1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:10,000 Morgan Franklin: When Should You Monetize Your Podcast? 2 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:20,000 When should you monetize your podcast? When should you start or try starting to make money on your podcast? This is a question I get asked all the time, and if I’m being totally honest with you still takes me by surprise, because that’s like someone asking you when you should have a kid 3 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:30,000 It’s hard to answer 4 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:40,000 But, I think like deciding when you want to have a child there are two ultimate factors that play into the answer: and it’s when you want to and when you can. 5 00:00:40,000 --> 00:00:50,000 In this episode we’re going to talk about the bare minimum of what you’ll need to monetize a podcast, the monetization options for beginners, intermediate and established podcasters and finally, the pros and cons of monetization and the biggest mistake podcasters make when they fly too close to the monetization sun 6 00:00:50,000 --> 00:01:00,000 7 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:10,000 I’ve debated on whether or not I want to tell this story, because it’s always hard for me to judge another podcaster, especially a podcaster I looked up to for so long - so I’m going to tell you the story without the names and you might know who it is, you might not 8 00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:20,000 You’ll never know 9 00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:30,000 The year is 2017, I’m 24 years old 10 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:40,000 I'm putting every single bit of money and time and effort I have into working for myself and trying to operate a small business for the first time 11 00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:50,000 There is a new podcaster who I love listening to 12 00:01:50,000 --> 00:02:00,000 We have a very similar story of working corporate, and studying marketing and working for ourselves 13 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:10,000 I love her podcast 14 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:20,000 I never miss an episode 15 00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:30,000 At this time it’s everything to me and it’s helping me navigate so many parts of business and life I’ve never experienced before, so of course when she offers a course - I’m right there at the launch webinar trying to figure out how I’m going to afford this $1,200 course 16 00:02:30,000 --> 00:02:40,000 I end up going on a payment plan and paying off this course for an entire year 17 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:50,000 18 00:02:50,000 --> 00:03:00,000 I know we’re going down a rabbit hole right now, but just come with me 19 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:10,000 The course was very mediocre 20 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:20,000 It did teach me a few things, and more than anything I think held me accountable to keep going in my business 21 00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:30,000 It delivered, but not exactly the way it promised 22 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:40,000 23 00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:50,000 As time went on, and this creator started adding on more courses, and digital products and books and sponsorships and affiliate codes and blah blah blah, I start listening less and less, then I start seeing more and more one star reviews on this person’s podcast saying they used to love their podcast but now it’s just one long ad and worst of all that her products are a scam 24 00:03:50,000 --> 00:04:00,000 This is a review from 3 days before this recording: I used to love this podcast 25 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:10,000 The early episodes are good 26 00:04:10,000 --> 00:04:20,000 But it's been so scripted for a long time now, and Jenna's courses/products are very scammy 27 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:30,000 Just go to Reddit or do a quick google search 28 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:40,000 The solo episodes feel like Jenna is reading an actual script word for word versus talking authentically like most podcasters do 29 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:50,000 I don't think she writes her own podcast outlines/scripts.. 30 00:04:50,000 --> 00:05:00,000 or if she does, she's not getting familiar enough with the script before recording to not sound like a robot - it’s hard to listen to 31 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:10,000 32 00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:20,000 Yikes 33 00:05:20,000 --> 00:05:30,000 Big yikes 34 00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:40,000 Remember that thing I said earlier about flying too close to the sun? This was my favorite podcaster and now I don’t follow her podcast or any of her social media 35 00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:50,000 When you aren’t focused on your audience, someone else will be and that’s why I wanted to share this cautionary tale, because having a podcast isn’t an easy, quick way to make money 36 00:05:50,000 --> 00:06:00,000 37 00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:10,000 Can you make money podcasting of course, you can make a lot of money podcasting, but you have to put your listeners first or you won’t have any listeners. 38 00:06:10,000 --> 00:06:20,000 So let’s talk about the bare minimum of what you need and how you know it’s time to monetize your podcast 39 00:06:20,000 --> 00:06:30,000 That’s what we’re all here for right? The answer is, when you have trust with your audience 40 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:40,000 That’s the “when you can” part of the two step equation 41 00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:50,000 Some podcasters already have an audience before they start their show, and they’ve already built the trust and relationship with their audience, so they can easily monetize their podcast on day one. 42 00:06:50,000 --> 00:07:00,000 The problem starts to creep in, like with the podcaster we talked about earlier where you have a disproportionate amount of selling to value, or selling to trust 43 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:10,000 That podcaster might have assumed that she had the relationship where she could sell blindly to her listeners and they wanted to buy, but she was incorrect. 44 00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:20,000 There’s a customer journey model in marketing that’s centered around your listener or customer having to go through 3 phases with you and that’s knowing about you - finding you, finding out who you are, actually discovering your podcast 45 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:30,000 46 00:07:30,000 --> 00:07:40,000 Liking you, listening to your podcast, getting to know your personality and story, liking you enough to come back to your podcast every week 47 00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:50,000 And finally, trusting you, seeing you as an expert they trust and someone they want to invest their time, energy and money into 48 00:07:50,000 --> 00:08:00,000 We need our listeners to know, like and trust us before we can ever make a sale, so I want you to think about that when you’re thinking about when you can monetize this podcast - how many people who listen to your podcast are at the like or trust phase of getting to know you? 49 00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:10,000 A quick exercise that I think is very useful for you is to take a minute and think about the podcasts you’ve been influenced by, so like my story earlier, have you ever bought a digital course, or attended a workshop, or use someone's coupon code, or in any way spent money because a podcast host inspired you to do so. 50 00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:20,000 Think about what journey you went on with that podcast host before you trusted them enough to buy from them 51 00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:30,000 What did the journey of know, like, trust look like for you as a podcast listener and what did it take to convert you from a listener to a buyer? 