‘I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here’ has been enjoying a change of venue this year. Playing out on our screens as we write, there was an interesting conversation between two campmates recently.
In the clip, Giovanna Fletcher chatted to Shane Ritchie about her podcast. He asked her if it made her any money. “Oh, yes,” she said, her tone making it clear that this was an understatement.
Coming into IAC, it’s probably fair to say that Giovanna Fletcher was one of the less well-known participants. Wife of the McFly band member, Tom Fletcher, Giovanna’s podcast is for mums of young children, and is entitled ‘Happy Mum, Happy Baby’.
As an author and Instagram influencer, Giovanna has amassed a personal fortune from her podcast. Starting out on YouTube in 2011, in just a few years her videos had won an army of fans as she documented her life with her husband and three young children. She then incorporated regular podcast episodes into her portfolio of content, which covered the same subject. Hitting the general rise in popularity of podcasts of all genres, Giovanna’s was a hit with her audience, who could digest it in the car on the school run or whilst making dinner, when commuting to work or during their daily exercise. Her podcast success led to various book deals and it helped her amass 1.4 million followers on Instagram.
Giovanna, it could be argued, has the benefit of a celebrity musician as a husband. She has also worked a number of platforms, not just her podcast, to increase her overall reach and visibility. However, it must be said that her podcast has been perhaps her greatest success, given that she has attracted the likes of the social-media-shy Duchess of Cambridge and fellow celeb mums such as Amanda Holden as guests.
So, for those of us who don’t have a member of McFly as a partner, how can we monetise our common-or-garden podcasts?
There are some podcast hosts that pay a small royalty to their creators each time someone downloads and/or streams their content. This may not be much per episode, but when you hit the same number of subscribers/listeners as Ms. Fletcher, it mounts up.
As your platform expands, you may enjoy new projects, collaborations and work off the back of your podcast content, particularly so if it’s aired frequently with a consistent theme, so that your audience can begin to know, like and trust your brand. If you’re sharing valued information with your target audience, it’s natural that you will be seen as the expert in your field, and you will become the person potential leads will come to when they’re in need of the help you offer.
When you have a large enough platform, you may attract sponsors keen to tap into the same audience that you have carved out for yourself. The more fans, the more you can command in sponsorship fees. And if this sounds like a lot of hard work until you reap the rewards, there are many successful podcast series out there that started from nothing and were created in the first instance by a ‘nobody’.
Your fanbase may happily donate towards a project you’re undertaking. Your podcast platform could prove the perfect amplifier to shout about what you’re doing, and act as a crowd-funder if you need to raise funds.
You may wish to run adverts for other brands under an affiliate arrangement, where you earn commission from each sale made via the podcast. And, of course, you can use your podcast to promote and sell your own products.
As with any content, however, it’s not just about the money. If you provide content of value, people will pay to hear it. If you simply use the time in-front of the microphone to sell, sell, sell, you may find more people switching off than customers clamouring for your product/service.
Remember: education before remuneration.
Novus Marketing Solutions has its very own podcast studio, which is available to hire at affordable prices on a half-day or full-day basis (the latter is great for whittling through a few podcast episodes in one go, and has less of an impact on your other business tasks). Contact 07983 575934 for more information or book online here
