Running The Numbers - The Podcast Report #54

Running the podcast numbers. It's the podcast report, episode five. Four show notes, links, conversation and more@the podcastreport.com 54. It's the podcast report with Paul Colligan. And here's Paul. Hey, this is Paul Calligan. The big idea for this episode is simply not looking at the podcast numbers, is not taking your podcast seriously. My name is Paul Calligan. I'm the author of how to podcast 2015. I am the CEO of Calligan.com and I am your podcaster today. I've been in podcasting since day one. I love this industry and I love you, the podcaster listening to this. That's right. This is one of those podcasts about podcasting, but instead of being one of those things about microphones and hosting shootouts and bod rates and bit rates and that kind of stuff, this is about the numbers. This is about the money. This is about the business of podcasting, which is really, really exciting. One of the reasons that the business of podcasting is so exciting for me is because podcasting is exciting. And when you figure out the business, you're able to pay the bills that let you make more podcasts. And it's a wonderful little cycle. Anyway, I am getting ready for podcast movement 2015. I've got a session on Sunday that I'm really excited for. I have. I don't think I've prepped longer for a presentation than this one. I'm really excited about it, and one of the things I'm prepping for is just simply, how do you run the numbers for your podcast? A lot of people simply don't. A lot of people are scared to. We'll chat about that episode, but some of you just simply don't know how. Some of the things I'll be unleashing at my presentation at Movement is I'll have a calculator for everybody. I'll show you how to work that out. But between now and then, a couple of thoughts on the whole running of the numbers. Now in this week's episode, if you go out to the podcastreport.com 54. I've got an article for you from Tubefilter. It's about Comic girl. Comic Book Girl 19. I guess the first 18 comic books were taken. Comic Book Girl is. She's doing great. She's doing well. And she's got a great YouTube following. She's a definite YouTuber. But here's what's interesting. She's also doing paid video on demand. Yes. She's giving a bunch of stuff away. At YouTube. But she's finding that her audience is paying for content. Well, wait a minute, how does that work? Well, it works quite well in this article. And again, if you head out to the podcastreport.com 54, you can get a link to it. She has made more money from one single video sold, video on demand through Vimeo of all places, than she has in her advertising for the entire year for all of her videos on YouTube. And this is not a criticism of YouTube. This is an understanding of the mechanics at play here. Sometimes the model that makes sense is selling your content extremely. Sometimes the model that makes sense is not the one that everybody else is doing. And so comic book Girl 19 is doing a wonderful job. Um, it made me think about it. And, and the, the big, the funny thing is is there's so many people who just simply aren't running the numbers. So let's chat about running the numbers. Okay. Some things, some places where we're not charting, tracking, running the numbers. The first thing is, it's really sad. I see a lot of podcasters who are willing to spend $500 with a drop of the hat for a microphone, you know, a couple hundred dollars for a tablet, 500 again for a phone, 2,000 for a laptop, you know, but then buying the non nerd tools, you know, the mailing list program. Are you collecting a mailing list? Are you really collecting a mailing list? Or do you have an opt in form where people fill it out and one day you're going to do something with it? And are you dealing with a professional mailing list company or are you dealing with some sort of system out there that does something? Hosting. Boy, I've watched the world of hosting, both media hosting and web hosting, and I'm watching people who are just bickering over a couple of bucks a month and oh, gosh darn it, it's terrifying. And then in the whole world of E commerce, it gets even worse. I mean, if you're really going to sell stuff, and by the way, sell stuff, this works well. And it's not just Comic Book Girl. It's seen that. It's t shirts, it's CDs, it's books, it's digital files, it's physical files, it's chachkas, it's all these things. But man, if you're going to sell stuff, don't just put up some free plugin somewhere. Think about an e commerce engine that makes it possible to do affiliate programs. And you know, not just you selling stuff, but your army Your listeners, your audience, audience selling stuff and then heck tracking. Find out what works, what doesn't work. Wouldn't be sad to know that you spent 100 bucks on marketing and about half of it worked. But you don't know which half. Spend the money on the system that lets you figure out which half. Run the numbers and you'd be at a better place. Don't feel weird, don't feel bad buying non nerd tools for your podcast mailing lists, hosting and e commerce are three big place to do that. Another place where I'm seeing people simply not running the money, running the numbers is just in the revenue potential. You know, I'd