You host a podcast with a tiny audience, but you haven’t yet monetized it. If you don’t want to use the “This podcast is brought to you by …” tagline, you can still generate money while maintaining a professional image with your audience.

By establishing a few automated revenue streams, novice podcasters can generate passive money that increases alongside their audience, freeing up time to focus on podcasting. This article explains how to do it.

Podcasting is a profitable financial venture, with some top podcasters even negotiating significant contracts for their shows. Consider Joe Rogan’s recent arrangement with Spotify to handle advertising and distribution for a whopping $250 million.

The truth is that not every podcast makes money. There are over two million podcasts in the globe, but nearly half (44%) never go beyond three episodes. Consistency is certainly an issue since many creators leave up early because just a few episodes generate a big amount of revenue.

For this reason, the most profitable podcasts usually fit one of these molds:

• Podcasts with established followings. Three of the highest-earning podcasts—The Joe Rogan Experience, Crime Junkie, and The Daily—each have a broader audience of more than 10 million monthly downloads. It makes sense: brands will pay more to advertise on a show that can expose them to a larger audience. 
• Podcasts that target niche audiences. You don’t have to talk to everyone with your podcast. With Uber-specific podcast topics, you can charge brands more money to reach their smaller but more specific target audience. Chapo Trap House, for example, earns around $180,000 per month from its comedy political-themed show. 

Monetizing Your Podcast

Starting a new podcast does not guarantee immediate monetization. Even if you have a library of podcast episodes from the past few years, you must put in the effort to reach the upper echelons of podcast monetization.

Before you start looking for ways to make money podcasting, set yourself up for success by performing the following five things:

1. Get clear on your subject matter. The most successful podcasts know exactly who they’re talking to. Research your target audience and get crystal clear on what they want to know, then record podcast episodes that address their goals, present solutions to their challenges, or cover and pique their interests. 
2. Follow a consistent posting schedule. The best way to build a connection with supportive listeners is to make it easy for them to tune in. Aim for at least one new podcast episode each week. This will help your show become a regular part of a listener’s weekly routine. 
3. Grow your podcast audience. Traditional sponsorships tend to be out of reach for new podcasters because businesses are less willing to risk investing in a podcast without an established audience. The more people you have tuned into your show, the better chance you have at selling big-ticket sponsorship packages. 
4. Improve listener engagement. Monthly downloads isn’t always the highest priority metric when brands decide which podcasts to sponsor. Engagement rate, listener retention, and review ratings are all positive signs people listen to what you have to say. Only then can you sell branded ads and promote products.
5. Get feedback from your audience. The last thing you want to do is start monetizing your podcast and turn off your audience. Before monetizing, get feedback from your audience to anticipate how they’d respond to each strategy. If listeners say they’d get annoyed if they had to listen to an ad before your show, perhaps podcast advertising isn’t the right monetization model for you. 

“Focus on creating compelling content that a listener would want to share with their friends and family,” says Toronto Mike Boon, host of the Toronto Mike’d podcast. “People love telling their circle of influence about that new indie podcast they’ve discovered. Build your audience in an authentic and sustainable way, engage with your listeners as a community, and businesses will want to be a part of it. 

“The overwhelming majority of Toronto Mike’d sponsors started because a passionate fan of the podcast championed the partnership from within the company.”

8 Ways to Make Money Podcasting

Once you’ve maximized the monetizability of your podcast, here’s how to attach a new revenue stream to your content.

1. Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based form of marketing where a business offers rewards to affiliates who are able to bring customers to them. Businesses only pay out after customers complete an agreed-upon action. Usually, this action is making a purchase, but some affiliate sales payout for email signups, page clicks, downloads, or content engagement. 

You can also add your affiliate link to show notes and the podcast’s RSS feed, or send it to members of your email list. When users access the page at that URL and complete the intended action, businesses are able to attribute it to your podcast and pay out a certain amount for the customers you send their way. 

If you’re just starting out, it’s best to focus on broad-ranging affiliate programs (those that have a wide variety of audiences), and affiliate marketing networks, which give users access to many different brands and affiliate opportunities. Here are some popular places to start: 

• Amazon Associates
• Rakuten Advertising
• ClickBank
• ShareASale
• CJ Affiliate
• Awin

If the subject of your podcast is anything to do with entrepreneurship—starting a business, ecommerce, marketing, web design, social media, or the tech industry—then the Shopify Affiliate Program is a great fit. Shopify affiliates receive a 100% commission on the first two monthly payments of any subscription plan.

