Welcome to the pre-launch blog for the Podcast Monetizer program (previously called the BASPodcast project), a special tutorial program for podcasters wishing to monetize their podcast.

Read more about the Podcast Monetizer program here [Link]

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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.

Following on from my session at last years Podcast and New Media Expo, I’m delighted to announce that I’ve been selected to speak again at this years re-titled “New Media Expo 2008″ in Las Vegas, 14th - 16th August 2008.

What makes it really special is that they had over 700 submissions and chose just 52 speakers - so I’m feeling particularly pleased to have made the cut!

Last year I focussed on the more technical aspects of ScreenCasting and mentioned the monetisation aspect in passing. This year, I’ve turned it around an will be focussing more on the monetisation side of things with a brief section on screencasting. It was obvious from last years Expo that the industry is maturing and the focus on the business side of things is becoming more important as New Media finds its feet and starts to become more generally accepted.

So this year, my session is entitled:

How I Converted a Hobby Podcast into a Profitable Media Property

and is in Track 3: The Business of New Media, currently scheduled for Friday, August 15 11:45am - 12:45pm (which just happens to be the same slot that Robert Scoble is presenting in another track, so I may need some support!). You can find out more about my session from this link:

Session Description

The Expo is really a must attend event for anyone seriously interested in the New Media space and is a great mixture of technical, business and strategy focussed sessions covering a wide range of topics. It’s not just about podcasting anymore! The tracks available this year are:

- Track 1: Audio and Video Creation 101 - A to Z for Beginners - Get Up To Speed Fast
- Track 2: Attracting and Growing Your Audience - Building an Audience and Guerilla Marketing
- Track 3: The Business of New Media - Monetization and Business Podcasting
- Track 4: Audio and Video Creation - “How To” Techniques for Making Compelling Content
- Track 5: New Media Strategies - “How To” for Companies, Educators, Non-profits and Government

Although the sessions are split into tracks, you are not restricted to anyone particular track, you can flit from session to session. As well as the sessions, there’s also a large Exhibition hall full of vendors involved in the New Media space. Now the the Expo is in Las Vegas, I think this will be bigger than ever!

The Exhibition hall is usually free admission (if you register before August 13th) and is worthy of a day trip on it’s own. The sessions are part of the paid conference, but as Tech conferences go, it’s a bargain at only $299 if you register before April 30 ($349 after April 30 / $399 after June 30)

Just click here to get more information on the Expo and find out what the other 51 sessions are all about.

I’ll be sending this out to the email mailing list as well, so apologies if you get notified of this twice!

As you know, I’m trying to put something together to tell you more about the way I’ve monetised ScreenCastsOnline and give you a start in how you might be able to monetise your own podcast.

I just thought let you know of a similar initiative that’s already available from a couple of guys who are well known in the internet marketing space and that’s Paul Colligan and Alex Mendossian.

They are putting together a 2 hour introductory webcast on the 20th March to “reveal their closely- guarded Podcast Monetization RoadMap” that they’ve been testing for the past 3 years. This is completely separate and independent to what I’m trying to put together, but I know a lot of you are itching to get started!

I know Paul well and he is one if the good guys in this space and has lots of ideas on how this all works. I’ve actually guested on his podcast and he’s very enthusiastic on promoting the business side of podcasting.

There is a charge for the webcast however which is $20.

Now the promotional literature says it’s $99 but you can get a $79 discount using a promotional code. I prefer to just say it’s $20! There’s also a “sales letter” which I could have copied and pasted into this email but I hate all that malarky! I’ll just insert this paragraph:

In just two hours, Alex and Paul promise to teach you:

• Exactly 8 reasons why Podcasting brings them, and can bring you, a critical business (and profit) advantage.
• 7 secrets to producing profitable Podcasting content in the fastest possible time.
• 9 marketing channels for the Podcasters … and how to leverage each one.
• The 6-Step Podcast Monetization Roadmap
• How to part-the-curtain on the listening habits of your audience, and leverage that knowledge to produce profitable audience action.
• At least 5 things, you can implement today that will integrate your Podcast content into your business structure … and how to see results almost instantly.
• 7 steps to getting your Podcast audience to take the very actions you want them to take.

