Influential Introvert: Communication Coaching for Professionals with Performance Anxiety - Paid Podcasts: Should You Create One?

Starting point is 00:00:01 Welcome to podcasting step by step, where you will learn how to create a podcast that's irresistible. I'm Sarah Mygatel, a podcast launch consultant and an American who has been permanently based in Europe for more than 10 years. I especially love helping fellow expats and location independent entrepreneurs build their online brands and businesses through the magic of podcasting. Looking for one-on-one support, visit sarahmicatel.com to book a podcast launch VIP day with me or to check out one of my online courses. And while you're there, take the quiz to discover what kind of podcast you should create based on your celebrity podcast persona. Go to sarahmicatel.com slash quiz. In case you haven't heard, both Apple and Spotify have rolled out podcast subscription programs,

Starting point is 00:00:48 which would allow individual creators such as yourself to get paid for your work. So is this something that you should check out? In a previous episode on How to Make Money with your podcast, I mentioned the listener support model. This is when you invite your listeners to financially donate to your show. And up until now, the most popular platform to collect this money on and to offer content is called Patreon. And a number of other players have cropped up, including Buy Me a Coffee. You might hear like podcasters mention that. Glow, which was recently acquired by the podcast media host Libson. But now Apple and Spotify let you offer paid subscriptions to your listeners.

Starting point is 00:01:30 Let's talk about Apple first. So you know how in the past we've told all of our listeners, subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Well, now subscribe means paid. So for our free shows, the lingo is we are supposed to tell listeners to follow our shows on Apple Podcast. So free means follow and subscribe. It means paid on Apple Podcasts. But there are, so there are three kinds of shows that you can offer on Apple free. This is what we, you've been doing. So if that's what you want to keep on doing, then nothing changes for you. You're still going to publish your show as is through your podcast media host. You can also offer premium content, and this is where you're offering a mix of free content and then also paid content and then paid shows.

Starting point is 00:02:21 And this is content that people have to pay for. So a show that's like paid only, you're not making this content free anywhere else. And so here are some benefits. that Apple suggests you could offer, and I'm taking this directly from them. So quote, with the Apple podcasters program, you can offer listeners a premium subscription that has additional benefits, including ad-free listening. So let subscribers focus on the story. Additional episodes, give subscribers more to love with additional episodes. Early access, offer subscribers new episodes before everyone else. Subscriber-only shows, give subscribers shows that are only available to them archive access. So unlock access to all the past episodes.

Starting point is 00:03:06 So maybe your newer, this is me chiming, maybe your newer content is free and then you have to pay to get access to the archives. And then Apple goes on to say, consider offering your listeners a free trial to encourage them to try your subscription before buying. So end quote. So if you decide to offer paid content through Apple. podcast, they're going to treat you kind of like the way they treat to their app developers. So you will pay a yearly fee to offer your subscription service. So right now you would pay Apple $20 a year or like 1999. And you can choose how much to charge for your subscriptions. And Apple is going to take a 30% cut of that in the first year and then 15% of that in the following years. And with paid content, you would upload.

Starting point is 00:03:58 that content directly into Apple and not your podcast media host. So you know most of your episodes, you're doing everything in your podcast media host. But for the paid for Apple Podcasts, you're uploading directly to there. And as of right now, the paid content is only available to iOS users. And the majority of podcast listeners are still listening on an iOS device. That's definitely changing. But because Apple has historically done so much in the podcasting, space. Most listeners are still listening on an Apple device, but this, as I said, is changing because like Google and Spotify and all of that. And a benefit of offering a paid subscription through Apple Podcasts is that people can subscribe directly in one link. So there's no friction.

Starting point is 00:04:46 If they want to subscribe, boom, click the button and they're subscribed. Now onto Spotify. So they've also just launched a paid podcast subscription for creators like yourself. and your podcast has to be, so if you're doing a paid podcast with them, it has to be hosted on Anchor, which Spotify owns. Right now, it's only open to U.S. podcasters. And for the first two years of the program, creators can keep all the profits. And then Spotify is going to take 5% of that starting in 2023. Though James Cridlin of Pod News notes that it's not entirely free because when people subscribe and payments come through, you're going to have to have to be. to pay for that payment processing. And right now it's about like probably 3%. And James also notes that the experience isn't going to be as seamless as if you were subscribing through Apple Podcasts. And this is because Spotify is skirting around having to share any profits with Apple and Google via their app stores. And so if you're like offering a subscription through Spotify, your potential subscribers are going to have to take the extra step of going to a webpage and adding their

Starting point is 00:05:55 credit card info and you know you'll probably get some drop-offs there and you don't have to choose between having paid content on apple or Spotify. The content doesn't have to be exclusive. So you could be, you know, offering paid subscriptions on both if you wanted to if you didn't think that would be too confusing for your listeners. The question is, should you bother having a paid podcast at all? Patreon estimates that between 1 and 5% of your audience would pay for content and as we all know, most podcasts are free. So on a recent episode of Shee Podcasts, Elsie Escobar doubted that people would pay more than $4.99 a month for an individual podcast description, more like between $1.99 and $4.99. So if you had an audience of 100 people, just for math,

Starting point is 00:06:45 sake of easy math, they'll probably still get those wrong, if you had an audience of 100 people to your free podcast and then you announced to them, hey, I've got this new, like, special premium podcast that I'm offering you guys, let's say three of those 100 jumped on your offer to pay $5 a month for your premium show. That would mean you would be earning $15 a month for that extra podcast, paid podcast that you were creating. And maybe you're not doing it for the money, so that doesn't matter to you. But it's a good idea to think beforehand why you would want to be creating this bonus content or this exclusive, like, premium paid only show. People have in their minds what certain things are worth. So for books,

Starting point is 00:07:31 I'm paying this much for podcasts. I'm paying this much online courses, memberships one-on-one services. Even though content can be quite similar, what people think they should be paying for that is diverse based on what they're seeing elsewhere. So maybe what you really want to be doing is creating a private podcast through something like Hello Audio and then offering that as a free bonus to people who are in a membership that you created or a group coaching program. You have a lot of options, but you don't have a lot of time in your life. That resource, time is a resource that too many people take for granted. So think very carefully about how you want to be spending your time. Many people who do ask for listener support say that their favorite way of saying thank you to their patrons is to host

Starting point is 00:08:24 group chats with their listeners discussions. And their listeners say that that's their favorite thing too. So maybe you don't need to be creating more content. Maybe what your listeners really want is more connection. And if that is the case, you don't need to create a new podcast. Maybe something like Patreon is still the way to go for you. That's all for now. To learn how you can sign up for a one-on-one podcast launch VAP day with me

Starting point is 00:08:49 or to learn more about one of my online podcast courses, visit sarah micotel.com. And while you're there, take the quiz to discover what kind of podcast you should create based on your celebrity podcast persona. Go to sarah megatel.com slash quiz. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends.

Starting point is 00:09:20 Download it at sarah migatel.com slash blank no more.

Influential Introvert: Communication Coaching for Professionals with Performance Anxiety - Paid Podcasts: Should You Create One?

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