Assets Versus Episodes And The Mindset Scorecard

January 24, 1996 is a very important day in content creation. So important that one of our Podcast Partnership mindsets, number seven of eight assets versus Episodes, came from that date. It's key, it's important, and that's the entire topic of this episode. We are doing an eight part series on the Podcast Partnership Mindset Scorecard. What is the Podcast Partnership Mindset Scorecard? It's a simple PDF document. If you want to get a copy of the document, head over to headsuptuesday.com, it's our regular newsletter. You get access to it from going from there. And it's the eight mindsets of the Podcast Partnership and the way we look at podcasts and the way we look at production, the way we look at marketing. And basically, if we find ourselves having the same mindset, then it's great and intelligent and smart for us to work together. Yet if we find that we have different mindsets, probably not good for us to work together. It's scored on a 1, 2, 3 or 4, 5, 6, or a 7, 8, 9 or 10, 11, 12. You basically decide how close you are to this mindset or how far away you are from this mindset and you score yourself. In the last six episodes, we hit podcast gold, we hit podcast seasons, we hit podcast technology. We had the concept of who versus how. We hit effort versus strategy. Last time we chatted about content versus sound quality. Today, the idea of assets versus episodes, what happened that day in January, I'll tell you in a minute. But the 1, 2, 3 level, the approach that's farthest away from us, where our mindsets are not the same, is this simple idea that my audience only wants the latest and greatest. For me, back catalogs are relevant. This idea that every episode I'm recording what's good from now until the next episode, this idea that there's no real need or desire or strategy behind developing a back catalog, because that's just not what podcasting is about. You see this a lot with this Week in X, you know, the play of the week, this kind of thing. A lot of podcasts out there are simply, I'm going to produce something until I can produce something else. Until I can produce something else. That's the 1, 2, 3. If that's where you are, we're probably not going to work together. No, we're not going to work together, but I'd suggest strongly that take a look at the mindset because we've got some interesting options. Maybe I'll change your mindset in this episode. In the 4, 5, 6 level. One day I'll look at how previous episodes are performing. You know, my head's down deep, I'm getting to work. I know that there's a point, there's a time where previous episodes might come of importance. One day we'll look at that. But right now I'm still trying to figure out how to get the camera to work, how to get the microphone to work, how to get these things published, that type of thing. 7, 8, 9 is where we start to come together a little bit. And this idea that I know that some episodes of my show will remain popular for a long time. What happened back in 96? That was the Marble Rye episode of Seinfeld. That's right. The one where Jerry steals the loaf of bread from the sweet old lady. The one where Cosmo Kramer takes the horse with the beanie weenies from Costco. It's classic Seinfeld at its best. And to this day it still gets played. My father in law when he comes over, he loves to watch Seinfeld repeats. Now the funny thing is we have Hulu commercial free with the Seinfeld repeats. We can click up the Marble Rye at any point. But that's not enough. We're big fans around here. We also have the complete DVD set that we can queue up and find that episode, find that season if we want to. At any point that's there. And of course, that might not even be enough. We also have a subscription to YouTube TV that has TBS that plays the repeats of Seinfeld. And in a couple days they'll probably play the that episode. That's how many options we have to take that great asset from Jerry. But let's think about that asset from Jerry because what's interesting is Hulu, where I can get it for free. Now I'm paying Hulu, but I'm paying them a tiny, tiny fraction of a percentage point of a molecule. If you think about the fact that Hulu paid Seinfeld a half a billion dollars to rent the ones and O's the digital bits of this show for four years. They don't have an exclusive. TBS has got it. The DVDs are still selling. You can still download and buy the episodes. They rented it to Hulu for half a billion dollars. Something created 24, 26, 24 years ago. TBS is paying whatever they're paying to run it for the commercials. The DVDs are still selling. If you get most of my friends together, the one DVD set that they have of television is of Course, with my nerd world, a bunch of them are Battlestar Galactica, but number is Seinfeld. Why? Because every episode is an asset. Now, what's interesting is in 96, nobody really knows. We could find it somewhere in some hallway, in some filing cabinet someplace, the commercial that aired that night. But you know what? When it airs on TBS in the next couple of days, it's an entirely different commercial. And when I watch it on Hulu, paying the extra $4 a month or whatever it is for the commercial, free plan, I'm not going to watch commercials. Or when you watch the DVD version, the commercial was, whatever commercial I saw that let me know that I could get the DVD version of this and keep this in my inventory. See if this episode was created to run an ad for the rest