How to Make Money From Podcasting | Joel Oliver

Podcast monetization is one of the most common challenges that podcasters face. "How can I make money podcasting?" Thankfully, it's not as difficult as most people make it out to be. In this episode, Joel Oliver shares exactly how one of his podcasts made 60k in a single day! Learn how to position your show, attract the right audience, and create offers that convert. Get ready to rethink how podcasting can fuel your business!

MORE FROM THIS EPISODE: HTTPS://PODMATCH.COM/EP/338

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Podcasting Success
00:52 The $60,000 Podcast Success Story
05:02 Four Podcast Success Pillars Explained
10:08 The Importance of Commitment in Podcasting

Takeaways

The $60,000 sales example illustrates the potential of podcasting.
Success in podcasting is directly related to the effort put in.
Quality content is crucial for engaging your audience.
Understanding your ideal client is essential for content creation.
A strong audience doesn't need to be large, just the right fit.
Promoting your podcast is key to audience growth.
Having a high ticket offer simplifies the sales process.
Commitment and consistency are vital for long-term success.
Establishing a predictable release schedule helps maintain audience engagement.
Podcasting can effectively market your business and generate leads.

MORE FROM THIS EPISODE: HTTPS://PODMATCH.COM/EP/338

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Podcasting Success
• 0:52 The $60,000 Podcast Success Story
• 5:02 Four Podcast Success Pillars Explained
• 10:08 The Importance of Commitment in Podcasting

Transcript

Maybe it happened one time, but it certainly wouldn't be able to be done on my podcast. The $60,000 just too big of a number. I share your skepticism. I understand it. Okay. I'll tell you now though, this client was not a celebrity. They did not have a top 1 % in the world podcast. They didn't do anything that you can't do. And as well, the four podcast success pillars that I'm going to share.

These have been developed from commonalities across every single one of our podcasting clients that I've seen over the past decade who successfully use their podcast as a marketing tool for their businesses. All right. These are universally important. So all that $60,000 sales in a day example that I'm going to share with you that might sound extreme. These four podcast success pillars were present there and they need to be present with your podcast as well. Okay. These are the takeaways lessons.

that you can learn. So what I've noticed after working with hundreds of podcasters over the years is that you get out of podcasting what you put in. My client Josh found out what happens when you do put in extra effort to maximize the returns from your podcast. Josh is one of the only clients I've ever met in person. Running a completely remote business means that it's very rare to ever come face to face with one of our clients in real life. I see their faces week in and week out.

with their podcast recordings and on the occasional Zoom call, but always on a screen. So Josh was actually a great person to be the first client I met in real life, because he is a natural when it comes to communicating and networking. He sparks conversations and makes connections with ease. So no surprise that when we met for lunch in Las Vegas, there were no awkward silences, just a great conversation and we had lots to talk about.

And me, always searching for ways to help podcasters maximize results. My ears furt up when Josh just casually mentioned that he had done $60,000 in sales in a single day and it was thanks to his podcast. So I first assumed I heard wrong. He must've said $6,000, which in itself would have been good, but he said no. You were correct. $60,000 in one day. And I determined at that moment as well who was paying for lunch. So how this happened,

is actually quite straightforward in hindsight, but it almost actually didn't happen at all. There is a mid-level industry conference coming through town and thanks to someone who was familiar with Josh, largely because of his podcast, he got an invite to give a talk at this conference pending approval by the board president. Now in the meeting where his fate as a speaker was going to be determined, unfortunately, the president just kind of unwittingly passed on Josh as a speaker. He didn't really think much of it, just said no.

Later in the meeting, however, someone brought up Josh's podcast and it was at that moment the president realized, that guy, that Josh, yeah, I listen to his podcast all the time. Of course we're going to have him speak. He definitely knows what he's talking about. I like him a lot. So crisis averted. Josh did get the speaking gig. Fast forward to the day of the conference. Josh gives a talk and he wraps up with a quick message about the services that he offers and says, Hey, if you want to learn more, come to the back and we'll have a chat.

So about a dozen people take him up on that offer. They come back, they get to speak with him. And once again, the podcast played a role here because many of them, because of the podcast already knew who Josh was. They trusted him, they liked him, and now they're finally getting to meet in person. So out of that group, six of those people decide to sign up for Josh's $10,000 program. And there's your $60,000 of sales, just like that. Like I said,

Nothing really too complicated here. Josh's podcast was not a top 1 % podcast in the world. This was not some massive conference. He's just been active within his industry. Okay, he's been doing it for a while. He's a guy who puts in the effort. And if he wasn't out mingling at conferences and making connections, being open to speaking gigs, and of course doing the podcast, which played a big role here, maybe he never would have had some or any of these particular sales.

An important thing to note here as well is that it's not necessary for you to follow this exact same path to generate revenue for your business through podcasting. That's not my point. My point that I'm getting to is that the four podcast success pillars I'm about to share, they were present in Josh's podcast and same with all the other clients who I've seen successfully use their podcasts as marketing tools to generate leads in sales for their businesses.

