November 18, 2024 • 15 mins
The past few months I’ve had multiple questions from podcasters that are trying to monetize their podcast, but it’s still not getting them anywhere. I can relate to this, it took me years to make money off my podcasts.
In this episode we’ll talk about five reasons you still aren’t making money with your podcast. How to fix it and what you need to know moving forward if you want your podcast to be a sustainable source of income for you and your brand.
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https://morganfranklin.media/contact-morgan-franklin
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🙋🏻♀️ Questions? Comments? Ideas? Message Me:
morgan@morganfranklin.media
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Morgan Franklin (00:01):
One of my biggest pet peeves in the
podcasting community is how easyeveryone wants you to think it
is to make money. There's areally big name content creator
that's launching a podcastingcourse right now, and I heard
them telling their audience thatpodcasting was the reason they
could stay at home, be a stay athome parent, and make multiple
seven figures. And while I don'tdoubt that this is true, I think
(00:24):
they're telling the truth, I dodoubt the ease at which they are
trying to sell this course toyou to achieve the same results.
The past few months, I've hadmultiple questions from
podcasters that are trying tomonetize their podcast, but it
just feels like it's not goinganywhere. And you know what? I
can relate to this. I really canit took me years to make money
(00:45):
off my podcast. In this episode,we're gonna talk about the five
reasons you still aren't makingmoney with your podcast, how to
fix it, and what you need toknow moving forward if you want
your podcast to be a sustainablesource of income for you and
your brand. Hello and welcome topodcast for profit. My name is
(01:06):
Morgan Franklin. I'm a PodcastProducer, strategist and
educator. This podcast will helpyou create and grow a podcast
that cuts through the noise ofsocial media and speaks directly
to your target audience. Ifyou're ready to create a podcast
that will align you with theexperts in your industry,
position yourself as a trustedleader and create another source
(01:29):
of revenue for your business,you're in the right place. The
unknown is scary, and you knowwhat? It's especially scary if
you feel like you're constantlyputting yourself out there, over
and over and over and still notseeing any results. That's
terrifying. I think about when Istarted my first podcast, and it
(01:50):
was a really vulnerable time forme. Specifically, starting a
podcast is always veryvulnerable. But I was changing
my career completely. I wasworking with somebody that I had
literally just met, and I feltoverwhelmed every single day, I
felt like I was constantly justswimming in the deep end of the
unknown waters. And while, inthe beginning, that was really
(02:12):
fun and exciting, after a year,it started to feel really
exhausting. I was makingprogress on growing this
podcast, but it really wasn'twhere I wanted it to be, and
more importantly, to thisconversation, it was nowhere
near the objective we had putforward for it, that it would be
a self sustaining entity,meaning that it would make as
(02:34):
much money as it spent. And Iknow I don't have to remind you
of this, but the cost ofpodcasting adds up, especially
if you're like us, and you aredoing editing and equipment
upgrades and you have bills topay, it gets more expensive
every month. And for us, weweren't getting any closer to
making money on these podcasts.It was giving me so much
(02:57):
anxiety, and I knew that I hadto figure this out. But to be
honest with you, the pressure oftrying to figure it out was
making it almost impossible totake action and understand what
I really needed to do. You knowwhen that happens and you're in
the paralysis of trying to makea decision, and you know that
you have to start, but you don'tknow where or how. If I could go
(03:20):
back and give myself someadvice. These are the five
things that I would tell myselfto get out of my own way and
start making money with thispodcast. One, what is the offer,
whether that's selling ad slotson your podcast to advertisers
trying to drive listeners toyour email list to begin a sales
(03:43):
funnel or selling directly fromyour podcast with your own
products, you need to know whatthe offer is. What are you
trying to sell, and how will thebuyer buy? A lot of times we get
so caught up in trying to becreative with our offer, that we
forget the importance of havingjust a simple objective. So the
(04:07):
first question is, what is theoffer? What are you trying to
sell, and to whom? So let's saythat you have a podcast about
quilting, and I'm sorry that Ialways bring up this example
about a podcast about quilting,I swear that I'm gonna move on
from this, but let's say thatyour offer is going to be that
you are selling a quilt pattern.You need a simple,
(04:28):
straightforward message and aclear offer. So let's say that
the pattern is for Christmas andit's being featured on an
episode about making quilts asgifts to give away for
Christmas. Now I might saysomething like, if you have a
list of people you want to makequilts for this Christmas, you
(04:49):
need to check out my newestpattern made specifically to
maximize your sewing time andget multiple quilts finished
before Christmas. This patternis printable. Semi customizable.
