192 | 5 Things You Should Know About Podcast Networks

This is Grow the Show, the podcast that helps you grow your podcast. My name is Kevin Schmidland. I am your podcast growth coach. And today we are going to talk about podcast networks. So over the past couple of weeks, I've gotten more questions than usual from my audience and my clients about podcast networks, how they work, what they do. And so I just thought I would give you five things that you should know before starting or before joining a podcast network. Now usually when I get questions about podcast networks, the person who asks me that question is coming from one of three places there in one of three scenarios. And so it is likely that if you clicked on this episode, you have questions about podcast networks. You are one of these three people. Number one, you are somebody who's show is not growing or is not monetized as much as you want it to be. And you are wondering if you should try to join a podcast network that can help you grow and monetize your show. Number two, you might be somebody who really enjoys making your podcast and you're considering starting a podcast network because you love making podcasts so much. Or number three, you're somebody who's show is growing and is monetized. And you're wondering if a podcast network can help take things to the next level. So today, I'm going to cover five things that you should know about podcast networks regardless of which of those three categories you are in. So without further ado, let's do it. The first thing that you should know about podcast networks is that number one podcast networks want you to succeed, but they are in general only going to take you on if you are already succeeding. What do I mean by that? Well, many podcasters assume that networks are there to help shows grow, you know, to take small shows and make them big, but in reality, that's not the case. What I found is that podcast networks generally only take on shows that are already growing. They already can prove that their downloads are going up every single month. And many times they are already monetized. One of my craziest client stories from 2023 is somebody who launched a show about a certain book series with her sister. She launched that show in 2023 worked really, really hard in the initial weeks of the show's launch. It did really well. They got over a million downloads in just 90 days. And after that, they were approached by a pretty big podcast network. And since then that podcast network has helped them to grow, but here's what's important to understand that podcast network only reached out to them once they have already proven that on their own, they can grow their audience and they can monetize. And so if you are that podcaster who show is not growing and is not monetized and you're wondering if a podcast network will fix that, I'm here to say probably not. Like I said, what I found is that podcast networks want to see growth and they want to see monetization first. They want to see that you, the creator, the podcaster can do those things. If you do prove that, then they will consider taking you on and pouring care scene on it. But if not, they are probably going to pass. And the best analogy to use here is like a musical artist. So record labels tend to not sign artists anymore who don't already prove that they can grow their audience online. And this is something that if you follow any musicians, a lot of them are complaining about that now because back in the old days, a record label would sign an artist based solely upon their sound. Are they talented? Do they make cool songs? Nowadays, not so much. They want to see a social media following. They want to see proof from the artist that the artist can build a following and sell tickets to a show. Only at that point in general are they going to get signed. Same thing is true for podcast networks. They are not here to grow a show from scratch. They are here to grow a show that has already seen some growth and success. So that's number one. The podcast network is not going to swoop in and solve your growth and monetization problems. The second thing to understand when considering podcast networks is this, growing a podcast is hard. Growing multiple podcasts is even harder. So if you're that podcaster who really enjoys making your show and you're thinking about starting a bunch of shows, starting your own podcast network, especially if you're somebody considering convincing other people to launch shows who aren't already in the midst of launching a show, proceed with caution. You see, if you want to start a podcast network, you have to be really good at growing your own show and you're also going to have to have the skill of abstracting out the skill that you built growing your own show and making it apply to other podcasts. And while it is tempting to dive in and create a network of similar shows and try and grow them all at once, the reality is growing five shows at once is a lot harder than managing and growing just one. The simpler, the better. So before you launch your own podcast network, make sure you truly understand the ins and outs of audience growth and monetization for your own podcast before you take on the responsibility of scaling others. That's number two. Number three, the third thing to understand about podcast networks is how they grow podcasts. So when you are in a discussion with a podcast network and you're considering joining one, what they're going to tell you is that they can help you grow your show nine times out of 10 in my experience. The way that they will do that is by promoting your show on the other podcasts within that network. And that's one of the primary benefits of joining a podcast network. It's the opportunity for cross promotion networks with similar audiences can promote each other's show on the different feeds. And that can help cross pollinate listenership. However, know that this only works well if there is tons of overlap with the audiences. The audiences of the shows in the network must truly align. So if you look at a network like HubSpot, which has a lot of business shows, that network can reasonably promise that they will be able to grow your show if your show is business related because they have a bunch of business related podcasts and odds are that the listeners of those shows will probably be interested in yours if it's the same topic. But I have seen quite a few times that somebody puts together a podcast network with podcasts that have totally different audiences. One might be about cigars, one might be about football, one might even be about baseball, but it's not the same audience. And so the podcast network really doesn't get the benefit of networking because they have to build all these different audiences all independently. So if you are looking to start or you are considering joining a podcast network, take a look at the other shows within the network. Do they have similar audiences? If so, then it's probably the case that they will be able to cross pollinate. If not, maybe steer clear because you might have a hard time growing those shows together. Number four, the fourth thing to understand about podcast networks is that podcast networks can help you monetize your show if you are looking to monetize with paid ads. But again, the only way that's going to work is if advertisers will want to advertise on all of the shows in that network. That's when ad sales can be streamlined enough where it makes sense for a podcast to represent your show and maybe five other shows that have similar audiences, notice a theme here. And they can sell ads to a business that says, hey, if you buy our ads, we will put your ad on all of these different shows. So once again, you need to ensure that the shows on the network have a similar audience. If they