How To Turn Podcasting Into A Side Hustle

The use of podcasts has ballooned over the last few years and there’s no sign of it slowing down. Millions of users listen to podcasts in the UK every week. Podcasting is now used more for building audiences and making money than it is as a hobby.

The good news is you don’t need to be somebody famous or need a production crew to use podcasting as a side hustle. With the right strategy, you can make podcasting a success.

This podcasting guide will walk you through the steps needed to get started, and how to generate income and grow your podcast audience.

Why Choose Podcasting As A Side Hustle?

• Flexibility: you can fit in making podcasts around other commitments.

• Low cost: you can launch your podcast venture with free software and a microphone.

• No limits: you can build your audience from one to thousands.

• Income potential: podcasting offers different ways to make money, which can later turn into passive income.

Choose A Podcast

Pick a Topic You Enjoy

Try and find something niche that you have a good knowledge of. It doesn’t have to be appealing for everybody. Sometimes, picking a focused topic earns you more specific and loyal followers.

Quality Matters

Whilst you don’t need to spend money on a studio, it’s important that your podcast quality is appealing. To get good audio quality consider:

• Microphone: Audio Technica ATR2100X (£80), JLab Talk Go (£20), Blue (£20).

• Editing software: Audacity (free), GarageBand (Apple software), Descript (AI based and free at the basic level).

Be Frequent

Consistency is important when podcasting. Decide how often you plan to publish your podcasts (weekly, monthly etc). By sticking to your schedule, you create a habit of listening for your followers.

Build An Audience

As you may have guessed, without listeners you can’t make any money. In order to grow your audience, consider the following:

Optimise Your Podcasts

• Use descriptive but short titles that contain relevant keywords.

• Include show notes that have timestamps and links.

• Submit your podcasts to all the main platforms such as Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Utilise Social Media

• Depending on your topics, Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn can be great for podcast publishing. Be sure to post regularly with quotes, reels and audiograms.

Team Up

Try to engage with other audiences. Have guest appearances from people who already have their own followers. Consider working with other podcasters to cross-promote.

Create a Website

Create a basic website that allows listeners to connect with you other than through your podcast.

How To Make Money From A Podcast

This is the important part: how do you make money, and how much income can podcasts make?

Advertising

Brands will pay if you advertise their products and services on your podcasts.

Methods

• Sponsorship: to attract sponsors you should be getting a minimum of 500 downloads per show.

• Ad networks: also consider using podcast advert networks such as Podcorn, AdvertiseCast or Acast.

Average UK Pay

• Podcasts payments are referred to as CPM (Cost per Mille), which means the amount advertisers pay per 1,000 downloads.

• Sponsors can pay anything between £20 to £50 per thousand downloads per episode.

Donations from Listeners

You can get your listeners to support you directly by paying monthly or one off donations. Some platforms to facilitate donations are:

• Buy Me a Coffee - easy set up and compatible with UK banks

• Ko-fi - low fee and good for one-off payments

• Patreon - Good for exclusive content and tiered rewards.

If listeners are prepared to make donations, you should reward them in some way. Consider offering:

• Early access to new podcasts.

• Bonus episodes.

• Access to behind the scenes content.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is another option to make money. You would include links in your podcasts that are relevant to your niche and/or the podcast market. Each time one of your audience clicks a link and makes a purchase, you’ll get paid commission. Some well known affiliates in the industry are:

• Amazon

• Audible (popular with podcast listeners)

Tips

• Be up front about your affiliate programme

• Only promote things you trust. Promoting too many things just to get clicks can damage your audience’s trust in your podcast.

Sell Merchandise

You can gain some additional income on the side by offering goods and services to your listeners. As well as selling products (mugs, stickers, t-shirts etc) with your podcast branding on, you can offer other services if you have the right skills:

• Webinars

• Coaching

• Ebooks

Leverage your Podcast to Enhance Business

If you have or are considering adding a different side hustle to your portfolio, you can use podcasts to advertise your other business and grow your brand.

For example, if you were a freelance personal trainer, you could post podcasts offering training tips and advertise classes and training plans for sale.

Paid Subscriptions

Spotify and Apple Podcasts provide platforms that allow you to offer premium content for money. The extra paid content can include:

• Q&A sessions

• Extra episodes

• Ad-free versions

• Monthly series

Expenses

In order to make profits, you’ll need to keep your costs as low as possible. Thankfully, podcasting doesn’t require a big bankroll. You’ll need to consider what’s essential to running your podcast side hustle and what might be beneficial as additional options:

Essential

• Microphone - £20 to £100

• Hosting - £5 to £20 per month

• Software - free (Audacity)

Optional

• Design software - Canva (free)

• Website - £5 to £10 per month (Wordpress)

Keep It Professional

This venture isn’t just a bit of fun, it’s also a side hustle to make you money - so treat it just like a business.

Track Your Activity

Keep track of the time you spend recording, editing and managing your podcast venture in a spreadsheet. This will enable you to compare your effort, expenses and income to make sure you’re on the right track to making profits.

Set Goals

It’s a good idea to set some goals to keep you motivated and give you targets to hit. The goals you set are entirely up to you, but you might consider something along the lines of:

• Your first 100 subscribers or listeners

• Your first affiliate transaction

• Your first sponsored podcast

Once you hit your goals, create new goals to raise your game to the next level.

Monitor your Income for Tax Purposes

Under UK Government rules, you are allowed to earn up to £1,000 tax-free from side hustles. If you earn over £1,000 you’ll need to register for Self Assessment with HMRC.

If you already have a full time job, you can still earn income from a side hustle. However, always check your tax obligations.

Timeline For Making Money

How long it takes to make a profit from podcasting will vary vastly from person to person, and will in part be determined by the time you have available to dedicate to the project.

We have outlined some typical timelines for somebody who does podcasting as a side hustle or part-time.

• Month 1 to 2: launch the podcast venture, gain experience and release your first few podcasts.

• Month 3 to 6: establish your first 500 to 1,000 downloads per episode. Set up affiliate links and audience donations.

• Month 6 to 12 months: sell your own merchandise and add sponsors.

• 12 months +: increase the podcast output, improve podcast quality, outsource and grow the business.

Conclusion

Doing podcasts as a side hustle isn’t going to make you a millionaire, but due to its creativity, it’s very rewarding. Now is the time to start podcasting if you want to convert your voice into a steady income on the side.

Spend a bit of time to work out the niche market that you want to target, and steadily build up a loyal fanbase by creating engaging podcasts that are topical.

Don't forget to look at the various income streams you can utilise with podcasts (sponsors, affiliate programs, own merchandise etc) to enhance your income.

Whether you do podcasts as a side hustle, or fancy doing it on a full time basis, there’s money out there to be made and the startup costs are very low.