Why Your Next Dollar Should Come From Your Last Episode | Jordan Blair, Buzzsprout

What if you could monetize your podcast without creating more content, growing your audience, or landing sponsors? Most podcasters are sitting on revenue opportunities they don't even know they have. Jordan Blair, Buzzsprout's Podcast Producer and host of Dreamful Bedtime Stories with 13M+ downloads, is back with three low-effort ways to monetize your podcast using content you've already created.

She's unpacking why your back catalog may be a hidden revenue asset, how she started monetizing before her podcast even launched, and the mistake that prevents many podcasters from ever earning a dime from their show. So if you want to monetize your podcast without adding more to your plate, hit play and let's dive in.

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0:45 – Where Most Hosts Overcomplicate Podcast Monetization

3:46 – Why the Easiest Podcast Revenue Comes From Content You've Already Created

8:58 – Why Your Episode Back Catalog Is a Hidden Revenue Asset

10:40 – How to Monetize Your Podcast Before You Launch It

13:10 – Why Most Monetization Problems Are Actually CTA Problems

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Episode Links:

Meet Jordan Blair: Buzzsprout | LinkedIn

Listen to Jordan’s Podcast: Dreamful Bedtime Stories

Listen to Buzzsprout’s Podcast: Buzzcast

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Other Episodes You’ll Love: 

Before You Chase Sponsors to Monetize Your Podcast, Listen to This

6 Ways to Earn Money with Buzzsprout Subscriptions

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©Ⓟ 2018–2026 by Courtney Elmer. All Rights Reserved.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Most podcasters are sitting on revenue opportunities that they don't even know that they have. So I invited Jordan Blair, Bud Sprout's podcast producer and host of the Dreamful Bedtime Stories podcast back in the studio to share three low effort ways that you can start monetizing your podcast with content that you already have, even if you have less than 100 downloads in episode. We're also going to talk about why your back catalog of episodes might be your biggest revenue asset and the mistake that most hosts make that they don't know that they're making that keep them from ever earning a cent from their show. So if you want to monetize your podcast without adding more to your plate, then listen closely because this one's for you. Welcome to Insider's Secrets to a Top 100 podcast. I'm your host, Courtney Elmer. Let's make your podcast binge-worthy. We are back in the studio with the amazing Jordan Blair. She's the host of the Dreamful Bedtime Podcast and the podcast producer at Buzz Pro, which serves well over 100,000 podcasters worldwide. Jordan, thank you for spending some more time with us.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

I love it. I will spend as much time here as I can.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

I love it. Well, I love that you were here. You are such a wealth of knowledge when it comes to podcast monetization. And my natural inclination is always to like talk strategy and talk psychology. And I tend to like marketing more than I like the monetization aspects of podcasting. And so like that's the stuff I love to talk about. But I'm like, we got a big content gap here because we don't talk monetization that often. And for most people listening right now, I'm imagining if you're listening to this, you're like, yeah, at some point, I would like to make some money from my podcast. And if you didn't catch the episode before this one, we talked all about sponsorships. And Jordan, you shared really some very interesting stories around the sponsors that you have landed for your show and why, in doing that, you have learned that sponsorships are not necessarily the most reliable form of income. And you started to tease some other creative ways to monetize your podcast that I'm excited to unpack with you here. But I know that some of those ways to monetize require a lot of effort. Some of them are going to require less effort. So if you're someone that doesn't have a lot of time or bandwidth, which one of these creative monetization pathways to monetize your listener attention would you want to avoid?

