Welcome to Digital Podcaster. My name is Dylan Schmidt your host and today is a bit of a special episode So I just moved houses and I normally record these podcasts from my office studio that I've made and I'm all still getting set up in my new office and so what I thought I would do instead of trying to rush out an episode is Give you something that you most likely haven't heard and that's an excerpt of a coaching and training I did inside of Podcast Academy and this particular one is all about monetizing your podcast It's got what I'm sure is to bring you a lot of like new ideas and strategies that you can use for monetizing your podcast And then also at the end of the training I did a Q&A where I talked about finding great guests for your episodes also coming up with content ideas whether it's for interviews or solo podcasts while only 15 minutes in length has a ton of meat inside of it is a Packed packed episode and again, this is a training from Podcast Academy So if you like this type of stuff, you can also kind of get a feel for what the training is Like inside of Podcast Academy, please enjoy this training from Podcast Academy all about monetizing your podcast All right, so this month we're talking about monetization there's two things I hear most often from podcasters It's, I want to start a podcast.So I help people there.And then the other thing I hear is,I didn't start my podcast to make money.And I can't help but really smile when I hear that because every time I hear that and I'm like,yeah, but I want to make you money.My goal with any podcast is to make you money.And that should be built into the plan.We all have an interesting relationship with money.Everyone's unique in that way.We might think like, if I make money from it,It will turn into a job, not a hobby or a passionate project.Well, if you monetize the right way, it will just enhance and let you be even more passionate and share your passions more with the world.That's kind of the mindset real quick around monetizing and how I view monetization.It's necessary to grow in your podcast, which is beat myself to the punch.That's the next slide.So why monetize, right?It's crucial to growing your podcast.They go hand in hand.You need money for everything.Just to simply pay for a podcast hosting service if you're using Buzzsprout, that costs money.The electricity to talk into this microphone and transmit this to you costs money.The camera, the software we're using, the computer I'm using, this desk, everything around us costs money.And the same with your podcast, it costs money and we want to make you money so you can pay for it.Even if you broke even, that's awesome.But the goal is to not break even.So how many listeners do you need before you can start monetizing?Another commonly asked question when it comes to monetizing a podcast.And the answer is 8,000.No, just kidding.It's not 8,000.It's one.And I know you're probably like, "How can you monetize with just one listener?"It's about having the right one listener that you can offer them something that they would really want.For example, and this is an extreme example, but it's live in this parallel universe with me for a second.If I had only one listener for my podcast, and that one listener was an investor in educational media. And that one investor just loved the way I talk, loved the way I present, and reached out to me and say he was the only person to listen to my podcast. And he reached out to me and was like, "Dylan, I want to offer you a million dollars." So there's so much that could happen. And I think so often we box ourselves in of what's possible that we forget to leave room for the universe to surprise us. So here are five ways to monetize even with a small following. And I'm going to define small following as literally one plus listeners.Does your mom count as one of the listeners in a small following? Maybe, I mean, but probably not. So this is like one plus unique listeners. Here's how you're going to monetize. You're You're going to make the right offer at the right time.And we'll break all of this down.You're going to know what your audience wants and needs.And there's a difference between wanting something and needing something, as we all know.You need to make your offer attractive.You need to consistently make your offer.And you need to make it incredibly simple for them to take action.If you nail those five things,you will find yourself monetizing your podcast faster today,if you just implement those things.And it's not something that you have to go out and build,Consistently making your offer doesn't mean you need to build a new website.You don't need to do all these things.Or making your offer attractive doesn't require anything other than how you're framing it and positioning it to your audience or knowing what your audience wants and needs.So these things you don't have to do every single time.And once you...There's a saying, "Nail it before you scale it."Once you nail what the offer is that you want to offer people, and it works, then is when you can scale it and then even put it out there to more people.So if you already have an offer that you know works and people find attractive and want to sign up for, then you don't have to make your offer attractive anymore.You can just start or more consistently make your offer.And I see a lot of people not consistently make their offer.I see a lot of people not do all five of these things.But I am not calling out anyone specifically in Podcasting Academy.But I see a lot of people just not make it.Again, I don't actually even know what a lot of people sell.And so let's get into how do you make the