Welcome to Digital Podcaster. My name is Dylan Schmidt, your host, I'm so glad you're here. During this episode, here listening, just a quick little update, I think I'm going to be switching to do two podcast episodes a week, release schedule, for the time being will be Tuesday and Friday. I've just got so much want to share, and I'm excited to share. And my output feels really dialed in right now. And the funny thing is, I'm actually focusing on doing less while being more effective, because that's the name of the game, right? Do less, but when you do something be more effective at it. And I actually believe that looks like doing two podcasts a week. So I'm excited about that. If you're curious on how I could possibly do that the best way I could show you how is inside Podcasting Academy, but I'll share more on that later. So today, I want to talk about do more podcast downloads equal more money. Now this is something that is not so cut and dry. Is the obvious, right? I guess I was a little surprised. I'm always surprised actually, when I talk about something I'm doing online, especially social media, people that aren't totally aware of whether it's like content marketing, or how online business works, when they see something get a lot of views or a lot of likes or a lot of attention. People automatically assume that translates to money, what that looks like a direct example, using myself as an example. So I have a thing that I've been doing now for I think it's three or four months, it's been a news account. And I've been posting and askin been getting a lot of attention. And one of the things that like my dad will ask is like, great, like, how does that make money, and I not doing it, the goal was never to do it for the money. And it was more of kind of just an experiment. But I get that a lot. Like not just for my dad, but just like friends and and people that just aren't aware of that. They're like, Oh, if you're getting a lot of views, you gotta be getting a lot of money. Well, I don't necessarily well, not even necessarily, that's not true. One example of this is there was a influencer. I don't know exactly what they sold. I don't think they really sold anything. But she had over a million followers, maybe multimillion I know, at least over a million on Instagram. This was a few years back a couple years back. It's all kind of blending together at this point. But she had a large following. And she basically bought a bunch of T shirts wanted to sell the T shirts. And how many did she sell? She sold like 20. And she was like, coming after her community like what the heck, like I bought all these T shirts, because you said you would want these T shirts. But no one actually bought the T shirts. So how many did she sell 20 She lost a bunch of money. It cost her more than she made. And she wasn't. And that's one way where the following didn't translate to sales. So today in this episode, I want to share two arguments for both sides of the topic of do more podcast downloads equal more money. And I'm going to highlight two ways that they don't equal more money and two ways that they do. And, in essence, four ways because all of these ways, I'm going to highlight how you can fix it and why it's important to well, let's just say you know, don't need to skirt around it. Why is important to make money with your podcast, if you're new to my world, my world, our world Digital Podcaster it's more than just me my world. Welcome to my world. That seems egotistical. But you know what I mean, like digital podcasts, or I'm on the face of it, it still always felt like community still feels like a two way street. So if you're new to what I share, is I always am a believer of monetizing your podcast because it takes time and energy and money to run a podcast. Microphones aren't free hosting services, there is a free one anchor. But a lot of people opt for a paid one. Even though it's a small cost each month, there's still a cost associated with podcasting. So that's why I always at minimum, you want to recoup the cost that you're investing in your podcast. And I also realize a lot of people have an opposition to selling or making money. And I can talk about that in another episode. But that's not the goal for this one. But people do have a resistance that too, and I just want to highlight that and I don't care. At the end of the day I will champion for you to make and have more financial freedom in your own life because that's the name of the game fulfillment, financial freedom, sharing your message, sharing your knowledge and inspiring others like those things to me. That's the juice of life right there. And to be able to do that through a podcast is incredible. So those are the things that I'm gonna be sharing with you. But let's just dive right into it feels like the longest intro in the world. So two ways that they don't two ways podcast downloads don't equal more money. Number one, so more podcast downloads don't mean more money, because you could have a lot of people downloading your podcast, but you have nothing to sell. So just like the news example I was sharing a minute ago, I have nothing to sell on there. I don't even have an intention of selling. So if I have something go viral, which something went viral for me last week, like viral in my, my world, there is a way to get viral in my domain. And did it increase sales? No, not to my knowledge, I don't think it did. And I didn't see anything hit my bank account from that. Because I have nothing to sell. So you're not going to magically get money just by simply having more downloads, right? Even if you have your podcast or your content go viral. At the end of the day, if you've got nothing to sell, like, you still have to set that up, no one's going to just hand you over money. These days, maybe some years ago, if you had something go viral, that might happen. But these days, that's not really going to happen, because it's just, there's so many people, so many more people publishing content. And even if you were offered money, there would still be some type of contract where they own your content or something like that. So it's not like, Hey, you get a bunch of downloads, you're gonna get a bunch of money doesn't equal like that, you have to have something to sell, whether that's someone else's sponsors and ads on your show, like you're promoting their business on your show, or you're promoting your own business on your show, you have to have something to sell most podcasters if they're like lifestyle, podcasters, like comedy podcasters, they're selling other people's products, or they're announcing their own tour dates or something like that, right. But for the like, a lot of podcasters will have something for themselves to sell. And they'll have multiple streams, right? So let's just use comedy. Again, even though that's not the main, I would say target audience of