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Ep. 187 - Demystifying the World of Podcasting PART 2: Should You Join a Podcast Network, How To Land Brand Deals with a Small Audience, More Monetization Methods, How Much Time Goes Into It + More
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Ep. 187 - Demystifying the World of Podcasting PART 2: Should You Join a Podcast Network, How To Land Brand Deals with a Small Audience, More Monetization Methods, How Much Time Goes Into It + More

Chelsea Riffe: Hello, hello. Welcome back to In My Non-Expert Opinion. This is a part two to last week's episode demystifying the podcast world. So if you're just tuning into this one, I highly encourage you to go back to last week and check out part. So that part two makes sense because we're picking up right in the middle.

So you definitely need to understand the foundational things that I talked about last week before listening to this one. Now, the reason I wanted to do this demystifying the World podcast series is because I feel like there's a lot of question marks around it. I think that's why people don't get into it, because it seems overwhelming to me.

It's almost similar to how you produce a TV show. It's like, how do you do that? , where do you get the equipment? Where do you find the people to help you? How do you get the resources pro to produce that? Like how do you even crack into that world? I know it can feel that big. Personally. I actually felt that when I went to write a novel this year, I signed up for a class and I remember it was actually very similar to any other course I did, right?

It was like, Hey, here's the material. Now we're gonna practice. Now we're gonna have a discussion. We're gonna work on this novel. Week after week, you're gonna set aside time, but for some reason, It really highlighted my insecurities about writing because I didn't go to school for, you know, creative fiction or non-creative fiction, or majored in English.

I actually remember in English class, I was like so confused about what the assignments were and , honestly, my writing, even in my reporting classes, would always have a lot of red lines in it for grammar. I will say my spelling's really good, but my grammar was not great. And so yeah, doing this novel class.

Started poking at my insecurities, especially when we would have to read our passages out loud, but I forced myself to read them out loud, to work through that discomfort. I was like, I, I know that in order to become a writer, you write, you know, if you wanna do anything, you have to do it. So I had to get over myself and stop thinking that everybody in the room was better than me or knew more than me.

And I thought by participating.  and actively being a participant in discussions, it would help me start to identify as a writer, throughout the whole process of learning how to write a novel with like true story structure and challenging your protagonist and creating an antagonist. It, it really reminded me of developing a podcast, like how do you create episode?

what do you have to do to make material? High quality Editing. Doing it right, actually writing, actually podcasting. And so while I was writing this novel, I realized that's probably how a lot of people feel about podcasting and they don't know what goes into it. They don't understand it, they don't have the background, they didn't learn about it in school.

You're trying to put all these puzzle pieces together and figure it. So what I've done is with these episodes is take all the knowledge that I've acquired from five years of podcasting, as well as my background in influencer and content marketing that I worked in professionally for six years in corporate America.

Also my master's degree in digital media and storytelling, and my undergrad in broadcast journalism and media communication studies. I'm bringing that all together in these episodes so it doesn't feel so mys. . I don't want it to feel mystical to you. I want it to feel clear and you understand. So you have the confidence to start a podcast, or if you have a podcast, understand how the world works so you can refine it and use it more strategically.

So that's what the mission of these podcasts are. Alright. If you're like, we're ready to hear like what's the , what's the next part? Let's just jump right in. So last week we actually left off on what do podcast networks do as a quick refresher, they really help with exposure and bringing in partners and brand deals.

Now, something I didn't say last week that I wanted to add onto this is not every podcast network. Solely finances themselves through brand deals, right? They have investors that invest into the resources needed to sustain and grow the company. They have partnerships not only with brands, but like with corporate sponsors or or corporate companies that are helping them.

I actually know of a few podcast networks where the talent. Pays them a fee to be on because it's like, um, you know, paying a coach or like paying a mentor, paying a personal trainer. It's like you're helping me with this goal. So I know some networks do that where you actually pay them to be on and then some networks you pay them and they like reimburse you with the brand deals.

There's a lot of different revenue models. So I just wanted to make that clear because I think last week it sounded like the only way podcast networks make money is through brand deals. And that's not. . And remember, another thing is because of the talent that they have, they're really investing into them to grow and try to bring in bigger sponsors and more exposure, right?

Like that's the goal of a podcast network is we need to have bigger numbers, larger followings, more exposure. So what they do is help them create new opportunities like, Hey, you should consider interviewing this person, and if they promote it and you go on their podcast, that would be an amazing opportunity to blow this whole episode.

they'll give them advice on maybe you should start a product line and maybe they can take a cut of the product line or merchandise, right? I told you last week, call her daddy at one point said that their merchandise was actually outpacing the ad sales, which is pretty crazy cuz I think they were probably making a a shit ton of money through ad sales.

So again, that's what podcast networks do. They house a group of talent and the talent is supposed to bring in brand deals, money. It helps the the talent grow, their reach and their exposure and in turn, make money. That's kind of the whole thing in a nutshell. So I hear a lot of people striving to be on podcast networks.

I'm in a few memberships where I've seen people post being. Hey, I'm looking how to crack into a podcast network, or does anyone have a contact at this podcast network? I'm trying to pitch. That's a question I have is like, should we be striving to be on a podcast network? I think this depends on your goals.

So personally, I do not wanna be part of one because the main way that I understand money is made is with ads. And I don't want to become, um, a majority influencer. Now I understand that I have some influence, and that is why I've taken on brand partnerships. You've heard them in this podcast, you've seen them in my emails, you've seen it on my Instagram, and I've learned through the brand partnerships that that is not the main income stream that I wanna focus on.

It takes a lot of time and energy and creative mental energy to put into brand sponsors because you are trying to help them out, right? You're an extension of them. So me partnering with a brand sponsor is saying, I'm aligning with your values. I'm gonna help your mission because I believe in your product, and I'm gonna spin it in my own way, right?

I'm gonna talk about it in my personality, my tone of voice, et cetera. But it still has to follow the brand guide. I can't use certain words, I can't use certain imagery. I can't paint them in a certain light. And so there is still right a level of control that happens when you work with brand partners.

