How to Grow and Monetize an Entertainment Podcast

All right, so a lot of my content focuses on business owners who are looking to grow their podcast audience and generate more revenue, yet a lot of my audience is podcasters who are not business owners and have entertainment only podcasts. And this makes a lot of sense because that's where I came from. My original show that I first started with back in the day was an entertainment only show. I cut my teeth in podcasting, and so I get the question a ton, but what about us? How can entertainment only podcasts grow their audience and monetize? And it seems to me that, you know, the folks that consume what I put out there who are entertainment only shows struggle with implementing what I teach. And furthermore, sometimes we do bring entertainment only podcasts into my coaching program, to grow the show podcast accelerator, and we find that those folks struggle mightily with the fact that many of their peers in the program are business owners and that the course pretty much speaks directly to business owners. So I am making this to address the similarities and differences between business podcasts and entertainment podcasts and hopefully to help entertainment podcasters see that the concepts that I teach work just the same. And then if you can manage to apply them to your show, you will find growth and monetization success. Now, before I begin, for those who don't know me, my name is Kevin Schmidland, I'm the founder and host of Grow the Show, which exists to help you grow and monetize your podcast with ease. I launched my first podcast as a side hustle for my corporate job in 2018. And by the end of 2019, that show had accrued over 120,000 downloads and was making 8 to 12k per month via sponsorships, merch sales, live events, a modest Patreon, consulting services, and a handful of other streams of income. Before it was done, that show made about 150k in total revenue in the 18 months that it published regularly. Then in 2020, I launched Grow the Show, a podcast and high ticket coaching system, which as of this recording generated $880,000 in revenue in 22 months. And the difference in those two revenue numbers and about the same timeframe will give you a clue as to why podcasts that support a product or service are what I recommend if you want to make the most amount of money possible. But stick with me, because I'm not going to try to convince you not to be an entertainment podcaster in this piece, I'm going to compare and contrast the two models and help you understand how to maximize your growth and revenue as an entertainment podcaster, also that you can unlock the podcast growth and revenue that you've been craving since you launched the show. So, let's dive in. What are the key differences and what is the same between an entertainment only podcast and a podcast that is more for information or educational purposes and supports an actual business? Well, first, let's talk about the things that are the same. Number one, you still, regardless of whether your show is for entertainment purposes or for business purposes, you still need to understand and be intentional about why people are going to listen to your podcast. Now, the biggest block that I hear in entertainment podcasters is that when I say, why does your show exist? Why will people like your show? They'll say, because it's entertaining, and I've got news, people don't consume anything that isn't entertaining. And as the great podcast expert, Jay Akunzo said on his episode of My Podcast Grow the Show, entertainment is table stakes. It's the baseline. Your podcast has to be entertaining no matter what, right? So just because your podcast is entertaining is not enough of a reason why people are going to tune into your show. That's like answering the question, why do people listen to your podcast with because it exists? If that were true, you'd have thousands of listeners, right? So entertainment alone is not a reason that anyone's going to pay attention to you and your show. You have to figure out, why are they going to choose your show over the two point, whatever million other podcasts that are available? Still I get it. It's hard to figure out why listeners are going to choose your entertainment over others. So as an exercise for how to figure out what your show actually provides, what is the benefit? What is the outcome? What is the transformation? What is the why that people are going to actually listen to your show? Try this. I want you to go to the closest physical human being to you or if you're completely by yourself right now, the next time you come across somebody and I want you to ask them either what movie TV show podcast, sport, content creator, album or song they are really into at the moment. Just pick one of those things, right? And then when they tell you ask them why? Ask them why they're into that thing right now, something that's entertainment only. Now it's key that you don't ask them what their favorite movie is or what their favorite TV show is because number one, they're going to say that's really hard because you're making them pick the best one ever and you've already lost them. And number two, if you ask them what their favorite is and they tell you and then you ask them why they love it, they're going to say because it reminds them of something that they value in the past, right? That's not what we're going