don't, then it's going to be as if a bunch of shows are just individually trying to sell their own ads. And in that case, you really get no benefit from combining the other thing to know about a podcast network selling ads for you is that podcast networks take a cut. So I've seen anywhere from 20% on the low end to 60% on the high end, meaning that the podcast network takes 20 to 60% of the ad revenue that they sell on behalf of your show. Now, again, if your show has a solid audience where the ad revenue that your show can sell is enough for it to make sense for you to join a network and give away 20 to 60% of your ad revenue. Awesome. The benefit to that, and I've done this one before, is that you don't have to worry about finding and pitching and closing ad sponsorships. You just have to read the ads on your show. Sounds great, right? And it is. But in order for that revenue to be significant, like several thousand dollars per month, your show has to be pretty big. However, I will say the other thing that a lot of podcasters I find don't really fully grasp is that monetizing a show to the max with sponsorships and with advertisers is a full-time job because to max out your ad inventory where all of your ads are sold in a given month, you have to do outbound ad sales. And so this is the difference between inbound and outbound podcast ad sales. Inbound podcast ads are the ones where the sponsor reaches out to you. You get an email and they're like, Hey, we love your show. We would love to sponsor it. It's awesome. And I see that happening for podcasts big and small. When that happens, hell yeah, take the sponsorship. But if you want your ad revenue to be significant where it is consistent and every single episode, you know that you have sold at least most of the ads available on your show, you're going to have to do outbound, which means you reach out to companies that have never heard of you and your show and you have to convince them why they will make money if they sponsor your podcast. This is totally doable, but it takes time to find a list of businesses, reach out to them all, interact and pitch the ones who respond to you, follow up with those who ghost you, make the pitch, handle their objections, close the deal, collect the cash and air the ad. It's a lot of work. And what I found is that even bigger shows find that they need somebody working on this full time in order to really max it out, which is totally doable. It's a thing that you might want to consider. But this is in my opinion, the big place where podcast networks can be really, really a great move. If your show is of a significant size where you have enough audience where you reasonably could make a decent amount of money, but you can't or don't want to have somebody in house that you pay virtually full time to sell ads, then it's usually a good idea to reach out to a network where you can plug into their ad sales process. They can just add your show to a list of other shows that they sell ads on. Yes, they take a cut, but a lot of times that cut is either less than what you would pay somebody to do this full time, or it's just worth it because you don't have to manage that person. Finally, number five, and this is the number one thing to keep in mind. And this is just from me doing this, me helping podcasters for over four years, seeing a lot of people join networks, most of the networks I have never heard from, and a lot of times unfortunately, after a certain amount of time, never hear from again, and that is this. Podcast networks over promise and under deliver. This is one of the biggest complaints from podcasters I've spoken to who have joined networks. And this is even some of the bigger networks I've heard friends of mine who have shows and audits is much bigger than mine who have joined networks that you have heard of and even then they found that the network over promised and under delivered you see networks tend to promise the world in terms of growth and cross promotion and even ad sales, but a lot of times many fail to deliver on those promises because it is freaking hard. Now don't get me wrong, this does not mean that all networks are bad. There are some great ones out there and there are absolutely ones who will keep their promises. So please don't write off every single podcast network. But what I do think you should do is do your homework number one, maybe reach out to other podcasts within that network and ask them candidly how their experience has been. And also just make sure you have realistic expectations before joining. If your show is already growing and you want some help with ad sales, a network can be a great fit. But if you're expecting the network to handle everything and grow your show and monetize it for you, you're likely going to end up disappointed. So those are the five things that I want you to know about podcast networks, whether you are looking to start your own or potentially looking to join one in the future. Number one, podcast networks only want to work with shows that are already growing and monetizing or at least can prove that they are on the right growth and monetization path. Number two is that growing one show is hard. It is even harder to grow multiple shows. So keep that in mind. Number three is that cross promotions can be really valuable on networks, but you have to make sure that the networks have shows that have very similar audiences. Number four, podcast networks can help you streamline ad sales, but they will take a significant cut. And so that has to be worth it for you. And the number five is do your homework, watch out for networks that over promise and underliver a lot of them mean well, but it is just very hard to deliver on the things that they have promised. So reach out to the other shows in the network so you can be sure what to expect. So that is it. Podcast networks are not the one size fits all solution they might seem to be. A lot of major creators that you have heard of have hopped around from podcast networks and have not been satisfied with them. So take it all with a grain of salt, but I also know other shows that attribute podcast networks to their show taking off. So overall, focus on growing your own podcast first. And if you do that, you will be in a much better position to either join a network or create one of your own. So that is going to do it for today. I hope this quick hit episode of Grow the Show was useful to you, and I will see you in the next one. That is going to do it for this episode of Grow the Show. Now I have a quick favorite to ask you. If you've ever gotten any value from this podcast and you haven't already, please leave us a five star rating. And if you're feeling generous, a review in the app that you're using to hear my voice right now. It just takes a couple seconds, but it really goes a long way in helping us to share even more valuable growth and monetization tactics here on the show because it helps us land bigger guests and it helps show the world that what we're doing here is actually valuable. So once again, if you've ever gotten any value from the show and you haven't already, please just take a moment, leave us a five star rating, maybe a brief review on what type of value you've gotten and I will be eternally grateful. This episode was produced by me with post production by podcast boutique. And if you want your show to be post produced with quality really freaking fast. And if you want to save yourself and your team tons of time working on your podcast, you should chat with podcast boutique. Just head to podcast boutique.com or click the link in the show notes and set up time with them because I spent no time editing this episode. And neither should you. All right, that's going to do it for a girl to show. My name is Kevin Schmittlin. I'll see you next time.