Episode 9 - Choosing the Right Avenue for Monetization

In this episode, Jon breaks down various monetization strategies for podcasts, offering practical tips on how to generate revenue based on the goals and structure of your show. He explores options like Patreon for community-driven podcasts and sponsorship deals for B2B-focused content. Jon also delves into ad placement, explaining the differences in value between pre-roll and post-roll ads. He encourages podcasters to engage with their audience and consider crowd involvement as a form of support. As the final episode of the first season, Jon invites listeners to reach out for more in-depth discussions on monetization strategies.

Takeaways

• Monetization strategies should align with the specific goals and needs of your podcast.
• Consider platforms like Patreon for community-driven shows and sponsorships for B2B podcasts.
• Optimize ad placement and duration to maximize the value of your ads.
• Engage your audience and explore ways to involve the crowd in supporting your podcast.
• Reach out for more personalized guidance on podcast monetization.

Chapters
00:00 - Introduction and Disclaimer
02:53 - Exploring Different Monetization Avenues
06:48 - Understanding Ad Placement and Value
09:09 - The Power of Crowd Involvement
10:56 - Conclusion and Next Steps

Resources

• Download the Wayfare Podcast Strategy Workbook
• Need help with your podcast? CLICK HERE
• Need help starting your podcast? CLICK HERE

Versions

• Check out our video version of the podcast.
• Check out our audio version of the podcast.

Acknowledgments
A big thank you to:

• Kath - Creating the podcast artwork (You can find more of her work here)
• Anna - Wayfare's Admin Assist.
• Matt - Graphics creation for the show
• Dan - Post-production work

For any additional questions, please reach out through this link.

Thank you for listening!

Transcript

Jon (00:01.338)
Hello and welcome to the last formal episode of the podcast for season one of this podcast, Wayfair recording podcast. Today we are talking about monetization. Super fun. A lot of people love to talk about ads and how to make money from their podcasts. And I can tell you right off the, right off the top that I am not.

advertising agency. But I do have a couple of tips and tricks to kind of get you thinking about what to do to ma to make money, to, find a way to get a good earning. And it really is going to depend on like what your needs are, what you are trying to go for with your podcast. And there's a lot of avenues that I can kind of help coach through the ideas of what monetization looks like. but if you are

Looking to just kind of get it off your plates. You're not really interested in actually doing, that type of work, which I totally get it. I mean, trying to design a podcast and be a host of one and it's already like a ton of work. but I would recommend, you know, checking out, ad agencies out there. And there's a lot of hosting websites out there too, that, also do some like networking deals and can help look for.

ways to get ads on your show. But, yeah, this will be a pretty interesting episode and I'm really excited to go through it with you. But before we jump into it, just a quick reminder, if you're just checking this episode out for the first time, welcome. This is a pretty exciting one to jump right into. but we are going through the strategy workbook that my podcast production agency provides to all of our clients, for free.

if they're signing on to do a package and service with us, you know, this is what I provide and we talk through and we do some consulting with them. try to treat this whole, season like as if you're consulting, you're going through a consulting session with me. just so you guys have a familiar face. but, yeah. And if this is your, I think this is episode nine at this point, I can't remember where we're at with this.

Jon (02:25.664)
show as of recording this. But if this is your, let's just say it's ninth, if this is your ninth episode jumping in with us, then welcome. Thanks for returning. I'm glad you like the information that I'm sharing with you. And yeah, don't forget to subscribe, like, share all that stuff. I'm going to probably repeat that at the end of the episode, but yeah, let's go right into it. So monetization, as I said earlier,

It's really going to depend on what you're looking for with your monetization, with your podcast. And I guess to kind of give an example as to why that sounds ambiguous, I guess, or a situational is that a, I would say typically, cause, there's no wrong way of doing this, I guess, at the end of the day, typically I would say it's smarter to do something like Patreon. If you are doing a community driven show.

And community driven is like, you know, the, easiest, the easiest example is going to be true crime, right? True crime is going to be a personality host, behind the microphone that is telling the listener a story. And those listeners have a common interest of true crime, of court cases, of criminals, of interesting stories, and they want to share these stories with each other. So Patreon is going to be a pretty common avenue for that. Whereas.

