As a podcaster, it should come as no surprise to you that you wish to monetize your program in some way. You are passionate about the medium, the work that you do, and the people who watch your program, but at some point, you realize that you deserve some kind of reward from the show in exchange for all of your hard work.

Although it takes some time to make as much money as Joe Rogan does, this does not imply that you need a million listeners to begin earning anything. It is not impossible to bring in a little cash from a rather small audience. This post will teach you how to earn your first hundred dollars via podcasting.

Why Ads Aren’t the Best Choice

Before we go into some other ways to monetize your podcast so you can make your first hundred dollars with it, let’s first discuss why commercials are not the ideal option.

Podcasters refer to sponsorships as the proverbial tool in their toolbox when it comes to monetizing their broadcasts. Selling advertisements is a simple and efficient method that may be used to create cash. Sponsorships are very valuable to podcasters because they allow for more revenue while maintaining essentially the same level of labor required to produce advertisements (especially if you can use the same pre-recorded segment in multiple episodes).

However, advertising won’t help you earn your first hundred dollars. When you first start out as a podcaster, using advertisements to monetize your program is often not the best strategy. There are two primary reasons why advertisements are not the appropriate means to begin the process of monetizing your show:

• When your program is new, advertisers won’t spend a lot of money for the opportunity to advertise on it. They are aware that you do not have a large number of listeners, and as a result, they will not pay you very much. They won’t pay you anything at all if your program is still in its early stages (and they probably won’t even reply to your emails).
• There are some listeners who will stop listening to a broadcast if it has advertisements because they find them so annoying. When you have thousands of listeners, these losses are tolerable; however, they are not acceptable when you only receive twenty or thirty listens every episode. You can’t take the chance of losing some of your audience at this early stage.

Therefore, while advertisements have the potential to earn a significant amount of cash for established programs, this kind of monetization is not appropriate for newer shows. However, this does not rule out the possibility of making money off of an early show. You just need to choose the most effective method of producing revenue.

How to Make Your First $100 Podcasting

There are many different methods to make money off of your podcast, but very few of them are suitable for beginning programs that have just a few listeners. There are four different approaches you might use to make your first $100 via podcasting.

1. Accept donations from listeners

You can start making money with your podcast in the quickest and easiest manner possible by requesting contributions from your audience. There are a lot of followers that would be more than delighted to donate you a few dollars so that you may keep making stuff that they like. Additionally, it gives people the impression that they are a vital part of something extraordinary, which is heightened even further if you recognize their contribution in a subsequent episode of your podcast or in the community associated with your podcast.

Donation collection is a straightforward endeavor that requires little effort to organize and publicize. In order to collect monetary contributions, a lot of podcasters set up a Patreon account (or their own membership site that works like Patreon). You could also make things really simple by including a button for either PayPal or Stripe on one of the pages of your website.

Be careful to maintain the highest level of honesty and openness during each episode in which you solicit financial support. Why do you need people to donate money to you? Does the creation of your material incur costs that need to be paid for? Will the money enable you to work less while still producing the same amount of content? It is important not to be hesitant to reveal your life narrative and to be transparent about the process of making your presentation. People will be more likely to give if they are informed about the purpose of the funds and how they will be used.

2. Sell merchandise, services, or access

Selling goods and services directly to your listeners is another simple method to earn your first $100 with a podcast. If people like your presentation and feel that it will improve the quality of their lives, then they will gladly make a purchase from someone who already supports them.

What should you be selling, exactly? It is dependent upon your brand as well as the subject matter of your program. You could decide to offer a piece of premium material, such as an ebook or a video series, if you present an educational program.

You also have the option of selling services. If your program is about losing weight, you may offer individualized diet regimens to your audience. You may make money as a parenting consultant by selling consultation hours to parents who are having difficulty raising their children. Budgets might be designed by financial professionals, and individualized advice on investments could be provided.

In addition, you may offer access to anything that your listeners think to be valuable. For example, you could sell access to a private Facebook group, a workspace on Slack, or a membership course. If this item is very useful, you may be able to convince your listeners to pay a subscription price in order to have access to it.

You also have the option of selling tangible products, such as caps, T-shirts, mugs, mouse pads, and anything else that can be customized to the customer’s specifications. You don’t have to order these things in large numbers, nor do you have to make them on your own. You may outsource the management of the logistics to a merchandising service if you so wish. All that is required of you is to direct them to your retail location. 

3. Become an affiliate of another brand

Developing an affiliate agreement with another business is similar to signing on as a sponsor for your podcast, but, in this instance, the sponsor is much more ready to deal with new podcasts that do not have a large audience.

How it operates: You sign up with an affiliate program. The sponsor provides you with a code or URL that you must distribute to all of your listeners. You will get a commission if one of your referrals uses that code or URL to make a purchase from the sponsor. Because clients only pay when they make a sale, there is no risk for the sponsor in this arrangement.

There are certain affiliate programs that may only be joined by invitation. To enroll in the program, you will need to have a personal conversation with a representative of the company. This individual will determine whether or not your audience and their consumers are similar. They could have other needs than those listed above, depending on the product.

However, there are certain affiliate programs that have rather open enrollment. Anyone is welcome to sign up and advertise the goods. For example, anyone may sign up for the affiliate program offered by Audible. Both Simplisafe and Nord VPN perform well. Their commission payments aren’t terrible either, which means that you should be able to earn your first $100 from podcasting in a rather short amount of time.

4.Start a paid podcast subscription

Beginning a paid membership podcast is an excellent option to monetize your program without the need to obtain sponsors in the event that your podcast already has a somewhat established following. It seems to be precisely what it claims to be: a broadcast that requires listeners to pay in order to access it.

There are a number of significant advantages associated with podcast subscriptions. Because you are aware of the precise amount of money you will receive for each episode that you make, they have the potential to be predictable income sources. Fans like subscription programs since they often do not have any advertisements. Additionally, since the audience for your free podcast already likes the information you provide, it shouldn’t be too difficult to convince them to subscribe to your paid podcast.

A podcast that requires a subscription must provide exceptional value. You have to provide your listeners with a compelling argument for why they should pay for your material. After all, there is a wealth of content that can be downloaded for free in the form of podcasts. Your paid show has to be leagues ahead of all of the others in every conceivable way.

Your First $100 Dollars Through Podcasting May Be Made Rather Quickly.

It shouldn’t take you very long to make your first $100 from podcasting if you use even a few of the tactics we’ve mentioned in the previous paragraph. You won’t build a stable and profitable cash stream until you have a bigger following, but you will earn something to make making new podcast episodes a little bit simpler.