You have to remember too, this is the industry I worked in for six years, day after day, week after week, watching influencers make all their money through brand deals and then something would happen. Life changes, right? So maybe. Decided they wanted a new career and they're like, I don't really wanna do this anymore.

But because all their money was coming from brand deals, they have to figure a new way to make new money. And that skillset is they have to kind of start over. I also saw people get canceled, right? And all their brand sponsors pulled out. We saw this happen to Stasi Schroder of Vanderpump Rules. I actually saw that her podcast is just back, which.

interesting because I still have a theory that people that get canceled always come back harder. , like everyone that's canceled is back and making more money than ever. Um, but yeah, this happened with Stassi, like all her brand sponsors pulled out and without making money from the brand sponsors and getting kicked off of banner pump rules, she had to take a step back from the public light.

Now, of course, she still had supporters and, and she had so much money already from the show and the podcast and her books that she was fine. But imagine if you don't have that level of fame and that level of support or resources. If something happens like that and all your brand sponsors pull out, where does all your income?

So I realized pretty quickly that's something I just didn't wanna bet on. To me, that's a pretty risky bet. So I would rather focus on making paywall content and selling my own offers, which again, does not align with the podcast network's business model. They make a lot of money off of ads or what you produce, right?

The whole goal is we're helping you and you help us. So you're splitting the revenue and in return, they are giving you the tools that you need to. Now, from what I've heard, this is full on my experience. Speculation. The people that I'm connected to, many networks actually don't even have the bandwidth to customize the deals to each podcast host, or manage their podcast or teach them.

Talent developing skills. So what I mean by that is, let's say, let's just say I'm like super into health and wellness, right? And I'm like, I'm not drinking. I don't wanna drink. I am a sober person. I am, you know, that's actually content that I talk about. Now, let's say that was my brand. Sometimes podcast networks are so big and don't have, again, the bandwidth to customize your experience in their network, that they might actually send you an ad deal to promote an alcohol brand.

So they might say like, Hey Chelsea, amazing deal. We just came up, came across our desk. It's a $5,000 ad for this alcohol brand. It's a new spritzer. We're gonna promote it in the.  and I would be like, well, have you not listened to my podcast? Like, I don't talk about that. Now, again, I actually, I'm using this as an example.

I, I have, have talked about mocktails and stuff on this podcast, but I'm purely using this as an example, is that again, the curation is not there because the, the team is just too small or too lean to be able to handle like 50 podcasts and, uh, customizing their experience with the brand partners. So then you have to advocate for yourself and be.

I don't drink alcohol, you know, I don't wanna do this deal. And then they'll send you another deal that's a weight loss pill and you're like, I am anti-D culture. I'm not gonna talk about this. So I've heard this happen to a lot of people and it gets really frustrating because it's like, I thought the whole point of me on a network was, you're helping me, but it seems like you're just kind of throwing deals at me to make us money.

Instead of thinking about does this align with my. So that's another reason I personally don't wanna be on it. I've also heard that a lot of people still do their own work. We talked about this last week. There's a myth that podcast networks, you kind of just show up, record and then leave and you're done.

When from my, again, my understanding of what I've heard from post, uh, from podcast hosts that have been on huge networks is they are still doing 80% of the work. They have to send the timestamps to their editors to edit. , they have to show them which clips they want to put on their social media for the audiograms.

They have to send them the headshots. They have to send them the links that they're working with. Now, obviously, I'm gonna go ahead and assume that these massive networks have developed some type of system where the, the podcast host doesn't have to send this stuff on a regular basis, right? Like they shouldn't have to send their links every week.

I'm gonna go ahead and assume that they have that level of organization, but they're still doing a lot of the work. I actually heard a, a podcaster on a massive network talk about this one time because she was saying how frustrating it is that people don't give influencers the credit they.  and she was talking about all the work she did for her podcast and she was on a massive network.

So it just made me realize this whole myth that you just show up, record and piece out, and don't worry about anything isn't actually true. The other thing that I've noticed, and this is really important to me, is storytelling is a skill and something that I want to hone in on and learn more about.

Podcast networks don't necessarily help you with developing that skill. They help you with your media exposure. . So again, if I wanna become a better storyteller and interviewer, I wanna be mentored by people that are great storytellers and interviewers, and have that skillset become part of my edge, like what makes me stand out.

So that's something that I would be willing to invest in. Right. Um, I talked about Alex Cooper last week of Call Her Daddy. I think a lot of people hate on the situation of what happened and I, I understand. I followed the whole saga and I was like, what the hell is happening? Like there seems to be a lot of back and forth and a lot of drama behind the scenes, but hate her or lover her.

I do think Alex is an incredible interviewer. She's really good at active listening. She asks the questions that we all wanna know, but she doesn't do it in a like gotcha journalism type of way. So I really respect her for her interview. So if Alex Cooper all of a sudden opened up a storytelling class or interviewing class, or you know, you could work with her one-on-one, you bet your money, I would be signing up in two seconds.

She's also, again, the highest paid female podcaster in the world. So obviously for me, that would make sense to align with, um, an investment like that versus being on a podcast. So, again, this is very personal to my goals. I wanna be a better storyteller. I wanna be a better interviewer. I wanna make bonus content that my listeners value, and I want to sell my own offers within my business that align with my mission and values.

I don't want my podcast to have eight different ads that are promoting all these different things that I've maybe used for like. So I feel like that comment might have sounded snarky. A lot of influencers do their work and vet these products and they're like, I'm not gonna post about this if I haven't used it.

The other reality is, , there's a price tag on everything, and sometimes the price tag is high and we're like, you know what? Yeah, I'll try it for a month and get paid $20,000. Why not? Right? I, I would do that. I'm not above it. If someone said, Hey, Chelsea, we have this new probiotic, and I was like, Hmm, I don't know.

And you're gonna try it for a month and we'll pay you $20,000. I, I would take the probiotic. So we have to understand too that again, money, Is a very motivational factor for a lot of people. And that's also why when you listen to podcasts on podcast networks, there's a billion ads and people get really annoyed and they write reviews like, oh my God, I used to love this podcast, but now there's so many ads.

