Morgan Franklin: This episode is for all my podcasters who learn
from experience, because you know what I'm the exact same
way. You can tell me strategies and concepts all day long. But
unless you're gonna hit me with the how, what, when, where, I'm
probably not gonna understand what to do in this episode, I'll
be walking you through every way I'm monetizing my podcast this
year, 2025 and warning, a few of these are kind of a combination
of my business and my podcast, but at this point, they're so
interconnected that it's hard to differentiate one from the
other. So I'll kind of be showing you how I'm using the
podcast to achieve my overall business goals. Hello and
welcome to podcast for profit. My name is Morgan Franklin. I'm
a Podcast Producer, strategist and educator. This podcast will
help you create and grow a podcast that cuts through the
noise of social media and speaks directly to your target
audience. If you're ready to create a podcast that will align
you with the experts in your industry, position yourself as a
trusted leader and create another source of revenue for
your business. You're in the right place. Before we get into
the episode, I just want to remind you, I know that I said
this in last week's episode, but it took me years to make a dime
on podcasting that wasn't for me, producing podcasts for other
people. I wanted to share that in earnest, because it takes
dedication to nurture an audience and to find their pain
points and to create products and then create content around
those products and to promote the content and products. So I'm
not saying you can't do it. You can. You absolutely can. But if
it was easy, everybody would be doing it. Remember to take your
time. Progress is still growth, no matter how small, and most of
the time, small change over time is much more impactful than a
big change. Once in a while, we're going to talk about five
income sources today, and like I said, these are both directly
and indirectly from my podcast. And I'm going to be as
transparent as possible on how these work, what I do, and how
I'm doing it. So if you want to copy this same model for your
podcast, you absolutely can. We'll start at the top. So how
do I make the most money podcasting and from my podcast
Since 2021 when I started podcasting full time, my main
source of revenue comes from ongoing yearly contracts with
podcasts that I produce, manage and do virtual consultations or
production for this will normally bring in anywhere from
60 to 75% of the total revenue of my business, so most of it,
and I think that it's worth mentioning that my main source
of advertising and marketing for these services that I just
talked about that makes 60 to 75% of my revenue is this
podcast, and that's why I say it's Not directly money made
from the podcast, but it is in a sense, I'm using my podcast to
grow my audience and nurture my audience and pitch my services.
If you're a service based business and you have an
industry specific podcast, there is no reason you aren't pitching
yourself and your services in every single episode, I'd say,
preferably a soft pitch between the beginning and middle of the
episode and a hard pitch at the end of the episode. A soft pitch
might look like kind of talking about a client that you're
currently working with to achieve X, Y and Z, while a hard
pitch at the end is telling the listener, like, where can you
buy? What can you buy? And, more importantly, why should you buy
it? If you aren't pitching your services on every episode, you
are leaving so much money on the table. You know why? Because
most of your audience doesn't listen to every single episode.
I know that's so sad, but it's true, most of our audience only
listens to the episodes that either they want to listen to or
they feel like pertains to them. Also, most of your audience is
only retaining about 60% of what you're saying. So keep that in
mind. Also, the thing that I bring up every episode, which is
that most of your audience needs to hear about a product eight to
12 times before they buy. So let's say that you only bring it
up once a month in episodes. That would take you a whole
year. If someone was listening to every single episode, which,
like we just said, they're probably not, it would take them
a whole year to buy from you. That's a long time. That's a
long lead time continuing with products and services of my own
that I'm selling. Also I am selling digital products from my
podcast and through my podcasting connections. This is
again, not directly through the podcast itself, but it is
facilitated by bringing awareness from the podcast. I
said, is my number one advertising and marketing
source. So I'd say that digital products at this time probably
make up five to 10% of my total revenue, and that's partially
because I just launched my digital shop in August of this
year, and because I only have five products currently.
However, that being said, I know people who make half of their
yearly revenue from one digital product. So don't let that hold
you back. If you only have one digital product, that is okay.
