Do Podcast Subscribers Matter Anymore? - Podcast Report Episode #3

Do podcast subscribers even really matter anymore? Podcast report, episode three, the show hotline, 503-894-1290. It's the podcast Report with Paul Colligan. And here's Paul. Hey, everybody. This is Paul Colligan with episode three of the Podcast Report. The industry is seeing a crazy boost. I've been part of it since the beginning, but I'm loving what's going on now. And that's what the Podcast Report is all about. This is what's new in podcasting. This is where podcast is going. This is the stuff that excites me the most about podcasting, and I believe excites you as well. Two audiences for this show, the podcast. Those of you who are podcasting want to make your shows better, want to go in depth, want to find out what's out there and what you can do about it. And of course, those of you who are thinking about getting into podcasting wanted to know what's ahead. This is not a massive play. This is not a top of the charts. Although at launch, we did make number one in podcasting. So thank you so much. But a deep play. I love this industry. I've been part of this since day one. And hopefully you will see that here. Now let's get to the topic. In episode 37 of one of my other podcasts, thinking out loud, I asked the question, why do podcasters keep making this mistake? And I spoke to and I went a little nuts on the fact that there was a big podcast launch by a big guy with a big name who didn't ask for subscribers. He just asked for content. He asked for listeners. He asked for people to check out his show, come to his blog, listen, make a comment, that type of thing. But he never asked for subscribers. And I went a little nuts on that. I went a little deep on that. And it was frustrating because there's a lot to subscribers. But really the question is legit. It's sort of the podcaster version of if the tree falls in the forest, does it make a noise? Well, that's what I want to chat about here. Obviously, this is bigger than the obvious. Yes. Something we needed to learn in the beginning days of podcasting was just because we liked it didn't mean it was right. I remember when podcasters would say silly things like, well, if they don't want to listen to it on podcast, I don't want them to listen to me. You know, these types of things got us into trouble. And even if I love subscription and I love subscribers, and you Love it. And people aren't subscribing. It just doesn't matter. I was listening to an event, a high profile event with one of the biggest names in podcasting right now. Everybody knows who he is. I just don't want to say it because I don't want it to be a critique at this point. But during his presentation, during his explanation podcasting, he never even once used the word subscription as he's explaining what a podcasting is. He never talked about subscription, he never talked about subscribe, never mentioned that. I'm not seeing podcast subscriptions really much in any of the tools other than itunes. Itunes speaks to subscribe. You know, on every itunes podcast page is a subscribe button. But when you look at stitcher, it says connect with the show, listen later. Nothing about subscription. If you look at SoundCloud, it's about follow. If you look at tunein, it's about follow. Even Pocketcasts, you know, one of the premier apps for podcasting says log on to your syncing account to add. What does it mean to add? No speak of subscription. Now, apps are part of the dialogue and a lot of people are saying, give me an app. And you know, an app maybe is a default subscription. And we're going to look into apps in a future episode of this. But very few people are pushing to subscriptions. I even went out to the website of my good friend Dave Daxon, School of podcasting. If you don't know the school of podcasting, take a look@schoolofpodcasting.com I want to see how Dave handled the subscription thing. And the guy who teaches podcasting to a lot of people, a lot of the do it yourselfers, he doesn't even have subscription on his main page. He just has listen now and links to all of the places. And again, these places don't, other than itunes, really push the subscription. Now at this point, I need to point out, because the great thing is there are some of you listening to this right now who didn't even realize that you can subscribe to a podcast. That's right. Podcasts give you the ability to subscribe. That was the basis, that was how it was all founded. What that means is you tell itunes or stitcher or soundcloud or Tunein, one of these guys, you say, hey, every time there is a new episode, send it to me automatically. Download it to me automatically, I want to subscribe. It's sort of like a magazine. Every time there's a new episode issue, mail it to me. Newspaper. Every time a new issue comes out, mail it to me. You can do that within podcasts, then they come automatically. And what's great is this automatic process is spam proof. You don't have to be reminded. Many of the podcatchers will do it in the background. So when you turn on your device, it's there. You don't have to worry about forgetting an episode. You don't have to worry about missing something. It's so funny. I have authors who I love, and I'm surprised when a new book comes out by these guys and it's absolutely ridiculous. And every time they launch a new book, they've got to refine their audience. But with podcast subscriptions, you don't have to do that anymore. It's spam proof. If you think about it, it comes through automatically. You don't have to worry about getting through filters. You don't have to worry about these things. And it makes it so much cooler than having a piece of content on the Internet. I'm sure with the topic of this episode, I'll get a lot of people who have not subscribed to the podcast or have no intention of subscribing to the podcast, and they're curious what I have here, and that's nice and that's great, and welcome new listeners. But the fact of the matter is somebody who goes on this journey with me, somebody who subscribes to my podcast and listens to episode 3, 4, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, that's the path that's fun. So I wanted to point that out. Please subscribe to the podcast report. Pick the platform of choice. We're pretty much on all of them, and we're getting out to all of them. But subscribe, see what comes next. Let that come to you automatically. All right, enough of the soapbox. Let's come back to this. So why might podcasting not matter? Well, number one is it's easier to teach someone to do what they already know how to do. I mean, I just, on a podcast about podcasting, had to explain what subscriptions were. And realizing that a good chunk of you might not even realize that, it would be much easier to say, sign up for my newsletter and I'll tell you