Podcast Predictions For 2016 - The Podcast Report With Paul Colligan Episode #75

Hey, this is Paul. Welcome to episode 75 of the podcast report. We are closing down season one here. This was actually recorded live, at least live over YouTube to a number of you. Thank you. For those of you who joined us, what we've got here is most of the recording. I took some time before and afterwards and we actually had a technical hiccup as well. That made things fun. If you would like to watch the video from this presentation and see the entirety of what I did, including some Q and A and some behind the scenes stuff, you can head out to the podcastreport.com 75 if you'd like to just listen to it. The context, the entirety of the episode is contained here. We are closing up the air. This is season one coming to close. Season two will start mid January. Look out for that. Plenty of things to see and do. Make sure you stay subscribed, make sure you've got it set up. Not just that you can get the past episodes of season one catching the ones you missed. But join us when season two happens, it's going to come and it's going to be big. So let's get to the episode, shall we? Predictions for 2016 it's the podcast report. Episode number 75, show notes, links, conversation and more@thepodcastreport.com 75 it's the podcast Report with Paul Colligan. And here's Paul first, the Big Idea and I've got three of them for you. Big idea number one. Actually, I've got four of them for you. Podcasts and Google Play will bring no more than 5% growth to any podcast. Number two, 2016 is the year advertising drops from number one on the monetization list. Big idea number three, I'll stream my podcast on Pandora before I record my next predictions piece. And Big idea number four, podcasters will be introducing app based calls to action. This is the Podcast Report and this. Well, me first. My name is Paul Colligan. I'm a podcaster, podcast consultant, podcast author, fan of the industry. I've been doing this for a long time. I love this industry. I love the podcasters and that's why I do this show. The avatar for the show is podcasters looking to make their podcast a real business or do real business as a result of their podcast. We try to get straight to the point here. We tried to get the work done. The show has never been a massive play, but it will always be a deep one trying to help you do exactly what it is that you're trying to do. So why this topic? Why this episode? Well, I am cleaning up, I am closing down. I am finishing season one. This is the last recording of what we're gonna call season one. Now. It took a couple of years to make season one happen. That's okay. We've got some new stuff coming. Season two is gonna start on January 9th of 2016, so I'm taking about a one month hiatus. Don't worry, I've got some very, very cool things coming out that I'll be showing to you. I'm doing a predictions piece for a number of reasons. A prediction pieces are always fun to do. People love prediction pieces. My 2015 prediction piece was actually my most popular episode of the podcast report. And don't worry, we're going to take a look at my predictions and see how well those fared. It's good to plan for the future. If you want to know what's coming in the future. If you want to at least think to plan to what's coming in the future, it's good to go now. One of the things I'm doing this episode, you're going to be hearing me speaking a lot to Podcast Launch checklist. I am producing a checklist of everything you want to do when you're launching a podcast. A bunch of people are launching their podcast in 2016 and they want the checklist. And gosh darn it, I'm building the checklist. And you can head out to podcastlaunchchecklist.com and fill out the form there to get that for you. I'll be referencing that a couple times in there. But if you're looking to launch your podcast or you have launched your podcast, you want to make sure you do everything. Make sure you take a look@podcastlaunchchecklist.com also in that I will include the mind map for this episode so that it can help it make sense. Now, this episode's a little bit different than past episodes. This episode's actually recorded live. As I look at this right now, I'm looking at a screen. The people who are watching this inside of YouTube people are having a good time. It's always fun to see people watching you live. What's also interesting is just the comments. One of my favorites, Josh Freiberg is. Well, he's crying because he thinks the show is going away. It's just for a short time. Don't worry. I've got some other things to show you, but we're recording this live and I'm doing this on YouTube. I'm not doing this on Blab, I'm not doing this on Periscope. I'm not doing this on these other things because these platforms spoken to that in the past, I don't think have a long shelf life. I've also been able to do things like share my screen, higher resolution and that type of thing when I do things on video. If you want to watch the video version of this, go ahead and head out to thepodcastreport.com 75 and that'll take you right to this episode and it'll make things a little bit easier for you. But yeah, I'm recording this live. The video recording of this will actually be a little bit longer than the audio recording of this. I did a bit of a pre show at the beginning and then I'm doing the post show where I'm actually going