of eternity, like most podcasts are. Let's admit it. You know, we go back and listen to podcasts that have ads for clients and programs and systems and offerings that are long gone or out of favor or no longer available. Or how many of us have listened to a podcast and found out something and tried a coupon code that they only ran for the four weeks after the initial launch of the show because the advertisers were too cheap to think about the long term Here, see, people are buying short term in podcasting. Podcasters are performing short term with the show of the week, that kind of thing. Advertisers are advertising short term. But the fact of the matter is anybody with viable content, anybody who's creating an asset, anybody who is doing something for the long run is finding out that their back catalog is getting a tremendous amount of play. We track for our clients. There's a monthly report that comes out, and one of the things in the monthly. I'm sorry, there's a weekly report that comes out. One of the things that comes out in the weekly report is the simple number of. We call it the new content ratio. What's the new content ratio? You're going to be surprised. The new content ratio is the amount of content that was downloaded that month that was new for that month. So if I give you a new content ratio of October 2019 of 19%, that means that more than four out of every five downloads of a podcast came before a October, by the way. Yeah, some from September. You just. Just have to draw the line somewhere. But for this particular client, the back catalog is getting more business than the front catalog. For most of our clients, the back catalog is getting more business than the front catalog. Well, wait a minute, Paul. If what you said is true, a client could miss an entire month and still get four out of every five downloads. Yes, we have clients who have missed months and seen their downloads go up over the course of months because they created assets, not episodes. See, if you created something for the week of October 22, 2020, the second we hit the week of October, whatever, 29th, 2020, that show goes away. But when we create an asset like the Marble Rye episode, when we create an asset like the definitive recording about X, when we create an asset like the definitive interview with so and so, or the definitive piece about this, or maybe the definitive recording that I'm trying to do today about assets versus episodes, this is just as good when it's consumed the week it came out, the month that came out, the year it came out, the decade it came out. I enjoy the Marble Rye episode as much now as I did back then, perhaps more appreciating this. And I think my kids might one day pull out those scratchy DVDs of their dad and play the marble episode for their kids. Because what Seinfeld did was he created an asset. We encourage everyone in the podcast partnership, all of our clients, to what is 10, 11 and 12 on the mindset Scorecard? I don't create podcast episodes. I create media assets. This Mindset Scorecard series, the eight episodes on our Mindset scorecard are going to go good for a long time. And what's funny is in three or four years, people will still be watching that Seinfeld episode and that cultural reference will still be good. I don't have to spend time, effort, money, re exploring the Mindset scorecard every month or every year or whenever because we've made this definitive episode. We have this opportunity in podcasting that's amazing. We have this opportunity to create content that's good forever, not just good for right now. This is key, this is important, and this is something I think we should be thinking about. So if you're looking to create a podcast and you're looking to go long term, consider assets versus episodes. Consider the definitive recording on something that is there forever versus something that's good until the next week. If you think about it, something that's got a five year shelf life, a ten year shelf life, a 20 year shelf life, has much better value, is worth the budget, is worth the effort, is worth the expenditure if you know it's going to be around for a long time. I've got episodes of podcasts that I've been on with clients that I've worked with that are five, six, seven years old. And every day, 10, 20, 30 new people grab that piece of content that was designed to be listened to and consumed five, six, seven years later. Yeah. The podcast idea of let's have fun, let's do a show, let's have a great time is there. But if you create assets versus Episodes, you're gonna be in a much different place. This is number seven of our eight part series on the Mindset Scorecard. If you want to get your blank Mindset scorecard, you can head out to headsuptuesday.com, our weekly newsletter. And when you sign up for that, we'll give you access to the scorecard. If you want to from there, turn yourself off of the newsletter, that's absolutely fine. We really only want to send the newsletter to people who want to hear it. I just didn't have the time to make a download page specifically for the Mindset Scorecard. But you can go ahead, do that next week part of the Assets versus Episodes idea or next episode can't promise will happen next week. That's just the joy of doing the podcast report here. But next session we'll chat about the idea of impact versus downloads. Right now, stop creating episodes for your podcast. Start creating assets. We'll chat again soon. Chat with you later. Bye now.