Monetize Your Podcast With a Paywall [Ep. 99]

 
 

Click play to learn how to monetize your podcast with a paywall:

 
 

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Here’s what to expect from this episode:

There are a LOT of ways you can monetize your podcast with a paywall. Some can be done even if you don't already have a traditional podcast, while others can be an extension of your regular podcast.

In today's episode, I'm walking you through the different types of paywalls you could use to monetize your podcast. I'm also sharing some things to consider with each one, questions to ask yourself before getting started, what to charge, and the one big mistake I want you to avoid!

So whether you're a current or future podcaster, there's definitely something in this episode for you.

TOPICS COVERED:

  • What a podcast paywall is

  • Premium content options within your host

  • Paid communities outside of your host

  • Utilizing paid private podcasting

  • What to charge (and one mistake to avoid)

  • Questions to ask yourself before getting started

Resources mentioned:

Connect with Sara:

Related episodes:

  • Sara Whittaker 0:01

    Your Podcast is a powerful tool that serves your audience and your business. But how do you manage it all bring in new listeners, and convert those listeners into customers. That's what this show is all about. Welcome to podcasting for educators. I'm Sara Whitaker, classroom teacher turn podcast manager. And I'm here to help you get the most out of your show, all while making an impact on other educators. Hello, hello, and welcome to another episode of podcasting for educators. Today's episode is part of an ongoing series that I'm going to be doing from time to time about different ways that you can monetize a podcast, I know that we all probably want to make some direct money from our shows. And the good news is that there are many, many ways to do that. So I'm going to be kind of sprinkling these types of episodes in from time to time. The first one that I did was back in episode 91, where we talked about how to monetize your podcast with an online course. This time, we're going to look at how to monetize your podcast with a paywall. And this is a really fun conversation because there are so many opportunities here. Some of them can even be done if you don't already have a traditional podcast, while others of them can be an extension of your regular podcast. And if you aren't familiar with what a paywall is, it's basically a digital gate that is used to monetize content, so people have to pay you in order to access the content. And when it comes to your podcast, there's lots of different ways that you can gate specific content or all of your content through a paywall. So let's look at a few ways that you could do this. The first way is by creating premium content that actually shows up in the Listening apps like Apple podcasts and Spotify. And what I mean by that is if you have a public podcasts that you create content for regularly, you've got your episodes that are free to your listeners, but then you could create premium episodes that show up on the feed for everybody. But only the people who pay for that bonus content can actually access that content. And popular content to create for this sort of paywall is creating episodes that are completely ad free. So if you're somebody who has podcast sponsors, or you use a lot of ads in your episodes, for your personal things, you could put out episodes that are totally ad free for your premium subscribers, you could also offer early access to your paying subscribers. So you if you put out episodes on Wednesdays, maybe they would get access on Sundays. And then my favorite way to do this is to create bonus episodes, this does not have to be a bonus episode every single week, it could be one bonus episode a month, or every other week. And these episodes would again only be available to your paying subscribers. Now in terms of the tech for this, like what platform to use for this, there are a lot of different options. And I think within the next year, we're going to see even more options available to us. You can create this premium content through Apple podcasts through your apple podcast Connect account, I do not recommend taking this route. Because if you do that, then the only people who can pay you and subscribe to your premium content are Apple users. And while it is very likely that the majority of your listeners are Apple users, not all of your listeners are Apple users. So I just don't think it's a good idea to limit who can access this premium content. They also take 30% of your revenue, which is a pretty hefty fee, in my opinion.

