Sarah outlines the one way to monetize your brand podcast. Don’t miss this in your content marketing and brand storytelling podcast plans.
THIS EPISODE AT-A-GLANCE
- What is the number one way to monetize your brand podcast?
- CPM ads and monetizing
- Mention offers through pre roll, mid roll, ending credits
- Be clear & offer a call to action
Full Podcast Transcription
Sarah Panus:
How do you monetize your brand podcast? It's a question as more brands create their own podcast, or if they've had one for a while. They're thinking through, right? We always are trying to track back the value of what we're doing from a storytelling perspective to show how it's benefiting the business. And one question is, well, how do you monetize a brand podcast? I'm gonna share with you the number one and only way to substantially monetize your brand podcast in today's episode.
Sarah Panus:
Hi, my name is Sarah Panus. I have spent the last two decades driving digital content for billion dollar brands. Now I help content marketers build winning brand storytelling strategies and reduce feelings of overwhelm and confusion. Join me as we discuss strategy, creativity, confidence, and building a better connection with your audience. Think of this as a creative content marketing jam session mixed with chicken soup for the soul. This is the Marketing With Empathy podcast.
Sarah Panus:
Hey, Hey, Kindred Speakers. Welcome back to another episode of Marketing With Empathy. So thankful to have you here, if you are new to the podcast. Welcome. And if you are returning, thank you. I appreciate that. If you've been enjoying the podcast, I would love it and appreciate if you could leave me a five star review on wherever you're listening and even better. If you could drop a few sentences to share what you enjoy about this show, to help my show appear and rank for more people to find in the marketing and business categories. But today we're gonna get into how do you monetize your brand podcast? So whether you already have a podcast or not yet, and you're just thinking about it, this podcast will be helpful for you. So keep listening on both fronts or if you're just curious and are thinking maybe someday we will have a brand podcast, listen to this as well. So I'm gonna get into just a very quick tip episode here of something to think about and get really clear, really simple on the number one way to monetize your podcast. And I'm gonna share it here briefly. We're gonna take a quick break for my sponsors and then I'm coming right back to give you all the good info stay tuned.
What is the number one way to monetize your brand podcast?
Sarah Panus:
Okay, so let's just get into it. This is gonna be a quick episode. So right away, the number one way to monetize your brand podcast, really the only way in my opinion, to substantially monetize your brand podcast is to link it back to selling your product or service in some way. That's it, that's the tip. You need to think about the podcast as an upper funnel lead generation tool. And you can think about it in that way, because what other medium do you have where people are listening to you for 20 to 40 minutes, and they're hearing your thought leadership topic, whatever your podcast is about. And they're hearing your voice, they're intimately getting to know your brand. They're developing feelings about whether they like, if they like it, if they don't, they're gonna stop listening, but if they keep listening, right, they're your people.
Sarah Panus:
These are the folks that you really want to bring into your brand. They are leads. So these podcast listeners, I think, are incredible leads because they're investing so much time listening to you. So then you wanna think about, okay, well, I have this captive audience for our brand. We've attracted the right type of people who may be a mix of your current customers and potential customers, right? So the only way to get them to convert down further into your funnel is to convert them in some way, to bring them into like the fold, to get them into that consideration and conversion set eventually. And that is by selling your product or service in some way. So I don't mean making your podcast episodes like sound like ads and pushing your products all the time. That is the thing you don't wanna do, right? Cause they're gonna stop listening to you.
Sarah Panus:
You still need to have editorial storytelling angle of the value that your podcast is providing to your customer base. But there are ways to think about how you can very naturally infuse your brand and your product or service into your episodes. So podcast growth isn't as fast and or big in numbers as other media channels are. You know, when you're used to reporting on, you know, millions of video views through your content campaigns or X number of social engagements, things like that, you don't see those huge numbers in the podcast world, which can be hard if you're used to communicating really large numbers. And then you start to see numbers that are more like a hundred thousand downloads or even less. And you wonder, well, is this worth it quality over quantity? So podcasting real because they are so engaged. They're not watching 15 second video.