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Yeah. I mean, so listener monetization, it falls into two buckets really. So you have listener support, and listener support is what we use in terms of like donations. So this can be like the tip jar, buy me a coffee, things like that. You're already providing the value to your listeners by creating the content itself. And that's something that a lot of podcasters forget is you are providing value to your listeners, to your audience. And so it's okay to say, you know, hey, if you get value from this podcast, please support it. And you don't have to give anything in exchange because you're already giving them something. And so just allow them, open it up for them to give you the support too. And so that's like listener support. So donations, pledges, like maybe on a monthly level, maybe a one-time sort of deal, just stuff like that. And then you have listener subscriptions. And this is more in the camp of providing added value to your podcast. And, you know, as you mentioned, some of us don't have a lot of time to dedicate to that because podcasts take up a lot of time. It is not easy to podcast in the first place. It can be fun, sure, but it takes up time, it takes up effort. It's really important to make sure that if you are trying to increase your revenue or, you know, maybe make a different source of a different channel of monetization, that it's something that is doable and you can do it for the long run. Because if you know, if you if you burn out from your podcast, you can't keep a podcast, like you don't have a podcast to monetize if you're so burned out that you quit podcasting. We don't want that. And so there's different things you can do with subscriptions. And these are all based pretty much on Apple Podcasts. So most podcast hopes should have some version of this. So I know on Buzzsprout we have like the Buzzsprout subscriptions. And we have categorized different subscriptions based on what Apple Podcasts is saying that you can offer on their platform because the the subscription content that you create in Buzzsprout will actually go to Apple Podcast subscriptions if you have that enabled. So there's like five different ones. You can have like premium episodes, there's early access, back catalog access, um, you can have like a subscriber-only podcast, and then ad-free episodes. We've all seen these in our podcast apps. And I would say that the two hardest ones, like if you want to burn out pretty quickly, I would say that having a subscriber-only podcast is probably the hardest thing because A, it's really hard to market something that's completely paywalled, and B, you're creating an entire podcast to monetize. And so that's really difficult. Creating an entire extra thing is very hard. Premium episodes are a little bit easier than that, but you are creating extra episodes, whether that be like extra long episodes, maybe it's like a director's cut version of your podcast, or you're creating an entirely new bonus episode. And you know how often are you doing that? Are you doing that monthly? Are you doing that weekly? Are you doing that like twice a week? So just depending on how much extra content you're creating is gonna make things a lot harder. So, some of the easier ones that you can do. I think that if you are a person who is always on top of it, you always have your episodes batched and they are scheduled ahead of time, and you are just constantly like five episodes ahead of whatever is coming out, you're probably gonna want to do early access. And this gives subscribers early access to your episodes. It's just like a little bit of like VIP treatment for your listeners, just saying, like, hey, if you want early access to our merch drops, then we'll give a code in the early access version and you'll be the first ones to get the code for the merch drop or you know, just something like that. You can have fun with it. Um, but also just giving them early access if they can't wait for part two of whatever interview you have, then they'll be the ones to get access to that first. And so that's a really good uh option if you're just like on top of things because you've already done the work, you're just scheduling things a little bit earlier, right? And so that's an easy one. But back catalog access is also really great because again, you've already done the work. So only subscribers will get access to the full catalog of episodes. And what this means is as you are creating episodes, even if you do like a season, you can just have like the first couple episodes available to everybody, and then the rest of the catalog will be paywalled. And this is actually a little bit better from like a marketing perspective too, because you're giving people like a little taste. It's like when you try to read a book, like an ebook, and you only get like the first two chapters, and it's just enough to hook you. And then you go, okay, fine, I'll buy the Kindle version. It's it's the exact same thing except for with a podcast. And you can also do ad-free episodes, which is another thing that is super easy because all you do is you upload a separate version of your podcast that doesn't have ads in it. If you are using BuzzRoute ads, for example, like uh the programmatic ads that are inserted in, then we won't put them on the ad-free episodes. So it's no extra work for you. And if you are doing um host red sponsorships like we talked about on the last episode, if you're doing sponsorship ad reads, just cut those out and then you upload the second version that doesn't have those ads or ad reads in them. So those are some options. If you if you want to get like your toes a little wet in the pool of like subscription monetization, I think that early access episodes and back catalog and ad-free are very easy places to start. And if you change your mind later, it's really easy to switch to a different version. You can always change what kind of subscription you're offering to your listeners.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

I love all of these ideas. And you're speaking to my soul with like the low effort ones, like hey, let's just give early access. You've already done the work. People have called me the batching queen, and I'm like, I could do that, you know, or ad-free if you're offering ads on your podcast. That catalog is a great one if you've been podcasting for a long time and you want to just allow a certain number of episodes. It's no different than like going for a free trial on Paramount Plus or, you know, Netflix or something if you didn't previously use that app. And it's like, all right, let me check out and see what this has available. And then, okay, I do want more from this particular platform. I'm curious, Jordan, what you would say to those people right now who are listening and they're like, okay, this all sounds really great, but where do I start? Like, what what do I need to do first? You know, do I have enough listeners to make this worth my while? What would you say to them?