    Sara Whittaker 4:12

    Another option for this is for those of you who host your podcast on Buzzsprout. Now Buzzsprout just recently released Buzzsprout subscriptions. And that is exactly what we're talking about here. It's premium content that you can create. If you host with Buzzsprout, you would upload this premium content just like you do regular episodes, but there's a little box that you can check to mark it as premium content. And what that does is it puts a lock on it next to the title of your episode. So if you have listeners who open up their Apple podcast app or wherever they're listening, and they see your public episodes pop up as usual. But then when you upload premium content that is only for paying subscribers, they're going to see the title of that episode. But there's going to be a little lock next to it. And they're not going to be able to listen to that episode, unless they are a paying subscriber. And if they try to click on it actually gives them a little message that says, like, you have to be a subscriber to listen to this content, you can sign up here, and they tell them where to go. So I just think that this is so cool, because it really eliminates a lot of barriers that other platforms put up. And what I mean by that is, it doesn't force your listeners to go to a different platform, or like login anywhere else to get this premium content, they can do it right from your feed that they normally listen in on, all they have to do is click on it takes them to a link where they can sign up for it. And so it really creates like this sense of FOMO for people, especially if you've got really compelling titles, and you are hitting on topics that people really want to listen to. And this could be a totally different topic than your other public episode that you're putting out. Or maybe it could be a deeper dive into the topic that you've got on your public feed. There's so many different ways that you can do this. But I think there are a lot of opportunities here. Now, like I said, this is only available for people who host on Buzzsprout. However, I know that captivate is coming out with their own version of this very soon. And I really wouldn't be surprised if most podcast hosts eventually have this as a feature in the near future. At this time, it looks like Buzzsprout takes 15% of your earnings. So that's half of what Apple takes. And any platform that setup like this is going to take some sort of fee from you. But you don't pay anything additional to use subscriptions, you only pay if you're getting paid by your subscribers. Now using platforms like Apple podcasts or bus brought subscriptions, those are not the only way to create premium content and put up a paywall for your podcast content. There's other ways to do this. But they are separate from the actual listening apps. And I'm going to highlight two platforms that I know of that are created specifically for podcasters to have these paid subscriptions set up. And these two platforms that I'm going to mention, they go a little bit beyond just bonus episodes, they also offer features that allow you to really build more of a community with your listeners, which is really cool. And to join this kind of subscription, your you could include a link to sign up link within your regular episode descriptions. And people could click on it to sign up, but it doesn't show the subscriber only content on your public feed for people who are not subscribers, like I mentioned that Buzzsprout does. Hopefully that makes sense. So the two platforms that I know of and that come highly recommended would be Patreon. And Super Cast. Patreon you've probably heard of it's been around for a very long time, it's a place where podcasters can send listeners to sign up to get extra access. So this could be bonus episodes. It could be virtual meetups, it could be merchandise, it could be printable resources or digital resources, the sky's the limit. And I've seen people use Patreon communities in a variety of ways. They offer a place on there where you can connect with your community, there's a message board and things like that. So you can really bring the conversation over from your podcast. And with Patreon. Just like all of these platforms, you can set up different tiers. So you could just have one tier like a $5 month or $10 a month tier, or you could have like a $5 a month, a $10 a month a $15 a month tier and obviously the higher the tier, the more additional things the listener would get. So really, it's kind of like a membership model, but it's for podcasting. So Patreon was the first one the other platform is called Super Cast. And this is very similar to Patreon. It's a little bit newer. A couple of cool features that supercast has is they have a built in asked me anything tool where listeners can submit their questions and then you can create episodes. Those answering those questions or you can just answer them right there within that community. Now, the cool thing about Super Cast is that they do integrate with the podcast players like Google, Spotify, Apple, and deliver the content that way. So you don't necessarily have to be on another app to consume this bonus content. If it's bonus episodes that you're putting out. Once they are signed up, they can add the private feed or premium feed to their podcast player. And it does say that, once a listener is subscribed to this premium content, they can sync the premium feed with your regular feed so that your paying subscribers can have all of your content on one podcast feed within their listening app. But they have to be signed up first, to be able to then sync everything together. And just like the other platforms, you can decide how much the cost is going to be each month. There's monthly annual and lifetime subscription plans as well as free trials that you can get people to for Super Cast. You don't pay anything until people pay you. And then it's 59 cents a month per subscriber plus the stripe fees. So it hooks up to your Stripe account. And that's how people pay to be a premium subscriber. Okay, so all of those platforms that I just mentioned, are ways that you can really create this premium content that's an extension of your regular public free podcast. Now, if you are not a podcaster yet, or maybe you are a podcaster, but you want to create something entirely different. You can create podcast content that is all gated by a paywall. And a way to do that is basically to create a paid private podcast. And you can create something like this on Hello audio. That's what I use for all of my private podcasting. If you host on Captivate, you have access to at least one private podcast feed, so you can do it on there as well. So maybe you want to create a paid podcast that you put out, it could be weekly episodes, it could be one episode a month, you could treat it as kind of like monthly trainings or monthly workshops that you do delivered podcast style, but something that you're creating consistent content for, but it's not going to be a free podcast, it's going to be a paid podcast. And with a platform like hello audio, they basically create your podcast feed for you, people would sign up, they would pay for it, they would get the feed delivered to them. And then they would be able to add it to whatever listening app they want to listen in on. A cool thing about Hello audio is they have added a checkout page option. So it's a built in check in page. It's a very it's very simple, but Sometimes simple is good, especially with a low ticket offer like this, usually these paid podcasts and premium content are fairly low ticket like five to $10 is pretty average per month per listener. So you could use the checkout page on Hello audio that you lead people to they pay right there on the page and boom, they get instant access. And with Hello audio their payments a little bit different. They don't take per subscriber payment that you pay like a monthly or yearly if you choose to do it that way fee to have an account with Hello audio. And that's how you pay for that. So as you can see, there's a lots and lots of different ways that you can monetize a podcast through a paywall. Whether it's an extension of your regular podcast, or just a completely new podcast feed, if you've listened to any of these ideas, and now your brain is just like spinning with all of the ways that you could try these things out, I want you to first take a breath and ask yourself some questions. The first one being Do you have the time to create this premium content or this paid private podcast? Because it is going to be more content that you're creating than you currently are doing? And I will say I think one big mistake that people make when they do this kind of thing is they feel like they have to just pump out more and more and more content, and the more the better. But you don't have to be creating this huge list of things every month for somebody to pay $5 a month. You could do one episode a month and make it really really great and really useful. And people will pay $5 A month If it's what they need, so take that into consideration. But also, if you are currently a podcaster, and you are struggling to keep up with your podcasts as it is, then now might not be the time to try out any of these things.