for here. If you want to ask them why they're into a movie or TV show or podcast or whatever right now and listen to what they say, they are not going to say because it's entertaining. That's just not how people think, right? That's not the reason that people give, listen closely to the reasoning that they give when you ask them why they're into it, right? Now that reason is not going to be why people are into your entertainment podcast, but listen to how they answer and then think, okay, how are your listeners to your podcast going to answer that question? And then if you really want to take this exercise to the next step, ask them getting contact with some of your listeners and ask them why they like the show or get a third party to ask them why, right? So that they don't know that they're talking to you or you can pretend to be somebody else. Or you can just read the reviews that you have for your podcast and if you don't have any reviews and you can't get in contact with any listeners, then you just, you still need to ask somebody that's in the space of the audience that you want to target. And this here, I start with this because this is the point that I think entertainment podcasters in my audience have struggled with the most and where they get the most tripped up because I tell everyone that you need to, you know, define the why, right? Define the outcome, the transformation, the destination or the benefit that your podcast will give to people and anybody who's making a show that isn't how to seems to not be able to figure that out. And I get it. It's hard. It's, it's literally harder to do for entertainment shows. But if you can do it, it is going to solve your growth issues because then you'll be able to say, oh, my podcast gives people this. How do I go find more people who want this? And then it becomes way easier, right? If you're just going by off of all what's entertaining, then I'm telling you it's not going to work, right? So the second thing that is the same between how to and business shows and purely entertainment shows is that you still need a unique premise. And when I say unique, I mean that in the definition of the word unique, as in it is the only one on the planet, right? Not, oh, it's kind of unique. There's no such thing. Something is either unique in that it is one of a kind or it is not, right? So you need to be able to say that this is the only podcast in the entire world that blank. And if you're thinking, well, that's hard. It is hard. Yes. That's something that you must do. What makes your show about film or whatever it is different than literally every single other podcast on the planet? What is going to make your show so compelling alone that people will listen to the show in spite of the fact that you are a complete stranger and they have no idea who you are or what you have to offer. But the show premise is that good. They just got to tune in. That's how unique your show has to be. If your show is vague, like, oh, we talk about sports. It's not going to work. If it's just, oh, it's fiction. It's an interesting story. Not going to work. You have to put out, put forth a unique premise. My favorite example of this is hot ones, right? So the two co-founders of the famous YouTube channel, Hot Ones, they decided they wanted to create a celebrity interview show. But if they did what everyone else did, how many celebrity interviews shows that are out there, right? There's like five of them on every single night on the major networks. So how the heck were these two independent folks supposed to compete with that group? Just by themselves by making a YouTube channel, they made a unique premise. They said we are going to interview celebrities while they eat progressively hotter hot wings. Now, when you first found out about hot ones, you didn't know how good of an interview where Sean was, right? And even if someone told you, always a really good, great interviewer, you would have been like, yeah, okay, whatever, fine. But as when they said, it's an interview show where the celebrities as the interview goes on has to eat hotter and hotter hot wings. You're like, oh my god, that sounds great. That's what got you in the door, the unique premise and the incredible interviewing is what got you to stay in that show a smash hit, right? So even if you are the most entertaining mother, blanket on the planet, you still, if you're going to do this independently and not get yourself put on SNL, you still have to come up with a unique premise. This is the only podcast on the planet that does why. It's the show when the games are made up and the points don't matter, right? Okay, the third thing that is the same from between entertainment shows and how to shows is that you still have to define your audience as specifically as you can, right? I have another video talking about how you can do that, but I will admit that this is going to be a little bit tougher for entertainment shows than it is for how to shows because my show is a how to grow and monetize a podcast show. And so who is the audience? People who want to know how to grow and monetize a podcast, but if your show is entertainment like it's comedy or talk or fiction or something like that, then you're going to have to do a little bit of extra work to figure out who the show is for. And when you have an entertainment show, it often puts you in the trap of not being