like my podcast to make X. Well, what's your model for podcast making X? Well, I'm going to sell ads. Well, ads, there's just a flat line to where the ads do which require a lot of downloads. Yeah, well I don't have those downloads right now. What? It's just simply not going to work. It's just math. Your revenue potential is really simply the downloads that you're getting times the model that you're working with. And you know, if the model doesn't match the downloads, you're not going to see the revenue potential. So be honest with yourself, run the numbers correctly and go from there. Another place where the numbers aren't being tracked, run whatever the word is you want to use is just growth potential. You know, one day I'm going to have this many downloads. Well, you've been doing this for how long and what is your growth been and how do you expect one day that growth to change? I mean I spoke previous episodes about Spotify and I spoke previous episodes about different marketplaces and these are all exciting but. But they're not going to be this huge burst in listene listeners that you're going to get. And I'll tell you, getting on, you know, a new and notable list or some list like that isn't going to make the balance. I mean what is your growth potential? What's the target? And if it's just not realistic that it's going to get there. Do you need to change your model or do you need to change your marketing? You know another place that people simply aren't running the numbers is just what is their audience looking for? They have this idea that my audience wants X but they never ask the audience. Then they don't know. They don't look at which episodes are getting the most downloads. You don't examine the truth versus the gut feeling and gosh darn it. If you forget what your audience is looking for, you can provide it. They will tell others, more will come, the downloads will happen. And then if you've got a good monetization model, you can do well with that. But the fact of the matter is if you don't know what your audience is looking for and whether or not you're providing it, you're going to be in a bad place. And then the last thing that happens, and this one's just really sad, is I, I'm seeing a lot who are simply running podcasts of a certain model. You know, they're seeing great success in a certain model and so they're trying to emulate, replicate, they're trying to, to do that model themselves. Even though they have no passion for it and even though they have no capacity for it, they still try to take a certain model versus a certain audience and they don't realize what that means and what that does. And man, don't worry about models over content. You got to think of a long term play. If you're running the numbers, run the numbers of a long term play. I've got a link in the show notes the podcastreport.com episode 54 to a link for the Content Marketing Institute. And it's great because it's an article in no way about podcasting. It just happens to mention this podcast actually and the idea that in content marketing you're looking for subscribers, you're looking for the long term relationship, not the one off, which is what I've chatted about in this show before, but something that not all of you are thinking about. And I want you to think about this. What is the long term play? Do I want somebody listening to episode 54 or do I want somebody listening to the back catalog? Or do I want somebody listening to just enough so that they get on the mating list? Or do I want somebody listening in such a way that they'll buy the product? What is it that I want? What is my long term play? And we go from there. So that link from the Content Marketing Institute's fun. Take a look at that. Another thing is simply not looking at where audiences come from. You know, I know as computer enthusiasts, you know, we want the little guy to win. You know, we like the fact that Android is so much cheaper. But when you look at the numbers, they're coming from Apple, they're coming from itunes, and not making your product and your service ready for that. I mean, if 8 out of 10 are coming from X, X needs to get 80% of your attention. Think about that. Do that. Where the audiences come from is. Is. Is a number that a lot of people simply aren't running, simply aren't examining, certainly aren't playing with. And, you know, it's. It's funny. I've said this before, but I'll. I'll say this on this episode. What's interesting is I've spoken to Stitcher in the past, and Stitcher is a really exciting model. And I've chatted to Tunein, and some of the Tunein penetration is interesting. But little Spreaker, who I've also chatted about on past episodes. I'm seeing more listens at Spreaker than I'm seeing at Stitcher and at Tunein combined. What does that mean? Well, that means Spreaker starts to get more attention. Because if Spreaker's bringing me listeners, Spreaker gets my attention. If Apple's bringing me listeners, Apple gets my attention. If someone's not bringing me listeners, they don't get as much attention. And if you don't know where the listeners are coming from, and if you don't know what's working and what's not working, you're never going to be able to figure that out. You know, the only thing worse than singing the wrong tune