Just remember that each affiliate program has its own pros and cons, so the best podcast monetization strategy is to diversify and try out different affiliates. Don’t be afraid to drop affiliate links that are underperforming and re-use affiliate links that perform well.

2. Sell custom merchandise to listeners

Give your fans the opportunity to show listener support for your podcast by selling custom merchandise like t-shirts, stickers, posters, mugs, tote bags, and journals. 

Perhaps the easiest way to run a merch store is by using a print-on-demand distribution model. This is where a third party prints and ships products on your behalf at the point of purchase. That means there are no overhead costs, no time wasted on shipping, no need to store inventory, and lower financial risk. 

A model like this is perfect for podcasters (and other creators) because it allows you to have a fully automated merch store running full-time in the background while you focus your attention solely on your podcast. It might take a little time to create an online store and add products, but once finished, the process of running your store can be almost fully automated.

“The most lucrative way to make money is to have a product you can sell,” says Sara Banta, host of the Accelerated Health TV & Radio Show. “Whether it be a supplement or a course, ensure you have a website that promotes your product and a stand-alone podcast website with blogs that reference your product, even if it’s transcripts from your podcast that you post. Position yourself as an authority in your industry.”

Read Also: Passive Income for Teachers: Side Jobs and Investments

There are a number of print-on-demand apps and services available that fully integrate with Shopify. Pricing and product selection can vary, so feel free to explore your options and choose the service that works best for your podcast:

• Printful
• Printify
• Teelaunch
• SPOD
• Apliiq
• CustomCat

3. Sell ads for your podcast 

An advertising network is a platform that connects brands and podcasts that have a shared target audience, acting as liaisons for brands looking to advertise to podcast listeners. Popular networks include:

• SXM Media
• Megaphone
• AdvertiseCast
• PodcastOne
• Headgum

It can be a great monetization method for podcasters, but it will need to come a bit later—after you’ve built a sizable audience; most networks typically require a certain number of regular listeners to qualify (usually starting at 1,000). 

One downside of using this method for monetization is that you won’t be able to keep the content of your podcast ad-free, since you’ll need to include an ad. Although, if you wanted these podcast ads to be as unobtrusive as possible, you could include them as post-roll ads, which play at the end of your podcast. 

To make money as a podcaster in this way:

• Find advertisers with a shared audience. Advertising networks will help with finding a brand that has a shared audience that’s the right “fit” for your podcast.
• Take creative feedback. Podcast advertising networks will assist consulting services in the creative direction of your ads and can help with the development of your ad scripts and creating an ad that works for both audiences of the podcast and brand. 
• Monitor podcast analytics. Not only are podcast advertising networks great for generating ad revenue, they also typically include tools to help plan podcast ad campaigns and evaluate the success of those campaigns.

4. Offer tiered memberships through Patreon

Subscription-based models of income are great for independent podcasters because they allow them to create a more steady stream of income while focusing primarily on growing a dedicated audience.

Patreon is a popular way to earn money podcasting because it allows fans (called “patrons”) to offer support in regular monthly payments. 

Creators can sort paid subscriptions into different “tiers,” with each tier receiving different benefits. Higher-tier patrons usually receive more content, discounts on merch, early access to new content, and exclusive access to bonus episodes. 

For podcasts, it’s important to keep two things in mind when you set up your tiers:

1. Few audiences will pay to listen to a podcast they’re unfamiliar with. To hook new listeners and turn them into paying patrons, you’re going to need to give away a large portion of content for free. 
2. Paying patrons will expect to get their money’s worth. To keep existing paying patrons, you’ll need to have enough exclusive content to be worth a monthly payment to your podcast. 

A good rule of thumb is to consider the amount of regular content you intend on producing, then split it in half between paying and non-paying listeners. Free content can be hosted on a wide variety of podcast hosting platforms, like Spotify, Google Podcasts, or Apple Podcasts, and paid content can live exclusively on Patreon. This helps maintain relationships with your current fans while giving just as much time to find new ones. 

Experiment with pricing to see how many listeners you can turn into Patreon fans. Getting 50 people to subscribe for $1 a month is much easier than getting one person to subscribe for $50, hence why shows like The Girls Bathroom choose to keep their subscription costs low.