able to figure out who your audience is and just thinking, oh, people who like comedy, that's not going to work. You have to be more specific and you're going to have to figure out what makes the people who like what you like tick. Why are they going to pick your show up over literally every single podcast on the planet? Now, this is this level of audience specificity is not only going to make it easier for to get new listeners, but it's also going to make it easier for you to monetize because you're going to know this group of people so well, it's going to make it way, way, way easier for you to do the fourth thing that is the same between how to shows and entertainment shows, which is this in my opinion, every single sustainable way to monetize a podcast profitably boils down to this converting a fraction of your listeners into customers of something, right? So that can either be a product or service that you create business owners obviously fit into this bucket, right? But this also applies to some entertainment shows. So if you monetize by selling merch, that's a product that you create and sell. If you monetize by selling tickets to live events, that is a product that you create and sell. If your product is a Patreon membership, that is a product and service that you create and sell, right? So that's one way to monetize a show is by creating and selling something that you create, right? Or the other way to monetize any podcast sustainably in my opinion is by selling somebody else's product, right? And so that's sponsorships and affiliate ads. In all of those cases, you have to take your listener base and get a portion of them to buy something, either something that you made or something that somebody else made, right? And so either way, the skill that you have to build is the same. And either way, you have to get good at getting to know your audience, knowing who they are, why they love your show and what products and services they will listen to you and buy. Now here we come across another big time struggle that I see entertainment podcasters have, right? And it's not having a business mindset, right? So if you want to be an independent podcaster and you want to your show to be a business, you have to have a business mindset. You have to treat it and think about it like a business. And if it's a business that means you have to sell, you have to just get over your aversion to selling, believe me, as somebody who was as a sells a verse as could possibly be, you're able to get over it once you realize that it's really easy to not be a sleazy salesman if you just don't be sleazy, right? Just don't do the thing that you're afraid of doing and you won't turn into the thing you're afraid of turning into still independent podcasters who show is quote unquote in their own words, entertainment only. These folks who are averse to selling their own or selling someone else's product or service tend to speak in these terms, right? They want their listeners to donate, right? These are also people who think that sponsors and listeners give them money to support the show. And yes, you say when you read your ads, please think, you know, super cast for supporting the show, but in actuality that your sponsors are not paying to support the show, right? Nobody is giving you money ever to support your podcast. They will be just fine if your podcast doesn't exist. The only person on this planet that wants your podcast to exist bad enough for you to pay for it is you, right? And so the only reason that anybody on this planet, business or human being is going to give you money for your podcast is that if they get something else in return, that is the only reason that they are going to give you money to keep your show alive. And so if you can just come to terms with that fact and start to think of this in a way that is, okay, this is a business. I want to provide value to my listeners or to somebody else in order to get money, then you can start to treat this thing like a business. So those are pretty much all the things that remain the same between how to and business shows and entertainment only shows. And you'll notice that that's kind of my framework for growing a podcast anyway, right? Have a unique premise, something that makes your show completely unique. It's the only podcast on the planet that blank have a really, really, really solid understanding of who your audience is and why they listen to the show. This is going to make it way, way, way easy for you to get more listeners to that podcast and understand where to go to get more listeners to find out about you. And number three, you still have to monetize the show by converting a percentage of your listenership to customers of something. Either something that you made like live events or merchandise or a Patreon or supercast membership or something that somebody else made like a business or a sponsorship or an affiliate ad. These things are all the same. And so if you're an entertainment show, I think the biggest thing that unlock is just figuring out why people are going to pick your entertainment and how it entertains them, what benefit it gives them. So if you're a comedy show, you make them forget their troubles, right? That's a benefit that's more than just entertainment. If you're a talk show, right, they come to you for the conflict. They're not coming to hear you talk about anything. They're