Three Tasty Flavors Of Podcast Monetization - The Podcast Report

It's three tasty flavors of podcast monetization. It's the Podcast Report, episode number 124. Show notes, links, conversation and more@the podcastreport.com 1, 2, 4 Last month was Social Media Marketing World 2017. Michael Stelzner had him on a previous episode. Always throws a good show. This year was no different. This year I did a panel on podcast monetization and the dream was this. I wanted all sides of podcast monetization. I picked the best I could think of and guess what? They showed up. This episode of the Podcast Report is brought to you by Expert Secrets. Russell Brunson has a book on getting paid for your knowledge. It's free with just shipping and handling. More information@the podcastreport.com ExpertSecrets the three people I got Rob Walsh Libson. You've had him on the show before. You've met him, you know him, you, you love them. Rob puts the very ads that he sells for Libsyn on his show. He understands this world. He spoke about that at the panel. Also got Gary Leland. We've also had him on the show in the early days. Gary is a dear friend, a great guy. Gary makes money selling his own product on his podcasts. And it's not what you think. It's not products about how to do business. It's not products about how to make money. It's not products about podcasting. It's things, crazy things like get this wallpaper. You're gonna love Gary. And then finally, I run on John Lee Dumas. I love what John has done. I love who John has become. The combo, the hybrid of selling his own product from his website as well as doing ads for others on his website has made him the million dollar boy. And I got him on the panel as well. I don't want to give you much more introduction other than that. I've got links to all three of these guys, at least their Twitter accounts@thepodcastreport.com 124 links to the book, links to expert secrets, links to other things. But what I want to do is simply transition to the panel. Thanks Mike and the team for letting me present this and thank you, Rob, Gary and John for joining me on this pretty fantastic panel. I'll end with the ending of the panel. I'm just going to get out of the way and hand over this whole thing to my good friend and podcasting colleague Paul Colligan. Paul is known for many things, some of them legal, but particularly this whole podcasting thing. Started many, many years ago. And Paul Colligan's been a part of that conversation the entire time. On the audio side, on the video side, he's currently hosting a fantastic podcast called the Podcast Report. And I'll just leave it at that. And Paul, I'll turn it over to you, sir.

Thank you, Mark.

I've been podcasting for 12 years now. There's a book in the bookstore called the Business Podcasting Bible. I had them put it underneath the table because it is 12 years old. I get emails every week. Loved the book. Loved your vision for podcasting. What about the iPhone? If you look at the copyright date, it's not that hard. This is my fifth time in social media marketing world. Michael Stelzner does an amazing job and I will be back next year. And one of the things you get by coming a lot is you learn the tricks. One of the tricks is do your session last. Because this way you don't have to be too polite to the other people who come in next. So this goes to 4:55. Officially, we'll be sticking around, answering more questions. JLD here has a 5 o' clock book signing. He's got 100 copies of his book. It's going to be given away in the networking pavilion. And so John's got that. Gary and Rob and I will stick around and we'll go as long as we need to go. Podcast monetization is a passion of mine for one reason. Not because I'm an evil, money loving, capitalist pig, but because a podcast that pays for itself sticks around. And I adore podcasters. Who adores podcasters, who loves the whole industry. Let's get it to stick around. You do that by monetization. So when they asked, they said, would you run a panel on podcast monetization? I said, yes, I would. And I got the three guys I know who should be on this. Three of the smartest guys in the industry. I emailed them, they said they couldn't do it. Full disclosure, guys. So I decided, what can I do? Let's get three of the best minds in podcast monetization. Maybe not my choice, but the best minds, I email those guys. Sorry, Paul, we can't do it. Okay, so I emailed three people I would love to share with you. And they said, paul, we can't turn you down three times in a row. John Lee Dumas. You know him, you love him. The thing I adore about John, other than his persistence, is the fact that he represents both sides of the podcast monetization model. Really well, he does straight up ads. He speaks the language, he knows the numbers. People have him on speed dial and he can speak to that, which he will and I will make him. But he can also speak to selling his own products, which is one of my passions in podcast monetization. So John does both. That angle is very special. Gary Leland, I'll let you. He'll tell you a little bit of his story. Gary is so non traditional when it comes to podcast monetization that you're absolutely going to fall in love with this guy. Fantastic. Does all the things not the way you've read about in the books, and he's doing quite well with it. Finally, Rob over there. Rob works for Libsyn, which many of you are hosted with, if not all of you. What's interesting, first week with the new lips. One of the things that's really interesting about Rob is he manages the advertising side of Libsyn, but he does it both for Libsyn. So he talks to the advertisers who want to help people monetize their podcast, but he's also got a show that he has advertisers on. Well, so he can speak to what the advertisers want and he can speak to what the podcasters want, and he can speak to that conversation that comes between the two. So I've got the whole story of podcast monetization for you right here. And if you don't realize that now you do. So one thing I hate about events, I absolutely detest events, where the presentation was the same presentation as last year and also the year before that, and then that book they wrote 10 years ago. It's not the same content. Question number one, Rascal Rajan Lee. What is working in podcast monetization today? Not a war story, not the big fish that we caught that we hang up on the wall. What is working in podcast monetization today, John?