SPEAKER_00 8:50

It doesn't hurt to turn it on. I think that there are some podcast hosting companies where it costs extra. Like this is like an added-on thing. We just include it. So you can like you can toggle listener support on. And if no one supports the show, no harm to you. You're not paying extra for it. It's just on. It's there. But you definitely need to make sure that you're able to like ask people to support the show. So let me tell you a little bit of a story about when you you can start like listener support. So when I first started my podcast, I created it with the intention of literally nobody listening to it. It was not something that I wanted to grow. It was just kind of like this idea that I had, and I didn't like put much thought into it. It was really just for my kids. I created like a Patreon page because that's what all the other podcasters do. And I'm like, well, you know, if in the future people want to do that or it like grows or whatever, like I'll have this here. And what's really cool is my husband shared my podcast like before I even launched it. He shared it on Facebook and was just like, hey, Jordan's doing like this really cool thing. And I had like five subscribers before my podcast even launched because you know, my mom and my friends and you know, family members and stuff, they all subscribe to it on Patreon support of the show. So before I even like launched my podcast, I was monetizing it. And it was really cool because I was able to um do this call to action in the first episode. So we talked uh last episode on sponsorships about how valuable that real estate for like the first few episodes is. So if you do not have a big podcast yet, if you are just starting out, that is valuable real estate, not just for a potential sponsor, but it's also really valuable real estate for you, the podcaster, and you building up your listener support and stuff like that. Because if people hear that call to action in every single episode, like, hey, if you get value from the show, go ahead and hit the support the show link in the show notes, or you know, head to like whatever page or go to Apple Podcast subscriptions, or you can get bonus episodes or whatever that I've been building up since the beginning. That is such a it's it's so much better for marketing because people need to hear things a million times before they even do it. We all know this. Like they they need to hear it over and over again, and then they will might take action. And then also you're you're just kind of like sharpening your axe, like you're building up that ability to ask for help too. So I think even if you don't have a lot of subscribers, you should ask. You should absolutely turn on listener support, you should have a buy me a coffee, you should have some uh paypal.me link in your show notes, just some way, like provide some way for your listeners to support the show because if they can't support the show, they won't support the show. So you need to provide a way for them to do it. You need to make sure that you're asking them to support the show, letting them know that they can do it. You're providing the link in the show notes, you're making it as easy as humanly possible for them to do it, and then you're going to like eventually get someone to help support the show. And I'll tell you what, like when you get that email that you got a new subscriber or you got a new supporter, and you know, someone sent you $20 on pay on PayPal or whatever, it gets so much easier to start asking for that money. It's it's way less awkward because at first it's like really awkward to ask for money. And then, like, once you get that email that like someone actually subscribed, you go, oh, okay, like I can do this.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

I could do this. I know. Well, the thing about the ask piece, Jordan, it's funny to me as you're sharing this. I'm like, yes, okay, we need to make the ask, and I'm guilty of not making the ask at times. And I'm just like, but what do you have to lose? If you're not making the ask, you don't have any money. So if you're gonna make the ask and people don't do it, well, you still won't have any money. So you may as well make the ask because someone might do it. Someone might actually say, Yeah, I would love to contribute $3 a month to support your podcast or $5 a month or whatever amount you set. We're not asking them to hand over their credit card. We're just saying, hey, if you get value from this show, like support the show. And something else too, you mentioned about the first episode. And this is, I agree, such important real estate. And as I'm sitting here, I'm thinking about my first episode, which has nothing to do with podcasting. And it's, I don't even want to go back and listen to the first episode. I'm scared to listen to it. But like, you can remaster your first episode. You can re-upload. Like, if you didn't have a call to action, which I did not in my first episode, and you're like, hmm, this is really smart. Maybe I do want to go put that in. Maybe rework that first episode and go remaster it. Add a call to action and re-upload it to that spot. And there you go. Your call to action now lives there for anyone who hears that episode going forward.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

I mean, this is what uh I always recommend people use dynamic content for. If you have, like, let's, okay, let's say that you started your podcast and in your brain you were thinking, okay, well, the easiest thing for me to do is early access because I'm always ahead of schedule, and that's gonna be what my subscription offering is. It's it's really nice to use dynamic content to record that call to action. Dynamic content is it's basically like you record like a sound clip, it could be an ad read, it can be an announcement, it can be like any sort of like timely thing that you want to be uh able to remove from your podcast, put it in. You can do like a mid-roll placement or a post-roll so it's at the end of your episode or a pre-roll so it's at the beginning, whatever you want. And you can record like a dynamic content if you're just testing things out, if you're just testing subscriptions out, this is what it was built for. And you can record that, it will put the link in the show notes on all the episodes that you want it to be on, and then you can talk about like hey, for early access, and let's say no one subscribes in you it's been like six months, and you go, Okay, well, you know, I actually have a little bit more time. I'm getting better at editing my podcast. I think I'm ready to jump into creating a bonus episode. And so you start creating bonus episodes and you upload them to your subscriptions, and now you can record a dynamic call to action in your podcast saying, like, hey, I'm actually starting to do bonus episodes, and I have this awesome episode. I have a teaser here, and you know, if you want to do that, click the show notes link in the show notes, and then you start getting subscribers. So it's it's cool because with these sort of things, you can play with it and you can take it out and you can experiment with your podcasts. Like, you should be able to experiment with your podcast. We all fail on things sometimes. Like, I I have tried so many different monetization methods for my podcast that works for other people, and so I thought that's what podcasters do, and it it failed miserably. Like, you know, no one showed up to my AMA or no one bought my merch. And it's okay. Like, it's okay to fail. And you just have to like allow yourself to do that and just ask.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

