Every time someone just books a slot in your studio but does not purchase any additional service whether it be due to the lack of the additional services that are offered or the poor marketing to the client, you are losing money.
Podcast studio owners often focus on maximizing the hours their studio is booked, but this approach has its limits. By concentrating solely on renting physical space, businesses may miss out on significant revenue opportunities that could come from upselling additional services. Upselling isn’t just a tactic to boost revenue—it’s a way to enhance client experience, build stronger relationships, and differentiate your studio in a competitive market.
Before discussing the upselling techniques that the studio can use, it's important to establish a general understanding of podcast studio business models, their limitations, and their opportunities. For example, if a podcast studio is focused only on renting physical space and doesn’t use this opportunity to sell other services as well, then the growth of the business is limited only by real estate. Theoretically, the more physical rooms for filming you offer the more bookings you can manage in a month and therefore increase the revenue. But that is not the only way to expand your business and it is certainly not the cheapest.
Let’s quickly put things into perspective: If you have 1 room that is working 8 hours a day, 30 days a month that means you have 240 hours which you can rent. Only, 70%-80% will be available to be rented, because the rest will be spent preparing for the shoot, administrative tasks, staff cleaning, etc. Let’s imagine that those 200 hours that are rentable are all booked, at that point, you are operating at full capacity, with no way to expand unless you create another room for filming and hire more staff so that you can juggle filming multiple podcasts at the same time. This represents a huge capital expense that is hard to finance. So, the only way for you to expand the business and grow the revenue is to either to open more studios or expand vertically and incorporate upselling techniques.
Offering additional services can help you earn more per booking, increasing your average hourly rate and utilizing the slot for filming to the maximum.
If you are unsure which additional services you can offer to your clients in order to increase revenue, here are some examples:
It is often overlooked, but a super important part for creators. They mostly use it for reading intros, ads or biography of a guest they are introducing in the episode.
A lot of creators are using podcast studios to create content for their social media and not necessarily for creating podcasts. Some pretend to be on a podcast to create a lot of snippetns for short form content like TikToks or Reels. They film 20 short clips where they draw a point within a minute and then post it on socials over an extended period of time. Others use podcast studios to create their content which can be storytelling, educational videos like masterclass, or entertaining clips and all of these are heavily scripted and therefore need a teleprompter.
If it’s their first time filming a podcast they won’t know they need a second camera, but after the video is processed and has only one wide angle shot they’ll notice something is different from the other podcasts they see online. Even then they might not know why the podcast looks unappealing and might get discouraged and stop filming. To avoid this, offer them additional camera during the booking process and they will be more inclined to upsell.
In podcast production, a slider—commonly found on audio mixers or digital audio workstations (DAWs)—is a control that allows you to adjust audio levels smoothly. Offering your clients the possibility of using sliders during the filming you can enable fine-tuning of audio levels, ensuring balanced sound across different tracks and elements. You can also offer them seamless fades in and out, enhancing the listening experience with professional-sounding transitions. Having an add-on in which during live recordings or mixing sessions, you can make immediate changes to audio levels, helps maintain consistent sound quality throughout the podcast. Incorporating sliders into your podcast production workflow can significantly improve the overall audio quality and professionalism of the episodes.
No matter the type of creator your client is, whether it is a social media creator who came to film clips for his niche type of content or an up and coming podcaster they will need the promo materials from the shoot. If you help them by taking the burden of editing to yourself they will appreciate it.
This is not necessarily an upselling technique but it can be used in such a way. If you bundle up different services within a package of multiple sessions at a lower price it can be used as an upselling technique. Instead of selling just the time in the studio, you would sell them time in the studio bundled up with additional services. Introduce a tiering system in the bundles, from basic to premium, but focus on the middle offer as they will be the ones to make the most profit for you.
Offer whatever can enhance the experience and extend the core service you provide which is filming a podcast.
When it comes to upselling, it's important to communicate and talk about your additional services so that the audience is familiar with them even before the booking process. Run a marketing campaign that will help you differentiate yourself from the competition. Today, everyone is recording their content with a standard camera, standard light, and standard set. Showcase what uniqueness you are bringing to your clients like signature editing style or cinematic view. It's an opportunity to sell them additional advanced techniques for recording, and this can be sold through different marketing campaigns. Do retargeting campaigns to the existing customers promoting additional services that you are selling.
So in general, you should develop a strategy of how you use marketing to upsell.
By integrating Podyx into your website you will have access to a feature that suggests add-on services before check-out, ensuring additional revenue opportunities. Usually, the customer's focus is on the highest level during the booking process, and offering additional services in this moment results in increased revenue.
Podyx helps you create an interactive booking flow that displays enticing add-ons like signature video editing, 3 video highlights, teleprompter, subtitles or even catering and parking space.
With it you customize upsell options tailored to studio offerings and customer needs.
With the new updated feature on Podyx admins have the ability to hide additional services and reserve them for special offers or bundles which provides a greater flexibility in designing promotional strategies. This empowers studios to create exclusive packages or seasonal deals, driving customer interest and engagement.
Tailoring your services to the specific needs of the clients will show that you are invested in helping them grow and offer a lot of knowledge of how to help them achieve this. Your clients will feel appreciated and valued. With Podyx you can tie add-ons to a base service and create a contextual booking experience for end users.
Track studio revenue and additional services(and everything you upsell on top of the studio hours) separately. By dividing total revenue with the earrings from the additional services you can track progress and how much your average hourly value increased.
The second thing you should track is how many customers switched from using just the studio space to using studio space plus additional services.
Ask yourself:
Incorporating upselling techniques at the check-out stage is one of the most effective ways for podcast studio owners to maximize revenue and deliver added value to clients. By offering complementary services like teleprompters, additional cameras, or social media content production, studios can elevate the client experience while increasing profitability. Tools like Podyx simplify the upselling process, providing tailored add-on suggestions and creating a seamless booking experience. Tracking the success of upselling strategies through metrics like average revenue per customer and service popularity can help refine your approach and drive continued growth. When done thoughtfully, upselling transforms one-time clients into loyal partners, ensuring a steady stream of revenue and satisfaction for everyone involved.
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