So I love stories. And the quick story I want to tell about what's working in podcast monetization today is really getting niche with your podcast. And specifically within podcasters paradise, we have this woman who has three ballet podcasts. So very niche, very specific. But guess what? Every one of those shows has a sponsor, because that sponsor knows that every listener of that podcast is the perfect listener for that brand, for that product, for that service. So if you are willing to get very niche with your podcast, that's going to work. So what I see a lot of people do that's wrong, that I'm not going to get into my wrong thing's. Different for the next time. But what I see people do wrong when it gets to niching podcasts is they just try to copy others and they're not standing on their own shoulders to get going forward with that podcast. And so you find other people that are doing things right, like with a niche podcast, you learn from them, you do these three things, you do your podcast differently. You add your own unique value distinguisher to your podcast that uvd, and then you have to have your personality be a part of this. So if you want to have a podcast that's going to be monetizing in a correct way, go niche, be specific, speak to one person, have that one person multiplying to two, multiplying to four, multiplying to eight, and then you're going to have a podcast that's going to be very appealing for the right sponsors.

John just spoke to his students. Let's speak to John now. John, every month, if you don't know, has the income report exactly what happened last month broken down bit by bit every time? It's a master's level course in what works in podcasting. John, when you release, what month is this? Is 3-42- have you released February yet?

Yes, February.

So what was the number one source of revenue for you in February?

So the number one source for us in February was the most recent launch of the Mastery Journal, where another great way to monetize your podcast is to reach out to your audience and say, what are you guys struggling with? And my audience is struggling with productivity, with discipline, with focus. So I asked them what they were struggling with. I created the solution in the form of a product. The Mastery Journal offered it to them, and that was our biggest revenue generator in February.

So you created a product. You did not go to a publisher who published the product that sends it to a store at some point. You published it printing whole nine yards, ran through Kickstarter, sold it to your audience, and then some. And that was your biggest revenue for February.

Biggest revenue.

What was number two?

Number two is sponsorships. So we have two sponsors for every episode of Eofire. So that gives us 30 sponsorship spots, which is great. That's why a daily show can be awesome. So in the month of February alone, we did about $60,000 in sponsorship revenue.

Who are the sponsors?

So we have LegalZoom, Squarespace, ZipRecruiter, Caliper. Those are our main sponsors.

Now you can go. Historically, I'm going to assume. So it's been a while since I've gone that deep. But they can go historically and they can see the trends over time for where your money is coming from for your show. Correct?

Yeah. So We've now launched 42 monthly income reports all the way back to October of 2013.

Very cool, Gary. So first, you're going to have to say a little bit about what you do, because they don't know your show as much. So, Gary, tell us about your show or shows and tell us the number one source of revenue. February 2017.

My shows are a little different than most people when it comes to monetization. Most people make a show and hope it gets successful and then say, how can I monetize this show?

Raise your hand if you're that.

I mean, that's what I've found out has been the most common thing to do. Now, I got this show. I have me some listeners. I want to make some money off of them. I'm kind of the opposite. I have stores, e commerce stores, brick and mortar stores for a bunch of different businesses. And I say, I want to sell this product. I need to make a media source to advertise on. So I create media so I can advertise products I already sell on. And so that's my basic difference is I'm not hunting for products. Mine are physical goods also, which I did a show and I was going to interview people who sold physical products. You got a book that's in paperback. You and me were the few people who sell something physical. Most people who sell online are selling e stuff, ebooks, e webinars, whatever. So those are my two big differences is I have products to sell already and my products are physical products.

And, Gary, you mostly sell to the nerd community. Circuit boards, wires, batteries, that kind of thing.

That kind of thing. And, you know, baseballs have been cut in half, you know, for people who don't know how to throw balls.

What's your number one podcast? Rail.

My number one podcast. Well, really, right now, it is The Fix Forever TV show. I just started one 12 weeks ago for the Fixer Upper television show. And if you're not familiar with that, this is a couple in Waco, Texas, that takes old houses and fixes them up. And I was walking by the tv, my wife's watching tv, loves the show. I've never watched the show. And she goes, oh, my, oh, my. They put wallpaper in this house. And I own the largest wallpaper store in Texas. So I did a pack trek, said, what? And they put wallpaper on one wall in this house. So I suppose, well, gosh, we should do a show about the fixer upper TV show. So we watch it every Monday night, Tuesday night record it, Wednesday puts it up. Our wallpaper sales have gone through the roof from this show. It's the only show I've ever done where I do an NPR type thing, talking about the only show I've ever done with my wife and 12 years of podcasting. But then out of the blue, the lady who runs the show, Joanna Keane, comes out with a wallpaper book. I do wallpapers. She's putting wallpaper in the house. We can talk about the wallpaper in the house. And I got it at my store. Now they can come by.