CPM Ads and monetizing
They're listening to 20 to 40 minutes people, okay. There's no other channel that is doing this right now. So because though the growth isn't as fast, I mean really in this podcast space, if you can get to 10,000 downloads a month is kind of that nice threshold standard where your podcast, then at that 10,000 downloads a month, you're able to unlock the ability to insert, add placements and get paid on like a CPM basis for the ads that you insert into your podcast. But, you know, as a brand, generally, you're not inserting other ads. You wanna leave that ad space to your brand. So you're generally not gonna benefit from that CPM depends on your business model. There might be a model where that could make sense if you have a lot of different partners that you could charge for ad sponsorship space too.
So that's a way to say, Hey, we have the show, pay us X amount we'll insert, you know, an ad to run as part of this show. So that that's, that's definitely a revenue generator. But I think that that's small probably in comparison because especially if you're starting out or your podcast, isn't huge. You're not going to probably generate a ton of money doing that because your show just isn't like in the millions, it's not in the top 1% performers, so you're not gonna be able to charge the premium rates that those, that those other podcasters are able to. But you know, most podcasts never get to 10,000 downloads a month. I mean, if they're not, they're not hitting a hundred thousand downloads a year, but that's not always a bad thing. So I, there there's two things, one you want there's growth and kind of the strategies you can do to grow your podcast, which I'll say for another podcast episode today, I just wanted to fixate on this monetization topic. But a lot of podcasts generate significant amounts of money, not because of the CPM ad insertions or their sponsorship partnerships or things like that.
mention OFfers through Pre roll, mid roll, ending credits
But because they know the value of that one tip that I just shared, which is the only way to substantially monetize your brand podcast is to link it back to selling your product or your service in some way. So how do you do that? How do you do that in your brand podcast? A few different ways. So you wanna think about how can you mention your offers, like your product or service in every show in some way. So you could do this through some ad insertions, you know, at the beginning, this show was brought to you by, you know, your ex brand. That's like one mention of who you are. You could do it like there's different ad insertions, where you can think about how you can chime in like a pre-roll at the beginning, or like a mid towards like the middle section of your show, where you do a break add break, and you talk about your product or service.
And then you, you know, it goes back into the interview or the, the podcast episode after that, or there's end of show and credits kind of blurb that you could run as well. So here on brand, on marketing with empathy I've actually done all of these. I've been testing and kind of experimenting with the placement and what feels natural in terms of the flow of the show. So none of them are wrong. It really is gonna matter and depend on the format of your show. So I personally, right now I lean towards midroll or end of show, and I have my sponsor ads that run towards the beginning. So I have a mix just with this particular show, but you being part of a corporation, bigger brand, I would say probably midroll is really beneficial or end of show. So middle of the show having one ad that can ding, you know, and then you go into your ad and then ding, and you're back to your interview or what I've leaned into doing is I've stopped doing a lot of the midroll now.
And I, I just on this show, you'll hear at the end of this, I'll have an ad placement at the end, talking about my Brand Storytelling Academy group training program that I have. And what I've found is I like that format just because I feel like it's less interrupted for the interview discussion. I'll go back and forth between and end of show. But I think the end of show is a really great opportunity to think about what is a call to action that you want to leave your listeners with. And I don't think it should be the same on every single episode. I think that you wanna be, there's gonna be seasons where you're promoting different things. Maybe sometimes it's promoting and asking for reviews on your show, just to help it organically start to grow. Other times it can be promoting a specific program initiative offering a sale things like that, that you have.
BE clear & offer a call to action
The one thing you wanna think about though, is just being clear because podcasts live for a long, long time. So if you are promoting something that's very seasonal just be really clear in your audio about like start and end dates so that someone doesn't listen to it a year later and think that that's eligible still at that same moment. So there's a balance there, but it is an opportunity to think about how do you talk about that more in service to your audience. It has to be hyper hyperfocused and tweaked, and the language has to serve your audience. So listen to the one at the end of this episode, and you'll hear what I mean, where I'm like, Hey, if you're listening to this right now, you're kind of marketing professional. And I go into talking about maybe some pain points that you're having.