It's $35 The link is in theepisode description, and the
pattern is on my website. Enterwebsite here. This is a very
(05:09):
clear offer to a very specificaudience, hopefully the exact
same audience that's listeningto your episode. You need an
offer that is going to answerthe questions before they are
asked, tells the buyer whatthey're buying, why they should
buy, and where to buy, tospeaking to the target audience.
(05:35):
We just talked about this aminute ago, but speak directly
to your target audience whenyou're selling from your
podcast, try to speak to onespecific person. This seems so
simple, right? Like we knowthis. We know it's important to
know who you're talking to, butdo we really know? Are we really
doing this when we pitch aproduct, or we're reading ad
(06:00):
copy from another company. Arewe speaking to one listener, one
specific type of listener, I cansay for most of us, the answer
to that question is no, and infull transparency, this is
something that I struggled withfor years when I started
podcasting, and I still strugglewith it, because I was scared. I
(06:20):
was scared if I spoke directlyto one member of the audience, I
would alienate everybody else.And I think that we all get
afraid of this, whether it'spodcasting or running a
business. It's scary to feellike you're putting all your
eggs in one basket for onespecific listener or buyer. This
is the advice that I get from mymentors every single time that I
(06:43):
talk to them, especially today,especially when you're getting
ads from every single directionand every angle. If you are not
speaking directly to someone'sproblems or their goals or their
aspirations or their desires,you're not speaking to anybody
three telling the listener howto buy. I could make an entire
(07:04):
podcast episode on this, andmaybe I will, but you need to
have a clear path to buying.What do I mean when I say that?
I mean you need links in everyepisode description, telling
people where to go. Make it socrystal clear where your
listener needs to go to buy thething that you are talking
(07:25):
about. One of the hardest partsabout selling on a podcast is
that people are usuallylistening while they're doing
something else, and they're notfully engaged with their phone,
like they're not looking attheir phone. If that makes
sense, this is a problem for us,because if we're telling people
to go onto this website or lookat something in the episode
description, or generallypointing them away from just
(07:46):
listening to this podcast theyare not even looking in the
first place. So what do we needto do this is where follow up
pieces of content are going tobe critical to the financial
success of your podcast. Solet's run through this scenario
from earlier. Let's say that youhave that quilt pattern that
you're telling your listenerswhere to go, and you link it in
(08:06):
the episode description.Perfect. People might shop from
the episode description. Theymight I mean, that happens, but
what if you also sent it in anemail as the same day that you
released that episode? You hadit on an Instagram story. You
talked about it on Tiktok. Youfeature it on LinkedIn with
information about your episode.What if it was also mentioned at
(08:26):
least three times in the blogpost that you create on your
website that corresponds withthis episode with the links?
