5 Signs That Your Podcast Is Not Monetizable
Today I'm talking about 5 Signs That Your Podcast Is Not Monetizable and I really want you to understand why it is important for your podcast.When I talk about 5 Signs That Your Podcast Is Not Monetizable here's what you really need to know:1.You are creating a podcast that “everyone” should listen to.When I’m coaching podcasters, I often ask them who their podcast is for. When they explain to me that anyone could listen to their podcast or everyone could get something out of their podcast, I know we’re on the wrong track.You don’t want to create something for anyone or something for everyone - you want to create something especially for one specific person. The more you can get clear on what that is and who it is, the clearer your path to monetization will be.And in case you start rationalizing that you don’t want to eliminate potential listeners by narrowing your focus, don’t buy into that line of thinking. You can get more listeners, better listeners and listeners that you can convert to clients by only focusing on one very specific avatar.2.You aren’t focused on monetization yet because you just want to get your podcast started, and monetization is something you will focus on later.In the podcast coaching space, you’ll hear this advice a thousand times over. But just because everyone is saying it doesn’t make it true. In fact, this is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. If you haven’t engineered your podcast for monetization from the start, then you are destined to be stuck in free content creation mode. Believe me when I tell you that most podcasts that don’t start with a monetization plan end up podfading long before they ever get around to tackling the making money part.If you “just start” and begin “putting it out there” without any thought for how you are going to turn it into money, then you will also end your podcast without making any money.You will quickly find out that if you are new to podcasting and you ask a question even remotely related to wanting to make money from your podcast, someone will quickly “podsplain” that you are wrong for wanting to start a podcast just for the sake of making money.So, if you’ve ever been “podsplained” about this before, wear it with a badge of honor because you are on the right track. So proudly ignore the “podsplainers” and go turn your podcast into a cash machine.3.There are a lot of things you would like to do “if your podcast really takes off”, but until then you’ll just focus on creating the podcast content.When I’m working with clients and they mention their podcast “taking off”, they think they know what they are talking about until I start questioning them.Can you define “taking off”? I ask them.Well, if a lot of people listen.How many is a lot? I probe further.Well, what’s a good number, I don’t really know?And the conversation goes from there.The problem is that you can’t make a tangible goal contingent on an unquantifiable pre-qualification.You see, podcasters equate success with downloads (or listeners). But they don’t know how many downloads you need to monetize.The reality is that downloads have absolutely no impact on your ability to monetize. Now, don’t get me wrong, the larger your audience, the more money you can make from your podcast. But you can monetize your podcast with any size audience if you know what you are doing.So the argument of waiting until your podcast really takes off doesn’t hold water. And if you hold to that fallacy tightly, you will miss the opportunity to monetize that already exists at the level your podcast is today.4.You believe your audience doesn’t want to be sold to, so that’s why you haven’t really sold them anything.When a podcaster tells me this, it reveals more to me...