Terms

Before founding Big IP, a content studio which manages podcasts as well as YouTube channels such as The John Campea Show, Pop Apologists and Kempire, Scott Porch was an attorney and journalist. "The main thing I covered while I worked full-time as a reporter was film and television. I was a writer in the New York Times and Fast Company as well as Wired and Decider and some other outlets," he starts.

One of the themes he explored was how podcast and YouTube media was gaining popularity with regard to film and TV. He wrote a piece on Game of Thrones recappers for the New York Times and spent increasing time on the topic, as well as meeting other professionals in the field, and then he began producing his own series at Starburns Audio in 2019. "I went out on my own and have expanded from just a few YouTube channels and podcasts, up to 14 or 15 channels" he adds.

Scott believes there are two factors that make a podcast successful that is the creativity component as well as reaching out to the audience. "There's the connection between those two elements," he says. "It's challenging to develop an unpopular podcast. good, but it's also difficult to take a podcast that is really good and maintain it for an extended period of time."

He believes that you need to get both components right. "You must create something people want to hear, and then you need to be able to go to find the crowd to convince them to listen at all." According to what Scott talked about with Brian Morrissey when he made a guest appearance for The Rebooting podcast often it's the podcast that's an enterprise, and other times it's marketing for the company.

Milestones

Success also depends on how big the hosts are - this has become ever more crucial for launch. Some of the most well-known podcasts, such as The Movie Podcast and How Did This Get Made have existed for a long time, so the hosts are well-known because of their podcasts, however there is a lot of noise. "It's become difficult to break past the noise. A lot depends on the person," says Scott. "If Taylor Swift started a podcast tomorrow, she could make money from it the first day. If I started a podcast tomorrow, it'd be an entirely different discussion."

It is contingent upon different levels of listenership. "At 50k downloads per episode, there's a much greater variety of host-read monetization advertising companies who are likely be looking to sign up for an obligation to a show that will earn a specific amount of money. But even for shows with more than 10,000 or 5,000 downloads per episode, it's possible to begin to make incremental money with membership and programmatic revenue," the author states.

Pop Apologists, one of the shows Scott works on, has over 2,000 members who have paid for Patreon as well as iTunes Podcast subscriptions. They've been able to grow the number of subscribers by doing it for many years as well as being consistent at doing one episode a week that's public and one episode each week that is only exclusively for subscribers. Scott clarifies that, crucially the episodes are of the same quality. "If you love one show that you liked, you'll also like the second one."

Joining a membership is easy.

In terms of membership specifically what are the best ways to begin? "A large majority of shows that come from YouTube have a good understanding of YouTube's members program - there's an awareness of the program that is widespread but in a lot of cases, they haven't taken that step because it's just a thing in their to-do list that they didn't get to yet, or they're not aware of the best way to go about it," Scott says.

Maybe the creator is producing so much content they aren't sure if they have the time and resources to create additional episodes on the premium platform or if they'll be able to generate enough revenue or if a premium platform is going to take over the public platform.

"A majority of this is uncertainty or simply a place on their trajectory they haven't gotten to yet and are in need of guidance" Scott says. "They need someone to say, 'There's money there if you want to go and pursue that'. If you have a creative business, you're wearing so many hats and have so much to do. It's likely that you'll need help from people and or, at the very least, equipment and support services that will help you build your business," he continues.

In that case How do you select the tools and services that will help you run your business's needs, specifically to join? "A number of factors seem to be pretty consistent in the marketplace over the past few decades," starts Scott. "Number one is that people who consume podcasts or watch YouTube videos, have an affinity with creators. There's a willingness to reward creators with recurring revenues such as $4 per month, $6 a month, or maybe even $10 per month. This isn't only because they're looking for something extra from the creator, but rather due to the desire to aid the creator for a profession and not just as a side gig."

The second trend Scott has seen is that users tend to be platform-specific. "When Pop Apologists started discussing Apple Podcasts subscriptions the company was already performing extremely great on Patreon. One of the worries they had about Apple Podcasts is that it could eat away at Patreon and that they might have to cut off the service in the event of a huge drain of Patreon to Apple However, that's not the case at all. The reality is that Patreon continued to grow while Apple Podcasts has grown every month since the launch."