It's usually because now they're represented by a network. So you just have to think of that. Do you want to be doing a ton of ads and make your money that way, or do you wanna make it another. , you can still partner with brands, but maybe you don't wanna have like, again, seven different ads. Maybe you just want one brand partner for three months.

That's totally doable. That you have to remember, podcast networks, majority don't make their money that way, so that's not gonna fly with them. Like you, you can't say, oh, I'm only gonna do one ad in episode for them. They're like, no, no, no. You're gonna do like four because that's more money for all of us.

So if you signed with us and you signed a contract and we're representing you for a. You can't really just be like, oh, I'm gonna do whatever I want. It's truly like being represented by a talent agency or a record label. That's how I consider being represented by a podcast network. So consider your goals.

Do you wanna be an influencer? Do you wanna be a coach? Do you wanna be both? You have to look at, again, podcast network and see what types of people are on there. It's rarely service providers or coaches. It's usually, and by the way, if they are coaches, they're like the celeb style coaches, like the Gabby Bernsteins.

They're rarely. , um, people like me that just have, you know, 3000 followers, a solid email list and a podcast that's consistent with a few hundred listeners each week. Like that's, that's not appealing to them because again, they're thinking of high numbers and brand deals that are gonna pay them a lot of money.

And so usually it's influencers that are represented by podcast networks or people that have that trajectory. Okay. I feel like we really got into that one. So the next point I have is partnering with brands without a big audience. This is a huge question mark, right? Because let's say you are like, you know what?

I do wanna work with brands. I love this one brand. I've been using them for five years. Like I don't, I don't see why I wouldn't wanna partner with them. So you might wanna partner with a brand, but maybe your audience isn't that big. Here's exactly what you should do. A go after startups and young brands who have investment money.

Quick 1 0 1 on how investments work when in an investor puts money into a. , you have to remember, it's an investment, not a loan. They're expecting to make that money back and more so they're saying, okay, if we put money into your company, you need to go hire all the people that you need to. You need to show us your business plan.

You need to show us your marketing and advertising efforts. We need to see what exactly you're gonna do with each dollar that's gonna maximize our dollars so that we make our investment back times, whatever, you know. . So the expectation when an investor puts money into a company is that they, the company goes and spends the money to grow it.

So I used to think, oh my God, that's so cool. Investment money. So now the company is like safe. They don't have to worry about anything. I used to think of it almost like a grant or a loan.  when in reality that's not how it works. They're expected to go hire COOs, software developers, engineers, marketing and advertising companies.

So the, the reason why you wanna go after them is because they're in the phase where they're testing and experimenting so they have money to play with. I actually remember, we would see people's budgets in my influencer and marketing content company, and they would say like, we have a, an experimental budget to play with of 25,000.

Now, I know some of you probably just gasped and you're like $25,000 as play money. , I wish I could show you the budgets that advertising teams work with. It is insane. I mean, you probably already know like Super Bowl commercials, which are what, 30 to 60 seconds cost a million dollars. There were influencers that were getting paid 50 to a hundred thousand dollars plus to post a few photos on.

I. So $25,000 was actually the test budget in my company. We used to say that was our minimum that we could work with. We could not do a campaign with you if it was under $25,000 because you just wouldn't see results. So these early startups and young brands that get millions of dollars in investment money, Again, they're expected to spend it.

So they're out there testing new things. They're like, you know what? We're gonna go try podcast ads. We're gonna try a pop-up event in New York City where we're gonna have, you know, a fitness influencer run a bootcamp, and we're gonna have everyone show up, and we're gonna see what that does for our brand awareness.

We're gonna try TV commercials, we're gonna try this, that, and the other thing. So that's a good time to get in front of them because they're experimenting. They're young, they don't have a track record of what works and what doesn't work. So that's why if you see a company all of a sudden blowing up athletic greens is a really good example of this.

I remember last summer, they were everywhere. They were on every single paid ad. Every single wellness influencer I followed, talked about them. Every podcast ad I listened to, talked about them. Their digital ads, like on websites were everywhere. That, to me, signaled they just got a huge investment and they put a shit ton of money behind digital marketing and any type of online visibil.

So if you were following that trend, you could say, okay, I actually am into wellness. I wanna try this brand out. Let me go email or talk to the person that's in charge of advertising at Athletic Greens and try to get a piece of that pie, because clearly they're spending their money on advertising. Now if you wanna think about this even further, just listen to podcasts and what ads are there.

Clearly that brand company and that company value podcast ads. So they already know it works. They like what the, you know, they like the results they're seeing, so they're willing to invest in podcasts. We all have heard a Hello HelloFresh ad, A Blue Apron ad. Right? Those were, it's, it was almost like a joke that those were like the most common ads we heard for the last five years.

Um, those companies clearly value podcast ads. Those would be great companies to email and partner with, even if you have a small audience because they value podcast ads. Okay, so go after startups, go after young brands who have a lot of investment money and go after brands that you are already hearing in podcasts.

If you're like, I don't even know how to look up what startups are getting investment money. There's a lot of online news sites that you can follow that are focused on this. Crunchbase is one of them. Tech Crunch, like any type of online digital publication that's focused on finance or tech is usually gonna start talking about the investments that are happening in the.

You could also set up Google alerts for a brand that you wanna work with and just see what news is coming out about them. And if you're seeing an influx of news and a lot of press, it's probably a good time to get in touch because again, they're probably making a lot of money or they're in the game right now of trying to get a lot of media exposure and your podcast could be part of that.

So set up Google alerts for your, the brands you wanna work with and see what happens. You also wanna think about brands that you already use and talk. An example for me would be the microphone that I use for my podcast. It's called the Blue Yeti Nano. I recommend this to all my clients. I think almost every single person that I've worked with privately or in Mic Drop has bought this microphone.

And so for me, I have very clear evidence and data that I've made them sales, right? I've made them at least 10 different. Now I also use it, and I've been using it for years. And again, I recommend it in my courses and to my clients. So I could go to Blue Yeti the company and say, Hey, I'm a podcaster. I'm a podcast coach.

