Podcasting Q&A
On Podcasting Q&A, you'll hear the best tips and strategies to launch and grow your podcast with confidence. Whether it's getting more podcast listeners, promoting your podcast on social media, or how to produce high-quality episodes in your editing software, Podcasting Q&A has everything you need to succeed. New episodes come out every Monday.
Podcasting Q&A
Asking for Listener Support Without Offering Exclusive Content
We challenge the myth that you have to create bonus content to ask for support from your listeners. We share simple ways to ask for support with confidence and how small, consistent asks build a sustainable show.
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Keep podcasting!
Welcome to Podcasting QA, brought to you by the people at Buzz Brown. I'm your host, Kara Passetti, and I'm bringing you the best tips and strategies to keep you podcasting with confidence. I was having a conversation with a podcaster the other day, and they asked me a really specific question. They said, How do you make money from your podcast without offering exclusive extras? So I think there's a common misconception that in order to ask for support from your listeners, you have to create extra content or offer extra things to be compensated for. And I kind of want to debunk that today and give you some ideas for asking and receiving listener support without producing extras. The first option is to ask for a one-time support payment from your listeners, sort of like a tip jar. When you're already offering great service, let's say a coffee shop, that's the easiest visual that I can think of. If you are ordering a coffee and the barista is making this coffee and they're communicating with you, and you're already paying for the item that you're purchasing, but they were just so pleasant. They were just very warm and smiley and that made your day. And so you have the option. There's a jar sitting right there in the window that you can leave a tip. So the tip jar approach is that you put the jar out there. In Buzz Sprout, you have the option of adding a support the show link inside of your descriptions for each of your episodes. That support the show link is basically the tip jar. You're already offering your content, you're already producing an awesome podcast. And if your listener is enjoying it, they see support the show and they think, you know, I want to support the show. And so they would click the support the show link. Now you'll have to update that link from within your BuzzSprout account. And that URL can be a couple of options. You can add a buy me a coffee, you can add a PayPal link, or even there's a new platform called Ko-Fi. And all of these platforms basically allow your listener to contribute to this platform. What that does is just allows your listener the opportunity to support the show solely based on their enjoyment and their desire to help. Another option is get your listeners involved and let them know a goal that you are working towards. It could be specific to your podcast. So you could say, hey, by the end of this year, I'd love to have a new microphone or new equipment. And you could let them know, you can allow them to feel involved and say, just click the support the show link and that will help us reach our goal. And then you can give updates every time you release a new episode. You could say we are 60% towards our goal, whatever it may be. You can use that support the show link through your episode descriptions. So that's one way of making money, and you're really not doing any extra work, you're just asking. Another way is through a feature called listener support that we offer through BuzzSprout subscriptions. Now, you can enable listener support by just being on a paid plan. That's the only requirement. Once you start your podcast, you can just enable that inside of your account by heading to monetization subscriptions and turn on listener support. What that does is it puts a support the show link in the episode descriptions, and then you can customize a supporter page. You can add a message on that page. You can let your listeners know one that you're grateful that they want to contribute to your podcast by recurring monthly payments. And you can let them know what this is going towards in that message if you'd like. On that page, they will see some contribution options. A fun way to incorporate monthly support is to give a little label to your fans or your supporters, depending on the amount they give. Something I thought of is if your listener is paying $3 a month, they can be your supporter. So they are supporting your podcast. If they're paying $5 a month, now they are a super fan. So they are next level. If they're paying $8 a month, now we will call them a sidekick because they are in this with us and we're tackling our message together. And then the max $10 a month, okay, now you're just part of the squad. You are doing this with me. You are bought in. And so that's just a fun way to really include your listeners who are supporting your podcast. When you're using the listener support feature in BuzzSprout, every time you get a new supporter, we'll actually show you that inside of your BuzzSprout account. So if you head back to that subscription page, you will see a list of your supporters with their name and their email address. The reason that we want you to see that is because we want you to be able to use that email to either reach out to them and say thank you. But if you're already releasing a newsletter that customers or clients or just fans are subscribing to when they visit your website, maybe when a supporter supports the podcast and you have your email address there, you go ahead and add them to your newsletter. And so you make sure that they get a copy as well. The last point I want to touch on, and I've kind of referenced it here a couple of times, but I want to talk about the ask. I think the hardest part in all of this is asking for support. It's hard when you don't see the value in your content that you're putting out. You may really believe in it and you really believe that it's valuable, but there's this little part of you that thinks, well, it's valuable, but I got to do more if I'm gonna charge money. But the truth is, the work that you're putting in is what is valuable. Think about all that you're doing just to produce a podcast episode. You're researching, you are inviting a guest, you are recording, you are editing, you're publishing, you're promoting. That is all a lot of work. Your value warrants support. You don't have to create extra just to receive monetization. But if you're still in the mindset that you've got to offer something, I want to give you a couple of options for that as well, because I totally get it. One thing you can offer is a recognition-based perk. When you receive a new supporter that is committed to supporting your podcast monthly, you may want to recognize them on a future episode. Maybe on your social media channels, you want to highlight them, you want to share and give them a shout-out. You know, and so when you're asking for the support, you can say, hey, if you guys contribute, I will give you a shout-out. Another option is value-driven support. So this is where you want to be really transparent with your listeners. You want to let them know what their contributions are going towards. Maybe you only offer episodes once a month right now because you don't have anybody to help you edit and you're in a busy season of life. And so you let your listeners know, hey, if you guys could contribute and sign up for monthly recurring support and we could reach this amount of money, I could actually hire an editor that will help me with this and I can produce content four times a month. Let them know that's the goal. And so it's really not creating exclusive content or making more work on you. In fact, it's actually gonna help you. And again, you'd just be surprised that when listeners are passionate about your message that you're sharing, they want to be a part of it and they want to team up with you. And of course, I always recommend finding a method of saying thank you. Listener support is essentially a gift from your listener to you for your content. So you want to make sure they feel your gratitude, whether it be, like I said, on a shout-out or maybe even a heartfelt email after you receive that support payment. If you have any questions for the podcaster success team about using listener support, you can reach us at support at buzzsprout.com. If you have a question that you haven't seen answered yet on a podcasting QA episode, click the send us a text link in the show notes. You can send us a fan mail, and I would love to feature your question on a future episode and get that answered for you. Be sure to join us every Monday to kickstart your week. Thank you so much for listening. And as always, keep podcasting.
