The tools and knowledge to monetize your Podcast

Mar

19

Do Podcast Ads Work?

Filed Under Content

Michael Geoghegan has just published a very interesting blog post, basically saying that Ads are not very successful on Podcasts or to put it bluntly:

Podcasters, it is time you face the facts. If you are waiting for a podcast advertising service to ride in on a white horse and rescue you from your monetary woes, let me help you: start looking elsewhere.

Is he right?

Absolutely!!

I’ve been a full time podcaster for two years and registered with most (if not all) of the major Ad serving agencies. I have a subscription list that runs into the tens of thousands for my free show, all fervent Mac fans with a proven hunger for information and guidance on the Mac.

In all that time, I’ve been approached twice possibly three times by an “Agency” with an ad buy intended for multiple podcasts. Each one missed the mark and rather than insult my audience by running the Ads, I gave them a miss. Besides which, the money was pretty poor.

I’ve run Google Ads on my primary web site and made sufficient to pay my hosting bills, which to be honest, thanks to Libsyn and the amazing value of unlimited bandwidth, this really hasn’t been very expensive.

And yes, I’ve approached potential advertisers and hit a brick wall in almost all cases - life’s too short to be chasing advertisers!

And yet, here I am two years later with a wife, two kids, a mortgage, two cars and two cats to support and I’m earning more now as a full time podcaster that I earned as an IT consultant working for the man!

My secret?

It’s no secret really, it’s premium content.

It’s delivering a quality product each and every time at a set time every week.

It’s about building up a relationship with the audience, not with the advertisers.

It’s about building trust.

It’s about creating something that others see value in and ultimately asking people to support you and pay for a quality product.

It’s about creating value.

It’s about thinking of the many different ways you can monetise your content without waiting for an ad man to bring you big bucks, because Michael is right, they won’t.

In some ways, I’ve been lucky in that I’ve found a niche where in the early days when I took the plunge to go full time, I was able to supplement the money I’ve earned from my paid for content by acting as a production house for external commissions but the podcast gave me the space to do that.

Now that the paid membership numbers have grown to the point where they can support me without the extra work, I can throttle back on external production work and concentrate on the show again.

It’s not been an overnight success and it’s not been an easy ride but if I had to rely on advertising, it just wouldn’t have happened.

So yes Michael, you are so right but there are plenty of alternatives to traditional advertising.

Comments

One Response to “Do Podcast Ads Work?”

  1. Jim Kukral on March 20th, 2008 5:42 pm

    Like I said on Michael’s blog. It’s all about being a good marketer and salesperson. Unfortunately, most people who blog or do podcasts aren’t those things, nor do they want to be them.

    I’ve found that best way to monetize a podcast is through building your brand. My daily video show does more for me brand-wise in my industry than regular blog posts ever have, and I’ve been blogging since 2001.

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