Have you been running your podcast for a while now and still have only a few listeners? Don’t worry, that’s very common. The vast majority of knowledge-based shows, especially in Asia, have listeners in the dozens or hundreds and not in the millions unlike what you might see on YouTube. So don’t worry – you can still make some money if you don’t have millions of listeners. But you need to figure out a few things first.
Table of Contents
Can Your Podcast Make Money?
First we need to answer three questions to determine whether your podcast can make money at all:
- How many downloads do you get? Too few and the effort will not be worth it.
- How loyal are your listeners? If they’re just casual visitors they will probably not spend on you.
- How valuable is your listeners? If they are high-value to someone, you might be able to make money advertising for them.
How Many Monthly Downloads Do You Get?
Are you getting at least a couple of hundred downloads a month across all episodes or is it less than that? Too few and the effort (and potential annoyance to your listeners) will not be worth the few bucks you’ll make from a very tiny listeners.
We’d say you should aim for at least 200 downloads monthly to even consider monetisation. This number is quite dependent on the number of episodes you have, so just stay in the game long enough and you will start to achieve and even surpass these numbers.
How Loyal Are Your Listeners?
Is your listeners loyal and highly engaged with your show or they are casual visitors who drop in to listen for a bit and then depart? You can figure this out with two data points:
- Ratio of Followers to Downloads: You can get this from your show stats on Spotify and Apple. If you have a high follower count in comparison with overall downloads per episode, it seems your listeners are converting to Followers and hence your content is clearly resonating with them. Thumbs up!
- Episode Consumption: Again, you can see this on Spotify or Apple. If your episodes have people mostly listening through till nearly the end, your material is a hit with your listeners. On the other hand, if they drop off early in each episode then you aren’t connecting with them at all.
The former are going to be a lot easier to monetize than the latter, so if your listeners are disengaged you may want to work on making your content better ‘fit’ with your target listeners before you try to make any moolah. (CrazyTok can help you with thinking this through if you’re having trouble).
How Valuable Is Your Listeners?
Now it’s great if you have a show of some scale with highly engaged listeners. But the listeners need to be valuable to someone in order for you to maximise your chances of making some money. And this can be figured out from two things:
- The content of your show: If your show is about personal finance, then it is evident that listeners are tuning in to learn about that subject, which makes them very valuable to a bank or insurance company
- Your listeners demographics on Spotify: When your show content is less obviously targeted, this is another way to infer interests and value. Are your listeners middle-aged and female mainly? Might be good bets for a parenting brand, a bank or a career coach. Are they elderly? Perhaps a pharma brand? Are they very young and listen to Taylor Swift? Perhaps a local restaurant chain might be interested?
Based on the answers to these three things, we can now figure out the right strategy to monetise your podcast. And if you don’t know how to figure these out, just get in touch. CrazyTok spends hours going through your stats to give you insights on your show and how to make it better.
Pick Your Money-Making Channels
All the following apply when your show is generating at least a few hundred downloads, as we discussed earlier.
High Engagement Show, High Value Listeners
This is the holy grail. Even if your show is relatively small, your engagement numbers and the likelihood of your listeners being able to pay for things of interest give your show disproportionately high revenue-generating potential. And while almost all the tactics for other categories will also work well for your show, monetisation based on your content, knowledge or access to influential guests might be the best approach.
- Offer premium content or exclusive access to your podcast: This could include offering bonus episodes, extended interviews, behind-the-scenes content, or access to a private community. You could charge a subscription fee for this premium content or offer it as a one-time purchase.
- Create online courses or workshops: If your podcast covers a particular topic or niche, you can consider creating online courses or workshops that delve deeper into the subject matter. You can charge a fee for access to these courses or workshops, or offer them as a bundle with your premium content.
- Offer consultancy or coaching: If you have expertise in a particular area, you can offer consultancy or coaching services to your listeners. This could include one-on-one coaching sessions, group coaching programs, or online consulting services.
High Engagement Show, Low Value Listeners
If your listeners is loyal but may not have a high willingness or ability to pay or your show doesn’t have an obvious monetisable niche, you can consider making money in ways that are more pocket-friendly and relationship-oriented:
- Seek donations in exchange for access: You can ask supporters to fund your show through crowdfunding platforms like Patreon or Ko-Fi. These platforms allow your listeners to support your podcast with small, regular donations. You can offer perks to your supporters, such as early access to episodes, shoutouts, or exclusive content.
- Sell Merchandise: If your listeners are engaged but may not have a lot of disposable income, you can consider selling merchandise related to your podcast. This could include t-shirts, mugs, stickers, or other items that feature your podcast branding.
- Live events: You can also consider hosting paid live events related to your podcast. This could include meet-and-greet events, live recordings, or workshops related to your podcast topic.
Low Engagement Show, High Value Listeners
If your podcast attracts casual listeners but with an attractive target profile, you could consider the following ways:
- Sponsorships or advertisements: You can reach out to companies or organizations in your niche and offer to feature their products or services in your podcast. You can charge a fee for these sponsorships, or use affiliate marketing to earn a commission on any sales generated through your podcast. Companies usually measure scale in terms of downloads, however, so you’d need to work with someone small enough to appreciate the limited level of exposure you will be able to generate.
- Affiliate marketing: If your show involves (authentic!) reviews, you could partner with companies in your niche and earn a commission on any sales generated through your podcast. This could include promoting products or services through your podcast or creating custom affiliate links that your listeners can use to make purchases.
- Create branded content: You can partner with companies or organizations in your niche to create branded content that features their products or services. This could include sponsored episodes, interviews with company representatives, or product reviews.
- License your content: If you don’t have a lot of listeners but do have a library of high-quality content, you can consider licensing your content to other platforms or media outlets that could make use of them to feed their content-hungry listeners. This could include licensing individual episodes or creating custom content for a particular platform.
Low Engagement Show, Low Value Listeners
If your show is small, has low engagement and also a low-value listeners, you are limited really to running programmatic ads, since that’s the least effort way to make a few bucks. However, ads are definitely not the best listener experience and you might be better off trying to improve your show to the point where you are able to move to one of the other categories above.
Takeaways
Your show, even if it is small, can make money if you just have a loyal listener. It may not be much initially, but loyalty (and listeners value) are the key ingredients to long term success. So as your show grows, your income will grow along with it.
We hope these tactics were helpful and we wish you success!