Also, if you're thinking, what is a digital product? In my
case, that's my templates that are like, for example, my
customizable podcast media kit or Instagram templates. So I
have made those from the things that I have posted and have
actually worked for me or sent to companies and they've
actually worked for me. So I turned it into a template so
that other podcasters could use it. I think that that is
something that is really helpful to think about when you're
trying to think about what you want your digital products to
be. Because, in my opinion, the most important thing for you to
think about when you're creating a digital product to sell on
your podcast is to think about why your listener is listening
to your show. Specifically, what do you bring to them as the
audience they can't get anywhere else. When you think about that,
and you have an idea of what that could be, then think about
one problem you can solve for them, or, better yet, as I was
saying earlier, a problem that you have already solved for
yourself. That's exactly what I did when it came to me trying to
figure out what products I was gonna sell in my digital shop
and what I was gonna make. I thought about what I needed as a
podcaster, especially in the beginning, what did I wish that
I had? If you're hearing all this and you're still thinking,
I have no idea what kind of digital product I would make,
but I know that I wanna make one. I have a really cool tool
for you to use, and if you're thinking about launching a
digital product in 2025 all you have to do is fill out a little
bit about your podcast and your audience, and it will take all
that information and a little bit of magic for me, and it will
email you 10 ideas for Digital products that you can create and
sell in 2025 that are personalized to you, your
audience and your podcast. It is so incredible. I was using it
yesterday, and I was like, I am so excited to give this to them.
So yeah, definitely check it out. The form will be in the
episode description if you're interested in selling a digital
product through your podcast next week's episode is going to
be all about digital products. So make sure that you're
subscribed to this podcast, if you aren't already, and be on
the lookout for that next episode, because it's going to
be all about digital products. How to sell digital products,
what you need to know about your audience, what you can expect,
basically everything I wish that I had known when I started
creating and then selling a digital product through my
podcast. My third revenue stream for my podcast in 2025 is
affiliate marketing. And affiliate marketing, for me is
kind of tricky, because I'm not really the kind of person who
will push just any brand or brands that I don't actually use
people who do that make a lot more money than me at affiliate
marketing, and if that's something that you're interested
in, go for it. But for me, I find that it's really hard to
sell something I'm not personally bought into and that
I don't love myself. Because if I'm being honest, there's enough
things that I buy and love that it would be really hard for me
to then be selling something that I'm just totally not
interested in. For my affiliate marketing, the majority of my
sales come from Amazon, so that's usually recommending
podcasting equipment, podcast software and technologies, and
then also vendor referrals. I'd say, all in all, this makes up
less than 5% of my revenue throughout the year, but I will
say that it's some of the most exciting money to make, because
most of the time I'm not personally doing any work to
make that money, other than just recommending things from time to
time. So yes, it's a small amount of money, but it's also a
small amount of work too, which we really like. So some people
make almost their entire yearly revenue off of recommending
products. And you know, that's a whole industry in itself, but if
you're a podcaster who is new to podcasting, and you are trying
to find a way to monetize your podcast, I think that affiliate
marketing is a great place to start, since there's, like, a
really low barrier to entry, and the companies that you're
working on behalf of don't have to pay you any money unless you
make money off a sale. Most of the time, these companies will
give even really small creators a chance. So why not? Why not
just try spend some time reaching out to brands that you
like, tell them about your audience and your podcast and
why you love their. Brand why you love using their products,
and ask them if they have any kind of affiliate program. Just
tell them honestly, like, Hey, I love your brand. And then just
see where that goes. A small little tip that I'll give here
is I usually email instead of DMing, I find that an email is
much more formal and put together than a DM they get so
many DMS already, so try to find a partnership's email. Try to
find someone in PR or sales and send them an email. The fourth
way that I'm making money from my podcast in 2025 is speaking
at conferences and live events. And I know that this isn't
directly through my podcast again, but the podcast is what
opened the door to let me speak at these conferences in the
first place. So let me explain now how I make money off of
this. Because you're probably thinking, how do people make
money doing this? The first way is having a speaking fee. Okay?
And it depends if I'm applying to speak for free, or they are
recruiting me to speak for a fee. So honestly, it doesn't
really matter, because either way, I'm gonna make money.