Yes, that is what's going tosell the product that you are
talking about on your podcast.And I know that I say this on
every episode, but listeners andbuyers need eight to 12 touch
points to buy. And if you werejust giving them that one on
(08:50):
your podcast, good luck. That isvery, very difficult. Think
about the last time that youjust saw something one time and
then you went to buy it. Andanother thing is, please, please
check your links. Make sure thatyou have links everywhere. There
should never be a time that yourlistener is wondering how to buy
(09:10):
what you're selling. It's funnyto me, because so many of the
podcasters that I do audits forthe majority of you are doing a
much better job of promoting andlinking your guests, then you
are your own products, in yourown business, in your own
podcast. We can't just beshowing up for our guests. We
have to show up for ourselves aswell. Four call to action. You
(09:35):
need a call to action. Youtalking about what you do or
what your product is or justloosely throwing something out
there that is not enough. Yougiving away free information
isn't enough. You need to giveme the offer, but also tell me
why I need to buy it today. Andthis can look like a lot of
(09:56):
different things. I think thatwe a lot of times, think about
just limited. Time discounts asbeing a call to action, whereas,
I'd argue, if you're looking forfirst time buyers or people that
would be purchasing from you forthe first time, you don't have
to focus on having a discountcode. It cheapens the brand. And
then they'll think that you dothis all the time. Pick two to
(10:19):
four times a year that you wantto run coupons and the rest of
the year, find calls to actionthat are driven by the person
that will be purchasing. And letme explain, for example, going
back to our Christmas quiltpattern, I could say something
about how you can complete onepattern per week, and if you
want to get four done byChristmas, you need to start
(10:41):
today. Let it correlate to theobjective of what you are
selling. And what do I mean bythat? That sounds so confusing.
For example, a call to actionthat I might use on an Instagram
template for podcasters might besomething like buy this before
you make your next Instagrampost. If you want to convert
(11:02):
followers into listeners, don'tbe afraid to sell with your
solution. Sell with the outcomeof your product. That is such a
powerful call to action. Five,clarify your goals and desired
outcomes. If you don't knowwhere you're going, any road
(11:25):
will get you there. This isprobably the scariest one,
because it will involve yousitting down and being honest
with yourself and where you are.Do you want to make $50,000
through your podcast next year?Okay, great. That's doable. That
is so doable, but it'simpossible without a plan. It's
(11:47):
impossible without everythingwe've talked about in this
episode. You need smart goals.And if you've never heard of
this, SMART goals are specific,measurable, achievable, relevant
and time bound. You need to knowwhat you're trying to achieve to
(12:08):
make a plan to achieve it. Andthat sounds simple enough,
right? That sounds likesomething we can do, and it
absolutely is. My best advicefor you, is to write everything
down on paper. Write down howmany episodes you'll have next
year. So let's say, for example,that you have an episode every
week. That's going to be 52episodes next year. Let's go
(12:31):
with the example from earlierthat you want to make $50,000 in
the next year. That's about$1,000 per episode. Then from
there, we're going to break downhow we can make this money. Do
we have ads or partnerships? Dowe have any kind of affiliate
codes or promotional offers?What kind of products are we
(12:52):
selling? What does our businessoffer? And is there any other
option to make money, likePatreon or a subscriber only
component to your podcast, whenwe break it down and we have
this $1,000 per episode goal,how can we get it there? And not
only how can we get it there,but how can we keep it there and
(13:13):
be consistently bringing in$1,000 per episode? Because,
okay, it's great if we can justdo it one time, but our final
objective is that we do it everysingle week. So what do we need
to do to make this happenconsistently? Knowledge is
power. Knowledge is going togive you the confidence that you
need to achieve every singlegoal that you are totally
(13:37):
capable of. The unknown is whatis scary. I said that in the
beginning of this episodebecause I wanted to bring you
here. I wanted to bring you tothe place where you aren't in
the unknown, where you have thekeys, where you have the
knowledge, where you have thepower to take control of your
podcast and making money fromyour podcast. If you're
(13:59):
interested in working one on onewith me, you can book an hour
strategy session on my website.It will be linked in the episode
description. Or you can email meat Morgan, at morganfranklin dot
media. I also have a templatestore with my most used
customizable templates,including the podcast media kit
(14:20):
that I have used to secure morethan six figures in sponsorships
that link will be in the episodedescription or visit podcasts
with an S for profit.com and asalways, I can't wait to listen
to your podcast. Hey, thank youso much for joining me on this
episode. If you enjoyed thepodcast and you'd like to hear
(14:41):
more episodes like this one. Goahead and subscribe to the show.