If you want to take part in the webcast on the 20th March, just click on the special link below

http://www.podcastsecrets.com/cmd.php?af=739545

Your Discount Code is: “PC916” to get the $20 offer.

For full disclosure purposes, I need to let you know that I will get some commission for everyone that uses the special link to sign up. However, if you do sign up for the webcast, I’ll make sure you get a $20 discount off the Podcast Monetiser once it’s launched.

If you do sign up and pay your $20 and then find the webcast is not what you were expecting or are disappointed in any way, I will personally refund your $20, no questions asked.

I know that some of you are waiting on the Podcast-Monitiser project to come to fruition, so this may just be enough to get you started until I can manage to get something launched.

Just listened to this weeks TWIT “This Week in Technology“, one of my usual weekly podcast fixes. It’s an interesting mix of views and opinions of the weeks technology news.

This week is slightly different in that it has Jonathan Coulton on the panel. Jonathan is an independent musician who basically uses the Internet as his record label and makes a decent living servicing a niche market.

What makes this episode particularly interesting to me (and if you’re reading his blog, probably to you too!) is the direct parallels that my creation and consequent monetisation of ScreenCastsOnline has with Jonathans experiences with developing his own business model as an Internet based musician.

Other than the live performance aspect, you could literally have replaced his experiences and thoughts with mine. Add in some insightful comments by the ever excellent Merlin Mann and you have what is an extremely interesting and thought provoking discussion around how to successfully build an Internet based business to a niche market.

Even more appropriate to this blog is that in effect, Jonathan started off distributing his music as a podcast by delivering a free show every week via an RSS feed.

I’d strongly suggest giving the show a listen (you might want to skip to around 23:00 into the show to get to the good stuff)

This Week in Technology - Episode 133

A quick update as to the current position.

Well MacWorld is now out of the way and I’ve just invested some cash in upgrading my main production machine for ScreenCastsOnline. I’ve also been working on some ways to speed up the screencast production process.

I’ve also put a hold on any external screencast commissioned work for the first part of this year.

What’s this got to do with the Podcast-Monetiser?

Well it’s all designed to try and free up some time to have a run at getting the Podcast-Monetiser out of the door. It’s one of those projects where I need to clear the decks and focus all my attention.

So I’m starting to see some free time opening up and hopefully will be able to crack on with developing the package. As you might imagine, things are changing in the whole podcasting space with the Apple TV take 2 and since starting on this venture, I’ve even had to change some of my tools and systems so I need to incorporate those changes into the package.

Again, your patience is truly appreciated!

Happy belated Christmas greetings and best wishes for the New Year!

This post is based on a Christmas message I sent out to my ScreenCastsOnline Extra members to bring them up to speed with the progress I’ve made with my premium podcast. On reflection, it’s well overdue since I gave you guys an update on Podcast-Monetizer!

Well, you’ll be glad to hear that the ScreenCastsOnline Extra! membership still appears to be going from strength to strength with the numbers of new members joining each month exceeding that of those who don’t renew! Consequently, the total membership numbers are still climbing and have reached the stage where I can start to stop panicking each and every month!

I think I’ve reached a critical mass which should make the podcast sustainable as long as I keep producing quality shows on subjects people are interested in.

During the year as the membership numbers built up, I needed to bolster my income by taking on external production work for corporate customers. Whilst the extra income came in very handy, it did over stretch me somewhat and I’ve ended up working twice as hard as I did in my old job, trying to do the weekly show and the extra work. I don’t think the quality of the show suffered in any way but there are things that fell by the wayside (such as the ScreenCastsOnline newsletters and the Podcast-Monetizer - sorry about that!) and things I’d like to have done with the Web site and the forum that didn’t get done. Plus the additional stress that doing corporate work brings along with it reminded me too much of my pre-podcast existence.