I have podcast courses, right? Like my whole entire career focuses on audio. You are an audio company. Let's talk about a partnership. I would love to promote you within my courses and make money.  because then I would be more motivated to really get people to use this product and it would be a no-brainer because I've used it, my clients have used it.

So that would be an easy sell if you wanna get their attention. And you, you don't have those sales yet, right? You're like, I don't even know if anyone's ever bought from me. Start shouting them out on social media and collecting qualitative data. So what that means is like messages, dms, voice notes, whatever, that you can pitch to the.

For example, I'm, I'm just looking around my room right now. Let's say I was trying to pitch Nike shoes, right? I'm looking at my Nike tennis.  and I was just constantly shouting them out. Like guys, I used Nike tennis shoes today for my training. It was incredible. I've used Nike for my walks and I feel so great now.

I don't have any ankle pain. I can walk further, right? Like let's just say I'm constantly talking about them, and then I get a message from people that are like, oh my God, thanks for sharing. I just bought a pair because you told me how your ankles stopped hurting. It worked for me too. Or people asking me buying question.

right? Like, Hey, what store did you get them at? How much were they? What color did you, did you get? Like, which, which style did you get? Those are all buying questions, which are signals that brands love to hear, right? They brands want to be bought, so when you can go to a brand and collect all this data and show them, look, I wore your Nike shoes, and I had 10 people message me, and at least eight of them are about to buy, and two of them actually bought.

Clearly I have some influence in, in helping you sell these shoes. . Now I will say Nike's a massive brand and, and usually partners with massive creators and celebrities. Of course, now these brands are getting into micro creators on TikTok and things like that, but it's just something to consider is, I find it easier to go after smaller brands because there's not a lot of legal to go through.

The teams are smaller. You don't have to go through 10 different teams. You just have to think of the bandwidth of the the brands, right? A bigger brand like Nike probably.  a chain of command that would take months to get approved. So I would not go after big companies all the time. I would consider your focus to go towards smaller companies.

now also think about end-to-end packages that have more content and bulk up the value. So let's say you're just starting your podcast and you're like, my podcast is really small, it has 20 listeners per episode. I have a thousand followers or less on Instagram. And you know, my TikTok, I just started posting and it gets like maybe 500 view.

Per video, what you could do is create a package with all of that. So instead of saying, I'm only gonna do one podcast ad, or I'm only gonna do one TikTok video, create a big package that's like, I'll do four TikTok videos, two reels, four email newsletters, and four podcast ads. And obviously put the price tag that, that you think that's worth and pitch it to the.

if you don't know what it's worth. That's something I help clients do. That's something we're also gonna talk about and amplify the Mastermind, is how to put a value on content when you don't have a big following. Now, remember last week I talked about this a little bit. You should be paid for your time and your creative energy that goes into it.

Just like a photographer gets paid, just like a videographer gets paid, just like a director gets paid. That's how you should be looking at brand deals, not your following in analytics, especially if you're a smaller. . So that's always the argument we would make in my old job too, is, you know, some people would look at the mom bloggers that we were pitching and be like, I don't know, her blog seems small.

We don't wanna pay her a thousand dollars a post. But we're like, you're asking her to go to the grocery store, collect all these ingredients, come home, create a Super Bowl spread, make a beautiful setup, right? Like go get decorations. She's spending a lot of money on all that time and energy. Then you might have edits.

So if you have edits, now you're asking her to redo the recipe completely from scratch, that it's gonna take hours, redo the setup. That's time and energy. Why would anyone do that for? Right. That's exploitation. If you're asking someone to do that, all that for free, they're, they're not valuing you. So putting a price tag on your content creation is something that I'm very good at because I have that background and it's something I tested myself this year.

I said this last week, my podcast does not have a lot of downloads per episode. It has a lot of total downloads. So I know how to pitch myself with storytelling angles and content angles that get the attention of brands. , I'm pitching end-to-end packages that really communicate the value of what they're going to get.

And it always helps when I reach out to a brand and show them that I've already been shouting them out and I have data to show that people are listening to me and they do wanna buy the product. So again, it just puts a little more trust in me if they wanna work with me. Now here's a part where we're gonna get a little nerdy, okay, , I like to geek out on this stuff, but I know sometimes it can feel a little heady.

Um, I think it's really important that you know this. You have to remember that podcast, although they've been around for, you know, over 10 years, the big heyday with the advertising industry has really kicked off in the last five. So it's still a relatively new industry when it comes to figuring out formulas and ad models that will show the return on investment.

Because usually what happens is like you listen to a podcast ad, but you don't run and buy the product right after that. , you usually have to hear the ad multiple times and then see it on Instagram and then see it on tv, and then see it on your favorite influencers Instagram, right? Like there's multiple touchpoints you have to see before you make the purchase.

So it's really hard to say, oh, you know, I posted about the, the microphone and then someone went and bought it. Unless the person directly messages me and says, Chelsea, I went and bought the microphone because of your podcast. Or if there's a referral link that I'm, you know, giving to people and saying, go use this link.

So you sign up so that they can track that sale. Or there's a code, right? Which you've guys, you guys have seen this. It's in my podcast show notes. Now I have affiliate links. That's so the brands can. Did I help make that sale? Or did it just come randomly? So, by the way, if you're ever trying to help a creator out use their affiliate links, it means the world to us.

We put so much time and energy into creating content, and a lot of ways that we make money is through affiliate links to referrals. . So just consider that if you've heard something on a Podcaster's podcast before, try to support them by using their specific link. Okay. That's just a an aside. There's uh, a metric that people use called cpm, which means cost per thousand, which I know is really weird because you're like, why is it not million?

It's an M um, it's because it's Latin. So it actually means cost per. What that means is we are going to give you a certain amount of money per thousand listeners, per thousand followers, per thousand email subscribers. Now, the issue with this, and this is an argument we had all the time in my old company with brands, Is this is a model that was used for ads on websites.

