Did I Wait Too Long To Get Into Podcasting? The Podcast Report Episode #11

Did I wait too long to get into Podcasting? It's the podcast report episode 11@thepodcastreport.com 11 hotline is 503-897-1290. It's the podcast Report with Paul Colligan. And here's Paul the long and short of it is asking if you've waited too long to start podcasting is kind of like asking if you've waited too long to start talking. That, thank goodness, talking is not a zero sum game. Neither is podcasting. If this resonates, go ahead and tweet this out@the podcastreport.com 11. What is the Podcast Report? My name is Paul Cauley and I'm author of the number one top selling podcast strategies in the business Podcasting Bible. Way back in 2006, 2006, we didn't even know the iPhone was coming, let alone how it would impact podcasting. I've been part of this since the beginning, love it, haven't loved it since day one. Two audiences for this show, the podcast, are those ready to take what they're doing, kick it up a notch, take it to the next level? There's, of course thinking about getting into the podcasting game, where of course, this is a very, very important question. The Podcast Report's not a massive play. You're not going to see this hitting the top 1 billion downloads or the top 10 most popular podcasts or this kind of stuff. This is a dialogue. This is a conversation amongst a very special group of people. The podcasters thrilled to be part of this. So let's talk about the topic. Did I wait too long to get into the podcasting game? Podcasting, let's face it, that's why I started this. That's why you're probably listening. Podcasting right now has a new focus, has a new attention. There are a lot of people pondering it and there are plenty of people looking about starting a podcast and they're asking themselves this question, am I too late? Now, let's be honest, the fans are going to tell you no. But what's the reality? Let's take a look at that here. Some examples why it could be too late. I mean, let's be honest here. There are only so many people on the planet. There are only so many listeners. There are only so many people that your podcast can get out to. And podcasts, we've explored it in earlier shows. If you haven't listened, go ahead and head out to the podcastreport.com and check out some of them. But it's kind of hard to get found. It's kind of hard to get people into your show. Speaking of shows, there are a lot of them. They keep coming, they keep getting added, they come day by day and they got big budgets and they got big stars. How can you fight against them? Let's chat about now why it's not too late. First of all, I'm thrilled to say there are a ton of great thoughts and well written sentences and paragraphs by a lot of members of the podcasting community. If you head out to the podcastreport.com 11 I link to a couple of conversations. I started one at the podcast area over at Google, one at my own Facebook page. People have some great thoughts and ideas there. Two Shout Outs Mignon Fogarty, Grammar Girl thank you for your thoughts there. Rob Walch just brings it home. Going to have Rob in a future episode of the podcast report. Here we go. Rob's got some numbers that are just plain obvious and I appreciate both of those. And I definitely encourage you to head out to the podcastreport.com 11 and link on over to those. But now let's chat my reasons for why it's not too late. Reason number one is podcasting is not the end. Podcasting is not the totality of what you do with this content. Really podcasting, if anything, is a further option, is a continuing option for your content distribution. Podcasting is part of where your content goes, part of the totality of your content picture. It's not the whole thing. It's not the end. Even if your podcast audience goes down, it shouldn't matter because of the other people. You are reaching through what it is that you are doing. Now, both podcasting and media is not a zero sum game. I mean, I remember back when three television stations, oh my goodness, Fox came on. Is there room for four television stations? You know, and then now we have, you know, 57 channels and nothing on Bruce Springsteen, followed by 100 channels, followed by 500 channels and nothing's on, followed by YouTube. Hundreds of hours uploaded every minute. Yet people are finding their audiences. Media is just not a zero sum game. It's not a well, it's been taken up, therefore there's nothing left type of game. It's just not how it goes. The industry has proven that to us. Be it radio, be it television, be it books, be it comics, be it blogging, be it whatever. It's not a zero sum game. So don't play like it, don't talk like it, and don't act like it, find your audience, embrace it, you're going to do really, really well. And then the last thing about it being too late, and this one we'll chat about a little bit later. But basically, the more the niche, the higher the profit. I'm going to say that again. The more the niche, the higher the profit. Yes. If you are going into podcasting solely for I want to get as many download as possible so I can get my 40 cpm. This might not be the game for you, but if you are trying to get a niche audience that you can make a connection with, remember, it's that market, it's that message, it's that media. If you're going for that, all the more better, all the more reason to get yourself involved with podcasting. The niche game is where the money is. The niche game is where the excitement is. The niche game is where the connection is. Yes. Now, the niche game is not going to again get you on the big list. The niche game is not going to put you on the most popular podcast. But the bigger the niche, the higher the profit. I will take my CPMs to anybody else's CPMs any day. So what do you do with this? Well, you make your podcast about your market, not the market of someone else. Make the podcast about your message, not the message of someone else. Make them podcast about your niche, not that it's just someone else. Once you stop looking at download numbers and once you stop looking at the crazy things that people are doing and actually think about how do I connect with my audience, then this becomes exciting. Boy, going to your audience and saying, hey, look, I can catch you anytime, any place, anywhere. Man. What audience isn't going to want that? How many people right now are able to make that promise to you and how they reach you? Very few people in your life are. And if you could do that for your audience, if you could do that for your niche, you are in a really good, really exciting place. So make your podcast about your market, about your niche, about your message, not the market, niche or message of anyone else. Now I like to do in the podcast report, I like to do sort of some self examination here. So let's do that. What