If you now want to take your podcasting journey a level higher and gain revenue from it, nothing beats monetizing your podcast using Woocommerce! Woocommerce is one of the top-rated plugins of WordPress, which is exceptionally useful when it comes to monetizing a podcast. Let’s get into more details on how you can monetize your podcast using Woocommerce and let the revenue flow!
What is Woocommerce?
Woocommerce is an entirely free plugin created by the makers of WordPress! It is an eCommerce platform wherein you can earn revenue from it via different methods.
Once you install Woocommerce to your WordPress, you can easily add multiple products to your podcasting website and sell them.
How Can You Use Woocommerce to Monetize Your Podcast?
There are multiple ways you can use woocommerce to monetize your podcast. Here are the top five ways to monetize podcasts with Woocommerce and earn from it.
Sponsorships
Many podcasters tend to run multiple advertisements or sponsorships either in the beginning or during the middle of the episode. You just need to mention the sponsors in exchange for a fee and talk well about their company while recommending them to your audience.
Also, you can create spaces on your podcast website wherein you can add ads and sponsorships.
When it comes to podcast advertising and sponsorships, typically, there are three options for you:
Pre-roll: This is at the beginning of your show, wherein you list out the sponsors of your podcast in a line.
Mid-roll: When the talk segues into a break or transitions to a guest, you can subtly mention the sponsors of your podcast or any sponsored product.
Post-roll: This is when you add quick shout-outs or a sponsor mention during the outro of the show.
A common way to start your journey in sponsorships and advertising is to get a podcast advertising network. Here you need to pay the brokers a certain amount of fee or percentage. They will bring and manage the right sponsorships for you.
Alternatively, suppose you have a decent number of listeners. In that case, you can always reach out to multiple companies that can benefit from your podcasts and see if they would be interested in sponsoring your next episodes.
For example, if you run a podcast about everything related to coffee, it would be a wiser choice to pitch some good cafe or coffee machine production companies to sponsor your next episodes related to coffee.
However, if you have a primarily vegetarian audience base, it would be foolish to pitch to meat-supplying companies.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is the next full-proof option to monetize your podcast and earn from it. You can enroll in different affiliate programs, such as the Audible Creator program!
Here you need to promote audible 30-day trial membership with a custom URL. For every trial generated, you will earn $15. Likewise, many more affiliate programs are meant for podcasters.
However, it is always recommended that you disclose your affiliate links either during the show or in the show notes.
Other affiliate programs that you can try are ShareASale, Awin, Commission Junction, JVZoo, etc. All of these platforms have their separate rules, regulations, and commission percentages for every affiliate. Hence, it is recommended that you always go through the info before enrolling in the programs.
Selling Your Products
Here you have complete control over your monetization opportunities and growth since your audience will stay within your platform and will not be redirected to other platforms, which was the case with sponsorships and affiliate links.
However, which products will give you more sales? How to create a product that you can sell via your podcast?
The best solution to this query is to engage and analyze your audience’s pain points to know their needs and develop them.
You can then promote your products in pre-roll, mid-roll, or post-roll just like you do for your sponsorships and gain more traction toward the products.
There are typically two types of products that you can create and sell through your podcasts.
Digital Products
Digital products include ebooks, courses, extended audio files, or email swipe files.
Some examples of digital products include:
- Legal templates for starting a business or a blog
- Swipe files of email marketing copies to market their businesses
- Recipe videos or meal plans
- Ebooks with interview transcripts
- Courses teaching how to lose weight or market your services
- Takeaways from popular guests
Physical Products
Physical products include products that you create or bundle together into a single package. Some of them include:
- Journals, planners, or hard copies of books
- Custom merchandise like stickers, buttons, mugs, and other miscellaneous items
- Apparel like shirts, hats, hoodies, etc.
- Homemade crafts
You can also create subscription boxes with multiple products and sell them at a discounted price for more traction!
Sell Your Services
If the idea of creating products seems overwhelming, you can also choose to sell your services and earn revenue from them. This requires more of your existing talent with some additional advertising.
First, you need to figure out what you are good at, package it into a service and use your podcasting platform for advertising it.
Let’s check out some of the most common services that podcasters offer and are gaining massive revenue from it.
Consulting
If you are an expert podcaster in your industry, you can sell consulting services to people who are completely new to this industry and are willing to grow.
For example, your podcasts are about freelancing and making money online.
Suppose you have a good record of making money online already. In that case, you can easily attract clients who are on the verge of starting their freelance careers and guide them throughout their journey by having hourly consulting sessions.
Coaching
Be it mental wellness coaching, creative wiring coaching, or fitness coaching. If you have expertise in any industry and have a good audience base, you can easily coach people who are interested in your programs.
You can either hold one on one coaching or coach multiple people together. You can easily charge them for a certain amount of hours.
Asking for Donations
If you already have a decent audience base, then this is an excellent choice for you. Some of the ways you can ask for donations from your audience include:
- Patreon for Podcasters allows your listeners to send you monthly donations in exchange for special incentives or exclusive content.
- You can create a PayPal Donate button for monthly or one-time donations from your loyal listeners.
Lastly, you need to add value to your listeners and solve their problems. This way, they’ll keep coming back for more.
Using Woocommece Memberships for Your Podcast Website
Woocommerce memberships are an easy way to convert your podcast website into a full-fledged membership site. To sum up, you can bring your podcasts, shows, shop, and memberships all under a single platform.
Woocommerce memberships offer a wide range of features, including automated expiry and renewal emails.
However, it is certainly not free and costs $199/year.
Woocommerce memberships will manage and streamline all your podcast subscriptions, sales, and other aspects of your podcast website, and you can focus more on advertising your sale. In addition to that, you can also reward your loyal customers with different goodies and retain them.
Woocommerce Extensions Worth Buying
Even though Woocommerce is completely free of charge, and it is sufficient enough to run a full-fledged store all alone just through Woocommerce, it is always recommended to add a bunch of useful Woocommerce extensions to streamline your journey even more.
The Woocommerce directory is filled with multiple extensions that have their benefits. A few of them which can help in your podcasting journey are:
- Woocommerce Subscriptions: Here, you can offer subscriptions in exchange for benefits, like early access, behind-the-scenes, exclusive content, or shoutouts.
- Woocommerce Memberships: You can create members-only areas on your website wherein you can post additional extra content for your audience. You can also add a community, forum, or early access material here.
- Woocommecer Bookings: You can run live bookings on your website for interviews, coaching, consultations, paid events, guest bookings, and whatnot!
- Woocommerce Sensei: You can create your online courses through Woocommerce Sensei and sell access to those courses via Woocommerce to your audience.
Final thoughts
As your podcast grows over time, you must find ways to monetize your content and earn revenue from it. Apart from earning revenue, adding monetization opportunities to your podcast will help you engage and connect better with your audience. Thus, choose your suitable method of monetizing podcasts with Woocommerce, install the extensions, and enjoy your podcasting journey even more!