I Told Them My Podcast Audience Wasn't For Sale... To THEM
episode
Podmastery: podcasting insights and advice for indie creators
13 min
2 speakers
4 chapters
transcribed 21 days ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Why did I reject a sponsorship offer from a popular recording platform?
About four years ago, before this show was what it became now. I got an email offering me money to talk about a product on this very podcast. It was from a very popular remote recording platform. uh one with a very popular affiliate programme, as it happens. And they wanted to pay me to talk about them on this show. And I had been using it. That week, in fact, which I think might have prompted them to reach out to me. The problem is that tool had lost a recording. It hadn't glitched. It was lost. Completely gone. So I said no. And I want to tell you why that wasn't a moral decision. Because it wasn't. It was basic arithmetic. Cut it. This is Podmastery Podcasting Insights. I'm Neil Vellio, the Podmaster, and I've spent the best part of the past 30 years in audio, and 25 of that in podcasting specifically, and all of it watching people give away the most valuable thing they own for around about $200 a month.
And today I'm going to talk about what you're actually holding and why even the advertising industry has Figured out that it's worth way more than you think. So let me start with the thing that everybody believes. The belief is that sponsorship is a reward for volume of traffic. You get to a certain number of downloads and then you're allowed. Below that, you're not a real proposition. So you wait. You watch the numbers. And when someone finally does offer you something, you say yes really fast because you've been told this is your gate opening. And I say that's rubbish. In fact, it's not me saying so. It's the people who sell advertising for a living. Here's a figure that might surprise you. Only 7% of podcasts reach 5,000 downloads an episode.
2% reached twenty thousand. Two per cent. So, the show you're comparing yourself to, the benchmark that you've kind of figured out you have to hit before you're allowed to charge anyone anything, that show is a rounding error. It barely exists. You've been waiting for permission from a category that is almost entirely empty. So you really should genuinely change how you think about all this. The same industry analysis describes many. Mid-tier and niche shows as, and this is their word, not mine, underpriced. Underpriced. The ad industry is on record saying you're underpriced, you're charging too little. Let me give you the math on this because this is where it gets really interesting. There's a comparison that's been doing the rounds from an advertising outfit, a $50 CPM on a niche show.
Converts at 5% against a $15 CPM on a broader show that converts at half a percent. So the niche show is more than three times more expensive per thousand listeners and is still the better buy because it converts 10 times better. If you're not driving, I want you to think about that once again. The expensive small show wins. In fact, if you are driving, pull over. And let me run that through you again. The expensive, small show wins. And you can see the same thing in the going rates. Business and B2B shows are pulling $40 to $80 CPM. Broad comedy and lifestyle, as in those big fun shows, the ones with all the numbers. fifteen to thirty five. Narrow is worth more per listener than popular. And that's not a nice idea, that's the actual pricing list that the people in charge of this are putting together.
So think about what that means for your show. 2,000 people who all care about one specific thing, every one of them a plausible customer for the right product. Against 20,000 people who are mostly there for something else entirely. And half of them would probably be actively skeptical about anything recommended anyway, because generic is skeptical. Which of those would you rather be selling? Because if you answered honestly, you've just valued your own audience correctly for probably the first time ever. But now we're gonna get to the uncomfortable bit for you as someone that is thinking that you would quite like to have some money coming in from your show. If that's true. If what you're holding is genuinely worth more than the cheque
Then the question stops being, will anyone pay me?
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
Why did I reject a sponsorship offer from a popular recording platform?
0:01–7:28
2
What do the download‑benchmark statistics reveal about most podcasts?
7:28–9:34
3
How does the advertising industry classify mid‑tier and niche shows?
9:34–11:16
4
Why can a $50 CPM niche show be a better buy than a $15 CPM broad show?
11:16–13:45
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Podmastery: podcasting insights and advice for indie creators
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