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(By Troy Price) If you have extra time on your hands, consider investing more time into your podcasting efforts. You can be like everyone else in the podcasting space and just put out more episodes, or you can engage in the following efforts. These efforts may result in greater income for you and more influence for you while we are socially isolating and beyond our current crisis.
These suggestions are culled from previous promising practices in podcasting that were never fully adopted and also from generally accepted principles of guerrilla marketing.
Over the next few weeks think about offering giveaways to your listeners. Let’s face it, you probably have extra equipment or unused devices that would make someone else very happy. Think about posting a picture of your old microphone or extra phone case on social media and offering it to the first person that comments. You will build amazing good will with our audience one person at a time and after a few of these posts, you should notice a boost in the organic traffic to your feed.
Consider joining affiliate programs you have rejected in the past. You may have been happy to only share your reading list with your audience and accepting .4 percent from their purchases. However, with what is going on in the world people may now really want an Audible subscription and they would use your coupon code if you had one. You may also consider affiliate programs related to delivery or other subscription services, they are gaining popularity.
It seems that podcasters en masse have chosen monthly reoccurring payments as their method of crowdfunding. Back before 2013 this was not the case. For a while it looked like the industry was going to be funded by micropayments. Podcasters used to ask their audience to go to their website and donate what they could. Dan Carlin made the phrase, “A Buck A Show” a part of his regular show closing. You may consider this option again. With today’s uncertainty, people will more likely give you a one-time donation rather than committing to monthly support.
Podcasters are currently releasing longer episodes more frequently. I am sure that their audiences love the additional content. In addition, you may consider also offering opportunities for unstructured time with you. Having a weekly ‘Virtual Happy Hour’ for your community or regular AMA sessions on social media could build connections that will last far beyond the current situation.
Lastly, you may consider dedicating more time to the pre-production of your show. Use any extra time you have to script your show. Think about prerecording your Calls To Action. Maybe refresh your bumpers. Work to give your show more polish. That is a good use of anyone’s time.
These are a few of the ideas I have added to the Notes App in my phone. Have you had any thoughts about how you are going to use any extra time you have to improve your show? Please share any of your ideas in the comments below.
Troy Price is the co-founder of Front Porch Studios in Berea, Kentucky. He has been involved with podcasting for over a decade. Contact Try by e-mail at Troy@frontporchstudios.com.