Okay. So they're called Display Media ads. You know, when you go to a website and there's like flashing buttons and like a, you know, an ad that will just pop up and you're like, okay, X Out. I'm trying to keep reading this article. That's a display ad. That model, the C P M model used to work for those types of, um, websites because you could track the impressions just like anyone right now who's listening that owns a website.

When you go to your analytics, it will show you your impressions, your unique page views, your unique monthly visitors. , that is what CPM used to measure. So the way that ads, like display ads would get bought is, Hey, for every thousand eyeballs on your website, we're gonna pay you X amount of dollars. And that amount changes based on the industry, the category, the brand that you're working with.

It's not really a set number across the board. There's usually averages, but again, it can depend. Okay, so I'm gonna try to break this down to make it really easy to underst. Let's say Capital One credit card wanted to advertise on fors.  because it's like that's where our target customers are. That's people who value financial information, investment information business.

We are a brand that wants to be aligned with that type of target. So we wanna, we wanna put our ads on forbes.com. Forbes has a sales team that would work with the Capital One marketing team and say, okay. How long do you wanna run? How many impressions are you wanting? And let's work out a deal that we can try to figure out, you know, does this make sense for you?

Like how far can your ad dollars go and what can we guarantee you? So Forbes might say, Hey, we have, I'm totally making this up, by the way. I don't know the numbers. They could say, Hey, we have 1 million visitors a month. So for every thousand of those, we charge a hundred dollars. So you would take the 1 million impress.

divided by a thousand because remember, it's cost per thousand, whatever that number is, times it by a hundred because that's the the dollar amount they put on it, and that's what the campaign would cost. Now I know again, this is really nerdy, so don't. Don't panic if this doesn't make sense, right? This is something I had to learn about for years or my old job.

Basically, the takeaway here was that model worked really well for placing display ads on websites, and it was all really easy to track. The problem with the audio world is they've now tried to apply that C P M model to ads on podcasts, so now they're saying, for every thousand listeners, we're gonna pay you X amount of dollars.

The problem. Podcasts are not the same thing as a website. The way people consume content online is not the same way people consume audio. They're just two different worlds, but because there's no other way really to do it right now, people were like, well, let's just use this model that worked for digital media forever and just try to apply it.

Because technically podcasts are online, they are digital. It's a different format, but we're just gonna apply the same framework to podcast. So let's say they're like, we're gonna pay you a $10 CPM per every thousand listeners. You might have 5,000 listeners, which by the way is a lot for a podcast. If you have like 5,000 listeners per episode, that's incredible.

Like you are considered to me a very successful, popular podcaster. And now let's do the math. If they're gonna pay. , I forget what number I said, a hundred dollars per every thousand listeners, and you have 5,000. Well, what's 5,000 divided by a thousand? That's five. Five times a hundred. That's $500. So you're only gonna make $500 off a podcast ad, which to me, for the amount of work it takes to develop an audience of 5,000 loyal listeners week after week is not.

That is why I don't work on CPM models. As soon as a brand says the word cpm, I'm like, no, we're not. This deal isn't gonna work out because not only do I not have those types of numbers to work with, the CPMs are usually small. And again, that is not valuing the time and the creative energy I'm putting it.

That's only putting value behind numbers. Again, we know this business is about numbers. Things are about money. Businesses have to make money. It makes sense why people do this, but CPMs work really well for mega podcasts. Like the Call Her daddies of the world, like the Joe Rogans, like huge podcasts on like Wondery and iHeartRadio and Sirius xm.

Those podcasts have hundreds of thousands of listeners, if not millions. So CPM works really well for them because they probably do make thousands of dollars every. If you're a micro creator or just starting out, CPM is truly not worth your time, you're probably gonna make like $50 an episode. That time could be better spent used, trying to sell your own offers, trying to secure high ticket coaching clients, trying to sell spots to your course, your workshops, your masterclass, your retreats, right?

You should spend your time and energy, especially in the beginning of your business, building your business, not helping a brand that's already established and making a shit ton of money. Make more. So I get really passionate about this because I see a lot of people get kind of like swindled by brand deals and then they get really excited because they're like, oh my God, I got a brand deal, and then they negotiate and they're making like $50.

I'm like, that's just not worth your time. You could go make a $3,000 one-on-one client simply by using better storytelling strategies and content marketing and seo. Then spending all your time and energy on a brand deal. If you hear the word CPM and you do not have hundreds of thousands of listeners or millions of listeners, it's not gonna be worth your time to negotiate a brand deal.

So stay away from CPM unless you're like an influencer. Woo. I know that was a lot of information, really, really insider info, pretty geeky. Um, but again, that is the world I worked in and I just wanted to demystify that so that you understand what to put your time and energy and efforts towards.  again, this is something I help my private clients with and what we're gonna talk about and amplify the Mastermind is how to price yourself when you are a smaller creator.

How to negotiate brand deals and how to sell your own offers. You don't always need to make money through, through brand deals. I've been trying to understand too, what is the, um, appeal of brand partnerships to, to smaller creators and I think there's a myth that they're gonna pay you just so much money and you, you can like chill out and not.

I, I hear this all the time. I've even thought of it myself. I think that's because the influencer image that's portrayed on social media is we make a lot of money and we take pictures and we don't work . That's like what it seems like, right? Look, I'm at Coachella. I'm getting flown to Paris Fashion Week.

I'm behind the scenes at Art Basel and I'm getting paid all this money and I don't work when in reality I'm like, they're literally like photographers and videographers and report. . That's kind of what influencers are now. They're expected to take high quality photos, high quality pictures, get it approved, have a storytelling angle.

There's a lot of work that goes into influencer work, and I think we all just see the, the finished product. Like, oh, she got flown of Paris Fashion Week. I wish that could happen for me, and then I could just chill in Paris and do nothing and get paid $50,000. I'm like, that is. Very close-minded way to think of influencer marketing.

They are not doing nothing. They are doing a lot of fucking work to make the money that they make, and they constantly have to be seeking out new partnerships, thinking about their public image. You know what? They can say what they can't see. I actually don't envy influencers at all. I think it's a lot like being a celebrity.

