How I Made $877 with 3 Podcast Episodes

Crowdfunding Your Podcast-Some Tips for You

Mar 22, 2024

∙ Paid

Many of you might not know that I’m an award winning podcaster in the personal finance space. I’ve won 3 Plutus Awards (our Oscars) for the content that I’ve created for my podcast “Michelle is Money Hungry” feel free to check it out. I’ve earned money several different ways as a podcaster but I wanted to talk about a new approach that I’m taking in 2024-passively crowdfunding.

Why? Well, I’ve demonetized my entire personal finance brand and instead have decided to crowdfund my current podcast season. It has taken me awhile to get into the groove and figure out how to frame “The Ask” but, things are now flowing well and I thought I would share what it’s like to crowdfund a podcasting season.

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Question #1-What Kind of Content am I Recording?

This year I’m focused on both spoken and unspoken policy that impacts American women’s money. It’s unapologetically progressive leaning, political and the timing of the season isn't an accident. The name of my podcast is “Michelle is Money Hungry” but this season is called “Vixens, Virgins and Vigilantes: The Impact of Policy on American Women’s Money” My podcast is in the personal finance space and I enjoy discussing money topics. I DO NOT teach money skills or anything related to bettering your money. I just love talking about different money topics that I feel aren’t discussed enough.

Listen to the First 3 Episodes Below

Here is the link to the fundraising page-feel free to check it out and see how I set it up. You can also donate if this project resonates with you.

Support

https://michelleismoneyhungry.com/support

Question #2-What is the Point or Purpose of This Season?

My goal is to talk about a personal finance topic that isn’t discussed often enough in personal finance circles: policy. In fact, you’ll often hear how willpower, focus and drive makes a difference to people’s money. While this isn’t necessarily wrong, policy can impact people’s access to knowledge. I’m having fun exploring both spoken and unspoken policies impacting women’s money throughout this year.

Unspoken policy-These could be societal norms around what people wear to work, how our hair is styled or the spaces that we’re kept from participating in.
Spoken policy-Rules, regulations or laws that have been put in place.

Question #3-Why Crowdfund this Podcast Season?

It’s my view that this season would be very difficult to pitch to brands during the current political climate. It would be very difficult to get Target, Walmart or the local tax company to say “yes” to a pre/mid or end roll for this type of content. Instead, I decided to ask the listeners and other allies who would support and share this work. It was a risk and experiment all at the same time.

Tips for Crowdfunding as a Podcaster

Here are some of the things that I thought about before I started this campaign and also some tips on best practices and things to consider as I move forward with this campaign.

Tip #1-Create a Themed Season

You want to bring in your audience quickly to the vision and concept of the upcoming season. A theme helps to communicate a clear vision and intention for the podcast season that you’re about to share with your audience.

Tip #2-Strategize Timing

The theme oftentimes helps to inform the audience and the host as to when the episode should be released. In my case, the content that I’m releasing very obviously works well during an election year when a lot conversation is being had about policy impacting women. Because of the content clarity and timing of the project. It has been an easy project to pitch. For many people in my audience there’s also a sense of urgency related to the topic of policy.

If you’re trying to figure out how to strategize timing for a different type of content I’m going to share a few examples below to help you work through how and when you could release your content.

Examples:

How Black Skiers Enjoy Skiing in Colorado-You could design a winter themed podcast season about skiing and release it in early fall in order to optimize SEO (search engine optimization) and give the organic search some time to build up as people begin PLANNING their ski trips. You would also optimize helpful affiliates that could solve some pain points that these travelers may have. Guests for this piece could include: Founders of Black ski spaces, Black skiers, Ski resorts
Why Star Wars Has the Worst Fandom-As a Trekkie, it’s clear that we have one of the best fandoms LOL! This season could be released right before some of the largest Comic Cons or FanExpo events are hosted. Guests could include: Disgruntled Star Wars Fans, Happy Star Wars fans, other fandoms.
How Your Online Business Can Prepare for Black Friday-This could be a season focused on online businesses and sharing the steps to building great sales during the holiday season. Guests could include: Online business owners who made a lot of money during their Black Friday sales. Customers and why they said “yes” to making a purchase. A team member from a product that can give behind the scenes information on what creates a successful funnel.

Tip #3-Build a List

You need to start building a list much earlier than you think. It may surprise you to hear that I don’t have a large list for Michelle is Money Hungry. That’s was a huge mistake. Here’s how you could build a list.

Use an email service provider such as Flodesk, ConvertKit or MailerLite. I use Flodesk and you will get 50% off if you sign up with my personal link.
You could also use SMS or Text to Opt-in tools
Chatbots work too for building a list

Start building your list as soon as you have an idea for your season. You could create a simple landing page via Flodesk and then direct your audience to it. Once it’s time to launch-you’ll have an audience to share episodes with.

Five More Tips

Want to learn more? I share five more tips with paying subscribers below.

Creators Getting Paid