coming for the hot take. And so if that's truly what you want to do, which again, that's harder to do than on how to show, you have to get behind that fully understand it and lean into it completely. So okay, I've talked about what is the same between how to shows and entertainment shows, but what is different between how to shows and entertainment shows? So here's the thing, entertainment shows in general require much more volume to work financially. Everyone in the United States and in a lot of the world thinks that entertainment should be free, right? They want to people don't want to pay for entertainment. And at the same time, when you're just putting out pure entertainment, you're in show business, which means that you are competing with Netflix and Amazon and Disney and music and movies and massive podcast networks and all these things have unbelievable piles of cash to market that you don't have, right? So I'm not trying to discourage you from doing an entertainment show, but you just have to understand what you're up against, right? And why that the path to success here is by going really, really, really niche and really specific and being in a category of one so that you're not competing with anyone. Because here's the thing, competition and entertainment is fierce. Entertainment is winner take all. People don't want to hear a pretty good singer. They only want to pay to hear the best singer that's in town, right? Now, people have this idea that the way to get rich and famous is by being an entertainer. That what they don't consider is that the way to get rich and famous is by being the best entertainer on the planet, right? Not just any. The median salary in the United States for a professional athlete. Guess what it is? $77,000 for year. That's pretty good, right? But do you know how freaking good you have to be to be a low level professional athlete? Think about the best professional athlete that you went to high school with and odds are that they're not good enough to be pro and make $77,000 a year median, right? And the people that are half of them are making less, right? Half of professional athletes are making less than that. The median pro musician according to Rolling Stone in 2018, guess how much the median middle ground made, $28,000 per year. The median actor according to US news in the United States, median. So half of them make less $43,000 per year. Half of actors in the United States that are professional make less than that, right? These are folks that have chosen entertainment as their career path. So if you're somebody who is starting up a side hustle and you think that entertainment in your spare time is going to be something that makes you millions and makes you famous, it's possible, yes, but it's your up for a challenge. Okay, I'm sorry. I know that by now you're probably feeling pretty discouraged about the choice to have a podcast that is entertainment focused. And so I'm not here to get you to stop that, right? I'm just here to help you understand what's happening. And honestly, this is why I switched, right? So I managed to make my really specific podcasts in Philadelphia. I managed to make that make between eight and 12K per month, right? I was making six figures per year. But again, that entertainment only show had a really insanely specific audience. And it required several streams of income to make it work, right? Now, this was a show about Philadelphia, but I had to get even more specific, right? So I interviewed the movers and checkers in Philadelphia, but there were already shows that interviewed movers and checkers in Philadelphia. So I had to get more specific and make that show very cinematic. It was narrative, right? It told their story like you were listening to a movie. It was the only podcast on the planet that did that for Philadelphia stories. And through multiple streams of income, I was able to make it six figures. It was really, really, really specific. And I learned how to convert my listeners to customers of stuff, of stuff I made and stuff that other people made, right? Once I switched into coaching and education, that's when I was able to experience much higher profit numbers and was able to generate seven figures in revenue in under two years, on only 210 clients, right? I only had to get 210 of my listeners to convert into a customer of my high-tech business. And I was able to generate just under a million dollars. So having said all of this, hopefully you're still watching this video. Hopefully you're still with me if you're an entertainment podcaster and you're not too disappointed because I want to talk to you now about what you can do about this, right? So having said that, there are indeed tons of creators who are making good money and who have a much larger audience than I have from shows that are entertainment only. So I am one person, there's a million ways to do anything in this world. And so it's certainly possible to grow and monetize an entertainment show, despite what I have said. But I am correct in that it is harder than growing and monetizing a how to show. So my goal is not to discourage you again, growing and monetizing an entertainment show is the same strategy. So my goal here was to force you to take a hard realistic look at what you're trying to do, right? To make an entertainment show something that can replace your job, all of that said, if grow the show