New episodes air every Mondaymorning. And if you've found
this episode valuable and youwant to help other business
owners and podcasters, will youleave me a five star review. It
helps the show rank higher inthe charts, and brings more
entrepreneurs the informationthey need to start making money
on their podcast.
One of my biggest pet peeves in the
podcasting community is how easyeveryone wants you to think it
is to make money. There's areally big name content creator
that's launching a podcastingcourse right now, and I heard
them telling their audience thatpodcasting was the reason they
could stay at home, be a stay athome parent, and make multiple
seven figures. And while I don'tdoubt that this is true, I think
(00:24):
they're telling the truth, I dodoubt the ease at which they are
trying to sell this course toyou to achieve the same results.
The past few months, I've hadmultiple questions from
podcasters that are trying tomonetize their podcast, but it
just feels like it's not goinganywhere. And you know what? I
can relate to this. I really canit took me years to make money
(00:45):
off my podcast. In this episode,we're gonna talk about the five
reasons you still aren't makingmoney with your podcast, how to
fix it, and what you need toknow moving forward if you want
your podcast to be a sustainablesource of income for you and
your brand. Hello and welcome topodcast for profit. My name is
(01:06):
Morgan Franklin. I'm a PodcastProducer, strategist and
educator. This podcast will helpyou create and grow a podcast
that cuts through the noise ofsocial media and speaks directly
to your target audience. Ifyou're ready to create a podcast
that will align you with theexperts in your industry,
position yourself as a trustedleader and create another source
(01:29):
of revenue for your business,you're in the right place. The
unknown is scary, and you knowwhat? It's especially scary if
you feel like you're constantlyputting yourself out there, over
and over and over and still notseeing any results. That's
terrifying. I think about when Istarted my first podcast, and it
(01:50):
was a really vulnerable time forme. Specifically, starting a
podcast is always veryvulnerable. But I was changing
my career completely. I wasworking with somebody that I had
literally just met, and I feltoverwhelmed every single day, I
felt like I was constantly justswimming in the deep end of the
unknown waters. And while, inthe beginning, that was really
(02:12):
fun and exciting, after a year,it started to feel really
exhausting. I was makingprogress on growing this
podcast, but it really wasn'twhere I wanted it to be, and
more importantly, to thisconversation, it was nowhere
near the objective we had putforward for it, that it would be
a self sustaining entity,meaning that it would make as
(02:34):
much money as it spent. And Iknow I don't have to remind you
of this, but the cost ofpodcasting adds up, especially
if you're like us, and you aredoing editing and equipment
upgrades and you have bills topay, it gets more expensive
every month. And for us, weweren't getting any closer to
making money on these podcasts.It was giving me so much
(02:57):
anxiety, and I knew that I hadto figure this out. But to be
honest with you, the pressure oftrying to figure it out was
making it almost impossible totake action and understand what
I really needed to do. You knowwhen that happens and you're in
the paralysis of trying to makea decision, and you know that
you have to start, but you don'tknow where or how. If I could go
(03:20):
back and give myself someadvice. These are the five
things that I would tell myselfto get out of my own way and
start making money with thispodcast. One, what is the offer,
whether that's selling ad slotson your podcast to advertisers
trying to drive listeners toyour email list to begin a sales
(03:43):
funnel or selling directly fromyour podcast with your own
products, you need to know whatthe offer is. What are you
trying to sell, and how will thebuyer buy? A lot of times we get
so caught up in trying to becreative with our offer, that we
forget the importance of havingjust a simple objective. So the
(04:07):
first question is, what is theoffer? What are you trying to
sell, and to whom? So let's saythat you have a podcast about
quilting, and I'm sorry that Ialways bring up this example
about a podcast about quilting,I swear that I'm gonna move on
from this, but let's say thatyour offer is going to be that
you are selling a quilt pattern.You need a simple,
(04:28):
straightforward message and aclear offer. So let's say that
the pattern is for Christmas andit's being featured on an
episode about making quilts asgifts to give away for
Christmas. Now I might saysomething like, if you have a
list of people you want to makequilts for this Christmas, you
(04:49):
need to check out my newestpattern made specifically to
maximize your sewing time andget multiple quilts finished
before Christmas. This patternis printable. Semi customizable.
