8 Effective Techniques to Monetize your Podcast

Even though podcasting is a relatively new form of media, podcasters have found ways to monetize it too just like blogs. Presently, many podcasters are generating revenue and earning good money from podcasting in a variety of ways. Monetization is important for your podcast because it can help you to generate some revenue that can be deployed to improve the quality and production of your podcast show. Aside helping the podcaster to earn income and create some financial incentive to continue producing the podcast show, monetization can also help to support the costs of hosting and distributing a podcast.

 

Below are some of the most popular techniques for monetizing a podcast, together with the right tips to get it done.

1. Selling Ads Space

Readily the most popular way to monetize a podcast is to sell advertising space. This is easy and straightforward for anyone already used to marketing online. You can sell ads space on your podcast in a variety of ways. Some of such ways include creating and airing paid branded content, through content sponsorships or by airing direct paid commercials. Podcasters can make good money through any of these ways.

2. Sponsorship Deals

This is yet another very good way to monetize a podcast. By this method, the podcaster earns money through sponsorship deals. Many sponsors do not mind paying good money as charges to have their products/services mentioned on a podcast show. For sponsors who can afford to pay, it is possible to have an entire podcast episode dedicated to their products/services.

3. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is also a great way to monetize a podcast. Podcasters can partner with businesses, promote and market their products/services then earn commissions from the sales they help generate. For effectiveness, it is best to promote products/services related to a podcast’s chosen topic. When podcast listeners click on the affiliate links on the podcast’s show notes to make purchases, the podcaster earns sales commissions. Additionally, podcasters can partner with other podcasters to cross-promote each other’s shows. All parties earn commissions from this collaboration and partnership effort.

4. Premium Subscriptions

On their podcasts, podcasters can offer premium paid content as another viable way to monetize their podcasts. This premium paid content could be in the form of exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, or other content that listeners can only access by paying some subscription fee. Premium subscription not only helps to directly engage some dedicated podcast listeners, it is one great way to generate some revenue for the podcaster.

5. Sharing Your Content on YouTube

For monetization purposes, you can create a YouTube channel specifically for your podcast. Once created, you can keep uploading your podcast episodes to it. Make sure to include your affiliate links or links to your website in the description. For effectiveness, you can use video annotations or cards to link to specific episodes or segments of your podcast. Be sure to add a “Subscribe” button to your channel and encourage viewers to subscribe if they want to stay up-to-date with your latest content. You earn money by running ads during podcast episodes out of your YouTube channel.

6. Selling Customized Merchandise

You can customize and sell your podcast show merchandise. This is one other viable way to monetize your podcast. Such items as easy-to-handle and common products like Face caps, T-shirts, hats, hand towels, key holders, bottle openers and suchlike products can be customized with a podcast’s logo, catch phrase or slogan. You can brand and sell sunscreens, table mats, bumper stickers, coffee mugs, and any other items with a podcast’s branding. By selling these branded items, you can make money from your listeners while at the same time widely promoting your podcast.

7. Sponsoring Other Podcasts

You can reach out to other podcasters and negotiate collaboration and sponsorship deals. If such deals fall through, you can benefit from the podcasting network. Other podcasters in the network will promote your show to their listening audience while you promote theirs to your own listeners. This way, all parties will get to reach many more new listeners than they would have ordinarily reached with their own audience alone. You can grow your audience from this arrangement, reach more new listeners and make more money from your podcast.

8. Collaborating With Other Podcasters

Through synergy, you can monetize a podcast by collaborating with fellow podcasters. The commonest way to do this is by getting involved in creating a joint podcast or cross-promoting each other’s podcasts. If you collaborate with other podcasters this way, you can manage to reach a larger audience and garner more new listeners to your own podcast. The more listeners you have, the better the chances of your podcast making more money.

Wrapping Up

There are several techniques you can use to monetize your podcast. The foregoing techniques are about the most common among podcasters. What matters most however is to correctly figure out which monetization techniques are best suitable for your brand of podcast. If you deploy these techniques well enough, with some creativity and hard work, it is possible to make good money from your podcasting. 