    Sara Whittaker 15:19

    I totally get the feeling of being really excited by all of these ideas, because I am as well. But I really, really encourage you to think about what option would be right for you and what you can keep up with long term. There's lots of potential to make money with these platforms. But I would take some time to plan things out and think about if it's something that you can keep up with. And if Now's not the time to try it, put in your back pocket come revisit it when the time is right. The other question I would ask yourself is do you have the audience for this? If you have a public podcast and you're at 50 downloads per episode, I would probably encourage you to focus on growing your audience first 50 people is no small feat. Like that's amazing. If you were to think about 50 people in a room listening to you. But then you have to think about what's a typical conversion rate. I think it's like one, one paying person per 100 people. So you can't assume that every single one of your public podcast listeners would pay to have premium content, right? So consider your audience. Again. Maybe it's something that you could do next year. After you've grown your audience a little bit. I hope that this was really helpful for you. If you're planning to try out any of these paywall ideas, send me a message on Instagram, let me know about it. You know, I love to hear about all of your podcast plans. Also, if you are enjoying this podcast, and you have yet to write a review, I would love for you to take just a minute, it does not take long at all, head to Apple podcasts and do that today, I would be so appreciative. I will include links for all of these platforms that I mentioned so that if one of them is appealing to you, you can kind of dig into a little bit more look at the pricing and a little more detail and the features that they offer and all that good stuff. Anyway, I will see you here next week for our 100th Episode. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. To keep this conversation going connect with me on Instagram at podcasting for educators. I'm always looking for an excuse to talk about podcasting. If you're looking for support and launching, managing or growing your podcast, check out my online course the podcasting for educators prep school at podcasting for educators.com/prep school. I'll see you here next time.

More about Podcasting for Educators:

Podcasting for Educators is the podcast for TpT authors and other online educators. It's a show that will help you get your podcast in front of those who need it most - teachers, counselors, literacy specialists, SLPs, parents, and more! Each week, Sara Whittaker and her guests will share top tips and actionable strategies that you will need in order to launch, manage, and grow your podcast. You’ll learn how to leverage your show to build long-lasting relationships with your audience and promote your TpT resources, courses, and memberships, all while providing valuable and accessible content!

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Sara Whittaker