They all use these pillars and you can as well. In fact, I would say you must use them. So let me give you a rundown of these four podcast success pillars. Podcast success pillar number one is your content. What you are actually making and putting out there has to actually be good and deliver value. You have to deeply understand the struggles of your ideal client and tailor the content to address the specific needs, pain points and interests

of these people. So Josh from the story did this very well. His business solves a specific type of problem for a specific type of medical provider. And it's with a unique solution that he's developed. of course his podcast content is exactly made for those people. And I'll put a side note here as well. If you are trying to properly create content for your ideal clients, you first of all have to know who they are. That's a huge

component here. you don't already know who these people are that you're trying to talk to, you have to figure that out before you do anything else. Now moving on in content, something else to consider is the overall presentation and quality of your show. So the video and sound quality, the editing, the structure of your episodes, this all needs to reflect professionalism. You do not want to be putting out a bad impression of yourself. Okay, no one wants to trust or spend $10,000 with someone who can't even put together

An episode, well, they don't speak clearly, the quality is very poor. That's not going to fly. actually, poor audio quality is one of the biggest reasons that listeners tune out of a podcast and never come back. So that makes it impossible to grow your audience. Lastly, under content is get the opportunity to demonstrate authority. How we do this? Through solo content. Maybe you're doing some solo or all solo episodes already.

But if you're doing all interview style episodes, interviews come with lot of benefits, but they lack the opportunity for you to show authority, really show your personality, your knowledge, let people get to know and trust you. So you want to make sure you're mixing in some solo content. If you're doing interviews all the time now, start doing some solo episodes in there also. Podcast success pillar number two is audience. If you want to make sales, you need an audience to sell to. So how do we foster this?

First of all, keep in mind it doesn't need to be a massive audience, but it does need to be the right audience. Even if you're getting 50 to 100 listeners per episode, that's a lot of people in the right circumstance. It's a lot of people in a room. So your goal is not viral content and hundreds of thousands of listeners. We mentioned the importance of creating content that is valuable to your ideal client. Well, now with that in mind, we want to accelerate the speed at which you get in front of and connect with these people.

Optimize growth by promoting your show. That's it here. We're trying to grow your audience. Keep them there. Keep them engaged. So how do we do that? Well, there are a lot of aspects to this. First of all, the basics. Make sure your episode titles and descriptions have proper keywords. Use paid or organic social media. Have a newsletter. Make guest appearances on other shows. When you invite people onto your show,

Make sure that you leverage their audience and make it super easy for them to promote their appearance. So follow up with them, tag them on social media, that sort of thing. Network with others in your industry and just foster an engaged community that you interact with. Don't make it a one-way conversation. Give people opportunity to share feedback, respond to their comments, that sort of thing. Remember with Josh's story, he was networking, he was getting out in front of a crowd, he had connections. So the audience is a fundamental pillar here.

That was number two in our four podcast success pillars. Moving on to number three is your offer. You have to have a solid business, a funnel and a high ticket offer in place. So a leaky bucket of losing clients, poor conversion rates, bad messaging, low margins, anything like that, that has to be fixed first. Otherwise, no amount of marketing will help. If you're selling some low cost item,

Low cost service, you need a much higher volume of customers and sales just to make the numbers work. Think about a $20 book versus a $10,000 program, right? It's much easier to make the numbers work with something high ticket. Otherwise, you don't really have any money to spend on acquisition, producing a podcast, marketing, those sorts of things, right? So in our example story with Josh, he had that high ticket program. Now, when you have your offer there,

All roads should lead to that high ticket offer as a centerpiece. So in your podcast, promote it directly. Or the alternative would be use a lead magnet to collect and warm up your leads and get them into your funnel. Either way, you must have a very clear CTA call to action. Do not confuse your audience by asking them to do a whole bunch of different things. You need to make your offer or that one action you want them to take extremely clear. And finally, podcast success pillar number four is commitment.

So building a successful podcast takes time. You've got to be dedicated. A stat from Podmatch's industry report showed that success takes about two years or a hundred episodes on average in podcasting. But 93 % of podcasters gave up. Before that, on the case of Josh, he is actually one of our longest running clients. He's been podcasting for about eight years. So he's got time on his side. You cannot speed up time, but...

There are things that you can do to help optimize your podcast to make sure that you are able to stay in there for the length of time required. First of all, you want to establish and stick to a predictable release schedule. It's going to make it easier on you and it also sets and meets expectations with your audience. If you want to do eight episodes one month and disappear for six months and come back and do a few more, you're going to come back to a smaller audience. It's going to be impossible to really get momentum and grow your audience in a meaningful way.

So whether it's weekly, bi-weekly, more or less, you wanna pick a schedule and stick to it. As well, ensure you have a proper team and systems and workflow in place to remove the friction from the podcasting process. The podcast should never feel like a burden or stressful. You wanna be working ahead so you always have episodes in the queue ready to go. You're not down to the wire panicking, who do I talk to this week?

no, I'm getting it in late. The editing team is going to be rushed. We don't want any of that. That's going to lead to failure and burnout. So we want to set you up for success. So there you go. Podcasting can be a very efficient, effective way to market your business and generate leads and revenue. Just keep those four podcast success pillars in mind. Content, audience, offer, and commitment. Thank you. For more episodes, please visit podmatch.com forward slash episodes. Thank you so much for listening.