is singing it loudly and off key, and you don't want to do that. So knowing where your audience comes from is incredibly important. And then, of course, there's just simply ignoring the numbers. You know, I'm in this for passion. I'm in this for experience. I'm in this for whatever. The numbers will help with your passion. If your passion is to reach people, looking at the numbers will help you figure out how to reach the most amount of people with your message. You know, if you're in this for passion, you're going to figure out what works and what resonates and all these things. Just because you're not selling, you know, $40 cpm ad slots doesn't mean that you don't run the number. And ignoring the numbers is kind of. Well, not kind of knowing the numbers is quite simply just a bad idea. Now, that big idea I chat about the beginning, not looking at podcast numbers is simply not taking your podcast seriously. I spent some time pondering, and I'd love your thoughts on this, and if you want to reach out to me on social on this one, this would be interesting. But there's. There's really five reasons why you won't be looking at the podcast numbers. And, well, let's Hit them number one. You're scared. You know, the numbers can tell the truth, and sometimes we don't want the truth, and sometimes we don't look at the numbers because the numbers tell the truth. I can understand that. But maybe those numbers tell you it's time to rejigger. It's time to redo your podcast. Think Mignon Fogarty, who started with the science podcast and ended up with Grammar Girl because she looked the numbers. The next reason that you might not be looking at the podcast numbers is you don't know what the numbers mean and how to deal with the numbers. And hopefully I dealt with that a little bit here. If you're coming to podcast movement, definitely come into my session. We'll chat about that. Ask with others. But, man, these numbers are your lifeblood, and they tell a better story than reviews at itunes. They tell a better story than an occasional email or social post you get from someone. They tell a story that's really important. And if you don't know to look at them and you don't know what to look for, I'm sorry, let's. Let's fix that over future episodes. Another one is you don't want to face the numbers, and scared and don't want to face is kind of different. Scared is complete ignorance. Not wanting to face is simply not ignorance. It's just decision made from ignorance. Well, if I don't look at the numbers, I don't need to know how bad I'm doing. Get over that. If you're in this, if you listen this far in the episode, you know why you're doing this, and the numbers can help you do it better. So please run the numbers. You don't care what the numbers are. I don't know. I think you do. I've yet to met someone who says I don't care about the numbers, who really doesn't care about the numbers. You doing this because of passion. You're doing this because of commitment. And the numbers just reflect what's working and what isn't. And then finally, the big reason you're not looking at podcast numbers is just because running the numbers is a daunting task. Running the numbers is a task outside of your comfort zone. Getting in front of a microphone and interviewing someone or making jokes or monologuing or sharing your passion is there, but running the numbers is. Oh, what do I do with that? How do I deal with that? Well, keep listening to this show. We're going to hit this in future episodes. If you go to any podcasting event, podcast movement or anything else, talk to the other podcast. You know, say what do you do with the numbers? How do you run the numbers? If you're on any podcast online, ask others what they do with the numbers and how they respond to it and I think we'll be at a better place there. Thanks for listening me on this one. I have a couple links at the website the podcastreport.com 54 for this one I've got a link to my book how to podcast 2015. I got a link to our Patreon experiment, I got a link to the comic girl 19 bit and I got a link to the Content Institute article as well. And those should be fun for you. Those maybe will help you do that and help you get to a better place. I think that'd be fine for all. If this is your first episode or if you haven't subscribed yet, subscribe to the show. Set yourself up for follow ups so that you get the next episode automatically and then the episode after that automatically. And then the episode after that automatically. And I don't care how you do it. I mean statistically speaking and the numbers that I spoke to earlier, you're doing it on itunes. But if you come with me via Stitcher thepodcastreport.com Stitcher or the podcastreport.com iTunes or the podcastreport.com TuneIn or the podcastreport.com Spreaker I don't care how you come, come listen, enjoy the tech, stay for the coffee, whatever it is that you want to do. If you want to follow up on social, that would be great. Thepodcastreport.com Facebook podcastreport.com Twitter it's all there. If you want to drop me an email the podcastreportlook.com but please run the numbers. Take your podcast seriously and you'll find yourself at a much better place. This is Paul Colligan. This is the podcast report. We will chat next week. Bye.