Who here came into this knowing that the future of podcast monetization was wallpaper sales? Now, isn't it neat what you said at the beginning about niche? Gary's making good money guys from wallpaper. Okay. This idea. And by the way, do you interview wallpaper people seven days a week and talk about putting wallpaper on fire?

I don't even know how to put wallpaper.

Do you interview all the wallpaper people on Mondays from 8 to 9 on Skype? 9 to 10, 10 to 11?

No, I don't do much wallpaper.

Do you start the show with, are you ready to wallpaper?

Not yet, but I've been thinking about it, but I held off.

Isn't Gary awesome? Rob, what's working right now? Right now. And speak to both sides. What are advertisers buying right now? And what's happening on your show right now?

Well, let's. Let me start this. How many people here are planning to podcast and are planning to make money from advertising? Run away, run away, run away. Really? You have less than a 10% chance to make money from advertising. Let me give you some numbers here. The median number. That means half the podcasts get more than downloads and half get less. 200. 200. I have people that will email me saying, hey, Rob, I'm ready for advertising. And I go and look up their numbers. And their best episode ever was 12. You're not ready for advertising at that level. Now, there are ways to make money from podcasting other than just advertising. So I think, you know, we talk a lot about advertising here. One thing we should talk about is building your brand. Podcasting is a great way to monetize through building your brand. John, how many times did you speak at a conference before you podcasted?

Zero.

Do you think your brand was built from podcasting?

100%.

Yeah. How many people here? Sort of. John Jantz know John Jantz from Ducktake Marketing. He started this podcast. Really helped him get going. You know, having being a podcaster, you know what that helps you do? Helps you get this little speaker badge because people can check you out. And I give a ratio. I always love to give this number. It's 2000 to 1. That's the ratio of bloggers to podcasters. So don't give up on it when I say run away. But rethink your strategy if you want to monetize. There's other ways to monetize from advertising. So Paul's talking about other ways to make money. Premium. Dan Carlin. How many people have listened to hardcore history with Dan Carlin? Let me tell you a story about Dan. His episodes are five hours long now, right? They were.

I'm sorry, I thought successful podcasts were exactly 21 minutes in length. Yeah, yeah.

When? A few years back, I think five years ago, six years ago, I was bugging Dan to release episodes more often and I would send him a picture of a MacBook because money wasn't clear the motive. So I said, hey, if you released a little bit more often, you could buy a new MacBook. Last year I sent him a picture of a Tesla. Still didn't get him to do it. He makes more money from people donating to his premium. So looking at that, don't just think advertising, think a hybrid model. Some episodes premium, some episodes free. Doing that. Mark Maron did that. And Mark, Mark Marin at one point, 43,000 paid members, a buck 99amonth to just access his back catalog. Nothing really special. 43,000. That was 10% over 10% of his audience. You can make money through premium if you have something that's of value. So there's one more thing I want to point out here too. How many people think podcasting is like radio when it comes to advertising?

Good like this, you're not like the.

Crowd we had yesterday, because it's not. Do not think of it like that. Think of it like a magazine. Podcast is niche. You want to find an advertiser for your podcast. I tell people, go find a magazine on your subject. Look at the back and find anybody that's got a quarter page ad or smaller. That's your potential advertiser. Don't go for the half a page or more. They have a big budget. Go for the quarter pager ones. They're willing to try stuff. That's where you can find advertising. Now that said, if you get a big show and you get over 10,000 downloads, come see me. I have some advertisers for you, but for small shows, when you're starting out, think niche like John said.

So speak to. That was great theory. Now in your show, how are you making money right now, this month?

Okay, so my own personal show, I have one called today in iOS, which I release on a regular basis. Kinda. I have advertisers right now.

Regular base. Ish.

Yeah. I tell them it's five to 10 days. They don't seem to like that. But I get advertising from Casper Texture, Warby Parker, Harry's. So I live. My advertisers, every time I go to a shop always have my Warby Parker glasses on. I love them. And my head is cleanly shaven with a Harry's razor, always. That's how I make money through some of those advertising. I never have made money from Podcast411, but it got me more money than anything else because it got me the job at Libsyn.

So these ads for Warby Parker, Casper, these guys, these are pre rolls using the Libsyn dynamic ad insertion.

Oh, hell.

Oh no.

Oh no.

So yeah, so the guy at Libsyn isn't using the hundred dollar plus dynamic ad insertion system to make money with ads on a show.

