If you use a sensible strategy in podcast marketing, you can reach many listeners.
A podcast is an excellent way to inform interested users in detail about a wide variety of topics and to show opportunities. In this way, the listeners get an insight into exciting facts and a connection to the people who run the podcast and any company behind it. But how can you make money with a podcast strategy and podcast marketing? In the following article, we will explain how you can use a podcast concept to design ideal marketing for podcasts and monetize or advertise your podcast.
Podcast-Marketing Definition
There is no uniform definition of the term “podcast” since the format and podcast concept include a wide variety of audio and video formats, interviews, discussions, comedy and other subject areas. Technically speaking, a podcast is a series of subscription media files. These can be downloaded or automatically received as a subscription. Podcast marketing therefore first deals with a suitable podcast marketing strategy in order to gain as many listeners as possible and to increase the overall reach of the podcast. If this podcast strategy succeeds, a podcast can be monetized and can turn out to be very lucrative.
Why are podcasts such a popular medium?
People love good stories, and with a podcast, listeners give the podcaster their full attention. Instead of just reading a text or looking at it through a banner, for example, a podcast is more personal and seems more authentic. This makes it easier to create a trusting relationship with the listener. This, in turn, makes ads that appear on podcasts more targeted and often more effective. Because if the podcaster himself points out products, it increases credibility for companies and in podcast marketing in general.
Find a podcast marketing strategy to make money
To start, podcast marketing is more of an investment strategy. This means that the right podcast strategy cannot be directly implemented lucratively when promoting podcasts, which is influenced by several factors when it comes to marketing for podcasts and the podcast concept:
1. YOU NEED A STRONG AUDIENCE FOR PODCAST MARKETING
Especially when you start your podcast strategy, not all of your customers or prospects will necessarily have been waiting to see you live with topics from your specialist area. Building the marketing for a podcast is more of a perseverance task. Listen to your podcast and your podcast concept. Then some stay with it, because what you’re telling is really exciting, and over time, more and more listeners join. In no case will it be the case that you start your podcast marketing and it hits like a bomb. The exception is if you have already established yourself as a brand in the mind and life of your customers when you apply to the podcast. Apple would be a classic example of this.
2. YOUR LISTENERS NEED TO INVEST IN YOU AND YOUR PODCAST STRATEGY
This may seem obvious at first glance when it comes to marketing for the podcast, but it is much more complex to consider when it comes to the podcast concept. The investment of your audience is not meant financially at all. In the beginning, your listeners invest time in you. This is anything but a matter of course. How many companies, magazines and other portals offer a podcast? And why shouldn’t I just turn on the radio or the television if I want to be heard? The supply is huge – and if you don’t deliver when it comes to podcast marketing, then you’re replaceable. The first step is to get your audience to invest time in you with a podcast strategy. This is closely linked to point 1, because this is the only way you can gain an audience and monetize your podcast.
This is exactly where the fundamental problem lies in fully monetizing podcast marketing. If you start charging for your podcasts straight away, you won’t generate an audience. There are enough other podcasts with a good podcast concept that your customers can engage with if they want to. If you build up an audience and then start charging for it, then you’re basically offering the same thing from now on, but you expect your listeners to invest money in addition to their time. As a podcast strategy, this can quickly backfire and has often led to a podcast being quickly discontinued.
3. PODCAST MARKETING DOESN’T WORK WITHOUT ADDED VALUE
That leads to the very foundation of how to podcast marketing can even work. You need the often-cited added value of your podcast concept in order to be able to get people excited about your podcast in the first place. Above all, this requires time when creating a high-quality podcast. You have to think of a suitable topic for your podcast strategy, then make it as exciting as possible, research it and ultimately present a result that rewards your listeners for investing their time in you. Anything from half a day to several weeks is possible when marketing a podcast.
If you now convert this time into the investment of working time alone, you can quickly add up to a few hundred to a thousand euros. You don’t get that back in so easily by hoping that your customers will be happy to pay you for it. Direct monetization in podcast marketing is correspondingly problematic. It’s hard to slip into a real profit zone here just by running a podcast. The problem with marketing podcasts even many professional and well-known podcasts in German-speaking countries. Podcast marketing is very rarely suitable for making a living with this and a podcast concept.
The ways to make money from a podcast
The first way to earn money with a podcast is to get your listeners to pay you voluntarily. There are portals like Flattr and Patreon for that. With these providers, listeners can pay for your services with a voluntary donation for your podcast concept. Portals like Steady even do additional administrative tasks related to your podcast marketing for you. PayPal also offers your listeners the opportunity to voluntarily transfer money to you for a good podcast.
POSSIBLE PODCAST REVENUE STRATEGIES FOR YOUR PODCAST CONCEPT
The somewhat more lucrative, but also riskier option, when marketing a podcast, is advertising for other companies. Sponsoring is one of the main sources of income, especially for the really big podcasts. You can also do affiliate marketing by redirecting you to specific products and offers from other portals. The problem is that the more it sounds like advertising and sales to your audience, the more reserved your audience will be. On the one hand, you can counteract this by professionalizing it. For example, invite someone from the relevant company to answer questions on a specific topic in the form of an interview, with the ultimate reference to suitable offers that the other person has. On the other hand, don’t overdo it with your podcast strategy. To put it bluntly: You are not a sales channel like QVC.
