Podcast Monetization - The Integrated Model - The Podcast Report Episode #46

Podcast monetization, the integrated model. It's the podcast report, episode number 46, show notes, links, conversation and more@the podcastreport.com 4 6. It's the podcast report with Paul Colligan. And here's Paul. Here's the deal. Despite what they tell you, the true value of your podcast is in the content you provide, not the audience that listens. The true value of your podcast is in the content you provide, not the audience that listens. Hey, my name is Paul Culligan. I am podcaster and author. Currently my top selling how to podcast is Doing well. You've been sitting at great reviews. Thank you so much for that. But this show is not about the book. The show is about podcasting. I've been part of it since the beginning. I love this industry, I love podcasters and I think I have a thing or two to share with them. The avatar for this show. Hopefully you're one of them. Are podcasters looking to make their podcast real business or do more business as a result of their podcast? This show has never been a massive play, but it's always been a deep one. So let's get to it. Quick. An update on Patreon. I've been trying a Patreon experiment. If you would like to know more about that experiment, you can head out to the podcastreport.com 45 or you can of course go to patreon.com Paul Calligan I'm having an interesting time with Patreon. It's going honestly about the way I thought it would, but I've got some patrons on Read off. Neil Neal, Desmond Nicholson, Jason Bryant, Cal Banion, Dave Bullis, Fast Pitch tv, Dave Jackson, Michael Blais, Jim Fortune, and NF Got any of your names wrong? I am so sorry. Please let me know. Why this topic? Why the integrated method? Well, we've been chatting about the different models for podcasting. I've got links to the different shows over the podcast report.com forward/46. We've examined indirect, we've examined direct. This one's my favorite. And honestly, I do believe this one is the future of podcasting. You see, the value of podcasting is in your content, not in your audience. The audience can change, the audience can grow. And if you are doing everything to the audience today or this week, you're really missing out on the benefit of podcasting. So let's chat about that. What is integrated podcasting? Integrated podcasting is three things. It's using your podcast to introduce people to your product and that's different than advertising for your product. Because if you introduce people to your product, you're sort of giving them the beginning of who you are. You know, you go to Costco and you walk by and they'll sample people. They're giving you a taste. And it's not just a little niblet. It's, you know, a fourth of the sandwich. It's a piece of the ice cream bar. It's something to get you to go in. An introduction to the product. It can also build the product. This is something that's missed all the time. You can use your podcast to build the product, and that's bigger than those who are using the podcast for, say, something like a pod novel or the last thing about integrated podcasting. It's where podcasting becomes a part of the product. Not all of it, but a part. So let's examine some, well, examples of people who use their podcast to introduce people to the product. Dave Ramsey is one of my favorite. Dave Ramsey is brilliant and calculated and has an amazing product, has an amazing podcast, has an amazing show, has an amazing ministry. The guy does it all right? And I'm jealous of what he's done. And the first thing he's done that's amazing is, although his podcast is killer and although I continue to listen to it on a regular basis, it's not just a podcast, guys. It's a radio show as well. And I think a lot of people forget that it's content first. And then, you know, you could say it's a radio show that's also a podcast. You could say it's a podcast that happens to come out on the radio. Or you can just say it's good audio content coming out as many ways as is possible. And Dave Ramsey sells a lot of books and he sells a lot of training, and when it comes to events, he sells out arenas. Why? Because his podcast is integrated into his business. It's not direct monetization, it's not indirect monetization. It is fully integrated, calculated, strategic monetization. It's brilliant. Another guy, maybe not as large in scope, but just as calculated and just as integrated would be Michael Hyatt. Everybody knows about his book platform, but his book got a new one coming out. He's asking people to vote for it. His blog is a destination. It's not something that everybody puts in their rss. He's got products like his platform university. He's got his blog template theme. The guy does it well. The podcast sends people to his books, to his events, to his products. His podcast is a great introduction to the product that is Michael Hyatt. A podcast Part two builds the product. Dave Ramsey, again is a great one. Dave Ramsey refines his craft on the show. I mean, think about it. The guy does three hours a day, five days a week, 15 hours a week of free content. He is building the product as he goes along. He's learning his concepts and his ideas and the way he wraps everything into pretty pictures. And he's just phenomenal. He refines his craft, but at the same time, he build an extensive library of ageless content. If you've ever been part of his membership sites, you can go in and you can get moments on the show where he solved a particular problem and he did it brilliantly. And so he is building the product that people pay for in the show, that the advertisers pay for as well. It's a brilliant model of building the product and something to think about. The last part of integrated podcasting is a monetization model is where the content becomes part of the product. One of the things I did in this little Patreon experiment, and again, you can look that up online if you want, is one of the options for the Mastermind level or higher, is live recording of the show. I'm going to start inviting my members to attend a live recording when I have to record it live at some point, and people want to watch that, and people want to see how that's done and ask questions afterwards. And so now my free product, the podcast, becomes part of my paid product, the Mastermind. You could do things like that. And my question for you is, are you making audio that's consumed everywhere or are you making a podcast? I'm going to say that again. Are you making audio that's consumed everywhere or are you making a podcast? Because if you look at things like television, we just finished the latest season of a television show that my kids love, and we have every single episode on the dvr. We've recorded it, they've watched a couple of times. But here's the funny thing. They've asked if they could get the DVDs when the DVDs come out. They've asked if we can get this on itunes. They love this show. Even though we've recorded it, they want to buy it in a different way. This is a