this podcast. But if you were a comedy podcast, like you would promote your tour dates, maybe you have merch, maybe you have some Patreon type community. And you're also maybe doing some sponsors and ads for whoever, right. And you may be or belong to some type of network where they sell advertising space on your podcast for you. And they get a little percentage of it, but you get paid as well for announcing that. So that's one way. But if you don't even have that setup, if you have no nothing, no tour dates, no merch to sell no nothing. Well, obviously, you're not going to be making money from that. But that's why it's important to have something to sell. And you don't have to wait to get downloads, to start making money right from the beginning. And that's why I also want to preface this preface at this point where in the episode, this is why I also want to say that do more podcast downloads equal more money? The alternate title, which is less sexy is do any podcast downloads equal money. And at the end of the day, the answer is yes, if done correctly. All right. Number two, so more podcast downloads don't mean more money, because you could have a lot of people downloading your podcasts, but they're not. They might not be the right fit for your product or service, and or sponsors and ads. So what that means is, if you have a huge spike in downloads, and you're selling something, say you're a business coach, and you're selling something, but none of those people have any desire and having a business and all you sell is a business coaching, well, that's not going to equal more money, obviously, because the the marketing term for that is the message to market match, right? That means your message that you're sharing is matching what your market. In that case, people who need business coaching matches, if you don't have that, then it's you, maybe you have a sale or two, but it's not going to equal the money that you would really hope for and expect. So that's why it's important to know your target audience and what they want to hear. What is it that they really want to hear. And that usually changes shape. Again, something I go deeper, and I'm not trying to go on a full TED Talk for each of these. I just want to give you the quick things here. But it's got to be the right fit. And where you might be thinking like, well, any downloads are good downloads. Yeah, I mean, if you're, if your goal is a business, I would say yes, and if your goal is a business, and you're using a podcast as like a lead generation tool, well, you want to have qualified that's like, if you're just talking about anything cool, but you want to make it you want to make it worthwhile, right? You want to attract the right audience. And I think a lot of the times people are they have a lack of confidence in their ability to attract an audience. So they're just like, I'll take anybody over somebody specific. I'm not calling out anyone specifically here. And I'm not saying this is you by any means I'm just using an example. But it same goes for like a relationship, right? If you don't have any standards, who are you going to attract, right? You're gonna attract anybody into your life and If you have standards and expectations, and a list of like, this is what I want in my life, I want a partner who communicates with me, I want a partner who is looking forward to being with me like those little things, those are things you can have. And even if you don't feel totally confident that that exists out there, don't, you don't need to be fully confident to know that it exists out there. I just want you to know that there's enough people out there in the world, that whatever you want, it does exist. If you were like, Dylan, I only want to speak to business owners who make over $10 million a year that exists out there. Of course, when you place prerequisites, you know, expectations, when you place kind of parameters around who you want to talk to. Sure, yeah, you're gonna have a smaller bunch of people, if you're saying like, I only want people over $10 million dollars that are doing in the business. Yeah, I mean, you're gonna attract anybody doesn't necessarily mean you're only attracting those people. If you're familiar with Alex or Mozi. He is a great example of this. He's like, I only work with business owners, who are doing over $3 million a year. But almost 99.9% of his audience are businesses that aren't doing $3 million a year, and he attracts all those people. So it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to exclude everyone. But at the same point, at the same time, you know, you got to be specific in your ask and just step into believing that the universe will give it to you. And if you need help with that, let me know also. Alright, so now stepping into the why it does mean more money. So more podcast downloads do mean more money, because you could have a lot of people downloading your podcast, and they could be from all over the world. But if you have a digital product or service for sale, anyone can buy it no matter where they're from. And that's the beautiful thing about having a digital product that scales is you can simply have it sell while you're sleeping. And I know that sounds like some infomercial, I'm not trying to. It's like, I almost feel obligated to like stand up for a digital products, because people have all sorts of feelings and thoughts about it. But at the end of the day clicks, I've bought some and then just like not really use them, although I do my best to like implement them if I do buy them. But yeah, I'm guilty of it. I think a lot of us are at this point of buying something and not using it. But the truth of the matter is, digital products are effective, right? There's online schooling that's like a digital product in a lot of ways a digital service, right. And whether that's an actual, like accredited school where you're getting some degree or something, or it's something that is helping you scale your business or do something better, there is a purpose, and there is a huge amount of value in digital products, whether your relationship for the digital product, or a digital product, or digital products, it whatever that is, it looks different for everybody. But at the end of the day, they have a huge value. And I am just such a fan because they are valuable, like I get a ton of value out of digital products, not like just selling them but consuming them. Right. And I think one of the things too is when you have a good experience with the digital product. It's inspiring, right? Like it's transformative. And it doesn't have to be expensive. It doesn't have to be this ginormous thing where you're like my whole existence is changing through this digital product, it could be some little simple tool that you extract out of it, that helps you get to the next level or find some clarity around something around what