I talked about this in the last episode. It is like being a celebrity. You lose a lot of the freedoms you have when you're a bigger creator.  and I, I like being a smaller creator because I don't have to worry about all that stuff. So just think about that when you get excited about brand deals or opportunities, or you could see yourself making a lot of money that way.

Just start thinking a little longer term and future, future visioning for a second, and just think about, do I want all my income to be dependent on this, and do I want to constantly have to think about how I'm portraying myself and the brands I align with? , um, because we've seen that happen over and over again.

Again, people get canceled, life changes and brands pull out. So it's just something to to think about. So the next point I wanna make is how do people get rich from podcasting? Right? Not just like, how do they make money? How do they get rich? Exclusive rights are huge. We talked about this last week, call her daddy getting a 60 million deal with Spotify.

That's a, that's probably the biggest way to get completely wealthy from podcasting, is getting exclusive rights to something massive brand deals. So if you're a huge podcaster and you land, you know, a deal with someone that wants to promote with you for three to six months, or just pay you a lot of money, you can make a lot of money that way you can make thousands and thousands of dollars in massive brand.

You can also use your podcast to sell your products. I'm talking about physical, digital, service-based products. And I don't mean using your podcast to be an A one big ad for your products all the time, right? Your podcast has the essence of you and then people like your essence and then wanna go buy your products.

So there's a very strategic.  to sell your products without being a, you know, car salesman and being like, okay, the podcast today is about my upcoming course. It's six weeks and there's gonna be six Zoom calls and Foxer. No, that's not what I'm talking about. , I'm talking about very much right now. What I'm doing right?

I'm demystifying the podcast world to help you understand what I know about podcasting. So if you wanna work with me, you can go check out my offers and how I can help you with your podcast. So that's what I'm talking about. You can also use it to sell actual products, right? The merch, the, your books, the product lines, I talked about it last week, the skinny confide.

Having books now, having the ice roller, having the ball roller having, um, so much exposure from the podcast. There's ways to use your podcasts to make money that don't need to be so sleazy and gross and direct. There's, it's very much about like the personality and the content and value you're, you're providing, and that will help you create revenue opportu.

So you have so many different ways to monetize merchandise, live shows, paywall content, donations in-person events, selling your products, exclusive rights. There's not one way to make money from podcasting. So I would figure out your goals and what strategies are best for you, and then put your time and energy towards that.

For me, I told you what my time and energy goes towards. It's trying to make sure my business is resourced first before bringing on brand partners. So that's where my time and energy goes, and that's what I help private clients do and the students inside amplify. That's what we'll be doing as well, is what strategies are gonna work for us?

How can we double down on those and optimize our time and energy? Which brings me to my next point. How much energy and money and time does it actually take to sustain a podcast? I am not going to sugarcoat this to you. It takes a. . This will depend on your posting schedule, but this is not some little hobby.

So if you're just starting out and you wanna post weekly, okay, I'm giving you an example here. I would say you're gonna spend at minimum, three hours per week working on your podcast. This is for planning, recording, and editing. . You also wanna think about marketing and promotion. And if you want to create all your marketing assets, right?

You're in, you're in Canva creating graphics, you're in a video editor creating reels. You're, you know, mixing and matching colors and doing all this creative work that's gonna take time. So it could take you up to five hours. Now, these times will also.  on each thing that you're working on. So for example, planning, if you're doing like a narrative podcast, that requires a lot of research.

Planning is obviously gonna take a long time. You need time to go research and pull facts out of things and create a story and script it out. That's gonna take way longer than if you're just creating, you know, five bullets of what you learned this year. That's clearly a different use of time. Recording is also a different use of.

people record sometimes twice because they'll record once and they're like, wow, I sounded really nervous or bad. I, I just wanna rerecord. So if you're recording a whole episode twice, that's, that's an hour, well now that's two hours.  editing also takes a while, and it depends on your style of editing. Are you just editing out filler words and you know, weird sounds in the background or does this require you to put extra music in and you're creating a very like, um, audio narrative story that, you know, you're talking about water and there's splashes in the back and now you're talking about people walking and you hear the pitter patter of footsteps like that is gonna take more time.

So you just need to think. What your podcast is and what it's doing, and then you can back it out into a timeline. But this is not something that you just do in a a few hours each week and post it and hope that it goes well. If you're trying to sustain a podcast, it does take time and energy. . I would say for mine, I probably spend, yeah, it's probably the three to five hours a week because planning, you have to remember, I've been doing this for five years and it was also my background for a very long time.

It doesn't take me that long to plan and because I'm thinking about these episodes all day long in my head. Usually when I go to write an outline, it, it doesn't take that long. It makes, it makes, takes me like 15 to 20 minutes recording. . I usually say that, um, you know, if I'm recording an hour episode, I'll record maybe for a little bit longer and then just edit it down.

But I've also heard of people that just record and record and record, and then they try to edit it down to an hour. I don't do that. I try to just keep it within an hour and then edit out filler words and any background noises. But also I like to market this podcast. So I write an email every week. I post reels about it.

I create content for it. So that also takes me time, right? Like posting a reel, putting captions on it, editing it, making sure that it actually makes sense. That all takes time. So, yeah, I would, maybe it actually even takes longer than five hours because of the marketing of it. . Now, I wanna also backtrack here.

When I started and it was just a creative hobby, I actually didn't do that much marketing because it wa it made no sense. I had no business to market. It was just for fun. , I think I created an Instagram account and I created a website, but I did not have an email list for it. I did not have, uh, a huge marketing team behind it.

Like I didn't have a social media manager. I actually did create a separate social media page, which I shut down cause it was too much to manage. But yeah, I would market on it on there. So you just wanna think about when you're posting, when you're putting so much time into a podcast, you do wanna market it so that people listen to it and it feels worth your.

an editor. This also depends if you're editing yourself or you're gonna outsource. I would say an average, this is average is 50 to $150 per episode is common. Depending on what bells and whistles you add, it's gonna cost more. So now if you want the person to transcribe it and do SEO O and add metadata and plug it in on your website and create a blog post out of it, obviously that is gonna cost more money.