right offer at the right time for somebody.The most effective places to do ad reads when we're talking about presenting your offer on your podcast, the most effective places, and this is what you hear on podcasts, is at the beginning, middle and end.You can use dynamic ads to easily swap your ads on episodes.So if you're not familiar with dynamic ads, it's this really cool thing.So say I was presenting an offer to you today, I'm just going to make up a thing.I don't know why this popped in my head.Say we're talking about washing machines.So I'm like, "Hey, we got this great deal on washing machines."Before we hop into the washing machine podcast, just so you know, through the end of July,we're doing $50 off all brand new Maytag washing machines.Then we could go into Buzzsprout, for example,go to the dynamic ads section, upload that ad,and apply it to whatever episodes we want.And then when the ad is over,like when the date passes, say we go into August,that ad doesn't apply anymore.We just go back into Buzzsprout,go back into dynamic ads and remove those from episodes,and it will swap it out,which is really nice and really convenient to keep the promotions current and not bake it into the episode.I'm just looking at the Q&A notification.Brian asked, "Do you recommend we do this kind of offering"on solo episodes only?"No, I recommend a call to action or making your offer on any episode,although when you're doing a interview,say you're doing an interview episode,do it at a separate time when you record the ad because that's just like, you know,the person that you're interviewing doesn't need to hear it.also if you mess up or anything like that.So I would just record the ad at a separate time.And that's a great question because a lot of people will think, can I advertise on an interview episode?Yes.Monetizing or reading ads on your podcast doesn't take away anything from what you're doing and it's an invitation for people to work deeper with you,especially when we're talking about offers,whether it's service,like you're helping somebody do something or something that you just know would be beneficial,then you're just simply extending the invitation.All right, so knowing what your audience wants and needs,there's a lot of text on this one, apologies.So the most effective offers target your audience's deepest desires,and it doesn't need to be complex.It just needs to be something that they actually want and understand the value in.This looks different for everybody.Oftentimes, people go into inventor mode where they're trying to think of a new way of doing something, I need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to what I offer on my podcast.And it's like, you don't actually,you just have to simply offer something.How often do we go into a store?I know people from around the world in here,but how often do we go into a store like Target,which we have here, which is like a department store that sells basically everything,that we buy stuff that we didn't go in there for just because we found like,oh, this is something I want or need.And sometimes you don't even have to understand the full value of it,because people pay money for things that they don't get a return on.And the funny thing, and this is like,I have to talk more about this because I think the people that I attract are similar to me in the way that we really, really have a big heart and wanna help people.And we're very weary of people taking advantage of others.And we almost wanna give too much,maybe on the over-giver side.And all I can say about that without making this the whole talk of overgiving is you're giving so much in your podcast and you're doing so much. And the better you get at podcasting, the simpler it is for you.So then you start thinking like, "Well, I need to add even more value into what I'm offering." And that's not true. And it's actually causing people to not purchase the thing that you're offering because it's just too much.We're all super busy right now. Even if we weren't super busy and we just like consume the news and try to stay up to trends, we'd feel super busy because we'd never had like we have to actively fight for having still moments.So when it comes to your offer, if you like add in too much stuff and make it too complex,then they don't really see the value in it.And it's just like, "Oh, this is going to take me too much time.I don't really want this or maybe I do, but maybe later."So you want to remove all of that, make it super simple, and just convey that in your message.I always have hard fast rules, but this is one of my hard fast rules for me personally and anybody I'm coaching or working with is don't spend a bunch of time making an offer without knowing if your audience will actually spend money on it.It just sets you up for heartbreak.There's too many ways now to know if someone will spend money on it so you can actually know because until someone gives you a dollar, you can't say for certain that the idea works.And that goes to the nail it and then scale it idea.You nail it through getting people repeatedly handing you money for the thing that you're selling.And then that's when you start putting it out there more and more.But if they don't give you money, then you don't know for sure yet.You're still in the testing phase.Because there's plenty of business examples out there that have failed because they thought it was a great idea.The biggest one I can think of, it was like right before the pandemic, I think they launched or they launched during the pandemic.I forget what their name was, but it was like an app, kind of like Hulu or Netflix.And they spent a ton of