you're doing. So also, I would really recommend to if if you are considering digital products, but you're like, I'm actually not sold on them, I would urge you to find a digital product that you like, would be excited about taking and consume it. And similar to modeling successful people or successful content or a successful podcast, similar to the idea of modeling. I would suggest purchasing a digital product investing in if you haven't before, and then consuming it. And what did you like, what did you dislike, like? There's a lot of opportunity there. Number four. The last thing I want to share here is more podcast downloads do mean more money because there is more visibility with a specific message you're sharing on your podcast, the more likely people are to remember you when they're ready to buy what you're selling. So kinda like any news is good news or any publicity is good publicity. That's kind of what I'm getting at here. Think about it this way, if someone is constantly seeing your face and hearing your voice talk about a certain topic, they're more likely to think of you when they need that service or product. I I have been thinking about this a lot lately, especially when I been talking with a lot of business owners entrepreneurs solopreneurs lately, and they kind of like are trying they try to find the balance of I call it hard selling and soft selling hard selling would be like if you're familiar with direct response it would be More like you need this, like, all about your product, right. And podcasts aren't like that podcasts are a value add. And podcasts are a value add for people that have even already bought your product. So what that would look like is say, I'm using myself as an example. Sorry, this is not like, this is not I'm not even trying to use this as a soft sell. It's just easiest because I know that you'd be familiar with it at this point Podcasting Academy. So people who have purchased Podcasting Academy still listen to this podcast, if I was to make this a sales pitch what square this is not I saw it like this where like, it reminds me when I say like that, I feel like I'm 12. Again, I swear I'm not like if people who have already, that sigh was me going, I walked into this, people who have already bought Podcasting Academy still listen to this podcast. And I either way, even if you've never even if you never buy a pocket, like my goal is to just add value, and cut through the noise of bad information out there. So it's like, it's almost like it's, you know, like when you're in sales, you know, and I'm not like the most sales expert here. And I like to kind of keep it that way. Because sometimes I don't know, I know there's a lot of value in sales, but I'm not trying to be Jordan Belfort for Wolf of Wall Street over here. But if you remove like the sell this the offer the product, whatever off the table, then you're not sitting there in the back of your mind, like how am I pitching, you become highly hyper aware of it, if your goal at the end of the day is just a purely add value for someone's life. That is mega, because then it's not about the product, it's not about the offer. It's about the person. And that is what I love doing and believing. And I think that makes the best content, because it doesn't feel icky or anything like that. And it's just focused on value. And there's always a subsection, even if it's like, hope, you know, obviously, hopefully, if you're, you're like what we've talked about in this episode, like target market, and message to market match, there's a subsection people, maybe that's one to 5%, maybe that's way more of people that will purchase it and work more with you. So it's not necessarily about getting a perfect, it's not necessarily about making. It's actually not necessarily it isn't about making your podcast a pitch by any means. But it is just holding space for people around a certain topic. And that's why I say when someone is associating you with a certain topic, they're hearing you talk about this topic, you're adding value. That's important piece, you're adding value, and they need that service or product that you're selling. Not everyone will that's okay. Not everyone's supposed to, it's egotistical to think that you're going to have something that the billions of people in the world are going to buy unless you're creating something that's like the internet or, or something that is genuinely purposeful for people all around the world in all different conditions. An example again, for podcasts, like not everybody is gonna have a podcast, right? There's some people without the internet. And there are a lot of people without the internet in this world. That is not who is gonna have a podcast, obviously. So I'm not creating this essential item for people that don't even have internets. I do believe it's an essential item, even if you have a if you have a business or any desire to make money online and something like that. So yeah, there you have it, I think it's important to consider both sides of the coin, when it comes to this topic, do more podcasts downloads equal more money? If you say no, or they don't equal more money, there's ways to fix that. Like, also, let's just be real, like at the end of the day, more podcast downloads are better than no, like zero podcast downloads. But regardless, everything can be fixed. I speak with podcasters, who are you know, they have they've been doing hundreds of episodes, and they're still like not growing. And if anything, it's going backwards. And I would, because analytics for Podcasts can be a little skewed sometimes I wouldn't even be surprised if they have like next to no actual listeners. And they're publishing hundreds of episodes. And that is something that can be fixed because there's momentum and there's still action going. You can't change or alter course, if there's no movement, right? It's like, if you tell me to go somewhere to walk to my garage, and I don't walk and you're saying Turn Left Turn right. Doesn't matter. I'm just staying in one spot. But if I start walking, eventually, if you give me that direction, I'll make it to the garage. I hope that analogy helped or landed in any which way. So yeah, there you have it. I'd be curious what you think about this topic. It's a important one. It's a rich one. I know it can be a little bit triggering a little bit too, because talking about money. Money is a subject that's near and dear, especially in the you know, economic recession times that we're living in. So I'd be curious what you think. I don't think you know, I'll say this too. I don't Don't think podcasts again, need to be worried about the money or it like money be the focus of it. But money would be a byproduct of the value you add. It's the simplest way I can share with why I think it's important that you make money with your podcast. Alright, I'll see you in the next episode.