How to Make Money from a Podcast

How can I make money from a Podcast? It's one of the questions that many podcasters ask themselves, whether it's before or during their podcasting journey, so, how do you make money from a podcast? Is it possible to make money from podcasts? Yes, it is possible to generate money from your podcast. How do I make money from my podcast? The main ways to make money from your podcast are to either get a sponsor or become an affiliate marketer . Making money from a podcast sponsor Firstly, it's important to note that typically, podcasters will only be eligible for sponsors when they're accumulating over a thousand plays per episode - although there are exceptions, we'll cover this later. This is because sponsors usually work on a CPM basis, meaning that they'll pay a figure based on how many thousands of downloads you have. Podcast hosting site, Anchor FM, suggests that the typical CPM for podcast sponsors is $15 But what about those exceptions we mentioned? Well, you may be fortunate enough to know of a brand that will work with you no matter what your numbers are, perhaps as a result of your good relationship or the seeming potential of your show. Your sponsor will expect you to embed 1 or 2 messages into your show that promote their offerings and you'll typically receive an exclusive discount code that you can share with your audience. They will typically pay you a set amount for a set amount of promo messages. Making money as an affiliate marketer The second most popular way of making money from a podcast is affiliate marketing. Isn't that the same as a sponsor? Well, it's similar, but the main difference is that in this case, you could be selling a product on behalf of a company that doesn't even know you exist!
For example, there are many affiliate marketing programmes that you can sign up to, that allow you to receive a commission on every sale that stems from your podcast - a special link will normally be needed to place in your podcast show notes to prove that the sale came from your show. Amazon have an affiliate marketing programme that allow you to earn up to 12% on every sale that stems from your podcast When should I start aiming to make money from my podcast? So now that you know how to make money, the question then becomes, when should you make money from your show?! Now, most people would suggest that you should aim to make money ASAP, but don't forget just how difficult it is to keep the respect of your audience - 1 bad episode can deter a previous fan for good. Instead, perhaps you should gain the trust of your audience first, as well as growing your numbers so that when you approached (or get approached by) a sponsor, you will be able to get a credible and - most importantly - valuable sponsor that will truly benefit yourself and your audience. For example, you wouldn't want to sign a sponsorship deal or be pushing a product that is completely unrelated to your audience, such as promoting an alcohol company to your audience of teens! If you found this to be useful, please do support our show (the ' If Only They Knew ' podcast) as every week, we release a conversation with young business minds from across the UK.