If you're like, Hey, I just need you to edit the raw audio, and I don't even care about filler words, I just. You know this one sound in the back where my dog barked, and then there was this weird glitch and a few other things like just clean up the audio that's gonna cost less money. You can find affordable options on things like fiber, Upwork, pod machine, Facebook groups.

There are so many Facebook groups where I've found incredible talent and just truly posting, Hey, I'm looking for an editor. Can anyone help me out? And then evaluating your options and what fits into your. . Now, if you're like, I don't have that much money to invest into editing, I would encourage you to learn how to edit.

I edited my podcast for a very long time, and I still like to edit my solo episodes. Descript is amazing because it transcribes the audio and as you delete words, it deletes the audio. So you don't have to learn how to become a full on audio engineer. And they have all these tools to make it sound better.

You can add a studio filter, you can play around with compression and eq, which are again, a little nerdy things to talk about, but you'll know when you start editing. Um, I think it's an amazing software. It's $15 a month and to me it's really worth it. So just consider that if you don't have, you know, 50 to $150 an episode, you might wanna consider editing yourself and making it easier for you by using the tools available to.

Audacity is also a popular one, garage band, Adobe. There's so many different editing tools, so you just have to figure out what makes sense for your brain visually and like what works for you. I want you guys to know that I probably cut out at least 50 things in an episode. I'm not talking about 50 sentences, I'm just talking about times where I messed up or was rambling too much or like said the wrong word or the the thought didn't make sense.

I'll edit all that. . Um, I think I told you this, maybe even last week, I went to an editor in person and like we recorded in person, and so he was making marks in real time as I was recording. And then at the end I remember messing up quite a few times, but I was like, okay, I think there's like 15 edits.

And he was like, okay, there's 57 edits. I was like,  57. I've been doing this for five years. Like, how's that even possible? But I realize that there is, there's just a lot of things to cut out and restarting and. So that's why I like to use the script because I can see the parts where I messed up from the transcription and then just delete it.

And it really, it just takes so much less time than it would, um, to do it any other way. But that's what works for me. And the last thing I wanna talk about is just examples of podcasters that have created empires from their podcasts. We've already talked about a few of them, but I think it's just worth really breaking this down.

Are the skinny, confidential call her daddy and Louis. . I do wanna acknowledge a very real point here. All these people are white, straight identifying very conventionally attractive, and have a lot of support and resources. So that's first and foremost. Okay. We have to acknowledge the very real realities of how the world works.

The next thing to point out is a lot of them have been doing this for a long time, so what you are seeing is the result of them putting.  hours and hours and hours of work into creating hundreds of episodes. I'm pretty sure the Skinny Confidential has like over 500 episodes at this point. They've been doing it for I think since 2016, so we're almost going on seven years here.

Call her Daddy has hundreds of episodes. Louis how I believe, has over a thousand episodes. So we, when we're trying to think of how do I get to that level? , I really want you to be realistic here and not be like, oh, I'm gonna try to be this person overnight. This is the accumulation of putting hundreds and I mean hundreds and if not thousands of hours of work into these podcasts.

So if you're like, oh my God, I wanna be the next, you know, call her daddy. , you just have to remember how much work went into building that brand and that podcast, and how much audio editing there was, how much, uh, consistency there was. The fact that they had resources, right? They were backed by Bar Stool, the Skinny Confidential in the beginning.

They already had an influencer base. They, al Lauren was already a very successful influencer, right? So we just wanna remember that these people do have resources and teams to help them. If you're like me and you're like, I'm just starting out, I'm a solopreneur. I can buy my microphone, I can get the software, but I don't have a whole team behind me.

Then it's not really fair to compare yourself to people that have a very different reality than you do. I do think it's cool though, to see how they got there and what they did to get there. So let's start with the skinny, confidential. , they started their podcast as a couple. Again, they already were very successful.

Lauren was a successful influencer. Michael had a successful company selling beds to private jets. So he was very well connected. He had an entrepreneurial background. They were, they lived in a wealthy community. Um, so again, they were already successful. So when they started their podcast, it wasn't like, if it failed, it would be okay.

They were gonna be just, . I think what was really cool and what, how they built such popularity was they did a lot of behind the scenes content. So they would literally say, here's how we plan our day. Here's how we manage our finances. Here's like money tips. Here's how we work things out. As a couple, they were really lifting the veil of how they got to where they were.

People really appreciated that because they're like, wow, this information usually isn't free or available. And they were willing to say, here's how we did it. Like we're showing you the the map so you can do it. So it gained a lot of popularity and a lot of people were implementing the tips and it worked.

Then they started bringing other people in to see how they build their success. So it was like, how do, how did you get there? How did you build your empire? And hearing this information for free was incredibly valuable and people were gobbling it up, including myself. I was like, whoa. Like I'm, I'm getting this free information on how to launch a podcast, how to market yourself, how to get in touch with people, how to use connections.

And I think because of all that valuable content, it just grew in popularity and eventually they created Dear Media, they now have their massive podcasts. And I told you this last week, Lauren now has a product line. She has a book. She's just done incredibly well for herself. And I think that's a good example of.

Giving value to your audience and, and watching what happens when you're able to lift the veil so that people can trust you and know you and you can build credibility with them. I think that's a beautiful thing about podcasting. It just shows your personality. You can't hide behind a mask with audio.

Right. That's so interesting. I can't like make up a character on a podcast like I have to be myself. You know what's interesting though is speaking of characters, I remember Alex Cooper in the interview, again, the host to call her. Saying at one point she felt like she was playing a character because the podcast in the beginning was so raun.

I mean, this podcast would tell you how to give the best blowjobs, what positions to have the best orgasm, how to sex the sluttiest things to your boyfriend, and obviously that type of content like sex sells. So they had a lot of viewers, a lot of listeners, a lot of popularity, and they would talk about their own sexual mishaps, right?

Like, I remember them  telling stories of how they threw up on their boyfriend's dick when they went down on him and like just crazy shit. They were like, oh my God, this is stuff I talked about with my girlfriends at like brunch and we were giggling over. And that showed a level of vulnerability that people appreciated and why that podcast grew so big as well.

