💰How to Make Money on Membership Platforms💵
🤸♀️Podcast marketing: let's have some fun. 🌈
Say hi to Shreya for the week!
Omg, hi! You read that right—Shreya Sharma here, and I’m helping Lauren with this week’s Podcast Marketing Magic. (I basically bullied her into letting me do this so THANKS Lauren <3.)
Thanks to my gig at Inside Podcasting, I talk to a lot of independent podcasters who are looking to monetize their shows especially on platforms like Patreon and Ko-fi. So our focus this week is on creators who are monetizing their podcasts on membership platforms. We’re going to hear from two of my favorite fiction podcasters who are, I believe, doing this quite successfully: Anne Baird of Hug House Productions (“Desperado” and “VALENCE”) and Joe Fisher, the creator of audio drama “Midnight Burger.” (These interviews have been edited for clarity and length.)
Let’s hear from them on the whats, hows, and whens of monetization.
But first…
If you can take away just one thing
If this newsletter is too long for you and you can take away ONE thing from this newsletter, I’d say it should be Joe’s words:
Don't drive yourself crazy with complicated benefits, just make sure you're giving them an opportunity to be a shareholder in a show they believe in. You're creating a community, not a client list.
Now, let’s get to it!
Monetization platforms
Let’s hear from them on where to monetize:
Anne: When we decided to start Hug House Productions, we knew we would want to have some way for our fans to support us. Being familiar with the Patreon platform (and seeing how Wil, Katie, and I met in a Patron-only Discord server for supporters of a podcast!) it seemed like a no-brainer that we'd use it.
Check out Hug House on Patreon.
Joe: We launched on Patreon two months before we started Season 2 and we began offering subscriptions on Apple Podcasts right after we had started season 2. We chose those two platforms because they sort of embodied a "yin and yang" of subscription options. Subscribing on Apple is dead simple but there's only so much you can do with it, and Patreon may be a little too complex for your average listener but it did offer the option for supporters to do more than just support us at the basic $2 a month level.
Here’s “Midnight Burger” on Patreon and Apple Subscriptions.
When to start monetizing
A question I often receive is when to start monetizing. I agree with what Anne said:
Set it up BEFORE YOU LAUNCH (if you can). The last thing you want is people thinking "wow I wish I could support this person monetarily" and not being able to find a way to do it. The best way to prevent that is to have those things set up and public before your launch or at least on the day of it. Include links to it on your website, post about it on social media, and make sure you include a CTA in every episode in the audio, show notes, and transcripts.
How to make your membership feed standout
Creators often, rightly so, fret over what to share with their members to make them feel special.
“Midnight Burger” members get consistent offerings that remind them that they’re part of the inner circle. Joe shares:
Members of either 1st tier Patreon or Apple Subscriptions get two week early access to new shows, no ads, a subscriber-only discord server, and "Interludes" (smaller episodes in between our main episodes). On our upper tiers on Patreon we offer a behind-the-scenes show "Shift Notes" where we do a deep dive into each episode during our hiatus, as well as a shout out at the end of each episode and even a name-drop WITHIN one of our episodes.
Over at Hug House, in addition to early episode releases and bonus audio content, members’ input is welcomed. Anne tells me:
We have a Discord server for our Patreon supporters where we post pictures of our pets, discuss pies we're baking, and of course talk about the Hug House shows! We've done early listening parties for episodes of our podcasts, given secret behind the scenes information, and are always happy to answer fan questions about the shows. We also ask the Discord members for input on crowdfunding campaign planning and merchandise ideas so we know what people really want.
Your biggest takeaways and learnings
I asked Anne and Joe to condense their experiences into the biggest takeaways.
Anne considers the toll this takes on creators and their pockets:
Monetization is a necessary evil. Creators should be paid their worth for their work and most aren't, even with monetization. And then there's the added work of running a monetization platform. Creators should keep their rewards for people who support them through monetization platforms like Patreon as simple and easy to fulfill as possible—we found that it was often taking more time and money than we were being paid to create the rewards.
I wholeheartedly agree with Joe when he says:
Whether you offer subscriptions or not, you have subscribers. There are people out there who want to go the extra mile to support what you're trying to do. Offering subscriptions to them and creating a deeper connection with your audience through your subscriptions has no down side. It will create more work for you when you're already very busy, but to coin a phrase from "Spider-Man", with great supporters comes great responsibility.
Final words of wisdom
Both Anne and Joe have been in the podcasting game for a while. As audio fiction creators who wear multiple hats, they’ve picked up a few nuggets of valuable information along the way.
Anne: We always recommend that creators create their membership and subscription platforms when they launch. So that people can support them during the production process, especially in fiction. Don't wait until you're already established and busy—be on top of it and just do it! Maybe you won't get any supporters, but as soon as people want to support you, they'll be able to without having to ask "where can I give you money?"
Joe: In the end people are subscribing because they very much want to support something they love. Don't drive yourself crazy with complicated benefits, just make sure you're giving them an opportunity to be a shareholder in a show they believe in. You're creating a community, not a client list.
That’s all, folks! If you’ve got questions for these two, find me on Twitter or reply to this email and I’ll do my best to get them answered promptly.
Shreya
Show notes:
🪄Here are some tips on making the most of Podcast Movement. [Transistor]
🪄Welcome Bumper to the world! It’s a new podcast growth agency founded by Dan Misener and Jonas Woost, both formerly of Pacific Content. [PodNews]
🪄Bryan Barletta on how to get started with programmatic advertising. [Sounds Profitable]
🪄Courtney Kocak reflects on podcast cadencing. [Podcast Bestie]
🪄WATCH Arielle Nissenblatt on New Media Show!
FROM LAUREN:
Goodness gracious didn’t Shreya do an awesome job? Thanks to her, Anne and Joe! A few notes from me:
🤸♀️I’m speaking at Podcast Movement in Dallas at the end of the month and SHE Podcasts in October. Are you going, too? I’d love to connect!
🤸♀️Make sure to put your podcast in the Promo Swap Database, and if you have a newsletter for your podcast, put that in the Newsletter Swap Database.
🤸♀️If you haven’t already, subscribe to Podcast the Newsletter.
🤸♀️To quote Skye Pillsbury in her latest edition of The Squeeze, if you aren’t listening to Shameless Acquisition Target, what are you even doing?
🤸♀️Pinch me, I was on one of my favorite shows, In Your Hands, talking about podcast marketing. (It’s pretty meta.) Listen here.
🗃 From the Desk of Tink ✏️
ICYMI, Tink Media is a podcast growth and ideas company that helps shows with pitching to apps and media, setting up promo and feed swaps, advertising, wild out-of-the-box thinking, and more.
This week, we’re highlighting a new podcast we’ve been working with, I Am…With Jonny Wilkinson. Jonny (one of the best Rugby players of all time) focuses on the transformations that individuals facing adversity have gone through, coming out thriving on the other side. Jonny combines conversations with remarkable guests and perspectives from sports, spirituality, and science to weave an inspiring narrative. It’s big in the UK and I think more US listeners should be checking it out. Give it a listen!
xoxo lp