model that you might want to look at. So the difference between integrated and indirect or direct content really is two things is, number one, you got to stop developing content that is just a podcast for this week, and you got to move to legacy content on purpose. If everything I did was only good for the week that it happened, well, gosh darn it, this show wouldn't have the impact that it does. And I wouldn't see people every single day going back to the first episode and starting to consume this stuff. And we're only on episode, what, 46 this one. You know, we're going to have hundreds of these and people are going to keep going back to the old days. And listen, nothing I've said to this point is dated. Matter of fact, I was about to say the name of the TV show my kids like, but I don't want to say that because maybe one day people will be listening to this and that TV show has gone away and people go, oh, this is a piece of dated content. No. So it's legacy content on purpose. And then it's also introduction to the product. It's true top of funnel marketing. It is true strategic implementation of what it is you're doing on the grand scale. And I. I don't think enough podcasters do this. We'll chat about that now. Two things that the integrated model isn't. The integrated model isn't your hope for profit in the future if you're not seeing monetization at this point. An integrated model is very specific, is very strategic, is very purposeful, is very integrated. You should have charts on your wall. You should have, you know, a strategic plan. You should have all these things if you're going to do an integrated model. It's not the excuse for hope, and it's not what you do when you don't have a real plan. An integrated model is the plan because you've got to figure out how to get people from the show into the next level. The show has to be so intoxicating that they have to get into the next level. But at the same time, the next level has to be something bigger than the show. So it's harder to do than getting advertisers. It's harder to do than some of the other options out there. But when it's done and when it's done right, it's absolutely tremendous. So what do you do? Three things you do to develop your own integrated podcast monetization model. Number one, don't think of terms of this week, think bigger. Now, I know some shows. I've chatted to things that have happened recently. My show on iOS 8 is actually one of the most popular downloaded episodes of this show. I've reviewed events, I've done different things and Those are there, but they are few and far between. But if you go back and listen to them, there are long term implications in every single one of them. And I'm becoming more and more aware in a, in a week I'm going to be releasing some very, very interesting time sensitive material. But the fact of the matter is it will have long term applications for people who listen to it two, three, four years in the future. Don't think in terms of this week, think in terms of bigger. If you've got a in review show you might want to think about, is that the right model? Yes, I know Leo Laporte does great with this week in tech, but man, nobody wants to go back six months ago, nobody wants to go back a year. And you know, he's doing fine, but boy, the work he has to do to get the audience he has to have. If he took half that energy to do legacy stuff. And yes, obviously the nature of what he's doing kind of dictates to this type of thing. But if you're still figuring out what you're doing and if you're still modeling your show and you're still shaping your show, don't think in terms of this week. Think in terms of bigger, think in terms of legacy and long term and evergreen and you'll be in an interesting place. So what you do then is you got to develop content for the long play. Now if you have news or if you're responding to something, maybe even consider putting that at the end. So what they learn from it, you know, once if the news is old, they can skip it at the end or something like that. But do what you can to develop content for the long term play. And what I want you to do is I want you to grab a piece of paper or your iPad or whatever you should take your notes on. I want you to brainstorm three ways your content could serve you in three years. I'm going to say that again. Three ways your content could serve you in 3 years. Once you figure that out, once you've calculated that out, you've got the integrated model for podcasting. Wonderfully. So in a future episode, I will examine three ways my show content will serve me in three years. And I'll give that to you. But I want you to do that. I want you to take that examination of that right now and then if you speak to the immediate, speak to the long term future as well. On next week's episode, I've got some really exciting information and basically not allowed to speak about it. Until next Tuesday. And the fun thing is that next Tuesday is when the next show comes out. So I will speak to something that is immediate for that day, but I will speak to the long term. I will speak to the future of it and take a look at that model. You can do the same. There we go. That's integrated podcasting model. More content on that to come. But there we go. For this episode, please. If you'd like the transcript and mind map for today's show, go ahead and text EP4.6 to the show hotline, 503-897-1290. You can also call, leave a voicemail message if you'd like. We are all over social thepodcastreport.com Twitter thepodcastreport.com Facebook Love to have you there. I've got some links up@thepodcastreport.com 46 I've got a link to the book. I've got a link to Patreon, our Patreon project. I've got a link to the direct model episode and a link to the indirect model episode. Love to have you there. If this is your first time listening to the show. We've got a back catalog, but more importantly, we've got a really exciting future and I'd love to have you subscribed. Please subscribe to the show. What does that mean? That means, and podcasters haven't done a great job of explaining this, that you can set it so that every time a new episode comes out, you get updated automatically. If you go to the podcastreport.com iTunes or the podcastreport.com Stitcher or the podcastreport.com Pocketcast thepodcastreport.com TuneIn. You can click a button to subscribe or to follow that every time we release a new episode, you get notified at the time of this recording. We've been releasing them on Tuesdays. That might change, who knows. But if you subscribe, if you're part of this, you will get this in the future. The email address is the podcastreportoutlook.com and if you are the type who likes to review podcast shows, would love one. Go ahead, review us over at itunes or Stitcher. Those seem to be the two where they have the biggest impact. Thank you so much. Get to work on your three ways your content could serve you in three years and you'll change the monetization of your podcast forever. Chat with you next week. Bye.