Terms

Prior to establishing 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 primary thing I wrote about during my time as a full-time reporter was TV and film. I was a writer in the New York Times and Fast Company as well as Wired and Decider and some other publications," he starts.

One of the subjects that he researched was the way in which podcast 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 more and more time around the topic, as well as meeting other individuals in the field. He then moved to producing programs at Starburns Audio in 2019. "I began on my own, and I've increased my number of podcasts and YouTube channels to 14," he adds.

Scott believes there are two factors that are what make podcasts successful: the creative component and audience reach. "There's a relationship between those two factors," he says. "It's challenging to develop the popularity of a show that isn't good, but it's also hard to find a excellent podcast and maintain it for the course of a lengthy period."

Scott believes you have to be able to balance both of these components. "You have to make an idea that people would like to hear and you have to know how to get out and find that audience to get those people to listen in the first place." As Scott spoke the topic with Brian Morrissey when he made an appearance as a guest in The Rebooting Podcast, often it's the podcast that's the business and sometimes it's the marketing for the business.

Milestones

The success of a podcast also comes down to how big the hosts are which has been 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 it's a crowded space. "It's gotten difficult to get through the clutter. It all depends on the artist," says Scott. "If Taylor Swift started a podcast on the horizon, she may start monetizing it from day one. If I launched an audio show tomorrow, it would be a different conversation."

Monetizing depends on different thresholds of audience. "At 50k downloads per episode, there's a greater variety of host-read monetization advertisers that are likely to want to make an obligation to a show that will make a certain amount of revenue. But even for shows with 5,000, 10,000 downloads an episode, it's possible to begin making money incrementally through subscriptions and programmatic revenues," He states.

Pop Apologists, one of the series Scott works on, has 2,000+ paid members between Patreon as well as Apple Podcast subscriptions. The show has been able to increase the number of subscribers by having it on for a long time and have been consistently at doing one episode a week for the public, and an episode a week that's exclusively for subscribers. Scott states that, most importantly that the two episodes are of the same quality. "If you enjoy one of the episodes, you'll like the other one."

The first step to join a club

Concerning membership in particular what are the best ways to begin? "A majority of the shows that come from YouTube are aware of YouTube's members program - there's an overall awareness however in most cases, they haven't done this because it's just a thing in their to-do list that they aren't yet able to complete or aren't sure how they want to do it," Scott says.

Perhaps the creator is already creating so many content they're not sure if have enough time to do additional episodes on an expensive platform, or if it is going make enough profit and if the premium platform can take over the public platform.

"A lot of it can be a source of confusion or a place on their trajectory that they aren't yet at and need guidance," Scott says. "They have to find someone who can say that there's money if you want to go and go after it'. If you're in the business of creating a company, you're wearing many hats and there's so much to do. It's likely that you'll need help from individuals and at a minimum tools and services to assist you in building your company," he continues.

In that case, how do you choose the right tools and services are necessary to help your business's needs, specifically to join? "A few things appear to have been fairly consistent across the market over the last couple of months," starts Scott. "Number one: 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 with recurring revenues - $4 a month, $6 a month, maybe $10 a month. These consumers do this not just because they want an extra benefit from the creator, but due to the desire to aid the creator in the course of their career, not as just a side gig."

The second trend Scott has seen is that users are platform specific. "When pop Apologists were discussing Apple Podcasts subscriptions and their success, they already did extremely great on Patreon. One of the concerns they had with Apple Podcasts were that it could eat away at Patreon"We may have to pull the plug when we notice a significant drain from Patreon to Apple however that's not the case at all. What happened is Patreon continued to grow as did Apple Podcasts. Apple Podcasts has grown every month since we launched."

Scott is familiar with this issue on various other shows and learned about this specificity from various people. "If people are subscribed to Apple Podcasts, they might listen to six, four or 10 podcasts. But it's where they're likely to stream them. They're not going to Patreon nor YouTube. If you place it before people via Apple and they'll sign up to it."

Direct connection with your audience

Scott believes it's crucial for creators to have a direct relationship to consumers, citing a podcast startup called Luminary as an example of caution. "It was a Netflix-style approach where they were licensing different creators to create shows. 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 need to be aware that they're directly donating to the show and that the $7 they pay per month, or the $50 they pay annually is going to that individual creator, not Luminary or Netflix or somebody else. The direct connection is crucial for creators too. It makes good business as well as financial sense to create Pop Apologists podcasts on the Apple platform to go after that audience however, Scott and the team simply do not know who the listeners are. "We do not have the email addresses of those subscribers. We're not able to host an online forum on Zoom each month, with those people. We can't let them know when we're going to be on some other podcast or when we'll perform a live event. We don't have any specific information on these people," he explains.

Scott suggests that if want to monetize, pick an option where you will establish a direct connection with. "If your growth is only incremental, then it could be the right time to introduce iTunes Podcasts subscriptions, or Spotify subscriptions, but I would much rather have that person's direct information instead of having them kind of 'out there'," Scott adds.

Concentrate on the coming future

Podcasters who are just starting out, Scott offers advice about future-proofing: "Don't get insular with your viewers. Your show should be designed suitable for the next 1,000 people who subscribe and not just the first 1,000. Everyday, a new person listens to your podcast, but doesn't yet know about the format of your show."

Scott suggests that you focus on the beginning 30 seconds of your show. Scott asks: "Are you introducing yourself to a first time listener? Do you say 'This is the popular table and you don't get our jokes, you may prefer to listen to something else since there's already a group of us'.

It's not difficult to default to that due to the personal relationship between the consumer and seller "You do want it to be a club. But you don't want it to become a club that has 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 balance between giving your subscribers what they're there for, yet not being too exclusive that someone new listens to it and says, 'They've already done their thing. I'm not going to get engaged.' If every single episode doesn't work in the same way as the very first one isn't working, you're telling the someone who is new to the show that it's not for them."

Scott is given podcast recommendations every day and is able to identify them in just 10 seconds. "Give me ten seconds explaining who you are and the podcast you're about as well as what it will be talking about today. In the absence of that, I'm not in this group. I've been missing it for a while There's a lot of history and 'in' vocabulary. That can be a killer for podcasts."

It's the same for pre-roll ads. "Some shows that I am working with have pre-roll ads which we all earn money from that," says Scott. "If they did not do that, they would make less money. However, who would want the first thing that they listen to when they first watch your show be an ad for Volkswagen? The first thing viewers hear be the host's voice."

In concluding, Scott offers a tip to help new podcasters stay resilient. "You'll find many creators create five or more episodes. They're not seeing any growth which is why they quit. If you're really keen to use this for business development purposes or simply a way to express your creativity it's going to be necessary be more patient than you anticipate until you feel like you're making progress.

This isn't necessarily a bad issue: "You're gonna get a much better at it in the first 25 to 35 episodes. You'll get feedback. It's important to take the time as you like it, and know it's going become an ongoing success. There are a lot of shows that grow from their 300th and 400th episode. Are you committed? There's no way to earn the 25,000 downloads you want right out the gate unless you're famous.

What's your favorite show you want to watch? Are you watching longer playthroughs on? If it's something you really want to do, you're going to have to have to be patient to find a way to do it in a unique manner."