Podcast Monetization Unveiled: Mastering Market, Message, and Medium

After all these years, are there any new monetization models in podcasting? It's the podcast report. Episode 4 at thepodcastreport.com 4 show hotline is 503-897-1290. It's the podcast Report with Paul Colligan. And here's Paul. All right, so the big idea, you know, basically trying to find a monetization model in a technology as silly as trying to find a plot in a Michael Bay film. Since the beginning, we've been looking at podcasts as if the golden egg that we're going to deliver all this cash immediately. It's never worked that way, and well, we're going to explore. Let's see if anything has changed. Monetization of podcasting really only comes when the message and the market have been figured out. Now, yes, there are a few players who've seen some cash in ads and that type of stuff, but really, honestly, profitable podcasters don't monetize their podcast. They monetize their their message. And they know the difference between the two. The podcast is not enough. It's the message that the podcast brings. If this resonates, I'd love a tweet of that quote. You can head out to thepodcastreport.com for to get a tweet of that easily or go ahead and type that in. What is the podcast report? Well, the industry's seeing a crazy boost. It's exciting. What's happening? I've been in the industry since the beginning. I built a podcast report for two audiences, the podcaster and those who are thinking about getting in the podcasting game by going deep. Not massive, but by going deep. Hopefully I'll bring to you some information to help you exceed in what it is that you are doing. It's not a massive play, but it's a deep one. I love the industry. I have since day one. And hopefully you should see that here. So why the topic? Why are we looking at podcast monetization? Well, first of all, those who don't learn from the past are completely and totally doomed to repeat it. I hate to have the history teacher and me come out on here, but, you know, we have enough history here in podcasting. We have enough history in online monetization and money to actually look at the past and see what's happened. That's exactly what I want to do here. Podcast monetization is still, sadly, a completely misunderstood topic. It's honestly part of why I went dark for a little while. I didn't want to be at the event over and over again and have people look to me to give them the answer to the wrong question. Podcast monetization and the prejudices and the misunderstandings about it have prevented a lot of podcasters from actually getting out there, or at least getting out there to the extent that they could. My goal here is to prevent a little bit of heartache. I was at a client meeting with one of my clients, and we were talking about Dumas, and Dumas, or however you want to pronounce it correctly, Entrepreneur on Fire. John, I love you, man. You've done a great job and you have been wonderful. You have been transparent, you have been great. But unfortunately, I think some people have misunderstood what's going on. And we were in this conversation, we were chatting about, well, what are we going to start doing about sponsors? What are we going to start getting for our ads and that kind of thing. I'm like, guys, that's such a small part of what they make over at Entrepreneur on Fire. What do you mean? Well, take a look at his report. Take a look at the transparency that he's given. They're making a small percentage in sponsorships. It's the other products that they're selling, it's the other things that they're doing. That's where the money is. Now you take a look at that conversation. And a couple of weeks ago, celebrity net worth, and even though there's a website called this, came out with an article called the Top Money making Podcast. Dave Jackson pointed that out in his podcast and, well, I've got a link to it, the podcastreport.com for. There's a link to it, but it was basically, you know, top 20 episodes, how much money they're making per episode. Now, all of this was about sponsorship and all this was about ads. Dumas isn't in there, which I found rather intriguing. And, you know, maybe they're saying he's not a traditional model, I don't know. But the fact of the matter is a lot of people are focused, A lot of people are chatting about this concept and this idea. So let's go from there. All right, so what were the old models of podcasting? I mean, when it started, I remember being at the podcast expo and, you know, good old CC Chapman handing out T shirts to quit your day job. Everybody thought it was about the ads. Everybody thought, you know, get in front of a microphone, get rid of the transmitters, get rid of the radio stations, and, you know, get a lot of money because somebody wants to put a deodorant ad inside of your podcast. Well, it's worked for so few. It's worked for so few. No, it has worked for some. I don't want to say that it's a dead model, but it's not the most strategic. I used to say I used to train from the beginning, and ads are part of this, that there are three models in podcast monetization. Number one is the indirect model. That's as a result of your podcast, things happen. As a result of your podcast, you get a book contract. As a result of your podcast, you get a speaking gig. As a result of your podcast, you get into places that you couldn't have gotten before. As a result of your podcast, you get free stuff that you wouldn't have gotten before. And that's a viable model that's there. It's not that big. It doesn't generate the type of revenue that you can. But that was one model. The second model is the direct model. You sell ads on your podcast, and you sell ads for other people's stuff. Very, very popular. Or you sell ads for your own stuff, which has always been one of my favorite things. And then finally, the last model was integrated, where your podcast became a larger part of who it is that you are and what it is that you're doing. And, boy, if you look at people like Rush Limbaugh, I know some of you hate him, but look at the model. You take a look at people like Dave Ramsey. I know some of you hate him, but look at the model, and you take a look at what's happened and the integration of the podcast content into your larger business. That's where the money is. And we look at Dumas, you know, look at Entrepreneur on fire. It's the integration of his podcast and everything else that he's doing, which is where the revenue is. So I've been saying that since 2005. Are there any new models? No, there are no new models. I hate to burst your bubble, but there's some new tech that can help. There's some new ideas that are out there. There are better ad brokers. There are better people doing things, but the models really haven't gotten away. One new tech example, Gary Leland. The old podcast Pickle has lost Pottertainment magazine. It's in the itunes store right now. He's breaking out into the Android marketplace very soon. Might even by the time of