Managing cash flow can often be one of the most stressful tasks of owning a small business. That said, creating opportunities for passive income can be incredibly helpful! We have posted about different ways to bring in extra cash flow, but today, we are going to talk about earning a passive income through podcasting.
Pro Tip: Podcasting is also a great way to market your company. You can use your podcast to promote your own products and services and earn through sales. Share tips and help for your audience related to your business’ offerings and tell listeners they can find more at your website.
How to Set up a Podcast
If your goal is to earn a passive income through podcasting, you have to create one first! These are the primary components that you need to create a podcast!
Pick a Topic
First, a podcast needs to revolve around a topic, and no topic is too specific. If you need ideas, take a look at some of the platforms (like Spotify), and you will find thousands of topics!
When choosing a topic, make sure it is relevant to your audience, and will relate to your products and/or services! Consider your expertise. What can you share with people that would add value to their lives? Also consider your passion. Choose a topic you could talk about endlessly, since that’s precisely what you’ll be doing.
Choose a Format
Every show needs to have a format, too! Some podcasters produce short episodes, each of which tackles a problem your audience faces. Whereas other podcasters will produce long-form interviews that discuss relevant topics with experts in your niche.
Another piece to consider is whether your podcast will be broadcast live or recorded and edited prior to posting.
Both have their pros and cons. Perhaps determine what type of podcasts that you like, and then you can go from there.
Create a Posting Schedule
Lastly, you will need to decide on a posting schedule. Some are random (like the Joe Rogan Experience), where others are on a strict schedule. Also, some are year-round, and others consist of a particular number of podcasts within a season! Again, both have their pros and cons, so we suggest choosing what YOU like the best.
Choosing a Platform(s)
Honestly, unless you sign a contract with ONE platform (and get paid for it), post them everywhere! This will just help you reach more people! Especially in the beginning!
How to Earn a Passive Income Through Your Podcast
There are a number of models for monetizing podcasts.
- Traditional advertising. Once you build your audience, you can start advertisement opportunities.
- Affiliate marketing through your show. Choose products your customers would like through affiliate networks and spend some time each episode introducing these products or services.
- Offer free and premium content. You could offer the first 30 minutes of your show free and the rest only to paid subscribers, or create free and premium episodes.
Tips on Streamlining Your Content Creation
Now, the actual process of producing a podcast is not necessarily “passive” the money that is earned can be! That said, there are ways to help make the process easier, depending on the format and schedule you choose!
- Record multiple episodes in one day, then edit them on a schedule that is convenient to you!
- Repurpose your other content into audio content for your podcast. For example, take written content like blog posts and use them as scripts or talking points.
3. Create a system to spark ideas! Identify a few sources where you can find customer questions or topics of interest before it is time to record, you will not have to scramble when it\’s time to hit record.
Final Thoughts
It is possible to earn a passive income through podcasting. You will just need to do some of the preliminary work to get started. Then, just keep stoking the fire. Podcasting is a fun and easy way to entertain and inform your audience, and with one of the above monetization strategies, you can use it to create an easy passive income stream!