In this episode, I’m looking at how to make money by selling the show itself. That means either selling episodes, selling upgrades, or re-purposing the show into a related product.
For some, this is the most obvious (and easiest!) way to get started in Podcast monetization. For others, it can be a lot of work, but really effective in the end.
There’s a chicken and egg problem around gating your content and building an audience, but we’ll cover that in full. Let’s have a look!
Transcription
Intro
- Seems the most obvious, but perhaps one of the most difficult.
- How do you sell something that’s generally given away for free?
- Podcasts work because they build trust
- Chicken and egg – can this approach be done right away?
Premium Content
- Gaming shows – Podhammer
- Very funny, really looked forward to it.
- People gladly paid for more
Back Catalogue
- Take old shows off-line, sell as a package
- Simply Syndicated
- They’ve gone Netflix, but used to sell one-off packages.
Support Content
- Support Material, summarise the show or provide worksheets
- Allows you to keep everything free.
- Giving away that value, building trust, putting out tonnes of useful content
- The show acts as a lead generator for the support content
- Done very well by Radio Lingua
Repurposed Content
- Similar, keeping the main show free, acting as a lead generator
- Turn the show into an Audiobook
- Turn the show into an ebook
Upgraded or enhanced content
- Extra material, extra formats.
- Provide a full course based around the topic
- That’s what we’re doing at The Podcast Host
- The seasons of the show are intro material, covers the content.
- Then the course provides extras
- Provides the action and the how-to.
- Videos demonstrate techniques
- text supports re-reading, revision
- Activity supports and encourages success.
- Plus there may be direct support in there, or community support