Obviously, getting paid a speaking fee is one thing, and
that's a predetermined amount that I'll establish ahead of
time with the conference, and I'll get paid that amount of
money. But for a conference that I'm speaking at for free, I'll
make money through a sales funnel that I set up when I'm
speaking. So let's say, for example, next year, this is
true, I'm going to a conference about podcasting, and I'm going
to speak on Pinterest for podcasters. So during the middle
to end of that presentation, I'll have a QR code for free
Pinterest graphics to use, so templates that people can use on
Canva that I've used and got 1000s of clicks on, so great.
The audience is gonna get something for free. After that,
I'll add them to my email list, and so that will start an
automated welcome sequence that is selling them another product,
probably pertaining to Pinterest, as well as hiring me
for their consultation services and working with their podcast.
So since I just met and worked with all these people face to
face, the conversion rate is just so much higher than a
normal lead, because we've already met in real life and
I've already created value for them and their podcast. We
already know each other, and that is just so powerful,
especially in the digital age doing in person events. I know
people say this over and over, but doing in person events is
worth it. I meant to say this earlier, but I'd say that
revenue from my speaking engagements brings me anywhere
from I'd say, 10 to 20% of my yearly revenue, if you are
interested in learning more about how to make money from
speaking engagements that you leverage through your podcast,
listen to episode 17 of this podcast, how to leverage your
podcast for paid speaking opportunities. I will link it in
the episode description, but it is a really good one to kind of
teach you about how to look for conferences, and also what you
need to do to get in touch with these people, to be on their
radar to start speaking at conferences. So that's a great
episode. Okay, so up to this point, we've only talked about
things that I've done in 2024 that I'm also going to be doing
in 2025 now I want to talk about the new things that I'm gonna be
doing in 2025 to make money through this podcast. Let's
start with course creation. I have three courses currently in
progress to be launched in 2025 I am so beyond excited, because
these are going to be incredibly valuable to you as a podcaster.
They have both video components and downloads for each section,
so it will actually be able to walk you through each of these,
especially if you're a visual learner like me, so you can
really see, okay, this is what I need to do again. They say that
you only retain about 60% of what you hear. So I'm very
excited to finally be launching these courses for you to walk
you through step by step. How do you do this stuff? I'm gonna
keep two of them a surprise for now, but the first one that I'm
launching will be about Pinterest and using Pinterest
for your podcast. I've had over half a million views on my pins
since February on a brand new account. It's the number one
lead source, after Google on my website, the average person
spends 23 minutes on my website, if they came from Pinterest. Is
that not insane? I want to teach you how to use Pinterest for
your podcast so you can stop stressing about posting five
times a week on social media and people still not listen to your
new episodes. Pinterest is amazing because the pins
circulate for two years. I know I have a whole episode about
this, but whereas Instagram is usually about two days, I'll
take the two years. In addition to courses, I'm also launching
automations for podcasters. So this is gonna look like a. Few
different things, but like the digital product tool that I told
you about earlier, these tools and systems will be to make your
life easier as a podcaster. Podcasting takes so much time,
so I just want to help you to figure out how to grow and
monetize your podcast and save a little bit of time along the
way. Also be working with podcasters to implement these
automations into their podcast. So like we say, AI is not going
to replace you, but people who use AI will, and I want you to
be the person using AI. I'd love to hear from you on how you are
planning to monetize your podcast in 2025 send me a DM,
send me an email. It's Morgan at Morgan Franklin dot media, if
you need help making a game plan for how to monetize your podcast
in 2025 send me a DM, send me an email. I'll have my contact
information in the episode description. You can go ahead
and schedule an exploratory call for free on there. And as
always, I can't wait to listen to your podcast. Hey, thank you
so much for joining me on this episode. If you enjoyed the
podcast and you'd like to hear more episodes like this one, go
ahead and subscribe to the show. New episodes air every Monday
morning. And if you've found this episode valuable and you
want to help other business owners and podcasters, we leave
me a five star review. It helps the show rank higher in the
charts and brings more entrepreneurs the information
they need to start making money on their podcast.