Time for a new episode of The Story Behind the Lemon, my podcast about podcasting and the fun of running a business in the world of podcasting. (New episodes drop, as the kids say, every Friday afternoon.)
You can check out the website for it at podcast.lemonproductions.ca or hit up the subscribe page to subscribe to the show in your favorite app. Here’s the subscribe link for some of the popular apps:
In this episode I talk about ways you can make money with your podcast.
You can listen right here on the site thanks to Transistor‘s sweet embedded player – in dark mode (cue dramatic music):
p.s. Want to subscribe to my email newsletter and get notified about new episodes via email? You can do so right here, right now:
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How Can You Make Money With Your Podcast?
Ok so this episode was inspired by a conversation that happened inside of a community I’m a part of called Megamaker. Joshua had asked about how much to charge for sponsorship opportunities on his new podcast and Justin, who runs Megamaker, chimed in response with a link to a post on his Transistor.fm website that has a lot of great info and tips. I jokingly said I was going to read it for the next episode of my podcast and he responded with “do it!” which I’m taking as legally binding and that he won’t sue me for copyright or anything.
I hope you enjoy the podcast. I’m excited to continue telling both my own story in podcasting as well as answer your questions about podcasting. I’ve been podcasting for almost 10 years and it’s awesome to see how it’s grown and changed over the years. I continue to believe that it’s one of the best ways to engage and communicate with your audience, fans, or potential customers.
Time for a new episode of The Story Behind the Lemon, my podcast about podcasting and the fun of running a business in the world of podcasting. (New episodes drop, as the kids say, every Friday afternoon.)
You can check out the website for it at podcast.lemonproductions.ca or hit up the subscribe page to subscribe to the show in your favorite app. Here’s the subscribe link for some of the popular apps:
In this episode I talk about ways for a business to be involved with podcasting besides the obvious way of just starting a podcast.
You can listen right here on the site thanks to Transistor’s sweet embedded player – in dark mode (cue dramatic music):
p.s. Want to subscribe to my email newsletter and get notified about new episodes via email? You can do so right here, right now:
Podcast Newsletter
Subscribe to be notified about new episodes and other podcasting related fun!
Thank you!
You have successfully joined our subscriber list.
How Can a Business Get Involved in Podcasting?
Lately I’ve been having conversations with people who feel like they should be doing some sort of podcast but who’s jobs or businesses don’t immediately lend themselves to an obvious podcast format or style. So I thought I’d talk about 4 ways that a business might get involved in podcasting.
Sponsoring a Podcast
If you’ve listened to any podcasts in your life, there’s a good chance you’ve heard a sponsor message.
Whether it’s for a developer focused service like Cloudbees Rollout, building your website with Squarespace, buying a new mattress from Casper, or getting some new underwear from MeUndies, sponsors are a big part of what’s made podcasting as successful as it is. While many podcasters work on their podcasts regardless of it bringing in money or business, without sponsors, many podcasters wouldn’t be able to work on the shows they want to create.
To figure out how to sponsor a podcast you think your business should advertise with, generally you can contact the host or visit the website for the podcast. If they’ve had sponsors before, they’ll definitely be looking for new ones. How much you’ll pay for a sponsored spot on a podcast will vary depending on how many listeners or subscribers the podcast has, as well as how focused into a niche the podcast is. If you sell vintage Star Wars toys, a podcast all about Star Wars is going to be worth a whole lot more to you than a podcast that talks about how to grow lemons in Saskatchewan. That’s one of the huge perks of advertising on podcasts – if you pair with the right podcast, you can speak directly to your target market.
If your business is a national or international operation – maybe selling your products or services on the web to the world – then it’s pretty easy to find bigger podcasts that have a global reach and try and sponsor them.
Where it gets more difficult is at the local level. There might be a lot of podcasts around you being created by people in your city or region, but it can be very hard to find them. They might not have your city in their name. They could be speaking to your perfect niche of listeners, but you don’t know they exist. A podcast with financial advice for rich folks with too much money might be a great one for an upscale clothing store, home builder, or realtor to sponsor.
p.s. if anyone wants to start a podcast targeted at super rich people and needs an editor, give me a call.
If you have followers on social media, start by asking for suggestions of local podcasts – not necessarily podcasts made locally – but podcasts that have a local focus. And when you find some, try out a sponsorship of an episode or two.
You likely won’t see any immediate return on that – podcasting sponsorship is a long game play. It’s why you hear about Squarespace for 200 episodes straight. But you’ll get the experience of working with the podcaster and see how professional they are, how well they handle your requests for what the sponsor read should say and sound like.