It's so true. And same for me too. I mean, I'll say, like, okay, we have a new way for you to send us a question. I would love to answer your questions. You're gonna get a direct answer for me. I'd love to take a look at your podcast. Da-da-da-da. And then it's like, crickets, for whatever reason, that episode, nobody sending any questions. But yet, then I'll be like, Well, my life is really crazy right now, and I'm going through a really intense season. And normally this is not the stuff that I share publicly. But if you want to join my Substack to learn about that stuff, well, come join my Substack. I'm kind of scared to share it. It's like next thing you know, I have five people sign up for that. I'm like, okay, well, that's clearly the stuff that they're interested in. But it's like, it's interesting, and you never know until you ask. And it doesn't mean that someone's not gonna submit a question down the line. It just means that for whatever reason, that didn't get any questions that particular time that I asked. But I'm gonna ask again and I'm gonna ask again because someone might have heard that for the first time and maybe they were in the middle of something. They were in the middle of working out at the gym and it was like, oh, I'll come back to that. Or maybe they were listening and then they had to pick up their kids from school. You never know where someone is when they're listening. And so if we just ask that one time, well, then they might forget about it, or they might move on with whatever else they're doing in their day and never come back to it. But when we make that ask consistently and over time, well, then it's like, okay, now your brain starts to register what the person's actually asking. And then we're like, okay, it might be more inclined to take action if I've heard this a few times.

SPEAKER_00 16:56

Well, and I uh something that you have to keep in mind too as a podcaster is your listeners, like let's say you have a call to action at the beginning of the episode to please tap the like fan mail link in the show notes or like uh the go to the website and like you know, fill out like a listener survey. Let's say that you do that at the beginning of the episode. You don't know what your listeners are doing. Maybe they're driving, maybe they're washing their dishes, and then by the end of the episode, they forgot. Like maybe at the end of the episode you say, hey, just a reminder, and they go, Oh yeah. And so before they change to whatever the next episode is, they can go and click that link and fill out the two-minute survey or click to subscribe to the bonus episodes before they forget. Like sometimes you have to really think about where your listeners are at and especially like put yourselves in their shoes. You know, if if you talk about something at the very beginning of the episode, they might have to be reminded at the end of it too.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Yes. In fact, I recommend reminding them at the end of it because they're going to forget. Like, expect that they will. And, you know, I had a client one time tell me, and she was like, Courtney, I feel like I'm just repeating things a lot on my podcast. I'm repeating the same calls to action, I'm repeating the same stories. And I'm like, Yeah, but you never know if someone's hearing that for the first time. And maybe that person who hears it for the first time won't take action the first time, but they might take action the fifth time or even the tenth time. So it might sound old to you. And that's kind of the point because most of our listeners are not sitting there overanalyzing our shows like we analyze our shows and nitpicking every little thing. It's like, I feel like I like overthink different aspects of my show. And I'm like, my listeners are probably not thinking that deeply about it. I don't know. If you are thinking that deeply about it, send me an email, let me know. And you're like, no, Courtney, you should do this differently. Please let me know. But you know, I think that sometimes we have a tendency to overthink things more than our listeners do. They appreciate that you're showing up, that you're sharing value. You know, they listen because they like you, they want to learn more from you. So understand that. And it is a value exchange. So, Jordan, I know y'all did a great episode on Buzzcast where you dove into each of these sponsorship options that you mentioned in a lot of detail. So if you're listening and you're like, okay, I want to learn more about this one particular thing or like bonus episodes, how would I structure that or how would I get started with that?

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Yeah, or ideas of like creative ways to use all these different things. Yeah, we went deep into it. I mean, it's like an hour-long episode and it's all we talk about.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

Very in-depth. So if you want to go down that rabbit hole, I'm gonna link it in the show notes below. This has been so insightful and so much fun, Jordan, to hang out with you here today. Thank you for making the time to be here.

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

And if you learned something new from this episode or you got value out of it, I would love it. If you would just take a minute right now to hit the follow button, leave a review, write a comment. This helps me and my family by letting others know that this content is really valuable. And it helps me because I read every single review, every comment that comes through. It helps me keep showing up to the mic to help you grow your podcast, which is my promise to you. And speaking of valuable, how do you actually make something valuable? Or more importantly, how do you create content that guarantees that your listeners are gonna see your expertise as valuable? Because what you think is valuable and what your listeners perceive as valuable are actually two totally different things. So if you're a podcast host or if you're an aspiring podcast host, the quicker you can develop the skill of communicating your expert knowledge in a way that your listeners are gonna find valuable, the higher your listener retention is going to be, and the more connected listeners will feel to your show, and the more growth and monetization potential your podcast will have. So in the next episode, I'm gonna show you how to do it to help you make your podcast binge worthy.