On September 30, 2014, Steve Lee, founder of the Modern Life Network website, decided to organize the first National Podcast Day with a non-stop broadcast of six hours. The success of this initiative was such that, from then on, International Podcast Day is celebrated every September 30, to recognize the importance of this new format as a communication channel.
Currently, the potential of podcasts worldwide is undeniable. An example is seen in Spain, where 41% of Internet users consume podcasts, which places us as one of the Western countries where they are most listened to, according to the report Listening to podcasts grows among Spanish Internet users, published in Digital News Reports .
Miguel Floridoan expert in digital marketing and director of the Marketing and Web School, points out that “the good figures of this expanding market lead to Many people consider creating a podcast, since performing them has a relatively low cost. But, if we take into account that there are more and more podcasts, the question we must ask ourselves is not only what content will my podcast have, but what can I do to generate income from it and promote it so that it does not go unnoticed?
To answer this question, Miguel Florido offers eight strategies with which podcasters can generate income and promote your programs to get the most out of them:
- Find sponsors. One of the best ways to earn income from a podcast is to get a sponsor to support it. To do this, contact companies or associations related to the topic you deal with in your program and try to reach an agreement with them.
- Sponsor episodes. Another alternative is to sponsor episodes, rather than the entire podcast. For example, you can find sponsors who will finance a weekly episode based on a specific theme.
Promote membership and sell third-party products. In the podcast you can include recommendations of products or services of a certain brand with which you have an agreement and generate income with the purchases that come from your program. - Sell your own products or services. One last option to generate income with your podcast is to advertise your products or services on it to make them known to a larger audience and multiply your reach.
After knowing how we can generate income with a podcast, it is important to learn how to make it known among the audiences. - Promotion through social networks. Social networks can help us publicize a podcast as long as we carefully select the platforms that best fit our product. In other words, we have to analyze which are the social networks that can attract the most traffic. After that, we have to plan the content that we are going to publish in them and diversify it as much as possible to reach a larger audience. In addition, it is advisable to share the content of other podcasters so that they also share ours.
- Bringing traffic through a blog. Blogging is a great way to promote a podcast. To do this, you have to look for the best blogs, related to your theme or at a generic level, and contact them to try to be interviewed or to participate as a guest blogger. This way you can bring a lot of traffic to your podcast. Another option is to publish articles on blogs as a guest professional since in them we can include a link to our podcast that will attract listeners. In this way, we will gain visibility and achieve traffic to the program.
- Conducting interviews on other podcasts. If we want to promote a podcast, we can contact other podcasters to interview us and participate in their programs. In addition, if the objective is to reach other countries, we will also have to contact the most relevant podcast creators of each region that interests us. When contacting, always do it by email or phone call, as these methods are more professional.
- Sending episodes to your database. If we have a database we can send information about the podcasts that we publish. Being an audience that is already familiar with your work, they will be interested in the program and the content, so they will most likely listen to the podcast and recommend it to their acquaintances.