Helping Someone Start a Podcast
What if you can’t find any local podcasts serving your area or niche? And you’re too busy to actually start your own podcast. Send an email out to your best customers and ask if any of them currently do a podcast talking about your industry – you never know, there might be someone out there already that’s been too shy to talk about it. But assuming nobody has, ask your best customers if any of them are interested in starting a podcast. And offer to help fund the development and recording of the first season – say 10 episodes – of the podcast. You might spend $500 on gear, and another 5 to $10,000 on production and editing time – but if it’s done well and with the right people who are already passionate about your industry or market, you could help jump start a successful podcast.
It doesn’t even have to be a podcast about your industry specifically. Maybe you’re a local beer brewery and you pay for the development of a podcast telling local ghost stories and lore.
If you really want to open the floodgates, create a “Podcast Startup Fund” with a $10,000 pot of cash going to the best podcast pitch that aligns with your market.
Make Your Own Podcast
And of course, you could start your own podcast in house – but be sure to hire me to edit and help you produce it. Obviously.
It can be as simple as an audio version of your blog posts or newsletters you already are writing, just in audio form. It won’t necessarily garner you the widest array of listeners, but it will help those who enjoy what you’re trying to do to listen along while they’re doing things besides sitting and focusing on your blog or social media efforts.
One level up from that is talking with your employees or people in your industry about the work you do. If you repair shoes, talk about all the intricacies of shoe repair. I might not subscribe, but an episode you create about how to get gum off your shoes might get shared into my social feed and I listen to that episode and then remember your shoe repair shop when it comes time to get my winter boots fixed.
If you’re a home builder, document the process of building a home with you – in audio form. It’s more work than taking pictures, sure. But done well, it creates an instant audio story that you can share on your podcast as well as re-use on social media.
If you’re a coffee shop, interview some regulars. Do the small town coffee row political conversations in front of a microphone. See what kinds of conversations it sparks.
In the previous episode of this podcast, I talked about some of the podcast ideas that people wish they could find. Maybe go back and listen to episode 11 and see if there’s an idea you’d like to start.
If you’re curious about making a podcast and the costs associated with it, be sure to sign up for my email newsletter at lemonproductions.ca/newsletter – I’m planning to have some intro to podcasting training sessions in the new year at my office.
Talk About the Podcasts You Enjoy
Even easier – and cheaper – than putting any money into podcasting is to talk about the podcast you or your team enjoy listening to. You could write a blog post once a month with the 5 podcast episodes you and your employees enjoyed or found inspiring. It’s guaranteed to generate some conversation, especially as you share that out to social media and in your company email newsletter. Someone who already listens to podcasts is generally very interested in finding out more podcasts to listen to. Invite people to respond with their favorite shows or episodes. Just like talking about favourite bands and songs, people who are into podcasts love sharing and talking about their favourites.
If you’ve got questions about podcasting you’d like me to cover, here’s your chance to get them on my to do list.
Got Questions for a Future Episode?
If you’d like to send in a question for a future episode, there’s a few different ways to do it:
I hope you enjoy the podcast. I’m excited to continue telling both my own story in podcasting as well as answer your questions about podcasting. I’ve been podcasting for almost 10 years and it’s awesome to see how it’s grown and changed over the years. I continue to believe that it’s one of the best ways to engage and communicate with your audience, fans, or potential customers.
Time for a new episode of The Story Behind the Lemon, my podcast about podcasting and the fun of running a business in the world of podcasting. (New episodes drop, as the kids say, every Friday afternoon.)
You can check out the website for it at podcast.lemonproductions.ca or hit up the subscribe page to subscribe to the show in your favorite app. Here’s the subscribe link for some of the popular apps:
For this episode I finish up my series on the what, why, who, when, and where of podcasting with a brief recap as well as reporting back on the responses to my poll of when people listen to podcasts.
You can listen right here on the site thanks to Transistor’s sweet embedded player – in dark mode (cue dramatic music):
p.s. Want to subscribe to my email newsletter and get notified about new episodes via email? You can do so right here, right now:
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Subscribe to be notified about new episodes and other podcasting related fun!
Thank you!
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Recapping the Series
So this episode is the end of the series I started back in episode 6 with defining what a podcast is. If you’re just joining the show now, it’s probably worth going back and listening to episodes 6 through 10 to get caught up.
In episode 7 I talked about the why of podcasting – why do people or businesses start a podcast these days?
Episode 8 was all about who should start podcasting. And if you’re still listening to this podcast, the answer is probably you!
For episode 9 I talked about when you should start and when you should publish your podcast. Timing is everything and you don’t want to overcommit to an idea or not follow through on what you say you’ll deliver and disappoint listeners.
And then last episode I talked about where and how you should host your podcast.
What About That Poll?