Maybe if you are doing a, a, program for your, for your, B2B, you might want to do something much more sponsorship driven as far as like, you know, your co your company could be advertising your podcasts in a sense, right. or, you know, you could do both where if you are a true crime,

podcast, you could do both. You could have like a Patreon thing and you could invite the listeners to donate, you know, five bucks to be a part of a more exclusive club where you guys can communicate with one another. And, you know, they could be a part of like a community where they talk on an exclusive discord account or Facebook, a community account where there's a paywall to get in. but while they're actually doing their show and there's actual,

Jon (04:51.834)
And there's actually like an episode that the listener can listen through. would be ads on there. You know, there's two ways to get money through that. And it would, it could also be an incentive to where, know, if someone is doing, giving you, you know, a buck or five bucks to be a part of the Patreon account, they would get an ad free version of it. That's probably one of the more common ones that I've run into people doing. So, that's kind of like,

an entry point in thinking of how you want to approach your show. And there's a lot of different combinations and avenues that you can take this in. and, if you want to go onto the PDF and kind of look at what we have laid out on there, it's on page 19. Again, if you don't have one, you can check out the show notes, or the description of the video, depending on how you're listening to download it. but I have like two sections to look at and it's kind of.

It's both brainstorming, but you can also use it if you do have interest in, if you'd have interest in advertisers, for example, you know, there's the top section that has like, who are your advertisers? Is it, you know, common ones are hello fresh. remember back in the day, blue apron was all over the place. some people are doing like,

Jon (06:11.974)
factor is another one, but that's part of HelloFresh. but you know, you get, there's three sections that you can list out and you can say, you can even write out more if you have more, again, it doesn't need to be just three. It can be way more if you want. And then underneath is an associative section where, know, for, advertiser one, there's the ad position for them. Where are they going to go? are they going to do pre -roll?

post -roll so before the show starts or after the show starts is it going to be right in the middle? That's a pretty common one. And how long is the ad going to be? It can be.

30 seconds. It can be a minute. It can be, 90 seconds. it can be two minutes, which is pretty long, but that is an option. And depending on where you sit, where you choose to have it in your podcast can determine the value of it. So I would say to give an example, the value of a pre -roll ad is going to be much more than a post -roll ad because the pre -roll ad is probably going to be one of the first

things that they're going to listen to for the show and the likelihood of them skipping it is going to be much less than the end of the show because at the end of the show, I mean, how often do you listen to it all the way through to the end when, you know, the, when, you know, you just, you hit the end of the episode and then all of a sudden it's an ad. It's like, well, you know, if you're a pretty big diehard fan, would say it's pretty rare. I mean, I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm not saying that you don't.

But it's pretty rare to find someone who likes to listen to the thank you section to listen to the rate and review section. sometimes people do that's great. That's awesome. but that also includes skipping the ad. Like it's just much more common to listen through the pre -roll than the post -roll. And so you're going to want to charge the pre -roll more than the post -roll.

Jon (08:13.422)
What those numbers look like. have no clue. That's up to you. That's what you think is valuable, in terms of relevancy to your show. Do you think it's very valuable or not? honestly, you could do the numbers backwards if you want, if you want the post role to be, more expensive than the pre -roll go for it. But I mean, I wouldn't, I wouldn't recommend it, but you know, it's your show, whatever you want to do. and these are, these are again, ideas on how you want to present it. I'm usually pretty big proponent of crowd.

crowd involvement because you know, lot of people love to tip the people who are who they follow, who they enjoy listening to. They like to find a way to give back, especially when technically these shows are in a sense like free to access. So they want to make sure that they compensate for that. That's not, you know, some people might disagree.

On that in some ways, I haven't really ran into anyone who has disagreed, but I mean, I'm sure people are out there who do. but yeah, the, if you really want to like, kind of get into this and talk more about numbers and structures and how to formally do it, I would recommend reaching out and we can talk about it more in depth. cause it is a pretty big, like, it is a pretty.

big portion of your podcast development to dedicate time to. but if you're not interested in doing that and you want to figure out a way to like, just get it off your plate and not have to worry about it. mean, again, there are ad agencies out there who are way more knowledgeable about this than I am, but yeah. again, feel free to reach out. We can talk about it. but with that being said,

This was the last formal episode to go through the podcast guide. have one more episode after this. I'm going to kind of call it the season one finale or epilogue or whatever to season one. kind of talking about like, you know, how the show has gone, what plans I have for this show, what season two could look like. it's going to be a low key episode. a little bit more candid, not

Jon (10:28.376)
Not that I'm not being candid now. hope I'm being pretty candid, but just like, you know, there's no structure. There's no, there's no, podcast, strategy workbook I'm running off of, but yeah. again, thank you so much for, if you're going to listen through this to the end, to go back to what I was saying earlier, thank you again for listening. be sure to like share, subscribe again, download this PDF. If you're interested, if this is your first time listening, I

I'd be happy to talk through some more of these ideas with you, even, you know, from past topics, from the season, I'd love to talk with you about, there should be information to reach out to us in the description and show notes below. And with that being said, thank you again for listening to the season, check out the epilogue, the font, the series seasons, the season finale to kind of hear more about what I have in mind for ongoing episodes and ongoing ideas. And with that being said, thank you again.