this recording. I love what Gary's doing, but again, it's an extens of his existing stuff. So here's the approach to monetization. That you need to make. Making money with your podcast is really a three step process. Number one, it's market. It's understanding your market. Who is your market? You know, people who say their market is everyone, don't understand what a market is, don't want to understand what an avatar is. You figure out the market and then you figure out that message for the market. And as you take a look at that message for the market, that's where you examine monetization. I know bunch of M's. I remember back at one point, one of the big trends in podcasting was foreign language training. You know, free French lessons, free German lessons, free Japanese lessons. Wonderful. Awesome. But the problem was the market was perfect. People wanted to learn French, people wanted to learn German. Awesome. The message was, let me teach you French, let me teach you German. Awesome. The monetization was, well, if I give the lessons away for free, I'm certainly not going to get advertisers who sell this training to advertise. So monetization had to be obscure stuff and it just wasn't that strategic. And then once you figured out market and message, then you look at the medium. Once you figure out market and message, then you look at does podcasting make sense? Do other options make sense? That's what you do. So where do you go with this? If you're an existing podcaster, let's start. If you're not an existing podcaster, if you're not an existing podcaster, figure out your market first, then figure out your message, then figure out monetization, and then examine if podcasting is the medium for you. Now, I love podcasting. It represents just amazing opportunity and amazing growth in this industry. But market, message, then the medium, you know, stop monetizing your podcast, start monetizing your message. If you don't know your message, get back to your market. But here's the cool thing. What's so exciting is when you know you market and you know your message, there's more money to be made, there's bigger monetization models, because you're no longer stuck with the podcast. See, Gary Leland knows that his audience is podcasters, people looking at podcasters. So him producing a magazine about podcasters makes a tremendous amount of sense. Dumas knows that his audience wants to make podcasts. So his online training programs and his book and the other things that he's doing is absolutely wonderful. What I call this and what a number of you calling this now is multicasting. You take your content, you distribute it multiple places. You know, be You, a magazine, a private membership site, a Kindle book, a printed book, an event. You know, all these are different ways to extend out your message. And then you use the podcast to bring people into that. Now, I know a question that you're going to have, and this is a fair one. Okay, Mr. Hotshot, how are you monetizing this one? One of the things I want to do is I want to try to honor the transparency level that Dumas has brought to the industry. If you are a fan of Entrepreneur on Fire at all, you see monthly income reports and they're tremendous and they're wonderful. And whereas I'm not going to give you what's happening with my clients, that's just not fair to them, I am going to be considerably more transparent. And thank you, John, for the inspiration there. But. Well, let's start with the message. My message is that podcasting is one of the most exciting content distribution options I've ever seen. Podcasting is one of the most exciting content distribution options I've ever seen, ever seen. And it's easier than ever with podcasting to expand your reach by leveraging that tech. That is my message. Who's my market? People with a message who want to expand it, utilizing this tech. You know, how am I going to monetize it? Well, I'm going to monetize it for people who specifically and targetedly want to go on this journey with me. It's going to happen on two levels. It's going to happen on students, students who come through my course and took a bunch of people through it on the beta level of it. And that worked great. We've seen some great results there. And that's going to be opening up later this year. That's awes, that's wonderful. And then the higher level is just clients. I want high level people with high level messages, with high level markets, with high level monetization models to, you know, come on board with me and I can show you how to make the best out of that. So that's my market, that's my message, that's my monetization play. It's a positioning play for high level clients or people who are going to grab the podcast expert blueprint. So that's how I'm monetizing it again with the market, the message, the monetization and the media. And trust you me this know you me this, I am not only podcasting this content. You know, as a matter of fact, if you text EP4 as an episode 4 to 503-8971-290, you got the transcripts for this podcast? I'll send those right out to you. If you're in a foreign country, just call in, leave a voicemail, and we will get that to you as well. But there we go. There's text. There's one other way that the podcast report's getting out to you. Now, the fact of the matter is, is all these transcripts and all this content are being, you know, reproached, repurposed. And you'll be seeing a book coming out soon about some of the stuff here and a bunch of other options. I'm monetizing this by multicasting it because I know my audience, because I know the message, and I know how I'm going to monetize it. I recommend that you do the same. It's not about, oh, gee, I hope I can get a deodorant ad on this show or oh, gee, I hope I can do something else. Now, I know this is a bit controversial. I know some people believe just podcast your passions and the profits will follow. But I find that to be just a really bad piece of business advice. It's the old Kevin Costner if you build it, they will come type of thing. I would love your thoughts, though. We're at Twitter Podcast rpt. That's Podcast rpt. Podcast report already taken, of course. You can hit me out@the podcastreport.com Episode 4 or@facebook.com the PodcastReport Again for the mind map and the transcript for today's show. You can go ahead and text EP4 as an episode 4 to 503-897-1290. Also, feel free if you'd like to just call the number and leave me a voicemail message. We're sticking. Still figuring out the flow of voicemail messages, but we are having fun. Speaking of voicemail messages, we have a fun voicemail from Dave Jackson of the School of Podcasting. I called out Dave in the last episode as we examined what was happening in the world of subscriptions and if they were still important. I point out the fact that they were all but removed from Dave's site and he is the School of Podcasting. So, you know, I was curious why David did that, and Dave called in with this response. So take it away, Dave.

