Podcasting Money in the Funnel

I have been reading plenty of blog posts and media write up recently about how the money for podcasting is in the inserting of advertising and sponsorship in podcast episodes.  I think this is being said largely due to the fact that podcasting is a new media and many folks think of it as like the baby cousin of traditional radio (as that is how it is monitised).

One big difference though is that radio is broadcasting and it has to appeal to a wide audience, where as podcasting is narrowcasting and has to appeal to a narrow group of people who are passionate and responsive about the subject matter of the podcast, or else they wouldn’t be listening.

So we know they are a targeted audience and if we give good value content and they see us the podcaster as a trusted adviser then they are also more likely to take action when prompted with our web 2.0 friendly call to action (such as a call to opt in on our web site).  For the  online niche marketer with a successful profitable multi step direct response marketing funnel there is more money in the prompting of the podcast listener to opt in to the site to receive high value content (and ultimately sales of related products down the line) than there is in the monitisation of podcasting via ads and sponsorship.   I have 7 podcasts coming on line for direct response internet marketers with proven marketing systems in the next month or two, so time will tell.

That being said I am still a big believer in the community and the value of what building a community around your podcast can do as far as monitization.  The best example I have seen on the web is the boys over at Internet Business Mastery who make the lions share of their income with this exact technique.