How to Make Money Podcasting
A few weeks ago someone left a comment on The Podcast Setup YouTube channel asking a fair question: how did I get Buzzsprout to sponsor a channel with about 150 subscribers and a few hundred views a video?
The honest answer goes back to how I started podcasting. About 18 years ago I was running a web agency, and the podcast was how I sold myself and the work we did. I came up through sales, the non-pushy kind, and I've never stopped thinking about my shows as a small media business. That's how I've run The WP Minute for the last five years, and it's how I run The Podcast Setup.
So the Buzzsprout deal was never one video. It's a video, an audio episode, a blog post that keeps working in search, and a newsletter sponsored graphic, from someone who spent three years at a competing host and knows the space. That's a package a sponsor can say yes to, regardless of what how many YouTube subscribers I have.
In the episode I get into why I don't buy the industry's logic that you need tens of thousands of followers to earn anything, why a niche audience that trusts you can be worth more than a big one that doesn't.
I also make the case that as AI makes everyone's marketing look the same, real people making real content will be worth more, not less.
The part I keep coming back to is simple. You have to care about what you're putting out, because sponsors can see it. That isn't a growth hack. It's the thing you're actually selling.
Listen on Buzzsprout, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. If you'd rather get paid by listeners directly, my earlier episode on the funding tag is a good companion (fundingtag.link).
And I'd love to hear how you've landed sponsors with a smaller show.