It's $35 The link is in theepisode description, and the
pattern is on my website. Enterwebsite here. This is a very
(05:09):
clear offer to a very specificaudience, hopefully the exact
same audience that's listeningto your episode. You need an
offer that is going to answerthe questions before they are
asked, tells the buyer whatthey're buying, why they should
buy, and where to buy, tospeaking to the target audience.
(05:35):
We just talked about this aminute ago, but speak directly
to your target audience whenyou're selling from your
podcast, try to speak to onespecific person. This seems so
simple, right? Like we knowthis. We know it's important to
know who you're talking to, butdo we really know? Are we really
doing this when we pitch aproduct, or we're reading ad
(06:00):
copy from another company. Arewe speaking to one listener, one
specific type of listener, I cansay for most of us, the answer
to that question is no, and infull transparency, this is
something that I struggled withfor years when I started
podcasting, and I still strugglewith it, because I was scared. I
(06:20):
was scared if I spoke directlyto one member of the audience, I
would alienate everybody else.And I think that we all get
afraid of this, whether it'spodcasting or running a
business. It's scary to feellike you're putting all your
eggs in one basket for onespecific listener or buyer. This
is the advice that I get from mymentors every single time that I
(06:43):
talk to them, especially today,especially when you're getting
ads from every single directionand every angle. If you are not
speaking directly to someone'sproblems or their goals or their
aspirations or their desires,you're not speaking to anybody
three telling the listener howto buy. I could make an entire
(07:04):
podcast episode on this, andmaybe I will, but you need to
have a clear path to buying.What do I mean when I say that?
I mean you need links in everyepisode description, telling
people where to go. Make it socrystal clear where your
listener needs to go to buy thething that you are talking
(07:25):
about. One of the hardest partsabout selling on a podcast is
that people are usuallylistening while they're doing
something else, and they're notfully engaged with their phone,
like they're not looking attheir phone. If that makes
sense, this is a problem for us,because if we're telling people
to go onto this website or lookat something in the episode
description, or generallypointing them away from just
(07:46):
listening to this podcast theyare not even looking in the
first place. So what do we needto do this is where follow up
pieces of content are going tobe critical to the financial
success of your podcast. Solet's run through this scenario
from earlier. Let's say that youhave that quilt pattern that
you're telling your listenerswhere to go, and you link it in
(08:06):
the episode description.Perfect. People might shop from
the episode description. Theymight I mean, that happens, but
what if you also sent it in anemail as the same day that you
released that episode? You hadit on an Instagram story. You
talked about it on Tiktok. Youfeature it on LinkedIn with
information about your episode.What if it was also mentioned at
(08:26):
least three times in the blogpost that you create on your
website that corresponds withthis episode with the links?
Yes, that is what's going tosell the product that you are
talking about on your podcast.And I know that I say this on
every episode, but listeners andbuyers need eight to 12 touch
points to buy. And if you werejust giving them that one on
(08:50):
your podcast, good luck. That isvery, very difficult. Think
about the last time that youjust saw something one time and
then you went to buy it. Andanother thing is, please, please
check your links. Make sure thatyou have links everywhere. There
should never be a time that yourlistener is wondering how to buy
(09:10):
what you're selling. It's funnyto me, because so many of the
podcasters that I do audits forthe majority of you are doing a
much better job of promoting andlinking your guests, then you
are your own products, in yourown business, in your own
podcast. We can't just beshowing up for our guests. We
have to show up for ourselves aswell. Four call to action. You
(09:35):
need a call to action. Youtalking about what you do or
what your product is or justloosely throwing something out
there that is not enough. Yougiving away free information
isn't enough. You need to giveme the offer, but also tell me
why I need to buy it today. Andthis can look like a lot of
(09:56):
different things. I think thatwe a lot of times, think about
just limited. Time discounts asbeing a call to action, whereas,
I'd argue, if you're looking forfirst time buyers or people that
would be purchasing from you forthe first time, you don't have
to focus on having a discountcode. It cheapens the brand. And
then they'll think that you dothis all the time. Pick two to
(10:19):
four times a year that you wantto run coupons and the rest of
the year, find calls to actionthat are driven by the person
that will be purchasing. And letme explain, for example, going
back to our Christmas quiltpattern, I could say something
about how you can complete onepattern per week, and if you
want to get four done byChristmas, you need to start
(10:41):
today. Let it correlate to theobjective of what you are
selling. And what do I mean bythat? That sounds so confusing.
