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 most important thing I covered during my time as a full-time reporter was film and television. I was a writer stories for New York Times and Fast Company and Wired and Decider and some other media outlets," he starts.

One of the topics that he researched was the way in which podcasting and YouTube culture was growing up around film and television. He wrote a piece on Game of Thrones recappers for the New York Times and spent increasing time on the subject and meeting with people in the industry, before deciding to produce shows with Starburns Audio in 2019. "I went out on my own, and I've increased my number of YouTube channels and podcasts to 14," He adds.

Scott believes two components create a successful podcast in terms of creativity and reaching out to the audience. "There's the connection between those two elements," he says. "It's hard to expand a podcast that's not very good, but it's also difficult to get a good podcast that is really good and maintain it for an extended period of time."

He is of the opinion that it's important to have both elements in place. "You must create something people want to hear, and then you need to know how to get out and find that crowd to convince them to listen initially." According to what Scott talked about the topic with Brian Morrissey when he made an appearance as a guest in The Rebooting podcast there are times when the podcast itself is the business and sometimes it's the marketing for the business.

Milestones

It's also dependent on the scale of the host which has been more important in launches. 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 show, but it's a crowded space. "It's gotten difficult to get out of all the noise. Much depends on the person," says Scott. "If Taylor Swift started a podcast on the horizon, she may start monetizing it from day one. If I launched a podcast tomorrow, it'd be a different conversation."

It is contingent upon different levels of listenership. "At the rate of 50,000 downloads for an episode, there's a larger range 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. Even for shows that have 5,000, 10,000 downloads an episode, you can start making money incrementally through membership and programmatic revenue," he states.

Pop Apologists One of the shows Scott works on, has over 2,000 members who have paid for Patreon along with Apple Podcast subscriptions. They've managed to expand that membership by doing it for many years and have been consistently at doing one episode a week for members and one episode each week that is only for members. Scott clarifies that, crucially, those episodes are of the same quality. "If you like one episode that you liked, you'll also like the second one."

The first step to join a club

For membership, specifically How do you start? "A lot of shows on YouTube are aware of the YouTube members program. There's an overall awareness however, in many circumstances, they've never made the decision to join since it's a matter that's on their agenda but aren't yet able to complete or aren't sure how they want to do it," Scott says.

Maybe the creator is producing so much content they aren't sure if they have the time and resources to create more episodes on the premium platform or if it is going bring in enough money, or if the premium platform can take over the public platform.

"A lot of it can be a source of confusion or in a state that they've not yet reached and require guidance," Scott says. "They require someone to tell them, 'There's money there if you want to go and explore that'. If you're a creator in your enterprise, you're wearing many hats, and you have plenty to be doing. It's likely that you'll need help from staff members and, or at a minimum tools and services to assist you in building your company," he continues.

So How do you select the right tools and services will help you run your company, especially for membership? "A few things appear to have been pretty consistent in the marketplace over the past couple of years," starts Scott. "Number one: people who listen to podcasts, or view YouTube videos, have an affinity with creators. They are willing to pay creators by generating recurring income like $4 per monthly, $6,000 a month, maybe $10 a month. This isn't just because they want an extra benefit from the creator, but rather as a way to help the creator as a career and not only as an extra job."

Another pattern Scott has noticed is that consumers have a preference for a particular platform. "When Pop Apologists were speaking about Apple Podcasts subscriptions and their success, they already did extremely great on Patreon. One of the fears they had with Apple Podcasts were that it would cannibalize Patreon and that they might have to pull the plug if we see a big increase in the amount of money flowing of Patreon to Apple However, that's not exactly what transpired. What happened is Patreon has continued to increase in size and Apple Podcasts has grown every month since the launch."

Scott is familiar with this issue on many other shows, and has heard about this particularity from various people. "If users are using Apple Podcasts, they might listen to six, four or 10 podcasts. But this is the only place they'll go to stream them. They're not on Patreon or YouTube. But if you put the content in front of people via Apple, they'll subscribe to the service."

A direct connection to your target public

Scott believes it's crucial for creators to have an intimate relationship with consumers with a podcast, and has cited a startup named Luminary as an example of caution. "It was an approach similar to Netflix in which they licensed different creators to produce series. It was possible to sign up for this platform and then pay."

Scott says that Luminary did not perform because the audience doesn't need this intermediary. "Consumers need to be aware that they're directly supporting that show and that the $7 they pay per month or $50 per year is going to that individual creator and not to Luminary or Netflix or someone else. This direct relationship is important to creators, too. It makes good business as well as financial sense to create Pop Apologists on Apple Podcasts in order to target that particular audience However, Scott and the team simply do not know who the listeners are. "We don't know the email addresses of those subscribers. There's no way to have a forum on Zoom once a month for those individuals. We aren't able to let them know the time we're scheduled to appear present on another podcast or when we're going to perform a live event. We don't have any specific information on these people," he explains.

Scott suggests that if would like to earn money from your business, 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'd prefer to get the person's personal information than just have them sort of out there" he adds.

Keep your eyes on the future

For budding podcasters, Scott offers advice about the future of your show: "Don't get insular with your listeners. Create your podcast suitable for the next 1,000 people who subscribe instead of the initial 1,000. Everyday, a new person listens to your podcast who doesn't yet know about the format of your show."

Scott says to focus on the initial 30-seconds of the program. He asks: "Are you introducing yourself to a first time listener? Or are you signaling "This is the most popular table and you don't get our jokes; you might like to try listening to something else since there's already a group of us'.

It's not difficult to make a mistake due to the directly-to-consumer relationship "You definitely want it to be a club. But you don't want it to be a club with no doors, where this quantity of people is all you're ever gonna be able to have," he explains. "You've got to find that right balance of giving your customers what they're looking for however, not becoming so secluded that someone new listens to it and decides that they've already got their thing. I don't want to be involved.' If every single episode doesn't work like the initial episode, then you're telling that someone who is new to the show that it's not for them."

Scott gets podcast suggestions every day and is able to tell in the first 10 seconds. "Give me ten seconds the person you're talking to and the podcast you're about and what you're gonna talk about today. Otherwise, I think 'I'm not a member of this particular club. I've already missed it' - there's too much background and "in" vocabulary. This can be fatal for podcasts."

The same applies to advertising that plays in the pre-roll format. "Some shows that I am working with feature pre-roll advertisements and we all make profit from them," says Scott. "If they stopped doing it, they would make less income. However, who would want to be the first thing listeners to the first time they tune in to your show to be an ad for Volkswagen? I want the first thing they hear to be the voice of host."

To conclude, Scott offers a tip on resilience for new podcasters. "You'll discover that many podcasters create five or more episodes. They're not seeing any growth which is why they quit. If you truly want to do this, for business development purposes or just a creative outlet it's going to be necessary be more patient than you think before it feels like you're making progress.

The good issue: "You're gonna get a lot better at it during the initial 25,35 episodes. You're going to get feedback. You have to do it since you love it and know it's going become an ongoing success. There are a lot of shows that expand from 300th and 400th episode. Are you committed? There's no way to earn 25,000 downloads right out of the gate unless you're famous.

What's the show that you want to watch? Which episode are you seeing long-running playthroughs of? If you're really would like to pursue, then you're going to have to remain patient and find a way to do it in a unique manner."