Going back to episode 9 for a brief moment, I had sent out a poll in that episode and I wanted to update you on what the data was from all the responses I got.
Basically the questions were around when people listen to podcasts as a way of trying to figure out when it would be best to release your podcast episodes each week.
With 14 responses, I wouldn’t say it’s enough data to draw any serious conclusions but it’s still interesting to look at.
The first question was What day of the week do you prefer to listen to podcasts on? and almost everybody picked every day of the week, Monday to Friday, with half choosing Saturday Sunday. Which makes sense. Lots of folks use podcasts as part of their commute to or from work, or even at work. Or when their kids are at school. Weekends are when you’re getting other stuff done.
The second question was What time of day do you generally listen to podcasts? and the majority, 11, picked early morning / commute to work. I had a few people tell me afterwards that there wasn’t a commute home from work option – something to remind for next time.
The third question was What kind of podcast do you wish was out there but haven’t been able to find yet? – and this was a fill in the blank answer so there were a variety of responses including:
True Crime or criminal investigations outside US, for example Japan, etc
One that interview only businesses that have reached $1M in ARR
Cleaning Tips
More documentary series’ (THAT AREN’T MURDER AND TRUE CRIME) like “The Dream.”
I wish there was a podcast about raising kids on the Autism Spectrum.
Special parenting topics
good movies reviews… more history podcasts
Interviews with micro-influencers
So there’s some possible ideas for any of you looking to start a podcast.
The fourth question was What podcast do you listen to that you find yourself recommending most often? and again this was a fill in the blank style answer:
Earl Grey Podcast – I think this is a Star Trek podcast, not a tea podcast.
It changes constantly but currently it’s Patient Zero from NHPR
NewsWorthy
Collecting Cars
Build Your SaaS and How I Built This (to non techie folk)
The place we find ourselves
Depends on the context. Lately I’ve been recommending Akimbo a lot.
Hidden Brain
Daily Tech News Show
Criminal
All of the bootstrapping podcasts
20000 Hz
The Daily
The fifth question was How interested are you in starting a podcast? and people were asked to answer on a scale from 0 – 10, with 10 being “starting one” and 0 being “not interested” – half, 7, people said a 10, that they were starting one. with 4 showing varying degrees of interest in starting one and 3 not really interested.
The final question was Want to subscribe to my email newsletter? and I’m happy to say that 10 out of 14 said yes.
So that’s interesting?
There’s lots of things I want to talk about in future episodes of this podcast – things like:
How to record a podcast with someone on the other side of the country, or the world?
How to build anticipation for a new podcast launch
Ways to breath new life into a podcast that you’re getting tired of doing.
How to find guests for your podcast to interview.
Deciding on the format for your podcast.
Simple ways to improve the audio on your next recording
Should you make a video version of your podcast for YouTube?
How to prepare for an interview when you’re a guest? Or when you’re the host?
What’s my workflow for creating a podcast?
If you’ve got questions about podcasting you’d like me to cover, here’s your chance to get them on my to do list.
Got Questions for a Future Episode?
If you’d like to send in a question for a future episode, there’s a few different ways to do it:
I hope you enjoy the podcast. I’m excited to continue telling both my own story in podcasting as well as answer your questions about podcasting. I’ve been podcasting for almost 10 years and it’s awesome to see how it’s grown and changed over the years. I continue to believe that it’s one of the best ways to engage and communicate with your audience, fans, or potential customers.
Time for a new episode of The Story Behind the Lemon, my podcast about podcasting and the fun of running a business in the world of podcasting. (New episodes drop, as the kids say, every Friday afternoon.)
You can check out the website for it at podcast.lemonproductions.ca or hit up the subscribe page to subscribe to the show in your favorite app. Here’s the subscribe link for some of the popular apps:
For this episode I’m answering the question: Where should you host your podcast?
You can listen right here on the site thanks to Transistor’s sweet embedded player – in dark mode (cue dramatic music):
p.s. Want to subscribe to my email newsletter and get notified about new episodes via email? You can do so right here, right now:
Podcast Newsletter
Subscribe to be notified about new episodes and other podcasting related fun!
Thank you!
You have successfully joined our subscriber list.
The quick answer is “everywhere.” Get your podcast out to as many places as you can. But that’s overwhelming and with more and more podcast hosting companies, apps, and aggregators popping up every week, who has time for that?
Let’s break this down into where you should host your podcast. And then I’ll talk about where you should be publicizing or sharing your podcast.
Where Should You Host Your Podcast?
