How to start a podcast from home. Tips on the cheapest way to get started & how you can make a lot of money

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How to Start a Podcast From Home

Have you been thinking about starting a podcast?  It’s a great idea.  Especially if you have a lot of thoughts and opinions on certain subjects!  Plenty of podcasters earn money every day from podcasts on a wide variety of topics.  You can get podcasts on true crime, travel, college football, politics, hockey…you name it, there are podcasts on it!

And the great thing about podcasting is you can get started at home.  You could make a living from it without having to leave your house.  This is really great for a few reasons.  For starters, not having to rent office space when you start a business saves you a lot of money.  Secondly, it’s a great idea if you have to be home, like if say are taking care of your children, parents or another loved one.

But can you earn money from a podcast?  We’ll go over that next.

How Do You Make Money from a Podcast?

So as I indicated earlier, you can make money from a podcast.  Here are some of the ways. You can choose multiple ways from the list or focus on just a couple.  Whatever works for you and your podcast!

Sponsorships

Have you ever listened to a podcast before and noticed that at some point they referenced their sponsor?  Sponsors are a wonderful way for podcasters to earn money.  It works best if the sponsor is related to the topic.  Say, for example, you have a podcast about being a new mother.  There could be some great sponsorship opportunities for products for babies.  It’s just easier to convince a company to sponsor your podcast if your podcast’s audience would be interested in their product.

Affiliate Marketing

Similar to sponsorships, affiliate marketing is a great way to make money from podcasts.  The difference with affiliate marketing is you make money if a sale is made.  You can include a link in your show notes and landing page or mention the link during your podcast.  Then, if a sale is made, you make a percentage of the sale.

Depending on the amount of sales you make, you could end up making a lot more money or a lot less money than sponsorships.  But you can make a lot of money with your affiliate marketing.  Especially if you pick some great products that really relate to what you’re talking about.  Click here to learn more about getting started with affiliate marketing.

Crowdfunding

Another way to make money is with crowdfunding.  This works particularly well if your podcast has to do with a specific cause.  For example, let’s say your podcast has to do with a political cause.  People may want to pay money so you’ll keep shining a spotlight on political beliefs and injustice they also feel passionately about.  People could also just want to donate money if you explain in your podcast that you will need money to keep going with your podcast.  If they love your podcast, they won’t want to see it go away!

Sell Podcast Promotional Items

So let’s say you start a podcast and you get up a loyal audience.  Which I am sure you will!  You could consider products with your podcast branding!  Just imagine shirts, mugs, phone cases, hats and other items with your podcast logo!

By the way, you can get a logo and promotional products for an affordable price through here.  You can start your own online store without any computer science background or technical skills needed by clicking here.

Use Your Podcast to Sell Your Products

So here is another way you can sell products through your podcast.  It’s just a little bit reversed from the option before.  And this is assuming you already sell products on your website.  If you do, then you can promote your own products through your podcast.  Your podcast would basically be your marketing platform for your website.  Your podcast would get more visitors to your website and expose your business to a bunch of new customers.  Which is obviously great!

Use Your Podcast to Sell Courses

Similarly, you can use your podcast to sell courses on your website.  This is a great idea if you give great tips or advice on your podcast.  Your audience will already see you as an authority on your subject matter.  So they may want to learn more from you.

For example, let’s say you run a quilting podcast.  If your audience already likes listening to your advice, then it would stand to reason they might want to sign up for a course you offer on quilting, right?  Same if you run a personal finance podcast.  Or a food podcast.  You get the idea!

You can get started making a website that sells courses by clicking here.

Have a Subscription-Based Website

Do you have a website? Are you thinking about starting a website alongside your podcast?  You can create a website easily without any computer experience; we go over how to do that here.  If you have a related website to whatever your podcast is, you can make some of your material (like blog entries or videos) available to everyone.  But then you can make other parts of your website subscription-based.  You can then preview those parts of the website during your podcast in order to encourage more people to sign up – and make more sales.

Let’s say, for example, you run a podcast about the Los Angeles Lakers.  You have a podcast where you talk about the Lakers and a website where you perhaps post news.  But you could keep your most in-depth analysis for the password-protected part of your website.  Then during your podcast, you could reference how you broke down their last game showing who the most underrated Los Angeles Laker is on your website.  So when someone goes to look for that after the podcast, they will see they need to pay for it.  And then that’s how you can make money with your podcast!

But the next question is, what do you need to get started with a podcast from home?

What Do You Need to Start a Podcast?

Now you will need the right equipment to get started.  You can pretty much everything you need with this one purchase.  The only other big thing you’ll want to get started is video editing software.  This is what we recommend.

How to Distribute a Podcast

So now you know you can make money with your podcast.  You know what you need to get started.  Now it’s time to get your audience!

The best next course of action for you then is to get Podcast.co.  Podcast.co gives you everything you need to not only launch but manage your Podcast.

Pocast.co

Podcast.co is great because they offer one-click distribution.  Yes, that’s right.  You can distribute to Google, Apple, and Spotify with just one click!

And that’s not all.  Podcast.co offers you a lot of great features.

It’s easy to use, so it won’t be hard for you to learn how to use, even if you have no experience.  You can just click, drag and drop.  No need to learn any coding!  You won’t have to waste your time learning about technical aspects.  Instead, you can spend time working on your actual podcasts!

You can easily create a custom page for your podcast, too.  This is a great landing page you can share places like social media or in emails.  You’ll be able to customize it with your brand colors, logo, and a detailed description of what your podcast is.

And then there’s the fact it gives you so much unlimited things.  You get:

  • Unlimited Storage
  • Unlimited Listeners
  • Unlimited Episodes

So no matter how big your podcast gets, you’ll be covered!

Especially because right now there’s a great deal going on at AppSumo.

If you click here, you can get lifetime access to Podcast.co!  And this is just for $79!  This is such an amazing deal.  You will save so much money because you get to make the one payment rather than paying month after month after month.  You can spend time building your podcast without having to worry about high monthly expenses.

Other Great Podcast.co Features

And the great features don’t just stop with the incredibly appealing price.

If you have a website, you can embed a player on your website so people can enjoy your podcast without ever leaving your website!  You can also embed a subscribe button on your website to help grow your podcast.  The custom subscription button can link to up to 5 popular podcast directories like Google, Apple, and Spotify.  That way, people can subscribe to your podcast on their preferred platform.

You can learn a lot about your podcast listeners from Podcast.co, too.  They provide great analytics that you get insight into your listeners.  These analytics can help you realize what’s the most popular of your podcasts which can help you craft your next podcasts.

Do you want to let listeners donate (which we mentioned earlier is a great way for podcasters to earn money with their podcast)?  Podcast.co will let you add PayPal or Patreon so that your listeners can easily donate money.

Speaking of ways to make money with your podcast, Podcast.co also helps set you up with advertisers for your podcast.