I remember at one time when they split up, Alex said that she felt like at one point she was playing a character because it got so exhausting to talk about that because the reality was, They weren't having sex all the time, like things were happening. You get depressed, you get busy, you get stressed out.

You don't, you have a low sex drive. Your birth control is giving you mood swings. And she was like, it just felt like I started playing a character of who I wanted people to think I was to continue the, the content of that podcast, but like in reality, that just wasn't what was happening. So that's why I respect the pivot that she's taken where she doesn't talk about that all the time.

Now she interviews different people from different backgrounds. We've heard everyone from scammers on the podcast now, like Anna delve to her whole human interest piece on abortion. She interviewed Haley Bieber, so you could get Haley Bieber's side of the story. Like she's just taken a different angle, and I think that is why that show has created such success is because Alex, again, is a good interview and story tell.

We're hearing things that we don't get to hear. It's always very behind the scenes. And again, she shares a lot of insider information about her life, which I think people appreciate the transparency. Now we know, call her daddy has made a huge deal. She makes a lot of money on the merchandise, a lot of money on ads, um, a lot of money from Spotify.

And so that is how that empire was built. And the last one that's so interesting that I actually found out about recently is Louis. . I actually thought Louis Howes was a coach first and then started a podcast and then I was reading his About Me and he started a podcast as a way to have a creative outlet and to express himself after a really hard time in his life.

And then he just started reaching out to people.  asking them to come on and tell their stories, and he just kept doing this over and over and over again where he just said he got to interview so many incredible people and learn from them that it just became an obsession where he was like, I love hearing how people operate and how they uplevel and how they view the world.

And so he just kept doing it and doing it, which is why, again, I think he has over a thousand episodes now, and then it grew.  to be what it is today. By the way, his, his podcast is called School of Greatness, and he truly has some of the biggest experts and people in the industry on, again, I just wanna remind you, this is years and years and thousands of episodes of him getting to this point.

It wasn't like day one, he was interviewing these massive people that you see on his podcast. It took a long time to get there. So I think the point here that I'm trying to make is empires are, From showing up all the time, from being consistent, from providing value to your listeners for lifting the veil behind things for not trying to be a perfectly polished, buttoned up, bubblegum type of person.

I think all these people are successful because they've opened up and showed behind the scenes. You know what's interesting too, and I definitely wanna call this out, A lot of these people have a lot of negative reviews as. . I think that comes with the territory of becoming a public figure. You are gonna have people that absolutely love you and you are gonna have people that absolutely hate you.

There are people right now listening to the podcast right now, my podcast probably pissed that I'm talking about Call Her Daddy. There are probably people that hate Lauren Bostick and the Skinny, confidential. There are probably people that are that think Louis House is the worst person in the world.

Whenever you are chasing fame or trying to become bigger and bigger and bigger and get notoriety, there's.  the, the other side of the coin, and you cannot prevent that. You can look at anybody in the world, the nicest people, kindest souls, would not hurt a fly, still get hate. So that's just something to really, really think about too when you're going like the influencer or coach route, is, am I chasing fame and am I trying to go viral and get massive brand deals and literally become famous and be seen in like the.

because with that there is a negative side and that's not a bad thing. I think it's actually really cool to be able to handle negativity and feedback and you know, have grace and move through it. I love watching people handle conflicts in, in the public because it shows a lot about their character. . So I'm not saying don't go after that path.

I think it builds a lot of leadership skills. I think it builds a lot of credibility. I think it shows you who you are in the face of conflict. It is just a very real reality that comes with becoming a bigger and bigger presence online. . Now if you're like, yeah, influencer versus coach. That's actually an interesting topic.

Stay tuned because next week that's what I'm gonna talk about is, do you wanna be an influencer or a coach, or both? I'll talk about the pros and cons of both of those. How you make money, what are the best things about them? What strategies should you enlist to actually become a coach or influencer? I'm gonna break that all down next week.

But I hope this is helpful. I really, really wanna, again, demystify the world of podcasting and not make it seem so elusive and like you don't know how, what's happening and how people make money and what takes off and what doesn't. And remember, part one is gonna help you understand this part two. So listen to both of them and let me know what you think.

Was this helpful? Does this help you at all? Do you.  more intimidated. Do you feel less intimidated? Do you feel excited? Do you feel inspired? I would love to hear from you. You can DM me at Chelsea Writh, or you can write to me on my email info chelsea wright.com. All you have to do is go to my website and sign up.

It's on my homepage and I send an email every week about my podcast and some tips.  and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Currency for podcasters is reviews and ratings. So if you leave a review on Apple Podcasts as a thank you, you'll be entered into a giveaway to win a 20 minute laser coaching session with me.

So we'll answer one or two of your questions and get right to it about podcasting. And again, all you have to do is leave a review on Apple Podcast. So this is a written review. Take a screenshot of it, send it to info chelsea wri.com, or at Chelsea Rife and I will pull a winner at the end of this. And if you're like, wow, I'm excited.

I wanna start a podcast, or I wanna refine what I have and actually take it seriously and make it work for me because I put so much time and energy into it. Let's chat. I have one-on-one spots open to start in mid-January, and my mastermind Amplify is open for enrollment right now too. So one-on-one coaching is perfect.

If you wanna launch a very successful and strategic podcast, or if you wanna refine what you already.  Amplify is for people that have already launched. So if you're a new podcaster, amplify would not make. . I would encourage you to check out links for both in the show notes and you'll see which one makes the most sense for you.

But again, launching and refining is one-on-one. If you're beyond the launch and you're trying to figure out how to make podcasting work for you, then amplify would be your best Next step. And last but not least, don't forget voice notes are a thing. Now, I love voice notes, as you can probably tell. I have a podcast , so I freaking love voice notes.

Send your questions into the podcast. There's a link in the show notes. You can record a voice note directly from your. So I know it sounds complicated, but truly you just click the link, open it up, leave a voicemail, and I will stitch it into the episode and answer. I appreciate you all so much. I hope this was helpful.

I would love to hear from you and I'll see you next week.

Resources mentioned and tools to help you: