I first discovered podcasting four years ago and was amazed at the wealth of really high quality content for free. The creators all shared a commitment to keep the medium free. “A business model will emerge,” became the mantra for the first generation of podcasters.
David Spark wrote a fascinating article about the 9 successful business models for podcasting. While much of the podcasting world is still a labor of love, some enterprising podcasters are making a very good living from their content. Here’s a quick summary of the 9 models David identified. You can read the article here
1. Got audience? We’ll get you sponsors – podcast networks like Mevio, Podtrac, and Wizard Media will do the legwork and find sponsors to include in your content.
2. Get your own sponsors – If you’re willing to shop for and manage your own sponsors, you can make additional revenue and be more in control of your content.
3. Be like public TV, beg for donations – podcasting is expensive and passionate listeners will often help out with the costs.
4. Give some away free, charge for the rest – Some podcasts will give away every other show or one show a month and charge a nominal fee for access to the other shows.
5. Partial show free, full show paid – the first 15 minutes are free, and you pay for the remaining amount.
6. Build your own media network of programming and sell advertising against it – similar to building a radio network, but much less expensive. Handpick podcasts that fit an overall theme and sell targeted advertising.
7. Build your brand to sell your services – Duct tape marketing podcast, book, blog etc is a great example of how a podcast can help drive sales of a book and consulting organization.
8. Sell an iPhone app along with your podcast – Elsie Escobar sells a $3.99 iPhone app to go along with her free yoga podcast.
9. Integrate sponsorship with the show’s editorial – Audible sponsorship fits right alongside of book recommendations in Slate’s Culture Gabfest.
What’s interesting is that it wasn’t just one business model that emerged but many different ones. Most are tweaks of existing models that exist in the radio, television, or keynote speaking world. Others, like the iPhone app, use technology that was invented after podcasting started.
It’s encouraging to see people who are passionate about creating content take a leap of faith and find a way to make their passion pay. Leo Laport, runner of the TWiT network of podcasts, reported that he made $1.5million in revenue. Not bad for a guy who started a few years ago in his basement with some audio equipment and a Skype connection.
Transplanting Business Models
Clayton Christensen, author of the Innovators Dilemma, once said there are only a few business models in the world. As we explore new content creation techniques like Twitter, and new technologies like netbooks and smartphones, it is useful to pay attention to reliable business models and how they can be transplanted into the new content forms.
It’s also worth paying attention to the models that no longer work as well. Network TV advertising has slumped in the past decade. Fewer people are watching prime-time network TV and the mass-media audience is frequently splintered into more available shows and distribution techniques like Hulu. Product placements, like Pepsi billboards in a movie, are also getting a bit stale. But announcer sponsorships, like the ones in old-time-radio, are making a real comeback in syndicated radio and podcasting.
Take some time to explore some of the business models above and see if there’s a way to work them into your marketing efforts. You may be surprised at the business models that emerge.
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About a year ago, Twitter instituted a no follow policy for all of the links on the site. Every link on Twitter is prevented from passing along the SEO juice to the sites it links to. Whether you believe that Twitter did this to curb spam on the system, or that they just cowed to Google’s demands, the change effectively negated much of the SEO usefulness of twitter from a link building perspective. Having your tweet passed along to 100,000 followers no longer has the effect of drastically increasing search engine placement.
The power of Twitter has always been in the pyramid effect of Twitter’s follower system. If I have 40 followers, and they each have 40 followers, and they each have 40 followers, the information quickly gets multiplied across 10’s of thousands of accounts. Even if this no longer has the effect of creating 64,000 incoming links to your site, it still puts your thoughts and articles in the hands of thousands of people.
Twitter is starting to bill itself as an alternative search engine. The new Twitter home page features the most popular topics by the minute and a very prominent search bar. A Twitter search is different from a Google search. A Google search is about long term relevance: Who’s the closest chiropractor, or who sells inexpensive silver jewelry. People are searching Twitter for a very timely type of relevance i.e. is it hot now? Jay-Z, Neil Patrick Harris, and Mad Men crowd the front page.
For a certain kind of fashionable product or of-the-moment star, a #1 Twitter search ranking may be more valuable than a #1 Google rank. Twitter the search engine can drive real organic traffic to your site and you may find that traffic from Twitter converts at a higher rate than traffic from Google. Analytics may tell you to dump Google SEO altogether and spend your days on Twitter.
Twitter, like many new technologies, hasn’t found a final resting place yet. Most of us in the internet community recognize that Twitter is important because lots and lots of people are using it. Businesses are tweeting, grandmas are tweeting, Steven Colbert is … well, he’s doing it too. There’s a danger in jumping on the bandwagon of all new internet technologies, but we’re pretty sure this one is going to be around for some time. As it evolves, it’s more useful to be part of the conversation than start fresh from scratch. Set up a Twitter account. Make a new post for every article you write. Collect some followers and see what happens. The rest of us are waiting to see too.