And I have an offering that if it resonates with you, I have this Brand Storytelling Academy program. And here's how you can apply to learner. So very natural. I'm getting folks who are interested to come in and wanna talk with me further, right? I mean, so this is a great way, like just personally, my brand, this podcast is an amazing way for me to be able to reach a lot more people. You listening, who don't know me outside of my own network and people who do know me and wanna keep engaging with me because they like working with me. But it's a great way then through this to introduce and get more leads into my business, a lot more businesses and contexts that are like, Hey, I need brand storytelling strategy help. Can you help me with this? So I get a lot of my new client work as a result of this podcast.
And you guys listening because just like your brand podcast will do, it helps to establish a voice like where you stand on topics and you find your people, like they say, find your tribe, right? You're gonna find your people of who will resonate with you, the topics that you care about and attracting more of those people. So that is the quick tip for today. Okay. Just, I wanted to like really hyperfocus it down and make it super simple for you. That the number one only way to substantially monetize your podcast, your brand podcast is to link it back to selling your product or service in some way, keep the content editorial, keep it value added for your customer base, but be thinking about how you can naturally then be inserting something about your services, your product in every episode, once. So that's my tip for today.
I hope that was helpful. Reach out if you have any other questions and you'd like to talk about this further. If you have a brand podcast or are thinking about one for your own brand, I love, I would love to talk with you about that. I love something I'm very passionate about working with brands on. So you can reach out to me at sarah@kindredspeak.com or DM me on LinkedIn, Sarah Panus with an H and I will be back next week with more juicy wisdom and insights on how you can better connect with your audiences through brand storytelling. And we will talk then. So until next time, Kindred Speakers.
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If you're hearing my voice right now, you're likely a corporate content marketer of some kind, looking to level up your brand storytelling career. What would it feel like to have the skills, confidence, and know how to advance your brand storytelling results and love the work you're doing in an ideal world. You and your content team are high level strategic thinkers that know how to humanize your brand to drive seven X engagements and actions. You have the right creative mindset to attract your ideal audience and build brand trust and loyalty through storytelling. You're viewed as top performers in the company and brand storytelling is valued because it's driving business results and supporting multiple channel teams, but things don't always go our way, right? Maybe your brand lacks, a cohesive content strategy, maybe you and your team are asked to deliver a lot for your company. And it's hard to keep up.
You know you need to invest in figuring out next steps in your company's brand storytelling plans, but haven't had the time to figure out how yet. And you need help integrating it across the organization. You personally want to level up your skills because you know, you need to know how to do these things to advance in your career. You want your work to be valued so that you love coming to work each day, attracting leads, increasing repeat, and referral actions or creating a loved brand. And in this competitive market, you're looking for ways to stay competitive, for yourself or retaining and attracting top talent for your company. That's why I created the Brand Storytelling Academy, a hands on three month group training program designed to help corporate content marketers attract upper funnel leads that drive bottom funnel results through storytelling. For one sixth of the cost to hire a person on the team or onboard a high level brand storytelling strategist, you and up to five people on your team can be developing and accelerating your brand storytelling skills. Think of it like a college certification program for you and your team, but you get the knowledge a lot quicker and your professor, me, has 20 years of hands on experience guiding you along the way. Curious? Fill out the application at kindredspeak.com/apply to learn more and I'll be in touch to answer all your questions and discuss if it's a good fit. Go to kindredspeak.com/apply.
ABOUT SARAH PANUS
Sarah Panus is a brand storytelling marketing strategist, Minnesota mom, and owner of Kindred Speak, LLC, a remote consultancy that helps corporations attract upper-funnel leads that drive bottom-funnel results through storytelling. Her mission is to add value to the world by humanizing brand+consumer connections. Her online courses teach content professionals inside corporations think like Editorial Directors for their brand to drive stronger results while enjoying their jobs more. She’s spent the last 20 years helping brands including Sleep Number, Starbucks, Nestle Waters, Christos Bridal, Game Crazy, Cone Inc, and others, speak a kindred language with their audiences, driving brand advocacy and millions in revenue and brand engagements. Learn more at www.kindredspeak.com. Follow Sarah on Instagram and LinkedIn.
