3 Ways to Offer a Private Podcast

We break down three practical ways to create a private podcast with listener experience in mind. We also explain what “private” means when it comes to using an RSS feed, and how to pick the best option for you and your podcasting goals.

Resource Mentioned: Unlocking the Value of Premium Content

If you have questions about offering a private podcast, reach out to us on the Podcaster Success team by emailing support@buzzsprout.com 

Keep podcasting!

Transcript

Welcome to Podcasting Q&A

Cara Pacetti 0:00

Welcome to Podcasting Q&A, brought to you by the people at Buzz Sprout. I'm your host, Cara Pacetti, and I'm bringing you the best tips and strategies to keep you podcasting with confidence. Today's episode is actually a follow-up to last week's episode where we talked all about when it makes the most sense to offer a private podcast. So in this episode, I really want to walk through the how. So, how are we going to create a private podcast and make it accessible to the audience that we're targeting? There are many different ways to approach this. And really, the best option depends on what you want your listeners to experience. Today I'm going to share three different ways of offering a private podcast, how each of those options work, and what type of audience would benefit most.

Create an unlisted podcast

Cara Pacetti 0:50

The first and simplest option here is to actually create an unlisted podcast. So you would walk through the steps of creating a podcast as if you were going to submit it to the directories, but you would just avoid that last step of submitting that RSS feed to the listening directories, keeping it somewhat private. So a little caveat here is that when you publish your episodes on an RSS feed, RSS feeds are by nature public. So even though you're not submitting them to the directories, and while it's highly unlikely, it's still possible someone could discover your podcast, especially if a listener shares the RSS feed URL with someone else. So because of that, we'll actually call this first option for offering your podcast a hard-to-find podcast instead of referring to it as completely private. So the way this works is that you would publish your episodes and they would still go on your RSS feed. The cool thing about this is when you are hosted here on BuzzSprout and you're on any of our paid plans, your episodes will be added to your podcasting website. And that website can be shared directly to your listeners. You can also use our embed players to embed these episodes to your own personal website if you have that. Another pro tip if you're hosted here on BuzzSprout is to actually hide your BuzzSprout website from search engines. You can do that right from inside your BuzzSprout account so that when anyone is searching terms related to your podcast in their search engines, your website won't appear as an option. So what type of audience would benefit from this type of hard-to-find podcast? This is a great option when you want something to be simple and free for the listeners, but you don't necessarily need it to be super strict when it comes to access control. If it is to be discovered by someone who's not in your direct audience, it's not the end of the world. But ideally, the only people listening to these episodes are those who you are sending this direct link to or who are visiting your personal website where you have embedded these episodes.

Create a membership around the podcast

Cara Pacetti 2:54

Another fun option for offering a private podcast is actually to create a community or a membership around the podcast. You can do this through a membership platform like Patreon or Kajabi. Both platforms can provide listeners with a private RSS feed so they can listen to your episodes in their favorite podcasting app instead of having to log into a website every time. I want to walk through both of these because they are actually created for different purposes. So Patreon is what's considered best for your fans or your audience. Patreon is really built around the idea of listeners supporting a creator and getting their favorite exclusive content in return. In my last episode, we used an example of creating a podcast that's focused on reality TV shows, but then offering exclusive episodes about certain seasons of really popular TV shows. This would be a great opportunity to offer the private version of your podcast as one of the perks of joining a paid membership. And in addition to that, you can offer other perks alongside the podcast, like bonus content, behind the scenes material, polls, chats, or other exclusive posts. Patreon makes the most sense if you're thinking, I have fans who want more content from me and I want to give them not only a private podcast, but I also want the experience to be super interactive. Now, Kajabi, on the other hand, is best for courses and professional content. So Kajabi takes a more business-focused approach. You can use Kajabi to offer a private podcast as a part of your course, coaching program, membership, or another paid offer. Kajabi will provide your listeners with a private RSS feed so they can use that feed to add it to their favorite podcasting app. But instead of the podcast being the main product, it's one piece of a larger experience. For example, if you are a coach, you could provide your clients with a course with video lessons or worksheets within the membership account that your listeners are creating with Kajabi. In addition to these resources they are getting with their membership, they also have access to the private podcast with additional coaching or lessons that they can listen to on their favorite podcasting app. So Kajabi makes more sense if you're thinking, I'm creating a professional course or program, and I also want to provide a podcast to be a part of what I'm offering. So the big takeaway between these two membership platforms is that Patreon is more fan focused, while Kajabi is more business and course focused. But both are great for podcasters because they make it really easy for listeners to consume the private podcast you're creating by providing a private RSS feed for members to listen to using their favorite podcasting apps.

Use Buzzsprout subscriptions to put episodes behind a paywall

Cara Pacetti 5:42

The last option here: if you are not looking for a full membership experience, but you also want this content to be locked behind a paywall so that it is only available to those paying members, I recommend using a service like BuzzSprout Subscriptions. So if you're hosted here with us on BuzzSprout, you'll have access to the subscriptions feature if you are on any of our paid plans. And when you enable subscriptions, you'll have multiple options for offering your premium content, including premium episodes. So you can choose just a couple of episodes to remain private, placed behind a paywall. You can offer early access to your subscribers. You can offer back catalog access. You can even put an entire podcast behind a paywall. So making it a subscriber-only podcast. And you can also offer ad-free episodes. This works in a similar way as Kajabi and Patreon, where the listeners will receive a private RSS feed to use in their favorite podcasting app. But the beauty of this option is that it's available right inside of your BuzzSprout account. So from uploading and publishing your premium episodes to accepting payments, it's all handled right inside of your podcast host account where you're already uploading your public content. So if you want to know a little more about how BuzzSprout subscriptions work, we've actually covered it in a recent podcast and QA episode called Unlocking the Value of Premium Content. I'll go ahead and link that episode in the show notes. So just a quick recap which option would work best for you. I want you to think about it this way. If you want your private podcast to be free and simple and it doesn't have to be secure behind a lock and key, keep the podcast outside of the public directories and share the direct link to your episodes or your podcasting website with your listeners directly. If you want to podcast and a community, use a platform like Patreon or Kajabi and make this private podcast part of the overall membership experience. And if you want to make sure that the content you're creating remains private while also using this as an option for monetization, check out Best Route Subscriptions. This will allow you to place content you feel adds value behind a paywall for your listeners. Just like everything in podcasting, there really isn't one right way to create a private podcast, but you definitely have options. The right option for your show will depend on the reason you're making it private in the first place. If you have questions about how to start a private podcast, you can reach out to us on the podcaster success team by emailing support at buzzsprout.com. Make sure to send in any questions you'd like answered on a future episode by clicking the send us fan mail link in the show notes. Be sure to join us every Monday to kickstart your week. Thank you so much for listening. And as always, keep podcasting.