Terms

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

One of the themes he explored was how podcasting and YouTube is transforming the culture around film and television. He wrote an article about Game of Thrones recappers for the New York Times and spent increasing time on the subject and meeting with professionals in the field, then moved to producing programs for Starburns Audio in 2019. "I started by myself and expanded from just a few podcasts and YouTube channels up to 14 or 15 channels" the actor says.

Scott believes there are two factors that are what make podcasts successful: the creative component and reaching out to the audience. "There's an interplay between these two things," he says. "It's challenging to develop a podcast that's not very excellent, however it's difficult to take a excellent podcast and maintain it for an extended period of time."

He is of the opinion that it's important to get both components right. "You need to create something people want to hear and you have to know how to get out and find that audience to get those people to be interested in it in the first place." Scott believes that, as Scott spoke with Brian Morrissey when he made an appearance for The Rebooting Podcast, there are times when the podcast is part of the business, while other times it's the marketing for the company.

Milestones

The success of a podcast also comes down to the size of the host - this has become ever more crucial for launch. Popular 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 becoming difficult to cut past the noise. A lot depends on the person," says Scott. "If Taylor Swift started a podcast today, she might start monetizing it from day one. If I started the podcast today, it'd have a completely different tone."

It is contingent upon different levels of audience. "At 50k downloads per episode, there's a more extensive range of host-read advertising companies who are likely to be interested in making a minimum commitment to a show that will achieve a certain amount of money. But even for shows with more than 10,000 or 5,000 downloads per episode, it's still possible making money incrementally through membership and programmatic revenue," He states.

Pop Apologists One of the series Scott is a part of, has more than 2,000 paid subscribers between Patreon and Apple Podcast subscriptions. They've been able to grow the number of subscribers by having it on for a long time and have been consistently at doing one episode a week for members and one episode per week reserved for their members. Scott clarifies that, crucially the episodes have the same qualities. "If you like one episode that you liked, you'll also like the second one."

Joining a membership is easy.

For membership, specifically, how do you get started? "A large majority of shows that come from YouTube have a good understanding of the YouTube members program. There's an awareness of the program that is widespread however in most cases, they haven't made the decision to join because it's just a thing that's on their agenda but didn't get to yet, or don't know what they'd like to accomplish with it," Scott says.

Perhaps the creator is already creating so many content they aren't sure if they have the time and resources to create more episodes on an expensive platform, or if the platform is likely bring in enough money, or if the premium platform will cannibalize the public platform.

"A large portion of that can be a source of confusion or in a state that they aren't yet at and require guidance," Scott says. "They need someone to say"There's money in the market in the event that you choose to pursue and pursue that'. If you're in the business of creating a company, you're wearing many hats, and you have plenty to be doing. It's likely that you'll need help from individuals and at a minimum, tools and services to help you build your business," he continues.

If so, how do you choose the right tools and services you need to support your company, especially in terms of membership? "A few things appear to have been fairly consistent across the marketplace over the past few years," starts Scott. "Number one: people who consume podcasts or who watch YouTube videos, form an affinity with creators. They are willing to pay creators through recurring revenue - $4 a month, $6 a month, maybe $10 a month. These consumers do this not simply because they'd like something 'extra' from the creator but because they want to support the creator in that as a career and not as just side hustle."

The other trend Scott has noticed is that users have a preference for a particular platform. "When the Pop Apologists began discussing Apple Podcasts subscriptions the company was already performing really great on Patreon. One of the concerns they had regarding Apple Podcasts' was that it could eat away at Patreon - 'We might need to shut down the subscription in the event of a huge drain of Patreon to Apple - but that isn't what happened at all. What happened is Patreon has continued to increase in size as did Apple Podcasts. Apple Podcasts has grown every month since the launch."

Scott has seen this for various other shows and learned about this specificity from other people. "If users are using Apple Podcasts, they might listen to four, six 10, or even 10 podcasts. However, this is the only place they'll go to be listening to these podcasts. They're not likely to Patreon nor YouTube. But if you put the content in front of users via Apple and they'll sign up to the service."

Direct connection with your public

Scott believes it's crucial for creators to be in an intimate relationship with consumers and cites a podcast company named Luminary as an example of caution. "It was like a Netflix model where they were licensing different creators to create programs. The user would sign up to the 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 supporting the show directly and that their money of $7 per month or $50 a year is going to that individual creator, not Luminary or Netflix or anyone else. It's a direct link for the creators as well. It was a good idea for consumers and economic sense to start Pop Apologists on Apple Podcasts in an effort to reach out to that market however, Scott and the team aren't sure who their people are. "We do not have their email addresses. There's no way to have an online forum on Zoom each month, with those people. It's not possible to inform them when we're going to be in another podcast, or when we're going to present a live broadcast. We have no information about those people," he explains.

Scott suggests that if want to monetize, pick an option where you will be in direct contact with. "If your business is growing slowly, it might be time to launch iTunes Podcasts subscriptions, or Spotify subscriptions. However, I'd rather know the details of that individual rather than having them just sort of 'out there'," Scott adds.

Focus on the future

For budding podcasters, Scott offers advice about the future of your show: "Don't get insular with your audience. Create your podcast for the next 1,000 subscribers and not just the first 1,000 subscribers. Everyday, a new person listens to your podcast, but doesn't already understand the format of your show."

Scott says to focus on the beginning 30-seconds of the show. Scott says: "Are you introducing yourself to someone who is a new listener? Are you indicating "This is the most popular table and you don't get our humor; you may prefer to listen to something else as there's already a group of us'.

He realizes it's easy to fall into that trap due to the direct consumer relationship "You do want the club to exist. But you don't want it to become a club that has no doors, where this quantity of people will be all you'll ever be able to have," he explains. "You've need to find the right balance of giving your customers the content they want, but not being so insular that someone new listens to it and decides that they've already done their thing. I'm not interested in being in the mix.' If every single episode can't function in the same way as the very first one isn't working, you're telling the new listener the show is 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 topic of this podcast about as well as what it will be talking about today. In the absence of that, I'm not part of this club. I've been missing it for a while There's a lot of in the past and "in' words. It can be very difficult podcasts."

Pre-roll ads are the same as advertisements that play in pre-roll. "Some shows I'm working with have pre-roll ads which we all earn money from that," says Scott. "If they stopped doing it the show would earn less revenue. But who wants the first thing that they listen to the first time they listen to your show to be an ad for Volkswagen? I want the first thing that they hear be the voice of the host."

To conclude, Scott offers a tip to help new podcasters stay resilient. "You'll see lots of creators produce five episodes. They're not seeing the growth and so leave. If you truly want to pursue this idea, whether for business development purposes or just as a way of expressing your creative side it's going to be necessary to do it longer than you imagine before you can feel confident that you're making progress.

It's not necessarily a negative issue: "You're gonna get a much better at it in those first 25, 35 episodes. You're going to get feedback. You have to do it because you enjoy it and are aware that it's likely to become an incrementally successful. There are lots of shows that grow from their 300th to 400th episodes. Are your commitment to the show? It's unlikely that you'll get 25000 downloads straight out of the box unless you're well-known.

Which show would listen to? What episode do you see long-running playthroughs of? If this is something you truly would like to pursue, then you're going to have to wait for a while to find a way to do it in a unique manner."