every time there's a new episode. It might be easier to say, follow me on Twitter or follow me on Facebook or do these things and I'll let you know when there's a new episode. You know, it's easier to teach somebody to do something they already know how to do. And maybe subscriptions are just too Complicated. They are a complicated topic. They are a weighted topic. I joke from stage, but there's truth on this that my mom to this day thinks she can't listen to my podcast because she doesn't have an ipod, doesn't have any Apple devices. Subscription is just not part of the discourse. We went through that list earlier. Nobody, not nobody, but very few people are chatting about it. And really, if subscription doesn't matter to everybody else, let's be honest, why does it matter to me? And then finally, the redheaded stepchild, and for all the redheads in the audience, forgive me for that term, but it's just one that came to mind. The redheaded stepchild of podcasting is how many of us have a podcasting client who have subscribed, who have a lot of back episodes that they need to listen to. It's just like with email. It's just like the stack of magazines I'm looking at on my desk right now that I one day need to read. Just because somebody subscribes and just because somebody downloads doesn't necessarily mean that they are listening. So subscription. There are reasons why it might not matter, but let's chat to why it might matter. Number one, audiences are hard. Getting an audience is hard. There are so many choices these days. It's hard getting somebody to listen once when I just do a little bit more work and getting them to listen over and over and over again. Subscription is a much bigger bang for the buck. Man. If every episode of the podcast report I had to start getting a new audience every time, I wouldn't be doing that. I wouldn't be doing this show. I'm in this to increase the audience, not get a new audience every time. The relationship long term of a podcast, it's so much deeper than the one off. Again, for those of you who are listening to just this episode and just my thoughts on subscription, that's fine and dandy. But it's those of you who go down the path with me, those of you who go down this journey with me, those are the ones I'm interested in. And gosh darn it, those are the ones that I believe are going to get the most from this show. Then finally, let's look at YouTube. Subscriptions are working on YouTube. I'm going to be doing an episode later about YouTube. And does YouTube actually answer the past promises of podcasting? But the fact of the matter is YouTube pushes subscribers. Half of all the views of the major guys come from within 48 hours after the publish of a major person because of subscriptions. They've realized that this works, they've pushed it and there are people making good money. As I record this, the VidCon event is either just finishing up or still going on. And it's a huge industry. YouTubers are huge. A lot more people making a full time living doing YouTube than podcasting. Maybe it's because we didn't really, haven't really pushed podcasting. So anyway, what do you do about this? You got to decide, number one, are you in or are you out? Are you going to push podcasting on. I'm sorry, are you going to push subscriptions on your podcast? Are you going to ask people to commit? Are you going to ask people to go down this journey with you? Just decide if this is what you're doing, if you. Or if it's what you're not doing. If it's what you're doing, great. Go all out. Make it part of your process. If you're not doing it, you're going to worry more about social and email and apps and those types of things. Fine. Pick your strategy and go with it. Another thing you definitely should do if you're going to do subscriptions is explain the benefits for those who might not realize what it is. I tried to do that earlier in this episode and I will do that in future episodes. Finally, think long term. Think about a restaurant. If you go to a great restaurant and you have a great meal, boy, if the restaurant wants to think smart, they want to do something to bring you back. Because once you're there and once you've realized how good the food is, you are so much more likely to come back than anybody who's driven by and not quite sure about that place yet. And anybody who's listened in 10 minutes into this podcast, you are more likely to come back for future episodes. I want to think long term. I want to think like a smart restaurant or a smart store. Hey, I'd love your thoughts on this one. Right now we're at Twitter odcastrpt. That's podcast rpt, short for report. Somebody else has podcast report. That's just kind of the game here. I'm also@facebook.com thepodcastreport Would love your thoughts on this one. If you want to get a copy of the mind map and the transcript for this episode, go ahead and text EP3. That's EP3 to 503-897-1290. If you are one of our non North American subscribers and listeners, welcome, welcome. Just go ahead, call that number Leave a voicemail message which what you are looking for and we'll make sure to get you in the queue there. We're still figuring out the flow for voicemail and all these things, but we're having a lot of fun again. The show line is 503-897-1290 if you want to text EP3 I will get you the transcripts and the mind map for this episode. Let's do a little bit of logistics. This is the podcast report with Paul Culligan. You can listen to it right now on itunes and Stitcher and SoundCloud, SoundCloud and PocketCast. We're going to get it all the other places but that's where you can grab them right now. I would love to have you as a subscriber just to prove the point for this episode, but also this is a journey. We're going to be going down this every week and I'm looking forward to it. I will play on occasion voicemail from listeners and comments that have been made. I'm not going to do that this week because this episode has gone long enough. Our next episode should be fun. We're going to look at if there are any new monetization models in podcasting and I'm going to stress new. Is there any way that revenue can come to podcasting that we didn't see when this started back in 2005? I'm looking forward to examining that one with you this week. If you're listening to this, I would love a review over at Stitcher. Stitcher Radio doesn't have any reviews yet, at least at the time of this recording. And if you're liking this show, I would appreciate a review over there. Obviously I appreciate reviews anywhere you got, but Stitcher will be the one I'm focusing on this week. If you want to send me email, I am at thepodcastreport at outlook. Com Thepodcastreport. Com will take you to the website. As I mentioned, Twitter, Podcast, rpt, Facebook, com thepodcastreport. Thank you so much. Talk to you soon. Bye.