money.They got a ton of celebrities.And the whole idea was like, you just watch these TV shows on your phone, I believe.And I can't even remember the name of it.And I remember they spent hundreds of millions, if not like an absurdly gross amount of money on this service only for nobody to sign up.And it just flopped.And we don't even remember the name.And that was only like two years ago.So ideally, you talk about your offer.This might be a shocker to you.Five to 20% of your episode, the longer the episode is, the less you'll typically talk about your offer.Now, if you have a 20-minute episode, because it is a bit shorter, you're not going to want to pack up a five-minute ad at the beginning of the episode that it takes them to get into it.You could do a quick little thing if you want.I'm personally a big fan of just hopping into the episode, getting them to the value, and And then either in the middle and then at the end throwing in the longest part you would talk about, the call to action.Because also think about it, those are the people who have stuck with your episode the whole time.So they're engaged.Also throwing in like a little call to action, 30 seconds, two minutes, three minutes in the middle is cool too.And if you're consistently adding value in your episode and not breaking the listener's attention to insert ads, your audience will not mind you talking about your offer for a few minutes. So what I mean about that is, say you had an hour long episode and every15 minutes you're like, "All right, another break. All right, another break." That is annoying because they're trying to go deep on some subject that is being covered in the episode. Typically, why you find most podcasts will do maybe something at the beginning or just get right in the value, something in the middle, and then something at the end.All right, so I got some questions submitted that I'm going to answer here. So best place to get topics for my podcast. This also applies to social media. If you are ever needing content ideas, I hope you never need content ideas again after this slide, where to get topic ideas for your content. Number one is your audience. They are hands down the first place you should be asking and you don't always have to directly ask. Sure. What would you like to hear more of? What can I help you with? Those are all things that are clear and direct to ask. Sometimes we've burned ourselves through that or we don't hear the information that we want to get from asking that question. I understand that. I've been there.So what you got to do instead is go through the comments, like look past on old posts you've made,and you can make whole podcast episodes around those things. You can also look at comments of your competitors. Like what are people asking in the comments there, but you got to be a little bit mindful of that because people come to you sometimes for different reasons than what you think they might be coming to you for. And what I mean by that is everybody has a unique perspective on the thing it is that they're talking about. It's that's like when you're having a one-way conversation like a podcast, sometimes you'll guess what people want to hear and you could guess wrong. And that's okay. That's not like end of the world or anything, but ideally you want to make content that connects with more people. So you do that by knowing what your audience wants and gives them more of that. Right. All right. Last question. Yeah. Last question. Where to find good guests for my podcast. Similar to finding top content is ask your audience, but make sure to clearly articulate the type of guest you are looking to speak with. So don't simply just say,you know, "Hey, does anyone want to be on my podcast?" Say, "I'm looking for someone in this type of category. Are you or do you know somebody that would fit that?" And then also on Instagram,It's really easy to reach out. I didn't finish the parentheses here. On Instagram,you can reach out via DMs. Inside Podcasting Academy, there's a guest outreach template,which you can use. I highly, highly, highly suggest you use. And you can reach out via DMs.You could also reach, use Twitter as well, which I recommend here. Also on Amazon, I've gotten many guests through Amazon. So on Amazon, it's much simpler than you think. Simply search authors like around your topic that you want to speak with,and then just reach out to them wherever they're active.Sometimes that's their website,they're not active on social media,or they're active on social media.So you reach out to them there,and you'd be surprised at how many people you can book just from looking them up on Amazon.Also, Facebook groups.Facebook groups have a high quantity of people.There are certain Facebook groups out there that will show you, you know,hey, this is a guest booking thing.High quantity of people, low quality of guests,just because that's what the Facebook group's all about.And that's just what I've seen really is,yeah, there's a lot of people on there,but they're not the best quality.And you have to be clear again,'cause you'll get anybody and everybody reaching out to you.Podmatch.com is another one.I have not used that,but I just want to add in a couple links here.Also, guest.io is another one I haven't used.I believe those last two are paid services.I haven't used them.I'm picky about my guests.I just find that I want a connection with them.But solo episodes too are always a great idea when done right and easy to do.But those are some places you can find them guests.All right, I think I answered everything.I'm just gonna double check.Yeah, awesome.Thanks so much for joining me today.