52 00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:40,000 Most of the time, the easiest way for me to judge other people's buying habits and consider how they buy on a more practical level is to think about myself as a buyer 53 00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:50,000 I think if you can take a minute to write down any podcast you've ever bought anything from think about how long it took you to build trust with that podcast and host and what they've done to earn your trust through the value that they provide through that podcast it's going to give you a lot of clarity on what this journey of monetization will look like for you. 54 00:08:50,000 --> 00:09:00,000 But what does podcast monetization really look like, especially at the different stages of your podcasting journey? Let's go ahead and break it down to beginner, intermediate, and experienced podcasters to talk about what the three different levels of podcast monetization look like for most of us 55 00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:10,000 56 00:09:10,000 --> 00:09:20,000 Starting with the beginning stages of monetization, again, this is all going to depend on what level of industry awareness, audience and trust you’ve already built with your brand or personal branding. 57 00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:30,000 I’ve worked with podcasters that literally have no following at all and podcasters who are leaders in their industries with hundreds of thousands of followers 58 00:09:30,000 --> 00:09:40,000 Technically, when they launch their first episode they’re both beginner podcasters, but they’re starting at different places in the listener journey. 59 00:09:40,000 --> 00:09:50,000 So for this example, let’s say you have no following at all, or a very modest following of peers, you’re starting your podcast and you’re building it from the ground up 60 00:09:50,000 --> 00:10:00,000 That’s where most of us start and it’s a great place to start. 61 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:10,000 Until you have at least 100 dedicated downloads to each new episode, so you’re getting 100 downloads on each new podcast in the span of a week, I wouldn’t worry about monetizing this podcast 62 00:10:10,000 --> 00:10:20,000 For most of us, getting our first dedicated 100 listeners will be the hardest bridge to cross in listenership 63 00:10:20,000 --> 00:10:30,000 So pour into your podcast 64 00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:40,000 Look at what’s working, try to improve your research, and writing and recording, try to make sure every episode is better than the last 65 00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:50,000 66 00:10:50,000 --> 00:11:00,000 Focus on promoting your podcast and starting with the question of do people know your podcast? Because while you might feel like you’re screaming from the rooftops, getting your first organic 100 podcast listeners is going to take quite a bit of dedication and effort if you’re starting from nothing. 67 00:11:00,000 --> 00:11:10,000 So let’s fast forward, let’s say you have 250 dedicated listeners on every episode, it’s been a few months or a year and you’re starting to gain some traction with downloads 68 00:11:10,000 --> 00:11:20,000 This is a great time to start selling your own products, so talking about what you do, how people can work with you, give away freebies so people can get on your newsletter, and generally promoting yourself 69 00:11:20,000 --> 00:11:30,000 70 00:11:30,000 --> 00:11:40,000 Also, start reaching out to brands for affiliate programs and seeing what you can work out for smaller partnerships, maybe someone will send you a product in exchange for an ad, start where you are, but get started 71 00:11:40,000 --> 00:11:50,000 I always encourage my podcasters at the beginning of their monetization journey to try out affiliate ads, because that will signal to other businesses that might be listening or interested in advertising with you that you do have ads, but it won’t require the threshold of thousands of weekly downloads like it would for a paid ad 72 00:11:50,000 --> 00:12:00,000 73 00:12:00,000 --> 00:12:10,000 Next, what about an intermediate podcaster, maybe someone getting between 500 - 10,000 downloads on new podcast episodes 74 00:12:10,000 --> 00:12:20,000 So again, this is the first week the episode has launched in those 7 days, you’re getting that number of downloads 75 00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:30,000 76 00:12:30,000 --> 00:12:40,000 I’d continue with the self promotion, but I’d change a few things, make ads for yourself, have very clear calls to action whether that’s to book a service or buy a product, you better tell people exactly what it is and where they can buy 77 00:12:40,000 --> 00:12:50,000 78 00:12:50,000 --> 00:13:00,000 I’d be searching out industry specific partnerships 79 00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:10,000 So, again, this will be personalized to each podcaster but I’d think about what industry I’m in and pursue those more niche businesses that could benefit from my audience 80 00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:20,000 I have several podcasts about this and how to price your podcast ads, but this intermediate phase will be where you have to pursue the partnership 81 00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:30,000 82 00:13:30,000 --> 00:13:40,000 If you’re interested in hearing more about how to land these partnerships listen to episode 14, how to get your first podcast sponsor or episode 16 how to price podcast ads, they’ll both be listed in the show notes 83 00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:50,000 84 00:13:50,000 --> 00:14:00,000 Anything over 10,000 - 15,000 downloads per month, I’d recommend you have a pricing guide and start reaching out to brands that are working with podcasts 85 00:14:00,000 --> 00:14:10,000 This can be done in a variety of different ways, and I’d be happy to make a podcast about the agencies, platforms and outreach methods I use to secure ads on my podcasts, but the biggest thing is you need to have a pricing guide for these brands to look at and established pricing 86 00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:20,000 87 00:14:20,000 --> 00:14:30,000 If you need a rate card to send out to businesses when they ask what your ad pricing is I have an absolutely incredible template that I’ve spent the past 5 years perfecting 88 00:14:30,000 --> 00:14:40,000 I'll attach a link in the episode description 89 00:14:40,000 --> 00:14:50,000 But the most important thing to remember when you’re thinking about when to monetize your podcast is that it is about the numbers, yes, but it’s also, more importantly, about the missiont 90 00:14:50,000 --> 00:15:00,000 It’s about finding that balance between when you want to monetize and when you’re able to and understanding that if it’s done the wrong way it could cost you the most valuable resource of all, your listeners 91 00:15:00,000 --> 00:15:10,000