If you read an article about ad insertion being the great next great thing, or it's the newest thing, or someone just invented it. I mean, I've read articles in the last year like ad insertion was just invented. It was invented 12 plus years ago. I'm podcasting my company called Kiptronics. It's not new. We've been doing it at Libsyn for 10 years. And let me tell you a little something about ad insertion. 10% or less of the advertisers that buy ad insertion ads come back. 95% come back that do live reads.

Live reads. Explain what the difference is.

Live reads are where you actually bake it into the episode, read it as it goes. Ad insertion is where you add in this ad in the pre or post or something. We can do mid roll, but it's not part of the original content. So it doesn't flow with the show. It doesn't have the same feel. It doesn't have that same host endorsement. Host endorsed read ads do very well. The CPMs are high, much higher. When you start talking ad insertion, the CPM rates start dropping and dropping. $3, $5. These are not ad rates that are sustainable for shows. Not for shows. Unless you're getting millions of downloads on repurposed content. And there's only a Handful of those shows. So live reads are what advertisers want. Matter of fact, I see now on proposals that come in from advertisers, is it a live read or is it going to be stitched? And if we say stitched, they don't take those shows. They only want the live reads.

Without disclosing any private information that would get you in trouble for disclosing. Who right now is spending the most money. Who's on the list of people spending the most money in advertising with Libsyn at this point, like last month?

Well, yeah, without giving any numbers. Audible has been around for a long time. Harry's, hellofresh. Some of the bigger ones, Casper. So those are some of the bigger ones.

So right now, what is working today? Nichifying and charging appropriately, finding the needs of your audience, building a product, selling accordingly, becoming the media host for your own service and then selling the stuff and then running numbers that make sense if it's ads and doing something else if it doesn't. Okay, what's not working, John? What's not working right now? Maybe there's a blog somewhere or, heck, I'll even give Gary a hard time. Maybe there's a pottertainment magazine out there somewhere. What is not working right now that some people might think is working?

Well, I want to get there, but just before we move away from this topic specifically, I actually would be kind of curious on Rob's take on this, too, is podcast sponsorships is difficult because you do need a lot of numbers. But what we've seen work for a lot of people, like that story that I told about the ballet podcast, is you can go with that CPM model that we've kind of been talking about, where it's cost per me, like cost per thousand listens, and you need a lot of audience for that. But there is also another model that I've seen work really well for niche podcasts, and that's the CPA model, the cost per acquisition, so you could approach somebody. And I love that idea that Rob gave. You know your audience, you know your listeners, you go to that magazine, you find a few companies that are perfect for your listeners, and you go to them and you say, hey, I have a win, win, win for the three of us. And that win, win, win is you give myself a promo code for your product. Maybe it's 5% off. Maybe it's whatever you guys work out. And you only pay me when I send you sponsors that you actually. When I send you listeners that actually you acquire as a customer. And so maybe it's going to be, for instance, every time somebody goes through my Bluehost link, I get $150. So I could then go to Bluehost and say, hey, I'll let you sponsor my show. You don't have to pay me anything. But every time somebody uses promo code fire when they log in, when they sign up for Bluehost, I'm going to get that $150 commission. And now why is that a win, win, win? Well, it's risk free for the company. They're just getting exposure on your show. So if you have 12 downloads, it's fine because there's 12 people that might not have heard that company before. It's a win for you because now you have a sponsor for your podcast. So your show could potentially come across as more professional to certain people. And then it's a win for your listener because you are giving them an opportunity to get a discount or a better deal or maybe two weeks free, four weeks free on a product or service that you know would be a good fit for them. So it'd be that win, win, win. So think about the CPA method as well, the cost per acquisition. If your numbers aren't in that 10,000 per episode range yet, you can build up to that because again, circling back to you, that win for you is the potential of revenue when you convert people. And then you can start to test and know your audience because, hey, maybe bluehost doesn't work. But then you try an audible and you're sending them to your audible link and you're seeing the affiliate sales come in. So now you know and you're understanding your audience better. So what are your thoughts on that, Rob?

Well, I know because I can look at the numbers that we've sent you. Some pretty big checks combined total. Because John's got a promo code with us.

John has more than 10,000 downloads.

And I think probably we've paid you more than anybody else. So thank you.

You're welcome. You have a great company.

But here's what I would say. You have to watch out too, to make sure it's the right fit and they pay the right amount. I had someone contact us and they wanted to be on all the fitness podcasts that we had and they wanted to do CPA and they were going to pay $50 per acquisition, right? Now that sounds good, right? Indoor swimming pools, how many do you think they could sell? But basically they were trying to do branding, advertising and calling it cpa. So make sure that it's something that your audience is actually going to buy and it's going to buy in a quantity to make it worth your time. Don't just take any cpa. Take the ones that fit, match your audience and they're likely to convert and you can turn revenue. There's some CPAs, you only pay a dollar. But if you have a thousand listeners, you may get every one of your listeners go to that free offer or half of them. And that's decent money for an ad. Especially if you show a thousand downloads, you get 500 bucks. That's a $500 cpm. Pretty good. But you got to make sure it matches.