Ok so where your podcast is hosted matters only so much as it needs to be a good, reliable company that knows podcasting and isn’t going to disappear in a few months and force you to move everything around. In some ways a podcast host is a lot like your website host – the average viewer of your website doesn’t care if your website is hosted on Squarespace, WordPress, Wix, Netlify, or Geocities – they just want to read what’s on your website. And you can say the same for podcast hosting – the average listener just wants to be able to hear your show. They don’t really care where the MP3 is coming from over the internet, as long as they can get it when they’re ready to listen.
I should also say that I’m a little biased in that my good friend Justin Jackson runs a podcast hosting company called Transistor that I use for my own podcast network at Goodstuff.fm – and he’s also a client of mine. I edit Transistor’s own podcast called Build Your Saas where Justin and Jon talk about the fun and frustrations of building a web app in 2019.
Despite that bias, podcasting is an essential part of my business and I wouldn’t recommend a company or trust them with my podcasts if I didn’t think they knew what they were doing. I’ve been really happy with Transistor for my podcast hosting and have no problem recommending them to friends and clients.
There are lots of other great podcast hosting companies out there – Fireside, Simplecast, Pinecast just to name a few. You really can’t go wrong with any of these fine podcast hosting companies. They’ll all provide you with a place to host your MP3 files for each episode, the ability to build a website for your podcast, an RSS feed to submit to all the various podcast aggregators like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and others, and great analytics on each episode so you can see how well your podcast is performing. You will have to pay for these companies and I firmly believe that investing money in your podcast hosting is well worth it if podcasting is going to be any kind of part of your business or marketing efforts.
If you spend any time on Google looking for podcast hosting, you’ll see plenty of free hosting providers out there. And much like free hosting for your website, you get what you pay for. There is one company I’ll mention that you should check out if you want to just try out podcasting without having to commit to a monthly fee – and that’s Anchor.
Anchor is both a podcast hosting company as well as a podcast creation app. And it’s completely free. Which is something to enjoy but also be aware of that if it’s free, somebody somewhere has to be paying for all the hosting and bandwidth they’re using. And in Anchor’s case, that somebody is Spotify. Spotify recently bought Anchor and so far have seemed keen to keep Anchor running as a place for people to create podcasts, which in turn help build more content out for Spotify’s listening side of the business.
Anchor has apps for iOS and Android, and also runs great in your browser on Windows or macOS. It’s not the most powerful editing app – but considering what it allows you to do on the go, it’s pretty amazing. And you can also use it with fancier mics and gear to record. So if you want to just try out this podcasting thing with minimal cost up, Anchor is the way to go.
Ok that’s where you should host your podcast. Now let’s cover where you should post and share your podcast.
Where Should You Share Your Podcast?
Most of the podcast hosting companies I talked about will automatically, or with the click of a few buttons, submit your podcast to aggregators like Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And from there, most of the smaller podcast players like Overcast, Pocket Casts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Breaker, Castbox, and more – will build their databases off of Apple Podcasts listing. But it’s still worth checking in various apps to see if your show is appearing. Might as well make sure it’s getting to as many people’s ears as possible.
Sharing your podcast on social media can be a great way to build awareness and gain subscribers. Obviously sharing it on whatever your primary social platforms are – Twitter & Facebook. LinkedIn can be a big driver of listeners if your show’s topic or style lends itself to a business focus.
If your brand has a verified Instagram account, using the clickable link in Stories is a something to consider trying. Posting episode artwork and descriptions to Instagram and using appropriate hashtags for discovery is a good idea as well.
Beyond that, finding an appropriate subreddit on Reddit can yield new listeners who don’t use Facebook or Twitter. Even if your podcast is audio only, creating a video version of it to upload to YouTube can help reach folks on there.
And of course, if you’ve got an email list of some sort, that’s a great place to send out reminders of past episodes as well as promote new episodes. Wherever you share your podcast, it’s important to take a long term view of it. Podcasting isn’t an instant buy or instant gratification kind of marketing effort. You have to be in it for the long haul. 3 episodes shared on Reddit when you’ve never used Reddit before are not going to tell you much. It’s important to experiment, try things, and then review the data after a reasonable time period and see what’s working. And don’t beat yourself – or your marketing person who suggested doing a podcast – up too much if you’re not getting a bunch of listeners.
Just like where we started this discussion with your website, you’re building up a library of episodes for right now and hopefully for the future – people will discover your podcast episodes long after you’ve finished recording them and still be able to hear about why you’re so great to work with, or why they should hire you, or whatever your podcast was about.
Got Questions for a Future Episode?
If you’d like to send in a question for a future episode, there’s a few different ways to do it:
I hope you enjoy the podcast. I’m excited to continue telling both my own story in podcasting as well as answer your questions about podcasting. I’ve been podcasting for almost 10 years and it’s awesome to see how it’s grown and changed over the years. I continue to believe that it’s one of the best ways to engage and communicate with your audience, fans, or potential customers.