am I doing about this? Well, if you notice, if you think about it and if you haven't, think about it now because it's really important, with the podcast report, I entered one of the most overpopulated podcast segments in the entire world. The podcast about podcasts are huge. There are tons of them. Just go to itunes and look at them. They are all over the place. But I entered that because I wanted to play in that game and I wanted to show how niche goes. Now, I entered in for three reasons. Number one, I wanted to establish and keep my position in the podcast community. It's been a while since I've done a podcast of my own and this is one that I'm passionate about. I hope you can tell I did that to establish and keep my position. I was getting reports from Podcast Movement. Again, I'm so sorry I missed that, but I got reports from people. I got a tweet from somebody who said, hey, Paul, I heard about you at Podcast Movement. What do you do? What am I supposed to do? I mean, this is the kind of thing I want. I built this to establish and keep the position in my audience. It's better, it's faster, it's easier than blogging. I could write about this, I could do other things about this, but a podcast about this industry is a really good, great way for me to stay inside of my industry. Now another thing we've got, we've got content creation. I'm creating regular basis content about the podcasting space and the podcast is a great way to do it. Knowing that this thing is going to come out every Tuesday forces me to get in front of the microphone, forces me to produce an outline, forces me to produce content for you. Get that content edited and get that content sent out. So I'm producing a great deal of content about podcasting. Soon you're going to see Kindle offers or Kindle opportunities with transcripts from this show and other things. The podcast has become a content production machine for me. It's not just about how many downloads do I get from Stitcher or that type type of thing. It's enabling me to make content. It's forcing me to make content. It's a really good place. And then finally, this show is going to bring big ticket sales for me and it's going to bring it in two ways, two specific areas. Number one and no, it's not going to be ads for GoDaddy or Audible. Number one, it's going to be big ticket consulting sales. Big names are coming to me because of the past and what I've done inside of podcasting. And this show is helping propagate that. And then I've made no bones about it. Coming very, very soon is the podcast expert blueprint. I've already sent dozens of students through it. It's ready to launch the big time and I'm going to launch that through this show. And the revenues for that are going to far surpass any crazy $20, $30, $40 cpm type of model that people are embracing and going with. You know, I've got three reasons for doing it. I entered a very popular segment. I am going for the very niche and I'm really, really excited about it. I recommend that you do the same. Long and short of it. It's not too late to get into podcasting. Podcasting has only begun. It's only getting bigger. In future episodes, we'll chat about video podcasting, some of the opportunities that are there. We'll talk about some of the other areas of podcasting. But man, if you have thought about getting in the space, get into this space. It is a great space to be in. It is a fun space to be in. The freedom of it is phenomenal. And again, head out to the podcastreport.com 11 and I'll link you to those conversations. You'll just see the excitement of other podcasters who are encouraging you to get in the game. And these are people that potentially, you know, could be your quote unquote competition. But the fact of the matter is that, you know, they welcome you into the pool there. There is plenty to play with. The water is still warm and we are having a great time here. I'd love your thoughts on this topic. We are at Twitter @podcastrpt. That's podcast rpt. Yeah. At one of those Twitter names we weren't necessarily able to get. We are@facebook.com the podcastreport. I would love a like over there. It's always fun to build out that audience. And of course the podcastreport.com is the website and the podcastreport.com 11 will take you right to the conversation and all the links about this show. And that little the ability to click to tweet about the concept that asking if you waited too long to start podcasting is like asking if you waited too long to start talking. That's right there. It's a fun place to go out and do. If you'd like the mind map that I put together for the show and the transcript for the show, go ahead and text ep.11 to 503897,1290. That's the show hotline. Just text ep11 hashtag before that ep11 to 503897,12 90. If you are international or you don't have the ability to text, I don't know who's left who doesn't have the ability to text. But that's another issue. Go ahead and just call the number at 503-897-1290. Leave a voicemail message. Somebody will take a look at that and go from there. We've got no viewer voicemail this week. I would Love your voicemail. 503-897-1290. As you know, we've played them in the past. You can go ahead and leave one and we'll see what we do. If it's appropriate. Makes sense, we'll play it on the air. You can get the podcast report at itunes@thepodcastreport.com iTunes. You can get it at stitcher. Stitcher. You can get a pocketcast forward slash pocketcast. You can get it at tunein. Tunein. You get the idea. We're also on Marco's new product, Overcast. A lot of fun. We're not on SoundCloud yet. We will explain why last week's interview with Dave Jackson actually hinted to that a little bit. We'll be hitting the whole SoundCloud issue in a future area, a future episode, but we're not there. Do subscribe to the show. Whatever platform you use, get these things coming to you on a regular basis just so that as they come out, they come to your device. That's one of the powers of podcasting. So many people forget that, you know, they just think it's audio that they put on the web. It's also available on itunes. The power is when you get in your car and it comes to you automatically. Really, really cool stuff. Next episode, episode 12 we're going to be looking at. Is there an ideal length for a podcast? One of those fundamental questions that people ask me all the time. That's funny. They've been asking it forever and the answer is still the same. But we should have a fun time with it. If you've got any thoughts on that, boy, I'd love to hear that as well. That is about it for this week's episode. Love a review over at iTunes. Thepodcastreport.com iTunes is great. If you want to send email to podcastreportoutlook.com Love comments on this one. I think it's an important topic. With that said and done, I will let you go talk to you next week. Bye.