I hope I’m not the first person to tell you that running a podcast is a lot of work and that it’s ok to want to earn money from that investment of your time.
But a 2024 survey from The Podcast Host found that only just over a quarter of independent podcasters (26%) are actively trying to monetise their podcasts.
There are two factors holding them back: not knowing where to start, and not finding the right brands to sponsor their podcast.
As a podcast marketing expert who listens to podcasts, works with big-name podcasts such as The Guilty Feminist and also runs an email list about growing your podcast (can you tell that I like podcasts?), I advise new podcasters to put their ideas of sponsorship to one side so they can focus on a more effective route to monetisation: creating a podcast membership programme.
Your podcast could make money through featuring advertisements, but whether it will is another question. Podcast advertising revenue is generally calculated in CPM (cost per mille, or per 1,000 downloads), meaning that your episode downloads need to regularly hit multiple four figures before you start seeing advertisement money in your bank account. And that’s once you’ve found the right brand to work with.
On the other hand, you could start monetising a smaller podcast today by creating a podcast membership. Yes, it takes work to create and launch a membership, but when you’re the head of your membership, you get to make the rules about what your membership includes. You could make members-only episodes, host live events, commission branded merch or none of the above.
If you’re not sure what your membership should look like, don’t guess. As a podcast host, you have a bond with your listeners and your membership will only work if it makes your listeners feel even closer to you. Find out what your listeners would want from a potential membership by sending out surveys, soliciting direct feedback or checking your podcast reviews.
Once you’ve got the basics of your membership down, it’s time to sell it.
Speaking as a paid member of several podcasts (even one that gives most of its content away for free - more on that below) two major factors have pushed me into paying for podcasts: gated content and the membership pitch.
One way to get your listeners to pay you is by putting a paywall between them and your content and selling the episodes as part of your membership. This isn’t a risk-free strategy because you have to strike a balance between sharing relevant and interesting content in your main podcast feed and keeping your best episodes for paid members only.
Even when you gate your episodes, you may want to release part of them for free as a trailer to give non-members a taste of your membership. And don’t hesitate to reference members-only episodes in your non-member content. Your non-member audience needs to know what they’re missing. This is why I decided to pay for a podcast for the first time ever, after hearing a 45-minute trailer for a series of gated episodes on the Psychology in Seattle podcast. I cover gated content in more detail in my email list, including what kinds of content your audience will want to pay for.
Beyond gated content, the second key to growing your podcast membership is the membership pitch, or how you talk about your membership on your podcast. Here, I want to underline that consistency is key. Mentioning your membership often will maximise the chances that your audience hears about it, as they may not listen to all your episodes or to the whole episode. Just make sure you’re not drowning out the rest of the episode with your membership pitches.
The content of your membership pitch should highlight your membership benefits, but go a little further than that. Your pitch is also a place to thank your members by telling them what their membership means to you. Make your audience want to support you, regardless of what the membership benefits are. This is why I paid for a membership for the Terrible, Thanks For Asking podcast even though the majority of their content is available free of charge, with only brand-new episodes of a previously unlaunched podcast behind a paywall: I value their free episodes highly enough that I started to want to pay for them. Would I have done that without hearing several reminders from the host that they had a membership programme and she really appreciated it when people joined? No way.
So if you’re a newer podcaster and want to see more money arrive sooner, try crafting and launching your own podcast membership programme.
The road to building a thriving podcast membership is long and requires you to make many strategic decisions along the way, so if you’d like a map to help you, join my email list. It’s the place where I share advice with podcasters about growing their podcast and turning their listeners into a thriving community - for free.