5. Host live events and collect tips

It’s possible to host your own podcast event, collect tips, and expand the reach of your podcast, all without having to book a venue. Virtual events can be done by any podcast, regardless of how new it is or the size of its listenership. Plus, with no venues to pay, all the money made on your live podcast goes back into the podcast.

Online shows can also be discovered and viewed by fans all over the world, so there’s a much wider audience than for a show in a specific city. And since you don’t have to book a venue and sell tickets, you can go live online more often. 

Most social media platforms have a live feature, so when choosing where to host your podcast, consider the platform that most of your audience members use:

• Patreon. Patreon uses Crowdcast to host live video events and allows you to create both free and patron-only livestreams.
• Twitch. Twitch’s Squad Stream feature lets up to four creators monetize and stream from the same window. Twitch is used primarily for gaming streams, so if your podcast is gaming-focused, it’s a great tool to use. 
• Facebook Live. Facebook has the largest audience of any social media platform. Although Facebook Live doesn’t have a paid stream feature, you can monetize your stream by enabling in-stream ads.
• YouTube Live. With YouTube Live, you can monetize by enabling pre-recorded ads and accepting payments from fans using YouTube’s Super Chat feature. However, you’ll need to apply and be accepted to YouTube’s Partner Program to use these features. 

Although some of these platforms offer monetization methods, it’s a good idea to include an additional tool to collect tips. Apps like Venmo, Buy Me a Coffee, and Ko-fi don’t need to be exclusively housed on your livestreams. Add a tip URL to your social media pages, web pages, and show notes to make it easy for fans to show their support by tipping.

Plus, by recording your live show, you can repurpose short clips as content on social media, attracting new audiences to your podcast. You could even host the full recording behind a paywall and sell access indefinitely, long after the live show has ended.

6. Write and self-publish a book 

Podcast hosts are typically viewed as being a voice of authority on a particular subject, making the transition from podcast host to writer almost seamless. Perhaps that’s why so many popular podcasts have been spun off into books written by their creators.

For example, comedian Deborah Frances-White adapted her unscripted panel podcast, The Guilty Feminist, into a book exploring what it means to be a 21st-century feminist. The scripted science-fiction podcast The Bright Sessions was even spun off into a series of novels.

No matter what topic your podcast covers, having an accompanying book will strengthen your credibility on that topic and give more weight to your premium content. 

The best part? If you’re podcasting regularly, then you might have a head start on writing the book without even realizing it. Though it will take some editing, transcribed podcast content can serve as a good rough outline of your work. If you’re producing a scripted podcast, you could even simply publish the scripts for interested fans.

7. Promote services to listeners 

Service-based businesses tend to have higher profit margins than product businesses, because instead of making products, you’re selling your time. 

If you have a few hours spare per week, consider opening your schedule and selling freelance services. Ideally you should have specialized skill or knowledge of the service you’re selling, but popular options include:

• Consulting or coaching
• Writing
• Graphic design
• Photography 
• Public speaking gigs

If you’re the host of an entrepreneurial podcast, for example, you’re likely talking to people who want to grow their own business. Growing a team is a pain point of theirs—one you can help out with by offering 60-minute coaching calls. In these calls, educate listeners on what a good team structure looks like and your experience as an entrepreneur, and answer their questions. 

It’s a more personalized offering that trades time for money, but has the potential to add a few thousand dollars of revenue to your pocket every month.

8. Start selling online courses

Sometimes the best way to monetize a podcast is to sell products directly to your audience. Not only can you work around the “This podcast is brought to you” interruptions in each episode, but digital products can build stronger ties with your listeners because you’re providing them with added value. 

Online courses are a type of digital product that packages skills, knowledge, and personal stories into a step-by-step guide. They can include videos, text, or audio (like bonus podcast episodes), which are hidden behind a paywall on a platform like Kajabi, Teachable, or Skillshare. 

You don’t need to be the host of a popular podcast that gets tens of thousands of views to use this method of making money as a podcaster. Online courses can retail anywhere between $50 to $5,000—just a handful of listeners who buy your online course can make a noticeable impact on annual revenue.

Conclusion

The optimum moment to monetise your podcast is just after you make it monetizable. Once you have a dedicated audience, a constant posting schedule, and feedback from your listeners, the most profitable podcast monetization tactics will become clear.

Remember that the most profitable independent podcasts employ numerous revenue streams to generate a consistent flow of income while focusing on building their audience.

And, because most of these approaches rely on automation to generate passive revenue, they’re ideal for podcasters who want to devote the majority of their time to podcasting and increasing their following.