I have a client who has a product that he makes $60,000 revenue from every time he sells one. Who'd like to have a product that you made $60,000 profit from every time you sold one. And he sells hundreds a year putting on his podcast. There's no CPM deal. There's no CPA deal. There's no niche deal. There's no nothing that beats that process. I see some of you, Rob says, check out the cpa. And I saw some minds saying, well, how do I know if my audience is going to buy that? Here's the deal. If you don't know if your audience is going to buy it, you don't know your audience. And advertising is not your problem. So use a little bit of common sense, use a little bit of your knowledge of this audience that you built, grown and nurtured. You're going to do well. John, what is not working?

I want to let Gary go first because I think I stepped on his toes last.

Gary, what's not working?

You stepped on my toes. But I wanted to cover something earlier like John distance.

He got away with close the mic, Gary.

They both got to talk about niches. You know, niches are great and they're like the best thing going. You know about my wallpaper. But I also do softball. Now you have softball, which is a stick and ball sports or baseball and softball. Then you have softball, then you have women's softball, then you have women's fast pitch softball. And that's where I play at my other business. But by going into a micro niche, you can control that niche and you can automatically overnight become a superstar of known by everybody in that niche. And I want to use this as an example of monetizing podcasts. In this niche I play in, I'm known every softball field I go, but only on softball fields for women that play fast pitch softball. So my podcasting Gets me known. Last year for the College World Series, I put a post out, sent a post out to a few people, $10,000 and I will let you advertise on all my podcasts and my YouTube blogs I make from the College World Series. Guess what? Someone said, okay, so in one week's time, I made $10,000 for doing what I'm going to do anyway and putting their pre roll, a little 30 second clip in my stuff. So by being in a niche, yeah, maybe my $10,000 really wasn't all from podcasting, but it got covered and discovered by becoming a superstar in a micro niche. So I just want you to know that's like the best deal of the planet is being in a micro niche. And these guys were talking about it and I just wanted to reinforce that because I just really believe that's the place to play. Now what's my question?

So what isn't working? Micro niche. Apparently micro niche is working. What isn't working?

Well, there's a lot that doesn't work for me. I do a lot of things and quickly find things that don't work. What's not working for me right now? One thing we covered this morning, Facebook. Oh my gosh, my Facebook page has 120,000 followers, but I get jack out of it anymore. Compared to what I used to get just a few years ago, what's not working for me? My online magazine, Pottertainment magazine for podcasters. Podcasters obviously don't want to spend $14.95 a year for a magazine. You know, there's a lot of things not working, but those are both not working for me.

You see why I picked Gary? Is there anything specifically in podcasting that you hear people doing, maybe they wrote about in the magazine that you just don't see working? Part of Gary's charm.

I just look at sales and numbers and the numbers aren't there.

You know, part of Gary's charm is he just doesn't worry about everybody else. He just does his own thing. So he's not necessarily the guy to answer that question. But John, if there were like a paradise where podcasters could hang out, where they shared their wins and their losses, is there any trends in what's not working right now that maybe you've seen?

The biggest thing that's not working that I've tested, and I've seen a ton of Paradisers test as well, is utilizing Facebook ads to try to increase your podcast listens. Now, I'm not saying that's not going to potentially get you a couple more listens. But there's just a huge flaw in that, in that, in that opportunity that people are trying to expose right there. Because again, we hear Facebook ads, everybody's talking about them this week, and it's a great opportunity. And I utilize Facebook ads for specific uses, such as getting people to webinars where I have a paid product or a number of other things. But when it comes to trying to gain more exposure for your podcast, I've never been able to turn a positive ROI return on that investment. So I don't think that's the best place to spend your time, energy, or money. So, for instance, what a lot of people have tried to do, myself included, is run Facebook ads to have people go and listen to my show, Entrepreneur on Fire. Now, the problem with that is it's a very long tail to get to the dollars from that. So you can keep putting money into Facebook ads. $3 a click, $4 a click, $5 a click, and you're getting somebody that's maybe going to become a subscriber, maybe not, but then how's that going to translate? So for me, when it comes to paid sponsorships like Facebook ads, Instagram ads, any of those things, there has to be a direct path to revenue. So it makes a ton of sense for me to spend $3000 getting 1200 people to sign up for a Podcaster's paradise webinar where I'm going to deliver value for an hour and then pitch them on podcasters paradise, which is $750 to join the community. I make positive ROI on that. However, if I'm trying to run Facebook ads to people just to subscribe to my podcast, I'm not seeing a positive ROI on that. So there's a lot better places that you as podcasters can spend your dollars and using them to try to get listeners for your podcast is not working. And again, this is coming from me, who have tested it analytics all the way through a lot of Paradisers as well. It's just not happening. The only people that are doing it semi successfully are people like Gary Vaynerchuk and Russell Brunson, who frankly, they're just way in the red. But they're doing it as a brand play. And most of us don't have that excess cash to kind of throw at something that's not going to be bringing back any kind of reasonable investment in a reasonable time frame.