5 Low-Cost Business Ideas Anyone Can Work from Home

Working from home is indeed increasing in popularity for many and varied reasons, not least of which is the absolute freedom working from home confers. If you work from home, you do your things your own way. You work when you like and if you like and at any time of your choosing. You have the liberty to take full advantage of and leverage on Internet technology when you work from home. This is in addition to the extremely low cost of starting and working many home businesses on the Internet. Once you have access to a computer and the Internet, with the requisite skills, you can be in business working from home in no time at all. 

Find below some 5 low-cost business ideas that can be very lucrative to make it worthwhile for you to work from home.

1. Affiliate Marketing

Anyone can get involved in affiliate marketing right from the comfort of their homes. Right there and through computer and Internet technology, you can promote products for product merchants and you earn commissions for your efforts. The key to being successful in affiliate marketing lies with your networking capabilities. Even if you are not a skilled blogger or freelance writer, you can be a great affiliate marketer if you follow the rules. You may not even have your own e-commerce store to do affiliate marketing successfully. By registering and working with reputable and popular affiliate programs like Strong Future International, SFI, you can succeed in the business. What really matters is to promote products in as many online channels and social media platforms as possible. The more purchases are made through these efforts, the more commissions you earn.

2. Blogging/Freelance Writing

Good blogging is a great skill and so is freelance writing. If you are a good blogger or a good freelance writer, there are many ways that you can monetize your website. Selling your products/services out of your website is one of these ways.  You can also sell ads spaces on your blog to earn money. As a blogger or freelance writer, you can write about anything under the sun, provided it is something others want to read and know about. Freelance writers/bloggers get paid to provide written content for businesses. Both require a very low-cost start-up because you only need a computer and internet connection to get started. Both require purposeful networking and getting your name out there in the industry and on the Internet.

3. Dropshipping

Dropshipping is yet another low cost business to work from home. With your internet connections, you can promote products, get buyers and get your linked product merchant to supply the products. Simple! And you earn your commission as soon as the products are paid for. With dropshipping, you can simply sell products this way without the burden of manufacturing costs, delivery costs, warehousing and handling costs, customer service costs and so on. All these costs are passed on to the product merchants. However, there are a few vital steps you must take before you get involved in dropshipping profitably.
1.    Carefully select a niche you want to market in.
2.    Based on this niche, you can determine who your product merchant is.
3.    Next is to sign a contract with your chosen merchant.
4.    Then, you design your online store and
5.    Promote the online store widely.
Online, Shopify, Magento, and PinnacleCart are just a few of the eCommerce online stores you can link up with for dropshipping services. Once you integrate your e-commerce store with these popular websites, you can commence your business of dropshipping in earnest. It helps if you have your blog linked to your e-commerce store. That on its own helps to boost your promotional opportunities. However, you must be really careful to choose the right niche that relates to something many people need and are willing to buy. You can then leverage this need on your blog by offering the right product/service as the right solution to people’s problems.

 
4. Hosting a Podcast

Broadcasting your voice and marketing messages to a large online audience is what podcasting is all about. Usually, marketers approach podcasting as they would blogging. Getting an interested and loyal audience is what is common to both. In podcasting, picking the right niche is hugely important because you want to draw in an interested audience and win more competitors. If you are quite knowledgeable about your subject matter, it helps to boost your podcasting activities. 

The start-up costs for podcasting are relatively low. All you really need are a good computer and a solid microphone and you are on to your online audience. You make money from podcasting through increased sponsorship and affiliate marketing. Transistor, Buzzsprout, and Podbean are some of the best podcasting hosts out there, and it is best to choose your host based on your niche for obvious reasons. Once you’ve chosen your host, you need to choose the right platform based on your chosen niche from popular platforms like, Apple, Google, Audible, Spotify and others.

5. Virtual Assistant

Virtual Assistant is one more low cost business idea you can work from home. Aside the millions of businesses already online, there are hundreds of thousands of new business start-ups every year. Many of these businesses usually need the help of Virtual Assistants to get things going. Virtual Assistants usually handle routine but hugely important jobs for companies and very busy executives. Many available job schedules for Virtual Assistants include but not limited to social media scheduling, scheduling of meetings and travels, booking travel schedules and hotel accommodations, managing emails, receiving and transporting company visitors from airports, making and taking phone calls, essential administrative duties and any other special assignments as may be given from time to time. In fact, as a Virtual Assistant, you have the advantage of a good number of job opportunities available across a very broad spectrum of human endeavors and you get paid handsomely for your services.

