The Podcast Accelerator: How to Grow Your Podcast
Mark Asquith
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A Podcast Network Business Plan to Copy
You don't need big numbers to monetise your audio influence. You just need a plan. Try this one. Last week Captivate launched professional podcast network features and cross-promotional feed drops to all podcasters using the platform. It's a world-first innovation in podcasting but it's more than just a feature-set, it's part of a methodology for creating your own podcast ecosystem that can be scaled and monetised. Podcast listeners don't do what you think. In my mind, someone who listens to my show enjoys it, tells people all about it and it's the ONLY podcast that they listen to without fail. It's a beautiful world to live in but it's not reality. Instead, my podcast listeners might skip an episode if they're on holiday or get sick or a flat tyre or [insert inconvenience here...]. The only listeners that won't are the true fans, those who turn up every single time and for whom, I'm the favourite podcast. That is only a percentage of listeners, though. My show is enjoyed by a lot of people, but those true fans who will never, ever miss an episode number as a minority of the overall audience. Your audience is the same, too. But why is that? First, building true fans is harder than acquiring drop-in listeners. I talk about it a heck of a lot in the "Listener Acquisition Flow" talk that I give at events like Podcast Movement and the basic premise is that you have to nurture people through a "funnel" to move them from being "lurkers" into being "listeners", "subscribers" and then "fans". Inevitably, there are so many reasons that someone will move through that funnel: their own propensity to get involved in a community (if you have one, this person will stick around more), their desire to dive deep into your back catalogue of content, their own interest in the behind-the-scenes of your podcast - the list goes on. But one of the main reasons, in my view, that someone won't move through your funnel and become a true fan is if they don't always find what they want when they want it. That's not to say that your show isn't right for them, but how can one thing serve all purposes, moods or needs? It can't, we know that. Let me give you an example: I love the "Rockonteurs" podcast with Guy Pratt and Gary Kemp. I'm a big music fan, love 70s-90s rock and I'm really interested in how the music comes together, so an interview show where two highly-regarded musicians from my favourite era talk to other outstanding musicians from my favourite era is perfect. I'm a fan. But I REALLY wish they'd release more episodes. I'd listen to them all! But probably not when they came out. I'd binge them on a drive or "catch up" when I was ready for it. But why? If I'm a fan why wouldn't I lap every piece of content the chaps put out instantly? Because of my mood. I said I love music and as part of that, I also play music. I'm (loosely speaking) a bass player. I love it and lap up YouTube content on how to set up my Stingray, on Fender Jazz Standard basses vs American Deluxe basses and meme-style content from Davie504. I'm all over it. But when I get in my car to make the sixty-minute drive to our podcast studio and office, I can't take that with me and so, I turn to podcasts. I may be in the mood to delve into something musical but it might be some bass guitar reviews or interviews with drummers or tear-downs of famous albums or song-writing theory breakdowns of popular songs. I don't get that from "Rockonteurs". So I look elsewhere, try to find something and if I'm lucky, I do. But I'm harsh on my decision making when I do. Nine times out of ten, when I do find a new show that I'm in the mood for I don't know the person who is creating the show and so I enter their listener acquisition funnel and start again and again and again every time I'm in the mood for something new. To digress for ten seconds, now... in business, it's easier and cheaper to sell to an existing customer than it is to identify, warm-up and convert a new customer. That's a financial fact. If the "Rockonteurs" team had a range of other podcasts adjacent to their main topic, it would be an instant choice for me to try them. If "Rockonteurs on Bassists", or "Classic Album Rockontear-downs" or "How They Were Written, Rockonteurs on Classic Tracks" existed I would instantly give them the first listen when I was in the mood to satiate a musical content desire; Guy and Gary would have me continually in their ecosystem and they could cross-promote episodes to me to build my loyalty (see: "funnel"). Heck, they wouldn't even need to host those shows. They'd just need to get other great people on board, brand them as under the "Rockonteurs" banner and endorse them - such is the power of my trust in them as quality creators. Let's get podcasty for a second, now. We already know, thanks to the wonderful work of Tom and the Edison Research team, that podcast listeners subscribe to several shows at any one time so wouldn't it be better if I listened to more shows that YOU own as part of my habits than shows that other people produce that are in your niche, but that you aren't serving? Instead of me trying to decide which podcast creator to give my monthly Patreon donation to because my loyalty is split, wouldn't it be easier to hit me with multiple "touchpoints" each week from one brand which, in turn, would help to sway me towards your Patreon as a supporter? And what about sponsors? What do they want? Well, right now the podcasting industry is selling "impressions" (the number of times an ad was 'sent' and 'heard') but as independent creators like you move towards becoming niche audio influencers, your voice becomes more valuable than just "impressions" - your influence becomes saleable. The more opportunity that a sponsor has to engage with your audience and the more that you can prove that you have an engaged audience, the more valuable your audience becomes, regardless of its size. A real-life example. I know a podcaster who has been podcasting for years now and runs a range of podcasts in a very specific and very tight niche. The download numbers that the podcaster sees per episode aren't what you'd be able to sell to a CPM-based podcast sponsor looking for awareness to the general consumer. But, they're useful to the right people in the same niche as the podcaster - to brands and companies looking to target this specific set of listeners. And so, this podcaster got smart a few years ago and started listening to what their listeners were saying. As competitors cropped up in the space, typically creating podcasts that were of a different format or that included other types of content that the same listener in the niche industry wanted, the podcaster diversified. Rather than create more episodes of one podcast which would have pushed their listener base elsewhere to get the fix of other types of content, the podcaster created solo shows (rather than the interview format that the original show is based around), short-form shows, educational shows and partner shows where the podcaster acted as show-runner but the on-air talent was someone else from the industry. In short: this very smart podcaster created a range of podcast content that kept the listener inside their audio ecosystem and they did that by listening to their audience's needs. The podcaster's podcast network easily clears six-figure annual revenue with download figures that you wouldn't expect to even get a sponsor using a CPM-based model. Why? Because the podcaster became an audio influencer in their niche and is the go-to resource in the industry that they serve purely because of the network of podcasts that they have created - you simply cannot search for any kind of content in that industry without finding this podcaster's content. This happens a lot, too. I see it every day on Captivate: indie podcast creators becoming influencers in their niche despite "low" download numbers and instead, where the sponsors focus on powerful positioning and the targeting of a tight niche. That is very valuable. Why? Think back to what I said earlier: it's easier and more cost-effective to sell to returning customers than it is to identify, nurture and sell to new customers. Again, that's a fact of business. Let's take my other great pop-culture love as an example, now: Star Wars. I love Star Wars, so much so that I run a podcast about it with Garry here at Captivate. We talk about it every single week and I love finding out about the news, I love digging into the lore of Star Wars, the history of it, the future of it, the behind-the-scenes of it, the books, the games, the toys - everything. As a podcast creator, I could cram all of that into one show. Or, I could get smarter. I could create a network of...
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