Other than 14 downloads going for radio advertising, what's not working, Rob?

The thought that there's any marketing out there that's going to make your podcast grow. People think there's a silver bullet. There's some magic session you can go to or secret you're going to learn that's going to grow your podcast. How many people here have seen Sixth Sense? Raise your hand if you've seen Sixth Sense. Okay. How many people have seen the movie the Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp? Okay. Now there's a reason why this is a great example. You went and saw Sixth Sense because someone told you to go see it. Podcasting is long form. Just like movies, it's all about word of mouth. It doesn't matter how much money you spend. Disney produced both those movies. Disney spent 40 million total budget on Sixth Sense. It made 625 million sales. They spent 295 million on lone Ranger, almost all of which was marketing, and it made 95 million in sales. Word of mouth on that was. It was bad. Word of mouth on Sixth Sense was, you got to go see it. That's the only thing that really will truly grow your audience, and the only way to get word of mouth is have great content. When you talk to the biggest shows out there and you ask them how they grew their audience, they all say the same thing, sheepishly. I didn't do anything. You talk to Aaron Manke at Lore, I didn't do anything. You talk to whoever it is, Dan Carlin, they'll tell you, I didn't do anything. I just work on making great content. Dan Carlin had the greatest quote. He goes, I make my next episode better than my last episode. That's all he worries about. So what's not working is people, like John said, spending a lot of money trying to bump up their podcast and then try to turn around and monetize it. Because if you spend money on marketing, you might see a little bump here or there. But long term is not going to grow your show. And the people you get aren't going to turn into conversions for your advertisers, and the advertisers won't come back. So you have to get great content, concentrate on that, and then engage with your audience, really engage with your audience. You have to have a call in number, you have to have an email address. You have to answer those emails. You have to build a community, be it Facebook or Google, wherever it is, you've got to have a community where they can go hang out and you can communicate with them when you're not doing the show.

John, now, I don't think you probably like to talk about this because It's a frustrating topic, but I think when we're talking about what's not working in podcasting, that. And you're the best person to talk about. This is the little mini disaster that we had with a lot of people with the tweet bots.

Yeah. People were Twitter bombing, and they were thinking that was driving their numbers up, and it was easy to tell who they were and weren't.

Like, how did they do that, though? Like, what was the setup?

Oh, they would.

They would set up, explain what that was. We have extreme newbies here. So first explain what it was and then explain why it didn't work.

So Twitter bombing was where they would repost links, direct links to their media file over and over in Twitter. And one person was 65. No, 165 or 150 tweets an hour, seven days a week. Every hour, seven days a week. He do thousands and thousands of tweets with read links. And his numbers would go up, and, oh, look, my numbers went up. All it was was, there's a lot of Twitter bots. Whenever you put a link out there, they scan it and they start pulling part of the file. They pull the file and the numbers go up. So we block out some of them, and the others, we just look at their numbers and just say, okay, you're blacklisted. They'll never have advertising. Some of the people I would email and say, hey, why are you doing this? And the conversation turned into, your baby's ugly, and maybe it's not your baby, because they didn't realize their baby was ugly. They thought they actually were growing their audience. Others were doing it because they were really gamifying the system and trying to pump the numbers up. So that doesn't. There is no. Again, there's no magic formula at gross shows. The people that will try to tell you that. And there was people that were trying to tell you that they were selling webinar. I think it was, like. I think it was 9,000. It was $8,997. Seven at the end. It's just crazy. And one of the people doing it had been podcasting, like, less than a year, and he was selling this for $8,997. Insane.

Now, none of you are tweeting about this session, so thank you for that. This is social media marketing world. On day one, we come. We want to hear what the hot new thing is. I really appreciated Michael this morning saying that the hot new thing is figuring out what works. And that's really, really Important. And I think that the trend you see, yeah, you can tweak the downloads and yeah, there's a company that won't charge you for that, but you're not going to get advertisers. That audience you built on Facebook isn't going to serve itself like maybe we thought it was a couple years ago. And a straight out ad buy for listeners just is not that strategic. There are no silver bullets in this. Except I'm going to say there is a niche audience. You know, Gary hasn't hacked wallpaper. He just got the niche audience and they're buying wallpaper and they're doing really well with it. So for those of you who want to hack, the hack is this. The hack is your niche, the hack is your content. So that's a good thing to tweet out, if you will. So when I do events, we got 10 minutes left. My question is always, what is the question? I'm not asking you what is the thing? I don't know. What is the thing I'm not thinking about? And that's where I want to go for the rest of this. And we will start with Gary. We'll do Gary, then we'll do John, then we'll do Rob. Gary. What do we not know that you know that would be of great advantage to us?

