by Ray aka @podcasthelper on February 15, 2012
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You produce a podcast that you make available for free and in fact spend lots of your own money on (if you’re truly invested). So how does your podcast pay you back?
A podcast pays in both tangible and non-tangible ways. In this episode I cover all of the ways I’ve found to make money from your podcast as well as how to see value in your show when you aren’t seeing cash. In a lot of cases, money is not the goal of the podcast producer and even those that have an interest in making money from their show need to understand all of the ways a podcast pays back.
- Affiliate Accounts: Quite possibly the easiest way for your podcast to earn real income is to make sure you sign up for affiliate accounts with sites such as Amazon or any other retailer who has products that you are promoting on your show.
- Donations: Don’t be embarrassed to ask for donations. It can help offset the cost of producing a podcast and often times you have people in your audience who understand all the hard work you put into producing your podcast. Let them donate.
- Ads: There are a hundred different ways to approach getting sponsors. There are network sites like Blubrry.com who will find the sponsors for you or you can go out and get your own. This is often the most difficult way to get income from your show but it can also be the most lucrative.
- Premium Content: It’s possible to make your back catalog or even your entire show pay-for-content. Libsyn.com now offers a service that will allow you to determine how much of your feed is premium.
Non-tangible Returns on Your Podcast
- Subscribers: Every new subscriber is cash in the bank for a podcast. In podcasting, it’s all about the audience.
- Email List: If someone is willing to give you their email, consider that as good or better than a donation. Email’s can be used to reach your audience from now until they unsubscribe so it’s a pretty big return when your audience likes you enough to give you access to their email inbox. Treat it wisely. This could be your only link to your audience should something go wrong with your hosting, podcatcher, etc.
- Reviews, Comments, Social Sharing: Anytime someone gives you a review on iTunes, a comment on your site, a Like on Facebook or any other feedback, you’ve been paid. These help increase your visibility in search engines be it Google or iTunes or wherever else people can find your show.
- Emails and Voice Feedback: When people leave you feedback or ask questions, this is content you can use to power your show. Including your listeners in the content of your episodes increases their investment in your podcast as well as helps you create content which can be a challenge after producing a lot of episodes.
- Word Of Mouth: Just as it reads. When people tell their peers, you win. More subscribers leads to more podcast currency.
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by Ray aka @podcasthelper on February 28, 2011
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Learn how to start preparing your podcast’s media kit and about a new affiliate sponsorship opportunity from Audible.com.
I start off by answering a question from Sean who wants to know how he can improve the audio for his screencasts? He is currently using a headset but I talk about some different options that he can upgrade to and I have a surprise option for him that will work for free.
This episode takes a look at two different ways to start guiding your show towards earning income. Mike from Rock’n the Mike Podcast calls in to ask about building a media kit and what to do when approached by sponsors.
I answer his questions and give you some insight into how to start building your own media kit which will enable you to approach sponsors you might be interested in or provide those sponsors interested in you with valuable information about your show.
After that I talk about a new sponsorship opportiunity that is available to any podcaster who applies to and is accepted into the Audible.com affiliate program. This program gives you complete control over how much promotion you want to include in your show and offers a healthy return just for getting your listeners to sign up for a free trial.
Steve from Waves of Tech gets on the mic with me for a interview all about his role in talking Audible into providing this sponsorship opportunity to the independent podcaster and we discuss the plusses and minuses of being part of this program and placing an ad into your show.
Links from this episode
Audible Affiliate program
by Ray aka @podcasthelper on December 1, 2010
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Adobe Audition is now out for the Mac. Find out what I like about it, what I think you could use as an alternative and the effects I use when using Audition to process my audio.
Also discussed on this episode are virtual cart machines (soundbyte, pod producer, etc). These apps and programs allow you to bring other audio clips into your podcast recordings by easily organizing them into a push button display. Easily bring in intros, outros, sound effects and any other audio clips you want to load into the software.
I discuss the advantage to using the new “like” button for facebook and how using Google Analytics to set “funnels” can help you to achieve your desired conversion goals for on your website.
Also find out why I think you can stand to profit by giving away all of your knowledge and content for free! The more content you produce and publish in your niche, the more you establish yourself as an expert in your field. The best way to achieve this status is by making sure anyone and everyone interested in your content can consume it. By giving it away for free you are not only inviting everyone to view it, you are drawing people to your expertise and opening up the possibility for anyone to hire you or pay for other products you sell surrounding your content.
download this episode (46 min|mp3|44.5 mb)
Links mentioned in this episode:
Adobe Audition for the mac beta – free (until the beta is over).
Facebook Social Plugins – for installing a facebook like button plugin on your wordpress site
ID3 editor – for putting metadata into your mp3 files
Google Analytics – for website statistics
PodcastHelper (Ray) on facebook
sound byte for ipad – for inserting audio clips into your podcast recordings
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by Ray aka @podcasthelper on January 2, 2010
An interview with independent music artist, Matthew Ebel who generates all his income solely through premium membership based podcasting.
Matthew is a well know musician in podcasting circles and you can hear his music being played on various shows across the intertubes.
On this episode learn more about Matthew and how he makes a living from producing his own music and how he integrates podcasting into his revenue stream.
You can out find out more about Matthew by visiting MatthewEbel.com or sign up for his music at MatthewEbel.net.
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