Scott is familiar with this issue on many other shows, and has heard about this issue from others. "If users are using Apple Podcasts, they might be listening to 4 or 6, 10 podcasts, but that is where they're going to stream the podcasts. They're not likely to Patreon nor YouTube. But if you put it in front of users through Apple, they'll subscribe to the service."

Direct connection with your audience

Scott believes it's essential for creators to be in the ability to communicate directly with their customers and cites a podcast company named Luminary to provide a cautionary story. "It was like a Netflix model where they were licensing different creators to do programs. You would subscribe to this platform and pay."

Scott recalls that Luminary didn't succeed because people don't want this intermediary. "Consumers need to be aware that they're directly donating to the show and that their $7 a month, or the $50 they pay annually goes directly to the creator, not Luminary or Netflix or somebody else. This direct relationship is important for creators too. It makes good business and financial sense to launch Pop Apologists podcasts on the Apple platform in an effort to reach out to that market however, Scott and the team don't know who those listeners are. "We don't know the email addresses of those subscribers. We're not able to host a forum on Zoom once a month with them. It's not possible to inform them that we'll be on some other podcast or when we'll present a live broadcast. We don't have any details about them," he explains.

Scott thinks that if you are looking to make money, you should choose the platform that allows you to establish a direct connection with. "If your growth is only incremental, then it could be the right time to launch Apple Podcasts subscriptions or Spotify subscriptions, but I would much rather have that person's direct information rather than having them just sort out there," Scott says.

Focus on the coming future

For budding podcasters, Scott offers advice about how to prepare for the future: "Don't get insular with your listeners. Your show should be designed suitable for the next 1,000 people who subscribe and not just the first 1,000 subscribers. Everyday, a new person listens to your show who don't yet know about what format your show follows."

Scott advises you to concentrate on the first 30-seconds of the show. Scott asks: "Are you introducing yourself to a first time listener? Are you indicating "This is the most popular table and you're not a fan of our humor; you may prefer to listen to something different since the group is already in place'.

It's not difficult to make a mistake because of the aforementioned personal relationship between the consumer and seller "You would like it to be a club. But you don't want it to be a club with no doors. This number of people you have will be all you'll ever be able to have," he explains. "You've need to find the right balance of giving your customers what they're looking for but not being so insular that someone who is new to the show listens it and says, 'They've already got their thing. I'm not going to get engaged. If each episode doesn't work like the initial episode and you're saying to that someone who is new to the show that it's not appropriate for them."

Scott gets podcast suggestions frequently and can discern the recommendations within 10 seconds. "Give me ten seconds the person you're talking to and the podcast you're about as well as what it will be talking about today. Otherwise, I think 'I'm not a member of this group. I've been missing it for a while' - there's too much in the past and "in' words. That can be a killer for podcasts."

It's the same for pre-roll ads. "Some shows that I am working with use pre-roll ads, which we all earn money from that," says Scott. "If they didn't do it and did not, they'd make less income. However, who would want the first thing that they listen to the first time they watch your show be an ad for Volkswagen? I would like the first thing they hear to be the voice of host."

In the end, Scott offers a tip about how to be resilient for podcasters who are new. "You'll see lots of creators create five or more episodes. They're not seeing any growth and so leave. If you truly want to use this for business development purposes or simply a way to express your creativity You'll have be more patient than you think before it feels like you're making progress.

It's not necessarily a negative thing: "You're gonna get a greater proficiency during those first 25, 35 episodes. You'll get feedback. You have to do it as you like it, and know it's going to become an incrementally successful. There are many shows that expand from 300th and 400th episode. Are your commitment to the show? You're not going to get 25,000 downloads right out of the beginning unless you're famous.

What's the show that you want to watch? What episode do you see longer playthroughs on? If you're really want to do, you're going to have to remain patient and come up with a creative solution."