Mr. Paul Culligan, hey, this is Dave Jackson from the School of Podcasting, which you can find over@schoolofpodcasting.com Nice to have you back in the podcast pool, buddy. Just first things first, and I heard your episode about Our subscriptions important. And I thought about it, and I know this is what's going to be happening in the future. The next version of Macintosh software, the operating system that powers iPads, iPhones, and of course their Macintosh computers, is going to have the podcast app native, meaning, number one, people don't have to download it. They don't have to search for it in the app store. It's just there. And number two, they can't delete it. And I guess, number three, a lot of people are gonna go, what is this podcast thing? Which means I believe we're gonna have another surge of new podcast listeners in the very near future, probably when the next iPhone comes out. So what, August, September, something like that? And so we don't know exactly what the secret sauce is to ranking higher in itunes. We all have theories, but really only Apple employees know what the actual algorithm is. And so we believe it is total number of downloads, total number of reviews, and total number of subscriptions. So after listening to your episode, I thought, well, you know what, we should get ready for the next wave of podcast listeners. So I dug out a bigger itunes subscription button. Put subscribe on the front page at the school of podcasting, and we shall see. Because if there's a new wave coming and this will help me get up higher in the rankings, by all means, it doesn't hurt to have a subscribe button on your front page. You should have one there anyway. But you might as well have one that actually asks for the subscription because you don't get what you don't ask for. Thanks for everything you do, man. I'm glad to have your podcast back. Dave Jackson from the school of podcasting saying, see ya.

Okay, that's an interesting reason from Dave here. He, in short, said, and Dave, if I'm wrong, feel free to call back in and update here. It's fun to have these conversations back and forth. But basically he said, look, you know, podcasting is going to get much bigger in the Apple game and in the iOS game. And these guys do push podcasts, do push subscriptions, and as a result, he's going to do the same. And I think that's a viable option. And that's a strategy I'd actually notice. Thought of. So thank you, Dave, for that one. But to me, this is still a simple. It's still simply a deeper question. You see, if we don't have subscribe, if we don't have subscription, we don't have customers coming back to us on a regular basis, how are we different than A site that just has audio. How are we different from just, you know, all the other content distribution options that are out there? Yes, I like the fact that somebody can come to the blog and click Play, but I like the fact even more that when somebody gets in their car, I'm there waiting for them. When somebody gets on the plane, I'm there waiting for them. I still believe subscription to be much stronger than just hijacking the buzzword that somebody else is using, but a whole methodology for content distribution that, yeah, most people aren't pushing. And either that means it's just not worth pushing anymore or it means that we don't realize the power in pushing it. I would stress much more that the power is in pushing it. But please keep the conversation going everybod Dave and this is welcome to you as well, if you'd like. That was episode three. So the podcastreport.com three if you'd like to get the conversation going. So the podcast report, you can get it@the podcastreport.com iTunes or thepodcastreport.com Stitcher or thepodcastreport.com Pocketcasts or thepodcastreport.com TuneIn I'd love to get your subscription. I'd love to get your subscription because I want you getting this content regardless of whether or not you come out to blog or follow me on Facebook or find out what it is that's going on. Please subscribe. I want to get you this content. I want to make you a better podcaster. Next episode we're going to take a look at is do Podcasts need a website? I think this is an interesting question. I've got a quote from somebody who knows a lot about the value of a website that I think we'll start this out with. But do podcasts need a website? I thought it'd be fun, now that we're recording episode four here, to actually get my podcast blog site up. So the podcastreport.com is live, certainly not where it's going to be in the next week or so as we get this gussied up. But it's there. It's functional discussions. All that stuff is there. And that will be episode five. Comment away now here on episode four. So thepodcastreport.com episode four. I have a link to Gary Leland's Pottertainment magazine. I have a link to that article about the Top 20 podcast. I've also got a link to Ed Dale's magcasting platform. That's the platform that Gary is using for Pottertainment magazine. It's the same platform that fellow podcaster Don McAllister uses for the screencasting online magazine. It's an interesting magazine. You might want to take a look at that in addition to taking a look at the website. I'd love some reviews out there right now. This week, let's focus on reviewed itunes. If you head out to the podcastreport.com iTunes and give me a review, we've got one up there, but I'd love some more. If you want, email me the podcastreport@outlook.com. yes, I'm at Outlook, not at gmail. Anyway, this has been Paul Colligan from the Podcast report@thepodcastreport.com. this is episode four, episode five next week. Talk to you soon. Bye.