to make answer some Q and A respond to people. I do have to respond to Elizabeth Harrington who says she loves the early predictions. Thank you, Elizabeth. It's there. We'll take Q and A about what I have to say at the end of this. So the first thing we have to do is we have to look at my podcast predictions for 2015, because I made three and I want to chat about them now. The first one was tongue in cheek. The first one I said was, there's going to be 5,000 new seven day a week podcasts with the word on fire in the title. John Lee Dumas, friend, inspiration, hero, icon, whatever you want to call him, he has definitely dictated the dialogue and dictated where people are going and what people are chatting about. And the fact of the matter is there are a lot of people who think that podcasting has to be, you know, in the format of what John Lee Dumas does. I went to podcast movement this year and I met a guy in the elevator who had a topic that was not something that you would want to talk about seven days a week for about 40 minutes a day. But because of John Lee's influence, and it's funny, John Lee, I think, is doing it well, I think a lot of people are just taking John's influence a little bit further than they necessarily should. There are a lot of people who think the formula is seven shows a week. The formula is interview. The formula is entrepreneurs. There's not a formula to podcasting. Part of what's wonderful about podcasting is that you have all of these options. So we've seen a lot of folk with On Fire in the title. We've seen a lot of folk emulating John because They think that's the secret weapon. John would tell you that's not the secret weapon. I would tell you that's not the secret weapon. But there've been a lot of people trying to jump in, but that one was tongue in cheek. Let's hit the next one. A number of pointless podcast in a box products will launch. I said that was going to happen and boy, did that happen. It's funny, at podcast movement again, you know, there was the. The hall with a lot of people promising great things for podcasts. Everything from podcast hosting, podcast in a box to interview solutions, this type of thing. None of them panned out. One of the companies that I was really excited about, the CEO, gave me his card and said, if you have any problems, let me know. Well, we did one. We had a problem, let him know. And he never responded. There are a lot of people who want to make podcasting more complicated than it is. There are a lot of people want to make podcasting more complicated than it is. That's really the term. And a number of pointless podcasts in a box have popped up. I've had some friends who've jumped over who put their podcasts on some of these and it's not going to go well. And I really feel bad for them because, gosh darn it, it's simple. We've got hosts now. I'm a big fan of Libsyn. I've been recommending them, but even you don't go with Libsyn. It doesn' need to be complicated. The RSS feed doesn't need to be complicated. And, well, gosh darn it, yes, I was really, really right there. The other one that I was right with was my third prediction was that big announcements would have minimal show results. And I actually have some interesting numbers for you. I spoke to this on a previous episode, but Spotify and one of my clients, one of my popular clients, 2.1 million downloads, incredible show, incredible audience, Love her dearly. And I can say that I looked at the stats yesterday. Only 2. 207 people came from Spotify. 2.1 million downloads. 207 of them came from Spotify. Now, she hasn't been on Spotify the entirety of the 2.1 million download run, but the fact of the matter is it went down. The November download numbers were down from the October download numbers, and so it's not going up. I spoke a couple of episodes ago to Android being inside, you know, and podcast being inside of Google Play, and that's all fine and dandy. But that's really not going to make that kind of a blip on either. So I said, Google, you know, I said big announcements will have minimal show results. The big announcements have come, there have been minimal show results. Spoke in the past to. We need to be in charge of our own podcast, we need to be in charge of our own marketing, we need to be in charge of our own promoting. And that is what we have to do. And nothing came this year that's going to change the game. And I'm going to tell you this, nothing is going to come next year that is going to change the game either. It's just the game that we're dealing with. We are responsible for getting our podcast out the door, not other people. So Those were the three predictions for 2015. Now I'm making four predictions for 2016, and they are considerably bigger and considerably more. What's the word I'm looking for? They're bigger and they're more decisive and they're less nebulous. And there's. There's nothing. Tongue in cheek. So the first prediction here is simply that podcast and Google Play is not going to add more than 5% growth to any podcast. It's great. Submit your show to Google Play, but you're not going to see more than 5% growth as a result of that. That is prediction number one. Now, what do we do with this? Well, quite simply, one, you are responsible for your own show promotion. You are responsible for your own show promotion. Your promote, your show is going to make you famous. Your show is going to