While there are many invaluable rewards for starting and growing a podcast, deep down, many podcasters don’t feel that their show is successful until they’ve been able to successfully monetize it.
The quest for monetization has developed a sort of Holy Grail status among indie podcasters, who often can’t fathom how it’s possible to generate any income through their podcast, let alone enough to cover their production costs, or earn a living off of.
While there are many ways to monetize, all with different unique strengths, weaknesses, and potentials for revenue, in the end, each strategy comes down to a single core premise that is essential for monetizing a podcast successfully.
You need to have a compelling offer.
Is Your Offer Compelling?
When it comes down to it, a compelling offer is one that you don’t need to ram down your audience’s throats in order to get them to take action.
A compelling offer is something that at a simple mention, people will line up, ready to take you up on it.
This is the secret that all successfully monetized shows have figured out, and one that you’ll need to figure out for yourself if you hope to join them.
Without a compelling offer, you’re going to struggle, no matter how you’re seeking to monetize your show.
Compelling Advertising Offers
When it comes to advertising, there are two facets to crafting your compelling offer.
First, your audience has to be compelling enough to the advertising company to be willing to invest in getting their message in front of them. The narrower your audience, the higher advertisers will be willing to pay if they’re a good fit.
On the flip side, the product or company you’re running ads for needs to be compelling for your listeners. This is because your goal with advertising isn’t simply to land a single advertiser and then live off your riches forever.
In order to keep your podcast monetized, you need to keep that advertiser coming back and re-upping for further ad placements.
The only way they’re going to do that, however, is if they’re getting their money’s worth from their investment in your show, ie. your listeners are buying their stuff.
For that to happen, the advertiser and their products need to be hyper-relevant to your audience.
Compelling Product & Service Offers
My favourite method of podcast monetization is to create a product or service of your own to offer to your audience.
While it takes more creativity, emotional investment, and brainpower than the rote repetition of doing advertiser outreach and management, in reality, it often takes less time over the long haul.
Especially when it comes to digital products, once you’ve done the work of creating your offer the first time, it takes minimal–if any–effort to maintain over the long run.
Creating and selling your own products is also the only way for the average indie podcaster to make real money from their podcast.
Sure, some top-ranked shows pull in millions of dollars in advertising revenue, but you and I never will.
On the other hand, we have clients at Counterweight Creative who pull in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in revenue with shows of little more than five hundred listeners.
The secret, of course, is that they have created a series of offers that are incredibly compelling to those five hundred people.
Make Sure Your Offer Really Is Compelling
The mistake most podcasters make when creating their first offer is in creating something they think their audience wants and then overvaluing it.
The problem is that they’re often wrong about what their audience really wants. Even if they did hit the nail on the head, however, they often price it at a point where few people are willing to buy it.
No matter how proud you are of your eBook, few people are going to spend $25 for it when they can likely get the same information for free elsewhere.
When it comes to pricing, you should aim for your customers to receive at least 10x the value of what they’re paying for.
On top of that, it should be crystal clear to them before they buy that they’ll get that return on investment.
Luckily for you, if you know how to ask, your audience will tell you exactly what type of offer you can create that would be incredibly compelling to them, and how to pitch it to them in a way that conveys its value.
If you’re not sure how to get that information, I’d recommend reading Ask by Ryan Levesque. It’s a game-changer.
Once you know what you can provide that would be of service to your listeners, you simply put your head down, create it, and then present it to them when it’s complete.
The Key to Any Compelling Offer
Any compelling offer is built on an intimate knowledge of who your audience is and how you are uniquely equipped to serve them.
Why do they listen to your show instead of others in your niche? What do they get from you that they can’t get anywhere else?
It’s easier to get to know your audience and answer these questions when you aim small and speak to a thin sliver of a niche.
When you aim small, you’re able to really get to know your listeners and find gaps in what your audience is being offered and bring them offers–either your own or from others–that are uniquely relevant and highly targetted to them.
This makes those offers extremely compelling.
Aim narrow, get to know your audience better than anyone else does, and they’ll tell you exactly how you can help them.
Source it or create it, pitch it, and repeat.
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
