Can You Really Monetize Your Podcast

Welcome to the Wonder Boldly podcast with your host, Christine Santos. 

Find out if podcasting is for you be tuning into this episode where Christine addresses the most popular question she gets about podcasting.

In this episode Christine, as always, answers this question honestly and authentically. She reflects on the process of creating an online course and shares her dilemma about maintaining authenticity while teaching others about podcast monetization. 

She emphasizes the importance of dedication, consistency, and hard work in achieving success through podcasting. Christine delves into her passion for helping individuals launch their podcasts and shares the potential for income generation through affiliate links, sponsorships, ads, and networking using podcasts. 

If you're interested in learning more about podcast monetization, be sure to listen till the end to find out how to get on the waitlist for Christine's soon to be released online course on Podcasting.

Find out if podcasting is for you be tuning into this episode where Christine addresses the most popular question she gets about podcasting.

Transcript

Christine Santos [00:00:00]:
Welcome everybody to the Wonder Boldly podcast. I'm Christine Santos, bringing to you all of the action steps and knowledge I've learned on my journey to becoming an online business owner, quit my corporate job, and now live the life that I desire on my own terms. This podcast is jam packed with all the knowledge I've gained over the past few years growing my online business. I am so passionate about you going after what it is that you want. I want to encourage and motivate you to know that you too can live the life that you desire. Thank you so much for listening. Let's go.

Christine Santos [00:00:46]:
Hello, hello and welcome to another episode of Wonder Boldly. On today's episode, I want to talk about monetizing your podcast. And the reason why I'm creating this episode is because I am in the middle of creating an online course and I'm having this dilemma with it, to be honest, in that I want to make sure that it's authentic and true and that the message is yes. In fact, it is possible and it requires dedication, consistency, perseverance, and a lot of hard work to be honest. And I have a person on my team who is helping me. She keeps me grounded and when I get really excited about things and want to share really exciting stats, I was going to say she brings me down to earth, but she's more just that voice of reason because I get so excited and I want to make sure that I'm also being authentic and real and not painting a picture that you're going to be a millionaire by starting your podcast tomorrow. But there are people who make millions based on their podcast, and that's what gets me so excited. But in order for that to happen, they're like 1020 years in the making and they'll say it takes a lot of time.

Christine Santos [00:02:17]:
There's been challenges. So anyways, I'm creating online courses on how to start your podcast. I've helped so many people start a podcast one on one, and I produce podcasts for clients and I'm all about podcasts. Somebody should have a green drink drinking game, not alcohol. To this episode. Every time I say podcast, take a sip of your green drink. But anyways, I digress. I love podcast and podcasting.

Christine Santos [00:02:47]:
So I've decided to create online courses, and I was really hesitant, to be honest, but I have decided to create these online courses to teach how to start a podcast. And partly because I don't have the bandwidth to teach all the people I want to teach one on one and getting groups together, I would love to do that. As well. I have one small group, but getting more groups together to teach how to podcast I think is a great idea as well. But lining up people's schedules and that can be challenging. I have this really deep desire to make sure people are getting what they need. Everyone learns differently, and I don't want somebody to leave one of my programs and not have launched a podcast because they're left with questions or challenges. So that's why I've always done one on one live trainings, though I know that the price point for some folks is not right now in your budget, for your business, for your personal life, for what have you, and you still want to start a podcast.

Christine Santos [00:04:03]:
So I thought, okay, I'm going to create these online courses. So I'm in the middle of, or the very beginning, not even in the middle, but creating the course, doing the video, doing all the things, which is great. But I decided to start with monetizing because that is the one question I always get, is about monetizing. And yes, I have been able to bring in income because I have a podcast. I've had a podcast for four years. I haven't been consistent with my podcast for four years. Honestly, if you go and look, you'll see that in the beginning I was. And then I don't even remember dribs and drabs here and there.

Christine Santos [00:04:45]:
The key is really consistency. I see that with my clients who are consistent. I see that with my own podcast where I'm consistent. And then if I'm not, the dip in downloads, the dip in people reaching out. And what has surprised me the most in the beginning was the people that reached out when I was consistent in the beginning. And it's such a great marketing tool. I have paid for marketing in my local newspapers, hundreds of dollars, honestly, and never got a bite. This is not for podcasting.

Christine Santos [00:05:22]:
This is when I was doing life coaching and nothing ever came of it, which is fine, that's not a problem. But my point I'm trying to make is here I am creating this podcast, and people are reaching out to me about the podcast. Can they be on the podcast? Can I be on their podcast? Can I teach them how to podcast? They have questions. So it's really this great marketing tool, and it also adds a level of authority. So for you, my folks who are in the health and wellness space, I commend you. I thank you for all the work that you're doing to help other humans be healthy. I think it's a big undertaking. If you've been around here for a while, you know that I work in the mental health sector, not as a clinician, just to be really clear, as a caretaker for the elderly.