see the revenue that you're looking for when you promote it, not when Google promotes it, not when itunes promotes it. It seems like one of the big themes this year, and it's not going to be a theme of season two is that, you know, this didn't produce magic results. This didn't produce magic results. This didn't produce magic results. These things didn't produce magical results. Because there is no magical results inside of podcast. That's just not the industry that we're in. If you're looking for magical results, you might want to go to some sort of industry like maybe magic or that type of thing. If you go to podcast checklist.com we're working on the ultimate podcast launch checklist that will help you work through all the steps of promotion and all the steps of marketing and making sure that before your show goes out the door, before you launch, you will have the things needed to do your own show promotion. Because it is your job. If you've already launched your podcast. It's okay. Head on over to podcastlaunchchecklist.com and grab the checklist as well, because gosh darn it, I bet you you aren't doing everything. I was about to say anything. No, you're doing something. You're just not doing everything. So again, prediction number one. Podcasts in Google Play bring no more than 5% growth to any podcast. I stand strong on that one. Prediction number two, 2016 is the year advertising drops from number one on the monetization list. That's right, everybody. I'm going to get ads. I'm going to get ads. I'm going to get ads. This is the year it drops, and let me tell you why it drops. And I've got some numbers for you that will sober you up. And we're going to show them to you right here. If you're looking at the video, if you're not, you can get the checklist by heading out to episode 75. So Rob Walsh over at Libsyn just gave some pretty fantastic numbers and, well, here we go. In October 2015, the median episode download. Now, median is in the middle, not the average, because you got people like Marc Maron and that kind of thing who are just downloading billions of them. But if you look at the middle, all the podcasts downloaded, you look in the middle. 137 downloads. That's the middle. So if you're getting more than 137 downloads per episode, the fact of the matter is, congratulations, you know, you are doing better than most. You are literally in the top 50%, which could be really exciting for some people. A lot of people watching this. I know your shows, you can probably say out loud, wow, I'm in the top 50% of all of it. Of all of Libsyn. Didn't know that, didn't see that. But the fact of the matter is, you know, more than, and this is really, really, really key, more than half of the podcast episodes out there are only getting 136 or less downloads. Think about that. If you're doing ads. 136 downloads per. Yeah, dude, like eight episodes before you get your first CPM. And they're not going to sell that to you. Well, Paul, where else does it go? Well, look, if they're doing greater than 5,000 downloads, they're in the top 8.3% of all podcasting. 5,000 downloads at a 20 cpm is still just 100 bucks an episode. And if you're only making 100 bucks an episode, and you're the top 8.3% of ALL of Libsyn. I think you can do better here. What Rob said about this is that's the magic number where CPM campaigns start to make sense. And, yeah, I would agree with him there. If you're looking to do ads, you can insert an ad. You get 5,000 downloads, you take about $20 per take for years. I mean, to record an episode and to get a check for 100 bucks isn't bad, but it's not the big thing. And here's the thing. Podcasts that get more than 10,000 downloads per episode are the top 5% of all of Libsyn. And no, Libsyn is not the only host out there, but boy, Libsyn hosts a lot of them. And it's, it's pretty huge. Guys, the, the models of, of ads as the way you're going to make money is just not sustainable. You've got to figure out what your monetization plan is and how it's not ad insertion. And if you head out to podcast checklist.com we've got, you know, part of the process is figuring out what your monetization strategy is. Would love to have you, you know, do that, but. But the ad models just aren't sustainable. So the next prediction, I predict that I'm going to stream my podcast on Pandora before I record my next predictions piece. This is huge. You know, I spoke to Pandora taking on Serial in a previous episode, and there have been a lot of podcasters who have said Serial isn't interested. I'm sorry, Pandora isn't interested. The fact of the matter is, no, Pandora isn't interested at all. But I think the numbers are going to change. I think they're going to become very interested. And the whole infrastructure of podcasting is pretty easy. And for them to bring podcasting into Pandora would make a heck of a lot of sense. It would be good for the podcasters, it would be good for Pandora, you know, when it's good for both sides of it, why would they not do it? So I predict that it's going to happen. I predict it's going to happen by, you know, my next predictions piece. And I certainly intend on doing a predictions piece in 2016. Now, there's no reason for them not to take podcasts. That, that's part of my logic there. It might be ghettoed. I, I showed you those Spotify numbers, you know, for my, my client. And, and the fact of the matter is it's just not