So next year, I’ve decided to not take on as much external work and concentrate more on developing and promoting ScreenCastsOnline, and my other project that suffered from lack of attention this year and that’s the podcast-monetiser project. It’s also been suggested to me that some people would welcome some real time personal coaching via the Internet using iChat in Leopard so that might be another avenue to explore.

The premium podcast model is working fantastically and based on the multiple revenue streams, I’m now in the position where I’m actually earning more now than I did in my full time IT Consultant role. Hopefully in 2008, I’ll be able to achieve my goal of spreading the word and letting you benefit from the past two years experience of running a premium podcast. I may even let you in on some of the numbers!

So all that remains for me to say is thanks again for your support and kind words during 2007 along with the patience you’ve shown which I hope can last a little longer. I’ll be at Macworld again this year, so if you’d like to say Hi, just send me a note or check out my blog

http://blog.screencastsonline.com/scoblog/

where I’ll post details of where you can find me on the various days. I’ll be joining the group assembling at the Apple store at 4am on Keynote day if you fancy getting up early.

Happy New Year!

One of the main differences between last year and this year in the Podcast and New Media Expo were the visible signs that podcast monetization was no longer frowned upon.

I met many people who were interested in the business aspects of podcasting and I would think the majority of people there were starting to realise the business potential of podcasting. We’ve definitely moved out of the realm of the hobbyist although it’s always good to know that podcasting as a hobby is still perfectly valid.

One of the people I met was Fred Castaneda, host of the “Gain Control of Your Day” and “The Struggling Entrepreneur” Podcasts. Fred is a also a ScreenCastsOnline viewer!

He was kind enough to invite me onto his Podcast to discuss some of the business aspects of moving ScreenCastsOnline from a hobby podcast to my full time job. The audio quality isn’t brilliant but it might be worth a listen if you’re thinking of adopting a similar path.

You can find the interview here where you can listen online or subscribe via itunes

Technorati Tags:
business podcasting, newmediaexpo2007, podcast infrastructure, podcast-monetisation, podcast-monetization, podcastexpo2007, podcasts, Premium Podcasting, subscription podcast

Something to think about while you’re waiting for the Podcast-Monetizer to appear.

Podcast monetization is based on several revenue generation streams including the potential inclusion of advertisments or sponsorships within your podcast.

Leo Laporte has an interesting blog post today on old media and new media:

One thing which particularly caught my eye was this quote:

Furthermore, advertising dollars are moving out of old media and into new media – and this process will accelerate because advertising to weakly-engaged inattentive old media audiences just doesn’t work. Advertisers are flocking to my podcasts because at $35 per thousand listeners they offer remarkable value.”

I know the TWIT network are fairly high profile but does this set the benchmark for ad rates on podcasts?

I certainly hope not as I hate the concept of CPM as this does not take into account the “cost of influence” and the unique relationship that podcasters have with their audience.

I’d be interested to know your thoughts!

Actually, it was a while ago now!

The Expo went really well and my session on Screencasting seems to have been very well received.

No announcements on the Podcast-Monetizer I’m afraid, just a quick note to let you know I’m still around.

I think I’m seriously going to have to stop doing commissioned work for a month or two to make serious progress on the Podcast-Monetizer. Looks like I’m committed up to December so don’t expect something anytime soon.

Sorry for the delay but I want to get this finished as much as you want to have it!

Will be in touch and thanks for patience.

Cheers
Don

Not long now before the Podcast and New Media Expo in Ontario, CA. It kicks off on the 28th September but I’m flying out a few days before and will be attending the Podcamp SoCal the day before.

I went to the Podcast Expo last year and had a blast. There are so many stellar sessions but the value of hooking up with so many fellow podcasters is not to be missed.

This year is slightly different as I’m actually presenting a session, all about screencasting. I’ve already mentioned on the blog about how delighted I was to be selected from such a large number of submissions but I’ve just seen a great blog post from Jason Van Orden (the author of “Promoting Your Podcast“)

The blog post gives some great info and tips on attending the Expo but the icing on the cake is that Jason has rated my Screencasting 101 session as his number 4 recommendation to attend.

No pressure then Jason
Seriously, Thanks for the plug!

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