Profitcast: Monetize Your Podcast | Grow a Large and Loyal Audience

One of the most overused phrases from classic film is from Field of Dreams (1989): "If you build it, he will come." It is whispered to Kevin Costner's character Ray at the beginning of the film when he's walking through the cornfield on his farm. In a way similar to Noah of the Bible, Ray acts on the instruction from this mysterious voice in spite of the ridicule he receives and the outcome is unlike anything anyone has ever seen.

Have you ever met someone who just seems made to do what they do? I'm sure many of you believe that podcasting is your "calling". Maybe you heard a mysterious voice that said, "If you talk about this and publish it on the internet, they will come." I'm not here to judge that! What I am here to do is tell you that building something is only half the story. Read more...

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Welcome to Profitcast! Whether this is your first time trolling the site or you are a regular listener, we are so happy you found us and hope to provide some valuable and entertaining material for you to chew on. This week, The Real Brian is joined by Jessica Kupferman of She Podcasts and of the more recent Moneycast, which, as it might sound, is a venture dedicated to helping people understand methods of making money through podcasting.

To hear the full story of how Moneycast came about, and Jessica’s discovery shortly thereafter of Profitcast, you’re going to have to listen to the episode. Brian and Jessica have their own takeaways, and they are good takeaways, having to do with looking beyond the numbers and selling your podcast as a product. Several weeks ago, Brian reported some findings he compiled after speaking with a range of potential sponsors and essentially came away believing that in order to make anything work out, he would need 100,000 downloads per episode or more! Jessica challenges this in a very unique way and re-opens the door to an avenue that seemed to have no traction. Read more...

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To the loyal listeners of the Audiobooks.com Podcast, we get an extra dose this week as Brian brings his co-host, Addy Saucedo, in on this episode of Profitcast! I’m a huge fan of these two together and you are definitely in for a treat. We get a great conversation that covers what Addy is up to and what her passion is, the limitations of imitation, and a tease into what Addy and Brian are working on together. Read more...

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Welcome back to Profitcast! In this week's podcast, Brian drops some observations he's been making about the top podcasters and performers. It is his mission, after all, to discern what it is that sets them apart from everyone else. What are the people at the top doing to succeed?

We've established by now that it's difficult to replicate the success of other podcasters. We can follow the same steps and make the same choices, but the chance of seeing the same return is very slim. That said, it is still worth knowing what they've done to put it into context and glean insight in that way. Brian brings up the important fact that many successful podcasters managed to become the first in their topic or niche, and frankly that is hard to do still at this point in the industry. However, the great fact about life is that we all, as individuals, are unique! Even if we can't be first, it is still possible to find that niche that gives us the same opportunities as being first did for others before us. That is largely the theme that Brian follows in this podcast: how to think about your approach, how to think about your style, your uniqueness, and catering to those elements by being the youest you!Read more...

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What time is it? Tool time! Fans of the classic television show, Home Improvement, still say this when asked what time it is. I still say it. Sometimes people who never have seen the show say it. Tool Time with Tim the Toolman Taylor was the alliteration of my childhood.

The premise of Tim's reality show, Tool Time, is a great parallel for the vast array of information Brian and Harry discuss on this week's Profitcast. Having abundance with your podcast harkens back to weeks past when we've discussed similar topics, such as the good-cheap-quick ideal, the you've-got-to-give-to-receive mentality, and in general, the focus on community and building relationships. This discussion is very important because it covers an area that we don't touch on a lot, and that is the establishment of your tool bench. Read more...

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I read The Alchemist for the first time only a couple weeks ago. The premise of this novel, originally published in 1988, is astounding and has one of those perpetually relevant themes about pursuing dreams (or treasures, depending on your interpretation). I’ll try to briefly describe plot without either giving anything away or failing to do it justice.

Santiago, the protagonist, attended seminary as a boy but chose instead to become a shepherd so that he could travel. One night he has a dream about seeking treasure and it initiates his journey to Egypt, to see the pyramids, in search of this treasure. He demonstrates a healthy balance of curiosity and caution, but soon realizes that caution is a bigger threat to his happiness than taking a risk. Read more...

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Last week Brian got nerdy about DragonCon so that he could relate the importance of building a community. This week, Brian gets nerdy about business with very special guest Tom Schwab. It's not purely about business, mind you, but as starting, growing, and maintaining a podcast is very much a business venture, many of the same principles can be applied as we consider the various options available to us in marketing.

One of the most disheartening facts to hear about is how little time people spend reading in lieu of audio or visual resources. It's not an exclusive fact, as I am likely one of few people my age who prefer holding a local newspaper in my hands over a global, glowing newspaper in the palm of my hand, but it’s foolish to ignore the fact that listening is the preferred method of information consumption. This isn’t to say blogging isn’t useful, but everything does have its place. Read more...

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Nerd alert! No, not you. Well, maybe not you. Brian let's his nerd flag fly in this episode as he recaps some of his experiences at DragonCon 2015, but there is undoubtedly something for everyone. Whether you're a nerd of the DragonCon variety, or simply a nerd, or maybe you don't consider yourself a nerd at all (in which case, I must ask, why not? It's all the rage), Brian touches on some very critical points that have to do with every podcaster, regardless of your affiliation with nerdery.

I've been podcasting for only a couple years. For any who are unaware, I was actually mentored in a pretty remarkable way (the story of that journey can be found here) and I've grown and expanded my experience with several different co-hosts since my debut with Darrell Darnell on the TV Talk network. I never did, and still really don't, consider speaking to be my forte. I like the written word, there is something about sitting with a pen in my hand or a keyboard beneath my fingers that finds words quicker and easier than trying to speak them aloud. Because of this, I didn't really think of myself as a "passion podcaster". As I listen to the stories of the guests Brian has on the show and hear the successes of fellow listeners of Profitcast, I point at them and go: there is a passion podcaster. Read more...

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What? What is essential to podcasting? That's why you're here, right? You want to know how to profit with your podcast. Let me share a secret with you: even magic potions have recipes. That's right! Love Potion No. 9 is a recipe. It might smell like turpentine and look like Indian ink, but Madame Ruth mixed it up right there in the sink.

The road to profiting is a recipe, and everybody's recipe is a little bit different. Luckily, creatively combining the various ingredients of a podcast is far less worrisome than creative cooking. In fact, it's much less stressful, in my own opinion. Following recipes can be difficult; maybe you don't have all the ingredients and have to hunt down substitutes, maybe you don't have a utensil required, maybe you don't understand what the recipe means exactly. Take, for example, this recipe from my mother (to the right). I was looking for my Nana's incredibly yummy roll recipe in my mom's recipe box and found this. I quickly took a picture of this notecard with my phone, put the box back where I found it, and left my parents' house without actually reading it. Read more...

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"I deep early, man!" The soon to be immortalized words of Andrew Alliance, this week's Profitcast spotlight and all around excellent human being. What an episode! Andrew and The Real Brian get real in this week's episode, talking about building relationships as the key to growing a meaningful audience.

The correlation between building relationships and growing a podcast audience has come up a few times on Profitcast. The concept itself certainly isn't anything new, but the lessons and insight we get from the various perspectives each time it does come up is incredibly humbling and grounding. Numbers aren't everything, slowly sponsors will begin to see that, but sometimes, in our podcasting heads, we still don't fully understand what that means. When we look at our numbers and see them dip, or see them plateau, or compare them with podcast audience numbers similar to our own, we don't think of the individuals who make up those numbers. We only see the number. And that's dangerous. Read more...

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