Royce Hidreth, producer of the Pregtastic podcast

This interview is part of a series “Making Money from Podcasting” (read summary “9 Successful Techniques for Making Money from Podcasting”) where I interview podcasters who are actually generating revenue from their podcasts. There are many techniques, and here’s one person’s tale of how they’re making money from podcasting.

Get your own sponsors

Royce Hildreth is the producer of the Pregtastic podcast, the weekly audio podcast by pregnant women, for pregnant women. While he works with Wizzard Media, a podcasting ad network, which can sell advertising for his show, he primarily seeks out his own sponsorships. Hildreth and I talked about how he goes about landing advertisers and what techniques work the best.

In general, advertisers want exclusivity on the podcast, and they want more presence than just a pre-roll ad or an in-show insert ad. Podcasting’s interactivity is often what attracts advertisers to the medium. The format allows for some give-and-take play with the hosts, and that adds dynamic value for the sponsor. It’s unlike other streaming media such as radio or TV, which are still often stuck on just selling interstitial advertisements.

Interview (Time: 12:44)

[audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/davidspark/Making_Money_From_Podcasting-Pregtastic.mp3]

Download the MP3

Hildreth says he’s looking to build long term partnerships, ideally as long as a year. He wants to move beyond the simple CPM (cost per thousand) model and offer more value to advertisers such as putting employees on the podcast, and possibly produce videos of the sponsor’s products that would live alongside the podcast.

Beyond seeking sponsors, Hildreth also uses the begware model, which used to generate $150 a month in revenue. Unfortunately, and possibly because of the economy, that’s dropped to a much lower level. In an effort to bring those dollars back up, hosts have stopped saying the show is free and they’re now saying that the show costs a donation.

Hildreth doesn’t make much money from the podcast. The sponsorships and donations are only offsetting costs, such as Web hosting and hiring a baby sitter for when he and his wife need to go to the studio to produce the podcast.

Listen to my interview with Hildreth as he talks about maintaining the credibility of the content of Pregtastic while also seeking out sponsorships.

More episodes of “Making Money from Podcasting”

• Never Not Funny (Technique: “Partial show for free – full show paid”)
• Personal Life Media (Technique: “Build your own media network of programming and sell advertising against it”)
• Elsie’s Yoga Class (Technique: “Sell an iPhone application along with your podcast”)
• Mac OS Ken (Technique: “Give away five shows for free, make them pay for the sixth”)
• Alaska HDTV (Technique: “Get your own sponsors”)
• Duct Tape Marketing (Technique: “Build your brand to sell your services”)
• ScreenCastsOnline (Technique: “Give away every other episode. Make them pay for the rest.”)
• Izzy Video (Technique: “Give away every other episode. Make them pay for the rest.”)
• Slate Gabfests (Technique: “Integrating sponsorship with the show’s editorial”)
• Wizzard Media (Technique: “Got audience? We’ll get you sponsors. Or, get sponsors on your own and we’ll insert the ads” PLUS “Sell an iPhone application along with your podcast”)
• Premiumcast.com (Technique: “Build an audience and sell premium podcasts”)
• Manager Tools (Technique: “Build your brand to sell your services”)
• ESPN (“Build your own media network of programming and sell advertising against it”)
• Mevio (Technique: “Motivate your audience”)

David Spark helps businesses grow by developing thought leadership through storytelling and covering live events at Spark Media Solutions. He blogs at The Spark Minute and can be heard and seen regularly on ABC Radio and KQED in San Francisco. See his business profile, contact David, or leave a comment below.