I'm ready.

I'll go ahead.

All right, go ahead, Joe.

I think what we really have to understand as podcast hosts is we're getting into podcasting for the right reason. And the right reason is not to create a show that's gonna get a lot of listens so we can get sponsorships. The right reason is not because we're gonna make a lot of money and become online famous. The reason we're launching a podcast is because we really know that, number one, that we have real value to give to our listeners. And number two, if you decide to go the Internet route, sorry, the interview route, as well as that you are going to build amazing relationships with people in your niche that you know, like trust and respect. And looking back at the 1600 plus episodes that I've done, the biggest benefit of Entrepreneur on Fire for me in my life are the relationships that I've built with my guests and the people that I've had on my show to tell their story, to share their value with my listeners, with Fire Nation. And it's those friendships and it's those business partnerships that have formed from there and the learnings that I've gotten that's made all the difference in the world. So one thing that I want to leave, that I want everybody to leave with, is to know that you're launching your podcast for the relationships, for the connections, just for the people that you're creating the show for your listeners. And it's just if you go into it with that trifecta of a thought process and you don't go after it for the money, for the sponsorships, for the fame, and then you're going to have a show like, I'm not gonna say you have a show like Dan Carlin because that's just out of this world, but you're going to have the mentality like Dan Carlin where he doesn't even try anymore, he just launches a show, and people who listen, listen, and the show grows, how it grows, and he's just happy with that growth. And people that look at their show and say, I only have 200 downloads. Well, 200 people chose to press play to hear your voice, and that's special. So remember that going forward. And you're in it for the long game because this is a marathon.

So if you're in podcasting for the wrong reason, please raise your hand. No, don't. I will take a few questions by I will take a few questions by Twitter if you do an allegan with the SMM17 hashtag. If you've got any questions, I will read those here and go from there. So if you want to submit your question, Robin, that way we can do that. We'll get you, Robin. We'll get you. So, Rob, what do they not know?

I get some emails, and some sad, some are happy. One I get, I got was, I just lost my job and I'm starting podcasting. It's my fallback plan that's gonna end with a rope in the garage. That's where that's going. But I've gotten other emails that are really great. I send out. I'm really, you know, I send out emails to everybody that leaves lips and say, hey, thank you for hosting us. Was there anything we could have done different? And yada, yada. And I got an email back and the person said, I quit. I had to quit podcasting because I got my dream job from my podcast. He was podcasting about, it's the really big soccer club in the uk.

Manchester.

Manchester. Thank you. And he was podcasting about that and got hired by them in the market department, but he couldn't podcast anymore because he was now hired by them. That is a great reason to quit podcasting, right? He did the podcast because he Loved the soccer team, and it was his passion. And they loved his passion so much, they hired him. He got into podcasting for the right reason. The person that got into it because it was his fallback plan. It's not the right reason. If this is why you're getting into podcasting right now, don't. But if you're getting into it because there's a subject you really want to talk about, you really want to connect with people, you really want to share your experiences with, that's the right reason to do it. And whether or not you make a million dollars from your podcast every month, or $1 or no dollars, you'll still have the experience. You may get invited to speak. You may get a dream job. There's been other people that have emailed me getting jobs because. Because of their podcast. I think more people have made money from jobs they've gotten from podcasting than they've gotten from advertising.

Gary, what do they not know other than how to properly wallpaper their house.

Which I don't even know that. I tried it one time and I made it two strips and had to call a wallpaper installer. So it's harder than it looks, I can tell you that. You know the thing and Rob kind of hit on what I was going to say is, but it's great if you can love what you're podcasting about. And I say love because when you start podcasting, it's a little bit of work. It really is. And after you do anything, I don't care what it is, when you do anything for five to 10 years, it's a job. When it becomes a job and you're the man for your own self and you're having to go to work for yourself and you don't. And you don't like it to begin with, I promise you, you are going to hate it in five to 10 years, and you're going to quit it because there may not be enough money to make you do something you hate any more for yourself than you would for someone else. But if you love what you're talking about, if that is possible for you to love it and have a passion for it, you will probably be like me and still like it in 10 years. You may not love it any more than 10 years because this your work, but you may still like it. And if you still like it, maybe you'll make it 20 years. But I promise you, you're not going to make it 20 years if you hate it. So that's something I really have Said, I also want to say something else if I can, that they don't know. There are a lot of people I do podcast Dallas and podcast movement, and these are things I'm involved with. And I run into a lot of podcasters who come up to me whining, and I'm gonna call it whining, because that's what they're doing. I only have 200 listeners. I only have 300 listeners. How can I get. How can I get listeners like Donnelly here? And I'm going, what are you talking about?

Use the word fire.

