Podcasting: Monetization for religious podcasters

Let’s begin by recognizing that you’re not into podcasting for the money (which is good, because there really isn’t a lot of money in podcasting). You’re into podcasting because you have a calling and a mission. It would be nice to have a little funding behind that calling and mission, correct? Here are the ways we can monetize our podcasts and the challenges behind each method.

Selling advertising.

Selling advertising requires having an audience. Maybe not a huge audience, but you’ll need to demonstrate to potential advertisers the value they’ll receive by paying to be on your podcast. The key stat advertisers are interested in is CPM: Cost Per Mille, which is really the cost per 1,000 listens of your podcast over a 30-day period. That stat alone reveals a bit of a bar to entry: 1,000 listens over a 30-day period.

Now, your podcast may have less listenership than that and still be valuable to a specialty advertiser. You’ll just need to demonstrate that value to your potential advertiser. If your podcast is about liturgical resources based on the lectionary and the audience consists largely of practicing clergy, a producer of vestments may be interested in buying some advertising on your podcast as it still represents the best way for them to meet their targeted customers. You’ll just need to reach out to the right potential advertiser and show them how your podcast is a great fit for them.

Even in that case, you’ll still likely want to know a good rate for advertising based on CPM. This number fluctuates depending on the market. But, as of writing, many podcasters charge between $20-30 per ad on their podcast. This means that the podcast earns $20-30 each time an advertiser’s ad gets 1,000 listens.

You can see it’s a little tough to make a living that way (unless you have a really, really large audience). BUT, that money will definitely pay your hosting costs or get you a better microphone. Or just get you some cred in the podcasting community.

It’s worth noting that you can’t really expect advertisers to come to you–just like you can’t expect an audience just to come to you. You’ll likely need to court potential advertisers. Which, for many, is another bar to entry.

Merchandise.

So maybe you can sell cool podcast-related merchandise instead of or in addition to advertising. A lot of the big-time podcasts do this, as well. There are several services available that will print on demand so you need not worry about shipping and inventory. (I haven’t used any, so I’ll refrain from recommending any.) The added bonus of merchandise is that it boosts the exposure of your podcast. Imagine how many listeners you’ll get from your buddy wearing your podcast-branded stole during her Sunday morning sermon!

The rub of merchandise is that it yields a small profit margin. When considering the effort involved in building and maintaining a digital store, product selection, and design, the return on investment can feel a bit stingy.

Sell a service.

The coaching industry often uses podcasts as a means for showing expertise and advertising the value of their services. Life coaches, financial planners, and personal trainers all find value in advertising their knowledge and know-how through podcasting. Perhaps a spiritual director or spiritually-based life coach might find similar value in revealing the benefit of her services through a podcast, as well.

That is, of course, if you’re that spiritually-based coach or director who is willing to monetize and sell your time and services. If you work in an area of specialized ministry (like digital ministry!) you may be able to monetize consultation time. This may be putting the cart in front of the horse, however–as your goal may not be to start a consulting business, your goal is simply to get some money out of your podcast.

Listener support.

Pass the proverbial plate amongst your listeners. A few $5 monthly donations would go a long way, wouldn’t it? Ask those listeners to show a little monetary support if they’re enjoying the podcast. It doesn’t have to be much. It’s important to add that running the podcast costs you, the producer, money. They can help make the podcast possible by giving just a little bit.

There are several services offering subscriber and donation capabilities. Patreon is likely the most familiar.

Subscriber content.

Put some of your super-cool content behind a paywall. Both Apple and Spotify offer subscription services for creators. Both platforms allow the creator to determine price (to a point–they do have suggested pricing levels) and in turn charge creators a fee or percentage for the service.

When comparing subscription services it will be good to note several things:

• Will the service allow for distribution across multiple platforms? Apple, for example, does not (at time of writing). That means that listeners on Android platforms are challenged in receiving your content.
• Who owns the list of listeners? It’s important to note whether or not you will have “ownership” of any listener list the service creates. And then, whether or not you can export that listener list. If you hope to use the service to build an email list or if you ever think you might take your subscription to another platform, you’re going to want to make sure you can keep in touch with the listener base you’ve built.
• How do I deliver content to the service? Currently, Spotify’s subscription service is only available through users who upload through their Anchor service. So if you’re using another podcast hosting service, then you’ll need to look at creating an Anchor account and upload there as well–IF you want to use Spotify’s subscription service. Apple’s service also requires some work on the back end. It will still pull from an outside RSS feed, but episodes will need to be labeled or marked as to whether or not they should be presented behind a paywall. This article is helpful in understandng Apple’s process.

Let’s retreat to the bottom line: it’s tough to make a living from a podcast. Very few people are doing it. But many, many people are using podcasts to build platforms and connections that help produce revenue in other ways. And it is very possible to earn enough money from a podcast to at least cover all of your own out-of-pocket costs you endure for producing the podcast you love.

If you want to dive deeper into podcast production, we’ve got a lot of notes on podcasting. So check out that page!

You’re not into podcasting for the money, but still, it’d be nice if your podcast produced enough revenue to cover costs.