got taken away from me and I were forced to go back into starting a podcast from scratch. And for some reason, I was banned from creating a how to show and I had to create an entertainment show. Here's what I would do. Number one, I would make that entertainment show have a really, really, really compelling and unique premise. And again, when I say unique, I mean that in the definition of the word where it is the only podcast on the planet that does X or Y, something that people are really interested in, regardless of the fact that they don't know who I am, the premise is what's going to get them in the door. And then once they get in the door, they're going to fall in love with me, the entertainer. That's step one, then step two, I would create a place where my listeners can go to interact with each other. And in that place, I will engage with them and observe them 24 seven so that I can get to know why they love my show so I can do more of that. And what other stuff they're interested in and what products they buy so that I can either or both make those products and sell them to them or find sponsors of products they will buy and get sponsorship deals. I would build that community in today at the time of this recording, Facebook group or subreddit or discord, who knows in the near future, there might be a new tool that's better for online communities, but you've got to have that place where you can stick all your listeners, observe them, get to know them and build a community. Number three, I would then start going out and getting new listeners. I would first do that on social media by doing two things simultaneously. Number one, I would do targeted daily engagement, which is my framework 15 minutes a day to grow a social media audience. And I would do that so that I can actually interact with the people that I want to get in touch with, get to know them, validate my assumptions about them. And then after having interactions with them, I would DM them and ask them if they listen to podcasts. And if they do, I would DM them a link to my show, right, in the app of their choice, or you can DM them and simply invite them to join your community, right, your Facebook group, your discord, whatever it is. And then from there, you can talk about the podcasts and other people will be talking about the podcast. So that's the first thing I would do on social media, targeted daily engagement, start to get people to listen to my podcasts, start to learn from them, get them into my community. And then at the same time, I would pick one social platform where a, I believe my audience hangs out and be where I like to consume, right. And I'll take that platform, just one, not all of them, just one platform. And I would start publishing content every single day on that platform that relates to my podcast, right. So if I'm on TikToks, I would make TikToks that relate to the thing that my podcast is about, not TikToks that say, Hey, everybody, go listen to my podcast. If I was on Instagram, I would make reels. If I was on Twitter, I would release, I would publish a thread every single day. And if I was on LinkedIn, it would be texts posts with polls, although LinkedIn's generally how to show. So it's probably TikTok, Instagram or Twitter. If I had a comedy show, I would make TikToks featuring the funniest moments of that comedy show and post them every single day. If I had a debate or an opinion or a talk show, I would either make TikToks that feature the hottest takes from each episode and post those so they go viral or I would make Twitter threads and tweets that feature the hottest takes and get them to go viral, right. That'll get more people to engage with me so that I can get them to listen to my show. If I had a storytelling podcast, I would make either TikToks or Instagram reels featuring the best point in the story, condense it to one minute, make it really, really tense. And just for any other entertainment show, basically take the thing that your show does, the value that your show provides and then go to one social media platform that has organic reach and every single day post a piece of content that provides the same value that your show does. Remember, it's not about promoting your podcast. It's about providing the same value that your podcast provides, but on that platform. I would do this, spending a decent amount of time on social media every single day, creating content on one social media platform for the purpose of it going viral, interacting with people on that social media platform for at least 15 minutes every day and inviting people into my community, either a Facebook group or a discord, where I have permission to interact with them and they can interact with the rest of the people in the community and the whole time I would publishing podcast episodes, putting them in that community and also repurposing content on that one social platform as well. Once the show is at 500 downloads, I would start strategically and ruthlessly getting myself featured and my podcast featured on other podcast feeds that are related, either via me being a guest or by doing trailer swaps or episode drops. Now, if you've paid attention to me at all, you'd notice that these are the same exact strategies that I teach, right? It's just somehow different because it's an entertainment show. The last thing that I would do and turn it into a six figure podcast