Patreon, and monetising wine communication
One of the greatest challenges in the digital era of wine communication is how to make it pay (I’ve written about this several times before, including this 2016 post).
For the last three years, I’ve produced the A Glass With podcast, which is funded by sponsorship deals. These allow us to generate income which covers production costs and our time. We usually release around 20 episodes a year - it’s nowhere near a full-time job, nor is it supposed to be.
This year, we have been looking into other ways to generate an income. Like a lot of podcasters, we have decided to go with Patreon, which allows people to pay a small monthly fee for access to various benefits. The main one is a new, spin-off podcast which allows Olly and I to have more detailed conversations about wine.
We are aiming the episodes at anyone with a love of wine, which includes all our existing listeners, as well as wine professionals. The idea is to make it insightful and entertaining, and build up a community of people who feel invested in the show.
Other wine podcasts use Patreon successfully - Wine For Normal People has over 500 patrons - so we hope that this is a viable model.
I know as well as anyone that persuading people to pay for online content is incredibly hard, but I also know that when the content is compelling, it can work - I donate to the Ear Hustle podcast because I have loved it and listened to it since day one.
For everyone reading this, I’d love you to at least check out our Patreon page and give me some feedback. It would be great to know what you subscribe to, and what might persuade you to sign up for our new project.
And if you want to give it a try, please do!