Last Line

The foregoing are typical examples of business ideas with very low start-up costs you can work from home. There are many others out there but these here are fairly more common in terms of popularity. The business opportunities may be limitless, but these here five ideas are highly recommended for anyone who wants to start working from home with very low start-up and running costs.

5 Most Popular Types of Affiliate Marketing

Through affiliate marketing, you get to tap into new audiences. The job of your affiliates therefore is to act as your sales team.  These affiliates get rewarded based solely on their performance and by way of earned commissions. This relationship works smoothly if you are able to tap into the huge audiences built by bloggers, marketers, and influencers. When people who build these audiences over time help to promote your products or link to your content, it helps to increase your sales. So, one great way to boost your marketing through other people’s efforts is through the use of affiliates. But first, you must tap into the right ways to use affiliates correctly.

To promote your business effectively, you can use different types of affiliate marketing. Find below some of the most common and interesting affiliate types that marketers like to use. Each one is unique and offers different types of benefits in its own right. What you choose depends on your own personal preferences and expertise.

1. Websites Reviews

Working with review websites is one of the best places to acquire consumers by affiliate marketers. You can consider working with review sites to partner up with. That is one great way to build trust and get your business in front of more people who rely on reviews to make their buy decisions. These days, even if you want a good restaurant to eat out, a good hotel to stay, a good travel destination, good airlines and good shopping malls, many consumers rely on reviews before making up their minds.

2. Video and Podcast Content Marketing

Marketers have since discovered that video and podcast content is widely consumed and popular. There are prolific content creators who get support for their work by taking on sponsors. You can consider working with these types of creators to bring your brand to the public eye, improve conversions and make more sales.

3. Email Marketing

Over time, bloggers, news publications, and niche verticals often build large email lists with audiences segmented into different niche groups. You can work with such email affiliates to send your content directly to their audience’s inboxes. It is easy, cost-effective and with very impressive returns.

4. Social Media Influencers

Social media Influencers make most of their social media followings by promoting products and services for paid commissions. Working with influencers can be a bit problematic for product merchants because of ethical and regulatory reasons. It is ethical that influencers fully disclose to consumers if the content they are promoting is sponsored. It is best to work with influencers who help conversions better instead of those who merely have very large followings. Some content may actually get a lot of visibility but doesn’t really lead to conversions. Conversion is where the money really is, so you must look to work with good influencers and develop performance-based parameters for your relationship.

5. Cash-Back Affiliates

This is one very unique niche of affiliate marketing. In this type of marketing, affiliate marketers are required to promote products and promise buyers a small amount of money that goes back to the buyer as an incentive. This small amount of money back is what actually acts as the incentive to get more people to buy the products. By doing so, the consumers really feel like they’re saving money and it makes them feel good. However, a major drawback about these types of affiliates is that they don’t always bring value addition right away. But, for marketers who want to promote their business and not make a profit right away, it is a good option.

Creative Influencer Marketing Tactic: Sponsoring a Podcast

 Sponsoring a podcast is another very effective influencer marketing technique. Podcasts have become mainstream entertainment, with influencers and YouTube stars joining the ranks of those producing this immersive audio medium. Advertising breakthroughs are a common option for sponsorships, or the episode could organically mention a product or service as part of the topic. For instance, a parenting podcast can be focused on outings with baby sponsored by a stroller brand.  One great influencer marketing technique no doubt!

Marketing experts have since discovered that the podcast listener tends to spend more at the grocery store on a weekly basis than the average shopper. That by all accounts is a very interesting discovery. This is because this audience typically spends more, getting your message in front of these consumers is a must. If you sponsor a podcast, you are inevitably getting the attention of persons who spend more in grocery stores not just as mere visitors but active shoppers. That does a lot for the brand you are promoting.