Getting the attention deserves. I think this will grow in the future, but I think we'll see our show and our content on side of Pandora, which is really the last bastion for all this to happen. I think that's going to happen pretty quickly. And again, the whole idea of making yourself a shown on a podcast, we've got a couple of ideas for that in the podcast checklist. Now this next one is a bit bold. I'm saying that podcasters are going to introduce app based CTAs app based calls to action where we're going to tell people not to visit the website or not to visit a domain name, but actually to to download an app and take some action on the app. Paul, are you going to be doing this? You bet I am. I don't just have one app coming out. I've got two apps coming out and I've got a blast with them. One of them looks like it's in. It's, it's almost any moment now will be available in the itunes store. And don't worry, I'm not just doing it in the itunes store. It's going to go to the Android store, it's going to go to the Kindle store and that type of thing as well. But I think what we're going to see is, I think we're going to see it's more valuable to bring people over to an app than it is something else. Apps in small numbers, if you sold the right product could do really well. They're sexier, they're more attractive than websites and I think we're going to see some more of that. So I got two of those coming. Definitely keep a watch out for those. And if sign up for podcast checklist.com we've got a little bit about apps in there as well and that of course will mean that you are on the the list and I'll make sure that you've got the ability to be updated when these things come out. So what am I doing next year? What am I doing in conjunction with these thoughts? And by the way, if you are watching this live, if you are on the live video stream and you want to make a comment about this, any way, shape or form, that would be great. That would be a lot of fun and we can make some comments there. Again, we'll just go with these quickly. Podcast and Google Play will bring no more than 5% growth to any podcast. 2016 will be the year that traditional advertising drops from number one on the monetization list. I predict I will stream My podcast on Pandora before I produce my next predictions piece boy, I did not meant that to be as alliterative as it was, but there it is. And then the idea that podcasters are going to start introducing app based calls to action. So there we go. What am I doing? I'm rebooting. I am. As I mentioned earlier, the podcast is going a bit of a hiatus. We're going to bring this thing up at the beginning of January next year. I'm going to look a lot into opt ins, getting emails, getting email addresses as well as getting people to take a look at apps. If you pick up, get yourself on the podcast launch checklist. I will report to how this opt in grab went. I'm being very obvious here to what I want, but I'm providing some great value for it. So it's, it's interchange that I think is going to happen. Well, I'll tell you this, by just putting in this opt in, there were a number of people who signed up for this before the show even happened, which is a very, very cool idea. I'm going to focus on these issues. I'm going to continue to promote my own show. I'm going to continue to look at opt ins, I'm going to look at monetization outside of advertising and I'm not going to look for anybody big to bring me my audience. I'm going to look for my own marketing efforts to bring me the audience. Paul, are you going to do that with an app? You bet I am. And we're going to have some fun with that. I would recommend that you do the same. What do you do with this? Well, you know, I always recommend in the podcast report that you do something. I want you to grab the checklist. If your podcast doesn't meet things in this checklist, get that stuff figured out right away. Now I would love your thoughts here. This podcast report is pretty much everywhere online. You can head out to podcastreport.com Twitter to find us on Twitter, the podcastreport.com Facebook to find on Facebook, Google to find us on Google, LinkedIn, whatever you want. We're all over social. If you want to make a comment about today's episode or do something over at Facebook or follow us there, that would be great. The blog remains up. Go ahead and comment away. A lot of people don't realize with all the different options that we actually do have comments right here in the blog. And I'm showing everybody who's watching this that ability. But you know, right down here you've got the ability through Discuss to make comments. And of course, doing this live, nobody's made a comment yet, but you can do that. I would love to have your comments on the show. Links at episode 75. I've got three simple links. We've got how to Podcast, which is the book. The book's currently being updated to the 2016 version. If you have the 2015 version, make sure it's registered. And if the 2015 version is the only version still available to you when you're listening to this, grab that, register it. That will be your cheapest path. Podcaster Cart is the e commerce system that we've launched for podcasters. And Podcast Launch Checklist is the the checklist that I'm promoting strongly because I think it's going to be very, very powerful for you. So I am going to say goodbye, at least to the live version of this.