Of course, you can also advertise your own products that fit a topic in your podcast. This is another of the best strategies for direct marketing through your podcast. So when you’re marketing your podcast, you’re not selling just anything, but the things that you deal with every day and that you’re the expert on. It is only important to pay attention to the qualitative added value of the podcast with your podcast concept and to present your products more as a supplement to the information received.
The added value of a podcast marketing strategy
The direct revenue opportunities for monetizing the podcast are rather difficult. But the added value is obvious: You establish yourself as a company in the lives of your listeners – and that makes you a brand, a brand that offers more than the product itself. When marketing a podcast, expands your sales opportunities, especially in the long term. Establishment in the customer’s life means maximum customer loyalty.
AMAZON’S MARKETING STRATEGY AND PODCAST CONCEPT
The mail-order company Amazon, in particular, recognized this marketing strategy well over ten years ago. That’s why today we’re talking about a company where it’s more likely to be asked in which area it is not active. This is how the well-established Amazon Prime business model with free premium shipping and additional offers works in principle. Amazon doesn’t do that because it gets rich from the 70 euros per customer per year. Amazon does this because it makes the company omnipresent.
- Do you want to order something? Be sure to check out Amazon too, you save on shipping.
- Nothing on TV? Anyway, I have Prime.
- I want to listen to music but don’t want to click through YouTube videos. Hey, I have millions of songs through Prime Music that I can listen to for free.
With podcast marketing, of course, this principle does not play out on this global level as it does with Amazon. However, the way it works is similar. With the podcast, you offer your customers the opportunity to bind them to you. As a podcaster you don’t really notice it, but when someone listens to you and your people for months or years, that someone builds a certain relationship with you. He gets to know you better, appreciates you for the content you convey to him and lets you into his life a little bit. This is how you bind your listeners pragmatically and emotionally at the same time with your podcast strategy. Pragmatic because they have knowledge or interesting stories hear from you when they invest their time in you. Emotionally, you also reveal things about yourself in a podcast and your podcast concept and make yourself more approachable.
Promote the benefits of podcast marketing or podcasts
In summary, the podcast concept has numerous advantages to podcast marketing. In combination with the right product, for example, you make acquisition easier in the long term or you can theoretically even do without it in order to devote more time to product development or the development of new sales channels. What you invest in time now, you will notice in the long term when marketing your podcast. If you manage to establish yourself as a brand, you will find that your sales work much more easily. And it is on this basis that you can deepen your business, grow, spread further and become a much larger company than you will ever be without optimal exploitation of customer loyalty.
The bottom line is that you can compare your podcast marketing to a blog or a YouTube channel, for example. You provide a regular incentive for your customers to visit you and get the latest content. The main difference is that this type of marketing goes much deeper due to more personal communication and is much easier and more convenient for your customers to access than written text or a video. And it is precisely at this level that your customers get access to you when you apply for a podcast – and you with your podcast strategy to them.
You can also benefit from the following advantages of podcast marketing:
- Direct access to you and your company is most easily and strongly possible via voice. This bond is the basis for everything interpersonal when promoting a podcast – including increased sales.
- Due to the auditory recording of the presentation, there is no need to deal directly with the content, as is necessary with a written text, for example. Your audience can listen to you while you’re doing housework, studying, exercising, or just sitting comfortably on the couch.
- With a podcast concept, you gain much more influence on what you tell, through how you tell it. It gives you a lot more leeway when promoting the podcast, designing and emphasizing the content exactly how you actually want it to come across.
Conclusion: Use a suitable podcast strategy
Podcast marketing is not really suitable for making money as directly as possible. On the one hand, the offer – and thus the competition for your podcast concept – is extremely large. On the other hand, too few providers are able to achieve more than homoeopathic gains. So it’s almost always better to think of it as an adjunct to marketing. With your own podcast, you give your customers additional content that they hopefully won’t get anywhere else. This will turn your listeners on again for the next episode. If you succeed in marketing podcasts, these customers will usually remain loyal to you for years and even longer. Accordingly, as a long-term concept for the podcast, it will also bring you long-term success.
Frequently asked questions (FAQ) about podcast marketing
What is podcast marketing?
There is no uniform definition of the term “podcast” because the format and podcast concept includes a wide variety. This includes audio and video formats, interviews, discussions, comedy and other subject areas. Podcast marketing therefore first deals with a suitable strategy to attract as many listeners as possible and to increase the overall reach of the podcast.
Which podcast strategy is best?
First, you should convince your listeners to use your podcast marketing effectively and then even make money from your podcast. For this, you need informative content and a special concept that stands out from the competition.
Why is podcast marketing worthwhile?
Direct access to you and your company is most easily and strongly possible via voice. This bond is the basis for everything interpersonal when promoting a podcast – including increased sales. Plus, your listeners can listen anytime while doing chores, studying, exercising, or just being comfy on the couch.