Are you crazy? 200, 300 listeners. If I could have a room for you Every Monday with 300 people came in at noon, and they sat there patiently to listen to you, what you had to sell or what you had to talk about. Every Monday, they came. You would pay me $500 a week for that more. But because they don't get to see the 300 people, they have no value. 300 people is like 300 people in this room. And look, we got four of us up here talking. My gosh, 300 people is fantastic numbers. As he said, that's more than half the podcasts get by 50%. So don't be looking at your numbers expecting to be getting hundreds of thousands of listeners, the things that are unrealistic. But 300, 250, 200, they're great numbers. You just got to realize what's great. And that is what's great.

What? What? Okay, some great questions are coming in, and I'm going to filter some of them through a lens. One person spoke to a study that came out recently and spoke to the idea that the podcast audience is not growing that much. Whether or not that is true, what I want to do is I want to ask you, how do you feel about the future of podcast monetization based on the numbers?

Monetization has continued to grow. I mean, don't get me wrong, advertising is coming in more now than there was a year ago, more than the year before that. So it's continued to grow. I hear people talk about the renaissance of podcasting. Resurgence of podcasting. It's all bull crap. Try to be nice here. Podcasting has grown every year. Matter of fact, I can show you articles all the way back to February 14, 2007, talking about the resurgence of podcasting. There has been. Every year, there's been an article about the resurgence of podcasting, what it is. It's media resurgence.

We research very well.

Right.

Keep going. Sorry.

But monetization has grown, and there is More monetization now than there was a year ago. And there'll be more a year from now than there is now. And that's a good thing for podcasting. And if you are going to monetize your podcast or you're hoping to monetize, you have a podcast with a good sized audience, you're going to have a better chance in the next year than you had last year. So, I mean, I don't want to make everyone think I'm Debbie Downer. And I was like, oh, down, down, down. But I want to put a realistic spin on it because a lot of people will give you the spin. That is so unrealistic. I mean, I had my. This is a great story. My son started podcasting when he was five and a half. He comes to me when he's six and he goes, dad, I'm going to podcast every day this summer. I'm going to make a million bucks. And I turned to him and I said, man, you sound like one of my, one of the podcasters that I work with now. My wife probably could have turned to me at that point. Yeah, John. But John's the exception to that, right? Most podcasters think they're going to get into it. They're going to podcast every day. They're going to make a million bucks. That doesn't. It's not going to happen. But you're going to make more this coming year than you made last year.

My downloads are down from previous years and my revenue is up from previous years. Gary.

I actually thought the last two years was the biggest growth in podcasting in a while. So did I misunderstand the question or am I just out of it, which could be the case. I mean, you know, I thought I just saw that the other day.

It's been steady. In matter of fact, the Edison research once said that the, the recognition of the term podcast has grown. It's now 60%. It was 55% last year, the year before, and it was like 50% before that or something.

Maybe that's what I saw. All I know is I'm making money and that's all I care about, to be honest with you, when you really get down to it. So I don't know, I'm probably the wrong person to ask because that's all I do is just try to make some.

John.

I think Rob's the subject matter expert, so I think he nailed it.

Next two years, in 30 seconds or less. What are you gonna do with your show, Rob?

Try to get it back on A regular basis. My advertiser stopped emailing me and saying, where's my ad that was supposed to go up? That's my goal. Is this to be right, be as consistent as I can.

So two years, the podcast is going to go. You're not going to get bored of it like Gary and Century did here?

No, I mean, I started my first podcast in 2004 and the one today in iOS. I've been doing it almost weekly since April 2007. And I started it, I started it for the right reason. I wanted to buy an iPhone. And I was like, how do I justify it to my wife? Well, if I have a podcast about it, I have to, she has to let me, you know, so. And the podcast took off. So I got lucky.

I'm starting a Tesla podcast.

You know, I honestly, I. Honestly, I almost did. I really, I was going through that and then I was like, no, that's pushing it a little bit.

Gary, two years, what are you doing in podcasting? Monetization, specifically.

I'm adding more home and garden TV shows because I'm telling you, that's good money. There's.

John Lee, two years, what are you doing?

I think a real takeaway for the next two years that I'm going to stick to, continue doing that. I think everybody in the room that's podcasting should be doing is saying, I'm going to connect as often as possible with an actual listener of my show and have a one on one conversation and just say, what are you struggling with? What are your pain points? And then hearing what those pain points are. And then over the course of days, weeks, months, getting to understand where the common threads of the pain points are and then creating the solution for my listener in the form of a product or a service or a community. That's how I've had all of my multiple six and seven figure business launches and ideas. The Freedom Journal, the Mastery Journal, Podcasters paradise. Like these didn't come from me. These came from engaging with my listeners. So if you have 12 listens or 1200 listens, that's a lot of opportunities to speak one on one with somebody to understand where your listener is coming from and provide value to their life and revenue to yours.

Give it up for the panel. Thank you so much. Chat with you next week. Bye.