Welcome to the streamlined podcaster, a podcast
that shows you how to put the right systems in
place so you can stop spinning your wheels, focus
on making great content and see your show grow.
Because there's nothing worse than putting a
ton of effort into your show to see very few
benefits and even fewer downloads. My name is
Joe Casabona and I know you're strapped for time.
So let's get into it. My podcast has undergone
a lot of changes over the last six months to
nine months. I decided to essentially get rid
of two lines of monetization for it, my membership
and sponsorship. And while I could get into those
in a different episode or, you know, I did cover
them over on streamlinespodcaster .com, it begged
the question, how would I monetize the show in
2025? After all, the primary reason I got into
podcast coaching was my early success in growing
the show and getting sponsors. But I've been
saying for years, longer than I've been friends
with Justin Moore, who I still do sponsorship
coaching for, that sponsorship isn't the easiest
path for small audience podcasters. That to do
it right, it takes work. And while six months
after writing these articles, which I wrote a
lot of these for my podcast advent series at
the end of 2024, I am considering bringing back
some sort of membership or community that's less
podcast focused and more outcomes or bringing
people together focused. And I'm thinking about
doing sponsorship again. because I have a better
handle on who my audience is after dramatically
changing it over the course of 2024. That said,
I still need to monetize this show in some way.
So I decided to revisit my Smash framework, which
I developed in 2020 -2021 to help people understand
how to monetize their podcasts. In fact, the
Smash framework was basically the impetus for
me starting a podcasting focused show. If you
go back to episode one of this podcast, it's
actually called Make Money Podcasting before
realizing that I I niched down a little bit too
far or too narrowly in a way that a lot of people
were already talking about podcasting. But anyway,
my SMASH framework, SMASH stands for sponsorship,
membership, affiliate links, selling, and helping.
And after using that framework for four years,
I realized that there were two problems with
it. It puts sponsorship at the front, making
it seem like the best way to monetize. And selling
and helping were basically the same thing, which
made the framework hard to explain. So I've decided
to revisit this framework and rearrange it. Now,
I want to say that sponsorship is still a great
way to monetize. It's a great avenue for podcasters.
I'm a sponsorship coach for Justin Moore and
his Wizards Guild. But there's no denying that
it has gotten harder. And it requires more work.
I don't think I'm saying anything that is in
contrast with what I teach in Wizards Guild.
And I suspect that Justin would agree. I mean,
one of the core tenets of his sponsorship coaching
is you need to do research to understand the
brand goals. That's what gives you the competitive
edge, not just, hey, sponsor my podcast. So sponsorship
for a podcast has gotten harder. It requires
more work. It probably requires other content
properties to put together a standout package.
Heck, I landed most of my podcast sponsorships
over the last two, two or three years by throwing
a YouTube video and a newsletter spot into the
package. Something we teach in Wizards Guild
is leveraging packages based on goals and since
most of my sponsors have the goal of awareness,
a long -term multi -channel approach is the smart
one. But I also help a specific type of podcaster
best. Solopreneurs and small to medium -sized
businesses who are leveraging their podcast as
part of their content and marketing strategy.
And For that reason, I think that there are other
avenues worth trying first. So I've decided to
change the framework. Smash has been co -opted
by YouTubers looking for likes anyway. What I
want is something to give you the idea that all
of these can work together. All of the monetization
strategies I'm about to tell you can work together.
I want you to think of your monetization strategy
for your podcast as CAMPS. The CAMPS framework.
Now, I'll say here that I came up with the methods
and the exact words, but I did ask ChatGPT for
help arranging the acronym. I kept coming up
with spam or scam and that's, well, that's suboptimal.
The method of CAMPS are the methods of camps
are still largely the same, but they shake out
a little clearer than Smash. It's coaching, affiliates,
membership, products, and sponsorship. Coaching
takes the place of helping and moves that to
the front. Helping was doing a lot of heavy lifting
in Smash. Coaching, consulting, and courses.
Plus it conflicted with selling. If you have
a program for coaching and consulting or a mastermind
group, leveraging your podcasts for that immediately
is something you should do. Create authority
building content, make the call to action to
join your mailing list, and nurture listeners
into becoming clients. The same thing goes for
affiliates. This is the path of least resistance.
though it's probably a slower build to appreciable
revenue. I recommend picking three to six tools
and services that you love that pay well in their
affiliate program and talk about them a lot.
The next three, membership, products, and sponsorship,
all have something in common, though you can
do them in any order. You need to talk to your
audience to make these work. Membership and sponsorship
I have talked about excessively on this podcast
and in the articles. But I'll just say like a
membership should have benefits that are valuable
to your podcast audience. Don't just copy your
favorite podcast's model for memberships. Build
a community around your show. I was in a mastermind
group earlier this week as I record this with
my friend Daryl Westerveldt, who was the speaker,
and he highlighted a quote that he attributed
to Seth Godin. A community can be defined like
this. People like us do stuff like this. And
I really like that. It's honestly a really good
way to define your podcast too. Why are people
listening to your podcast? What's your mission
statement? You are looking to connect with people.
People like us do stuff like this. So your membership
needs to reflect that. And you can't possibly
know that without talking to your audience. And
the same thing with sponsorship. Again, go to
sponsormagnet .com. Just buy Justin's book. He
talks about all of this. Sponsorship should help,
like when you do sponsors right, you as the creator
are helping a brand reach your audience, which
is a group of people they're trying to reach.
You are helping them achieve their goals. And
so you can't really know what your audience needs.
without talking to them. When it comes to products,
you might think that, you know, as far as the
Camps framework goes, this belongs with coaching
and affiliates. And if you've been successfully
selling physical or digital products before you
had a podcast, you'd be right. But you can use
your show to talk behind the scenes work or talk
about new ideas, which you can also get feedback
for. Maybe you're just getting into the product
game though. Perhaps none of your products have
sold as well as you would have liked. Now you
have a warm audience that you can ask for feedback,
learn from, then create a product that actually
helps them. I'm happy to add this to the Camps
Framework now. because I've done it for years.
Just making a course or digital product I thought
would be good and easy to sell was my original
approach and I can count on one hand the amount
of times it actually worked. But starting in
2024, I started getting real feedback from my
audience. Talking to them about their issues,
why they listen to the show, why they joined
my mailing list. It's how I came up with my current
sort of on -demand coaching program, which I'm
calling the control room. It's a way for people
to get more personalized help without getting
my expensive coaching program. This is going
to be the basis on which I build my community
and you can learn more about that over at Casabona
.org slash support. I trust that as 2025 goes
on and we eventually move into 2026, I'll come
up with a few other products. Thanks to the feedback
I'm getting from my podcast audience. So which
camp are you joining first? I encourage you to
think about the camps framework. Again, that's
coaching affiliates, membership, products, and
sponsorship. Are you ready to form relationships
and become a true partner to a select number
of brands? Are you going to try your hand at
memberships? Are you ready to finally develop
a product or coaching program that your listeners
truly need? Let me know by writing in at streamlinedfeedback
.com, that's streamlined with a D, feedback .com.
I'd love to hear from you. Thank you so much
for listening. And until next time, I hope you
find some space in your week.