Christine Santos [00:06:12]:
And I just see how if we take better care of ourselves, we will have better outcomes. I'll just leave it at that, because I'm not a clinician, I'm not a health and wellness guru. Some of my clients are, and I learn a lot from them, and I learn from the clinician I work for in the mental health sector. So I'm really passionate about helping health and wellness coaches spread their message. And podcasting is a phenomenal way to do that. Do any research, you will hear the same thing. That's not just me saying it. Podcasts are such a great tool to share a message.

Christine Santos [00:06:51]:
They're a great tool also for personal development for yourself. As a podcast host, you grow, you learn to become a better speaker, you make an impact in other people's lives. You hit challenges. You have to figure things out. There's so much to it that I can't say enough good things about it for you as the host and for your listeners. So, back on track. Why I started this episode. So I started my online course creation with the monetization module.

Christine Santos [00:07:24]:
And again, it's because people ask me about it all the time. Now I'm having this dilemma and I'm getting stuck on it because, yes, you can monetize your podcast. If you are getting into podcasting to strictly make money, I don't think it's the right avenue. I could be wrong. I would love it if you'd proved me wrong. I would love it if you said, I'm only going to podcast because I want to make money, and you made a ton of money, and you're like, christine, you were wrong. I'd be like, that is fantastic, though. I want to be authentic.

Christine Santos [00:07:57]:
And my authentic self thinks that if you're looking to start your podcast strictly because you want to make money, maybe podcasting isn't the right medium right now for you. If you're looking to start a podcast because you want to spread a message, because you do have programs that you know through building a community from your podcast, through showing your knowledge, creating that authority, creating that know, like and trust, you can sell your programs because of your podcast, then yes, podcasting is for you. It takes time. It takes being consistent. It takes engaging with your community. The most consistent and successful people I see in my world, and not just from Google searches. I mean, the people in my world are the ones who are really passionate about their topic. I'm really passionate about health and wellness.

Christine Santos [00:08:53]:
So I enjoy working with those people, helping them spread their message. I'm really passionate about self development. I'm a certified life coach myself, so I'm really passionate about those folks helping others and coming from a corporate software background, developing software, I'm technical and I enjoy the technical aspect of podcasting. So for me, I was able to marry that instead of going out and getting, which I've thought about doing, don't get me wrong, going out and getting certified as a yoga instructor, a health and wellness, nutrition, something like that. I decided this was where I could make the biggest impact. And so that's why I chose this avenue. And yes, podcasting has helped me bring in income. So in my online course, I will talk about affiliate links, I will talk about sponsorships, I will talk about ads, I will talk about using your podcast as a networking tool.

Christine Santos [00:10:00]:
I will talk about all the ways that you can monetize your podcast. And I will also be really clear that one, in order to do that, you need to start your podcast and you need to be consistent and you need to be in it for the long haul. You're not going to make five, six figures in the first few months. That's just not going to happen. If you have no other foundation. Like, I'm talking no other social media, no email list. Like if you're already got a really great following on social media and you have a great email list and now you're adding in podcasting to your business model, then we're talking about something different, then, yes, you certainly can increase your income quickly through adding in podcasting. But I'm talking to the folks that maybe have like myself, I've been on social media, much to my chagrin when I first started.

Christine Santos [00:10:55]:
Now I love it. But when I first started, maybe 2018, thereabouts, I was really scared to be on social media anyways. So dribs and drabs, consistent, not consistent, more consistent. Started to love it. All the things. And I'm that many. Let's just call it five years for fun. We're just going to call it five years in just to give a nice number.

Christine Santos [00:11:17]:
And I'm still under 1000. I've never bought followers, I've never bought likes. I've never done any of that. So any of my growth has just been organic and I'm not great at it. You can go look at my instagram, I just do me and talk about what I want to talk about. And I have switched niches along the way under the same account. So all the things you're not supposed to do, and I'm still under 1000. So when I hit 1000, I'm going to be pretty excited.

Christine Santos [00:11:47]:
To be honest with you, I'm probably going to post about it because it's been five years in the making to even get to 1000 if you're like me and even like around 5000, even smaller numbers of followers on social media. Adding podcasting is great, but it's not a quick injection of income. It takes time. When I launch my mini podcast course on monetizing your podcast, this is the first one that will come out of many I'm going to have in there to listen to this episode because I'm going to want to make sure that I'm really clear. It takes work, time, dedication, consistency, perseverance, and finding something that you're really passionate about and you want to share your message. If you're interested in the monetization course, reach out to me on Instagram, send me a DM and I'll get you on the list for when it's ready. All right, that's it for now. If you're interested in launching a podcast, reach out to me.

Christine Santos [00:12:51]:
If you have podcasting questions, reach out to me. I'm here. I'm all about it. And until next time, continue to wonder boldly.