Terms

Prior to establishing Big IP, a content studio that manages podcasts and YouTube channels such as The John Campea Show, Pop Apologists and Kempire, Scott Porch was an attorney as well as a journalist. "The main thing I covered when I was a full-time reporter was film and television. I wrote stories for New York Times and Fast Company as well as Wired and Decider and some other outlets," he starts.

One of the subjects he delved into was how the podcast and YouTube culture was growing up around film and television. He wrote an article about Game of Thrones recappers for the New York Times and spent more and more time around the subject and meeting with professionals in the field, then moved to producing programs for Starburns Audio in 2019. "I began on my own and have 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 audience reach. "There's an interplay between these two elements," he says. "It's hard to expand an unpopular podcast. well-received, but it's equally difficult to take a podcast that is really good and keep it going for a long period of time."

Scott believes you have to have both elements in place. "You have to make things that people will want to hear and you have to be able to go out and find that group of people to encourage them to listen at all." Scott believes that, as Scott discussed in conversation with Brian Morrissey when he made an appearance on The Rebooting Podcast, there are times when the podcast itself is part of the business, while other times it's the marketing of the business.

Milestones

Success also depends on the size of the host and this is becoming increasingly important for launches. The most popular podcasts like 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 there is a lot of noise. "It's become difficult to break out of the noise. A lot depends on the artist," says Scott. "If Taylor Swift started a podcast tomorrow, she could make money from it the first day. If I launched a podcast tomorrow, it'd be a different conversation."

The amount of money you earn depends on the threshold of listening. "At the rate of 50,000 downloads for an episode, you'll have a greater variety of host-read monetization advertising companies who are likely to want to make an obligation to the program where they'll achieve a certain amount of cash. Even for shows that have thousands, 5,000 or 10,000 downloads in an episode, you can start earning money through subscriptions and programmatic revenues," He describes.

Pop Apologists one of the shows Scott works on, has over 2,000 members who have paid for Patreon along with iTunes Podcast subscriptions. The show has been able to increase the number of subscribers by continuing to do it over a period of time, and they've been consistent in releasing one episode per week for the public, and an episode a week that's reserved for their members. Scott clarifies that, crucially the episodes have the same qualities. "If you like one episode and you like it, then you'll love the next one."

Getting started with membership

In terms of membership specifically, how do you start? "A majority of the shows that come from YouTube are familiar with YouTube's members program - there's a general awareness out there but in a lot of circumstances, they've never made the decision to join due to it being a task that's on their agenda but aren't yet able to complete or they're not aware of the best way to go about it," Scott says.

The creator may be producing so much content they don't know if they have enough time to do more episodes on an expensive platform, or if the platform is likely to generate enough revenue or if a premium platform can cannibalize the public platform.

"A large portion of that is a matter of uncertainty, or an area they haven't gotten to yet and need guidance," Scott says. "They need someone to say"There's money in the market should you decide to take it and pursue that'. If you're a creator in your company, you're wearing many hats, and you have so much to do. You're going to need staff members and, or at a minimum instruments and resources to help you build your business," he continues.

If so How do you select the right tools and services will help you run your own business, particularly to join? "A couple of things seem to have been fairly consistent across this market in the last few decades," starts Scott. "Number one is that people who listen to podcasts, or who watch YouTube videos, develop an emotional connection with the creators. It's common for people to offer creators through recurring revenue such as $4 per month, or $6 per month, or maybe even $10 per month. These consumers do this not simply because they'd like an extra benefit from the creator, but rather because they want to support the creator in that as a career and not as just side hustle."

Another trend Scott has observed is that users have a preference for a particular platform. "When pop Apologists started speaking about Apple Podcasts subscriptions, they were already doing really good on Patreon. One of the fears they had about Apple Podcasts is that it could eat away at Patreon"We may have to cut off the service when we notice a significant drain of Patreon to Apple - but that isn't what happened at all. What happened is Patreon has continued to increase in size while Apple Podcasts has grown every month since the launch."

Scott has seen this for numerous other shows and heard about this particularity from other people. "If people are subscribed to Apple Podcasts, they might listen to four, six, 10 podcasts, but it's where they're likely to stream them. They're not likely to Patreon and YouTube. However, if you can put the content in front of people on Apple, they'll subscribe to the service."

A direct connection to your target public

Scott believes that it is essential that creators have an intimate relationship with consumers and cites a podcast company named Luminary to provide a cautionary story. "It was an approach similar to Netflix in which they licensed different creators to create programs. It was possible to sign up for this platform and then pay."

Scott recalls that Luminary didn't work because consumers don't want that intermediary. "Consumers want to know that they're directly donating to the show and that their $7 a month or $50 per year will go to the individual creator, not Luminary or Netflix or anyone else. It's a direct link for creators too. It was a good idea for consumers as well as financial sense to create Pop Apologists for Apple Podcasts to go after that audience However, Scott and his team don't know who those listeners are. "We don't know the email addresses of those subscribers. There's no way to have a forum on Zoom every month to talk with them. We aren't able to let them know when we're going to be in another podcast, or the date we'll present a live broadcast. We have no specific information on these people," he explains.

Scott suggests that if are looking to make money, you should choose a platform where you can be in direct contact with. "If your business is growing slowly, then it could be the right time to introduce Apple Podcasts subscriptions or Spotify subscriptions, but I would much rather have that person's direct information rather than having them just sort of out there" Scott adds.

Keep your eyes on the coming future

For budding podcasters, Scott offers advice about future-proofing: "Don't get insular with your viewers. Make your show suitable for the next 1,000 people who subscribe, not the first 1,000. Every day someone new listens to your podcast who doesn't already understand the format of your show."

Scott suggests that you focus on the initial thirty seconds in your show. Scott says: "Are you introducing yourself to someone who is a new listener? Do you say "This is the most popular table and you're not a fan of our humor; you may like to try listening to something else 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 the club to exist. You just don't want it to be a club with no doors. This number of people you have is all you're ever gonna get," he explains. "You've got to find that balance between giving your subscribers the content they want, yet not being too exclusive that a new person listens to it and says, 'They've already got their thing. I don't want to be engaged. If each episode can't function in the same way as the very first one, then you're telling that someone who is new to the show that it's not for them."

Scott is given podcast recommendations frequently and can identify them in just 10 seconds. "Give me 10 seconds of the person you're talking to and the podcast you're about, and then tell me what you'll be talking about this week. In the absence of that, I'm not a member of this particular club. I've missed it before and there's too much in the past and "in' words. This can be fatal podcasts."

Pre-roll ads are the same as advertising that plays in the pre-roll format. "Some shows that I am working with use pre-roll ads, which we all earn money from that," says Scott. "If they did not do that, they would make less income. However, who would want to be the first thing listeners to when they first listen to your show to be an advertisement for Volkswagen? The first thing they hear to be the host's voice."

In concluding, Scott offers a tip to help new podcasters stay resilient. "You'll find many creators produce five episodes. They're not seeing any growth and so leave. If you truly want to pursue this idea, whether to grow your business or just as a way of expressing your creative side it's going to be necessary take longer than you imagine before you can feel confident that it's succeeding.

It's not necessarily a negative issue: "You're gonna get a lot better at it during the initial 25,35 episodes. You'll get feedback. The only way to get feedback is since you love it and know it's going become an ongoing success. There are many 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 your favorite show you would listen to? Are you watching more lengthy playthroughs of? If you're really desire to accomplish, you'll wait for a while to figure it out creatively."