Of the various methods of monetizing a podcast, my favourite, by far, is creating your own product or service and offering it to your audience.
The earning upside is virtually unlimited, and in many cases, once you create the product you can sell it continually, sometimes for years at a time, for minimal extra effort.
The biggest challenge is creating something truly compelling, something that your audience lines up for at the mere mention of.
A lot of podcasters stumble and fall short when putting together their first offer, and in my experience, both personally and in watching other podcasters make the same mistakes I did, the failure to put together an offer that is truly compelling often comes back to the same set of mindsets.
Getting Greedy
The first issue that regularly sinks product or service offers is greediness by the podcaster making the offer.
You probably won’t think of yourself as greedy when putting together and pricing the offer, but there’s often an over-eagerness to get paid that skews your personal valuation of your offer relative to that of your audience.
It’s been proven via the IKEA Effect that we all tend to over-value our own creations, and this is certainly true when it comes to the paid offers we make our audiences.
The 10x Rule
The benchmark I like to use when thinking about pricing is that I want to be confident that the buyer will receive at least 10x the value of what they paid for the product or service.
How often have you listened to a podcast or read a blog that pitches a $20 eBook?
Writing an eBook is something of a right of passage for online business owners and content creators, but they rarely work out, at least in terms of generating revenue.
When you think about our value equation above, is it really any wonder? How many eBooks would you be confident would get you $200 in ROI?
Not many I’m guessing.
The problem is that these eBooks rarely contain new or scarce information. In addition, the creators likely don’t have the audience size to actually make writing and selling the eBook worth their time and any investment in creating it.
You’re probably better of writing a kick-ass eBook and giving it away for free to build your email list than trying to sell it.
Low priced offers like eBooks only really work when you have a massive audience, or as an entry-level purchase that leads to a much more profitable upsell.
I made this mistake by creating a $17 podcast gear guide when I started out that was my only product offer besides my high ticket podcast production service which was not a natural upsell.
I spent $500 to have the eBook designed and formatted and dozens of hours creating it. In the three years the book has been on sale, it’s made back maybe $300 total.
In my haste to see dollars in my bank account, I definitely got greedy.
Losing Perspective
The second mindset issue I see with first-time offer-makers is that they often lose perspective of the journey they’re on and where they’re currently at in regards to their final destination.
Building up a profitable podcast is a long game, and in fact, the longer the game you play, the more likely it is that you will win.
When you’re creating your first offer it can feel like its the best thing you’ve ever created, and this might be true. But just because it’s the best thing you’ve ever created doesn’t mean its worth anything at all to your audience.
It’s also highly unlikely that it will be the best thing you ever create.
Don’t make the mistake of becoming overly precious with your creations, especially your early ones, and attaching more value–both sentimental and monetary–to them.
They’re probably not that good and you will almost certainly be creating something much better a year from now, two years from now, five years from now and beyond.
When you take the long view, it becomes more clear that the right move is likely to give away your offers for free now to build your list, following, and trust among your audience.
The bar on freebies is high enough today that you should be creating free offers that people actually would pay for.
If you can’t create an offer that is compelling enough for people to take you up on even when it’s free, you’re going to have a tough time creating something compelling enough for people to turn over money for it.
Get good at free first and understand that what you create when you’re first starting out is nothing compared to what you’ll be creating a year from now.
Mind Reading
The last and biggest mistake I see podcasters make when making their first offer is mind-reading, or maybe I should say attempted mind-reading.
As the “expert” creating the podcast, it’s easy to think that you know exactly what your audience wants or needs from you.
So you set about creating it, certain that this is going to be the perfect product, that your listeners are going to go crazy for it, and maybe, if you’re feeling particularly dreamy, that this might just be your ticket to freedom.
More often than not, the offer flops.
The problem is that when you’re first starting out, you rarely know your audience as well as you think you do.
As a result, you think they want one thing, but without actually having in-depth conversations with them about what they’re struggling with and what solutions they’re actually looking for, it’s easy to create and offer them something they don’t actually care about.
This is made all the more challenging by the fact that you might be right about what would actually be most helpful to them.
But your audience might not believe that, and if they don’t believe, they’re not going to buy. If you have to convince your audience to buy an offer, there’s a problem with either the offer or your audience targeting.
Don’t worry, this is a mistake that almost every single online entrepreneur and marketer makes when starting out, and it takes many people years to get over.
Save yourself some time and get to know your audience early. Ask them what their biggest problems are, what they’ve already tried, what’s worked, what hasn’t, and then create something to address the problem.
The book Ask by Ryan Levesque is an absolutely fantastic resource for understanding how to get the information you need to create an offer that will be truly compelling to your audience.
The Simple Equation to a Compelling Offer
Once you’ve addressed these common mindset issues that hold podcasters back from putting together a compelling offer, the formula becomes pretty simple.
- Take the long view. Understand that you will have a long career as a creator, and that you can afford to give away your early work as better offers are on the way.
- Ask your audience what they really want. Don’t try to read their minds. Get them to tell you what they want and then create it for them.
- Be generous with your offers. Understand that especially at the start, you’re likely over-valuing your offers and in most cases, you should probably be giving them away for free. If they fly off the shelves, great, you’ve grown your email list for your next, bigger offer. If they don’t… well, you know you’ve got work to do.
Following these guidelines and regularly creating new offers is the best and quickest way to monetize your podcast.
Start experimenting, creating, pitching and iterating and put the wheels of monetization in motion.
Every Sunday I send out an exclusive article on how to use podcasting to build an audience and grow your business.
No opt-in, no freebie no bribe. But hopefully a new perspective, encouragement, and maybe even some occasional wisdom. It’s something I’m proud to create and I’d be honoured to share it with you.
Jeremy travels full-time, loves long-distance cycle touring, and will always look back on the day he finally saved up enough money to buy the Millennium Falcon Lego set as one of his proudest achievements. He believes that the way to grow sustainable businesses is by leading with heart, vulnerability, and helping your people be and become their best selves.
- Why Wouldn’t They Just Google It? - March 14, 2021
- Before You Can Market Your Podcast, You Need To Create A Marketable Podcast - March 11, 2021
- Podcast Promotion & Marketing Are Different (Here’s How to Use Each Effectively) - March 10, 2021