business, depending on how badly I needed cash, I would monetize in this order. If I was totally strapped, I would find something expensive that my audience buys and I would negotiate an affiliate deal with whoever makes that thing so that I can make five to 10% of each thing I sell to my audience. For example, a Grow the Show Accelerator client is launching a show about Star Wars. And so he has been crushing it on Twitter, putting out viral tweets every single day. Guess what the Star Wars fans who are going to listen to his show buy that's expensive, like $500 lightsabers, right? So he can make a deal with the company that makes the lightsabers where hey, every lightsaber that I sell to my audience, give me 50 bucks, you sell 10 of them, you make 500 bucks right there. So that's the first thing I would do if I was totally strapped. If I had a little bit more time to monetize the show, I would push as hard as I can to get the audience to one to 5,000 people. And then I would launch a $10 per month membership, which I could reasonably expect about 100 people to join if it was mediocre, but I would make it really good so more people would join. And that would make me about $1,000 a month, which I can then plow into production costs and also growing by buying ads on other podcasts and buying ads in the podcast apps like overcast and pocket cast and a bunch of other ones. And then at the same time at that audience size, I would also start selling ads for the podcast. Because remember, I understand my audience so well and it's so specific that I can negotiate a higher rate than the industry standard of $25 CPM. And at two to three ads per episode, I could make an extra $500 per month already, which again, I could plow back into audience growth by buying podcast ads in apps, podcast apps and also buying podcast ads on other podcasts while still also ruthlessly and totally for free doing targeted daily engagement every single day and getting myself featured on other podcast feeds. This whole time, I would also be thinking of products and services that I can make and sell for my audience, things that are really, really fun to make and that they'll love and then I'll be well on my way to a seven figure podcast in no time. Now, this was my attempt to clear up thinking and provide a roadmap for entertainment podcasters to grow and monetize their shows as quickly as possible. I blew through that really, really quickly and didn't have time to explain all of that because I basically walked you through my framework for growing and monetizing a podcast. I have a course in my program that's 260 videos that walks through all of that stuff. So obviously I couldn't go through all of it here, but this message is for all of the entertainment podcasters that are in my audience. I hear you. I understand that's a little bit different because it's more abstract to apply the lessons that I'm teaching, but I challenge you to do the work, to understand what makes your show one of a kind and who your listeners are really specifically and why they listen to your show other than it's entertaining. If you can do those two things, it will literally unlock all of the other strategies that I teach and that other podcast experts teach as well. The biggest, biggest roadblock is just being too broad and too vague with the way that you think about and talk about your show and your audience. That's literally it. If you can get into their heads and dig to the core of what your show actually is, then I'm telling you you apply all these same things and it will work, right? There are podcasters in the growth show community who have blown me away with what they've been able to accomplish in terms of growth and monetization from entertainment shows alone because they were able to have a business mindset and stop thinking, well, I guess this won't work for me because I'm an entertainment show. You gotta just figure out how to make it work for you, all right? So hopefully this wasn't too discouraging and hopefully rather than being sad because the pipe dream of if you build it, they will come is over and hopefully instead you're feeling a little bit inspired and you have a sense for clarity for how to show up, make your show stand out and freaking build the business that you've been dreaming of having. I've been there before I can tell you it is absolutely all that it's cracked up to be but it's hard and so hopefully if you're still listening to me right now, if you're still with me, you've been inspired by this and those are the people that I'm here to serve and so if you are still here and you are an entertainment show and you are willing to figure this out and figure out your unique value prop and get out there and do the thing that I would love to have you in the show Facebook group where we can actually wrap about these things and by the way in the Grow the Show Facebook group, there are those entertainment podcasters who have achieved more than I even understand and so they're more than happy to help you there as well. So that's it for me. I hope you're down for the challenge and I hope you love podcasting as much as I do. Let me know if you have any questions about this. Again, hit me in the Grow the Show Facebook group. If you'd love to debate, talk this through or if you would like some free help from incredible podcasters. So that's it for this one. I'll see you in the next one.