For example, a call to actionthat I might use on an Instagram
template for podcasters might besomething like buy this before
you make your next Instagrampost. If you want to convert
(11:02):
followers into listeners, don'tbe afraid to sell with your
solution. Sell with the outcomeof your product. That is such a
powerful call to action. Five,clarify your goals and desired
outcomes. If you don't knowwhere you're going, any road
(11:25):
will get you there. This isprobably the scariest one,
because it will involve yousitting down and being honest
with yourself and where you are.Do you want to make $50,000
through your podcast next year?Okay, great. That's doable. That
is so doable, but it'simpossible without a plan. It's
(11:47):
impossible without everythingwe've talked about in this
episode. You need smart goals.And if you've never heard of
this, SMART goals are specific,measurable, achievable, relevant
and time bound. You need to knowwhat you're trying to achieve to
(12:08):
make a plan to achieve it. Andthat sounds simple enough,
right? That sounds likesomething we can do, and it
absolutely is. My best advicefor you, is to write everything
down on paper. Write down howmany episodes you'll have next
year. So let's say, for example,that you have an episode every
week. That's going to be 52episodes next year. Let's go
(12:31):
with the example from earlierthat you want to make $50,000 in
the next year. That's about$1,000 per episode. Then from
there, we're going to break downhow we can make this money. Do
we have ads or partnerships? Dowe have any kind of affiliate
codes or promotional offers?What kind of products are we
(12:52):
selling? What does our businessoffer? And is there any other
option to make money, likePatreon or a subscriber only
component to your podcast, whenwe break it down and we have
this $1,000 per episode goal,how can we get it there? And not
only how can we get it there,but how can we keep it there and
(13:13):
be consistently bringing in$1,000 per episode? Because,
okay, it's great if we can justdo it one time, but our final
objective is that we do it everysingle week. So what do we need
to do to make this happenconsistently? Knowledge is
power. Knowledge is going togive you the confidence that you
need to achieve every singlegoal that you are totally
(13:37):
capable of. The unknown is whatis scary. I said that in the
beginning of this episodebecause I wanted to bring you
here. I wanted to bring you tothe place where you aren't in
the unknown, where you have thekeys, where you have the
knowledge, where you have thepower to take control of your
podcast and making money fromyour podcast. If you're
(13:59):
interested in working one on onewith me, you can book an hour
strategy session on my website.It will be linked in the episode
description. Or you can email meat Morgan, at morganfranklin dot
media. I also have a templatestore with my most used
customizable templates,including the podcast media kit
(14:20):
that I have used to secure morethan six figures in sponsorships
that link will be in the episodedescription or visit podcasts
with an S for profit.com and asalways, I can't wait to listen
to your podcast. Hey, thank youso much for joining me on this
episode. If you enjoyed thepodcast and you'd like to hear
(14:41):
more episodes like this one. Goahead and subscribe to the show.
New episodes air every Mondaymorning. And if you've found
this episode valuable and youwant to help other business
owners and podcasters, will youleave me a five star review. It
helps the show rank higher inthe charts, and brings more
entrepreneurs the informationthey need to start making money
on their podcast.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!