprout to be featured on a future episode.
On today's episode, I'll be sharing my three favorite ways to generate revenue from your podcast without running ads and affiliate links. Welcome to Podcasting, Q&A relearn the best tips and strategies to launch grow and monetize your show. This week's question comes from Felice.
Felice:Hi, this is Felice from action packed travel. I was wondering if there were any ways to make money from a podcast that's not advertising or affiliates.
Badr:Thank you. Thanks for the question. Felice. Ads and affiliates are an easy way for most podcasters to generate some sort of revenue for their show. It's a low point of entry and requires a very minimal amount of work, but they're not all they're cracked up to be, and can pose a unique set of challenges. For example, having ads on your show can run the risk of disrupting the listening experience for your audience, especially if you're running multiple ads in a single episode. And since no two affiliate agreements are alike, each company vendor or product has a different payout structure. So depending on what the payout model is, and the size of your audience, it could take a long time for you make any substantial amount of money from affiliate links and marketing. Luckily, those are not the only two ways to monetize your podcast. The first way you can monetize your podcasts without using ADS is by selling merchandise creating and having merch to sell is a great way to not only make money from your podcast, but it helps us branding and advertising. I've created shirts, pens and stickers for my podcast in the past and I use easy online stores like Big Cartel to sell the products. If you have a website for your podcast, it might be advantageous for you to set up an online store directly on there, or include a link to your store in your episode show notes. selling merchandise for your podcast is an easy way for your listeners to support the show and it offers them something tangible that makes them feel closer to you and your brand. Second, you can use a platform like Patreon to monetize your show Patreon is a popular platform that allows creators to earn financial support for their patrons and listeners, it's a great way to encourage your listeners who might be interested in directly supporting your podcast growth by contributing a small monthly fee or even paying an annual membership you can create tiers with specific dollar amounts that correspond for unique perks and rewards. For example, on my Patreon, the dollar cheer gives a subscriber a shout out by name and an episode. And the ability to vote for episode topics. And my $5 here gives subscribers access to bonus episodes, private live streams and early access to weekly episodes before the public. The goal of your Patreon is to provide your listeners with something of value in exchange for their ongoing financial support. Now keep in mind it does require a decent amount of time and effort to run a successful Patreon and it might increase your existing workload, especially if you're offering rewards like bonus content, so be mindful of burnout. The third strategy is to find long term sponsors having sponsorships for your podcast, it doesn't always have to mean running ads. What I've personally done for the sponsors I've worked with is had my sponsor a specific or custom segment of my podcast. For example, they can either be a title sponsor who backs an existing portion of the show by name such as this segment is the best new comics OF THE WEEK sponsored by Gotham city limit comic shop, or I offer to create a custom segment for them that seamlessly works within the brand of my show, it eliminates the need for a traditional boring ad to be run, the latter of the two can be a bit more challenging to execute. And it does require some collaboration with your potential sponsor, but it offers you so much more flexibility and control for you to make something unique that makes sense for your podcast. It can also help you establish a much better relationship with your sponsor, because now you're having them become invested in the show outside of just a financial stake. So those are my three favorite ways to monetize your podcast without running ads or affiliates. But there's still a handful of other great options, especially if you're a Buzzsprout customer, there's a great feature built into your Buzzsprout dashboard that serves as an easy way to encourage your listeners to support your show. It's an appropriate title feature called the support your show link. And here's how you would set it up. Go to your dashboard, click the monetization tab, and then click the support your show link in the top ribbon. You'll be presented with a page that has a list of websites that will help you collect money for your podcast, like Patreon that I mentioned earlier, if you already have an account set up on these sites or if you have a different site that you would want to point your listeners to you can paste that link in the support show link as well. Once you hit save your support link will show up in a few places like your episode show notes. It also shows an icon at the top of your Buzzsprout website and will be available on your unique episode page and player.
Sarah:Thank you for listening to Podcasting Q&A. Now if you have a question you would like to submit for the show had to speak pipe.com/buzzsprout And leave a brief audio message. Podcasting Q&A is available both video and audio format. If you'd like video, please subscribe to the Buzzsprout YouTube channel. And if you'd like audio Podcasting Q&A is available on all the places where you can listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening and as always keep podcasting