Mark Asquith:
Hey, my name is Mark Asquith and I'm the managing director and co
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founder of Captivate, a podcast hosting
distribution and monetization platform.
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And today I'm going to give you a tip
about podcasting and podcast growth.
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I'm the co founder of Captivate.
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We are a podcast hosting monetization
and distribution platform.
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And we really focus on helping the
serious independent creator to.
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Not only create a podcast, but to
build a scalable, meaningful audience,
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and to create a lot of diversity in
their monetization opportunities.
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I'm a big fan of not putting your
eggs in baskets when it comes
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to monetization, so diversity.
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In that monetization is
completely, completely paramount
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to the modern podcaster.
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I got into podcasting actually
back in, around:
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and it's a bit of a weird one.
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So I'm a bit of a nerd collector
of, of all things DC comics
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and all things Star Wars.
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So back in about 20 10, 20 11,
20 12, somewhere around there, DC
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comics relaunched their massive line.
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Of comics that they did new
number ones for absolutely
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everything, absolutely everything.
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And I was just deep into reading them.
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And at the time I was sort of running
an agency, I was running a design
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agency and I was wanting to get
into, I suppose, having a bit more
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of a different creative outlet.
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I wanted to do something
different outside of work.
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And I was getting a little bit jaded
with agency life, always having to
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pitch for work, always having to kind
of, you know, put proposals together.
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Always having to, uh, justify
that proposal to people that
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really didn't understand what
they were trying to commission.
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So I was sort of frustrated there
and wanted this new creative outlet.
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So we started blogging.
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Gary Ehlert, who's now the head
of design here at Captivate.
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He and I started blogging about comics,
about pop culture, about movies and so on.
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And he said to me, we
should start a podcast.
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And I said, that is absolutely ridiculous.
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Why would we want to do that?
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It's not 2005.
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No one's watching Lost anymore.
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And I like to wear trousers and I
don't live in my mom's basement.
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So why would I start a podcast?
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Cause that's ridiculous.
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Anyway, we did.
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He sent me a microphone, which for
anyone that ever sees me on camera, the
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microphone is actually still behind me.
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It's a blue snowball microphone.
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And I was big into listening to podcasts.
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I was big into listening to things
like Kevin Smith and, all sorts
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of kind of pop culture shows.
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So he forced me into starting a podcast.
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And I was completely
hooked, completely hooked.
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So I started that podcast.
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I started a business podcast
because people asked me how
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we'd grown the business.
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And I thought, well, wait a sec,
maybe I could just answer that in an
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evergreen way by recording a podcast.
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And then I realized that podcasting
back then was really difficult for the
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normal person that wasn't a nerd like me.
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You know, I was building software, I
was doing creative work for people.
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So I knew how to do the
technical elements of it.
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But not many other people did.
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So I put together a software platform
and I've frankly been working in
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podcasting ever since and speaking all
over the world on podcasting for way too
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long now, like I said, over a decade.
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So that's how I got into it.
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And I absolutely love it.
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The one big thing that I
love about podcasting is.
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It's actually the thing that I started
falling in love with the second
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that I went to my first conference.
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So I went to New Media
Expo out in Las Vegas.
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So I went from over here in the North
of England and, uh, went out to Vegas.
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To a, it was a blogging and
a podcasting conference.
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This is not, it wasn't a podcast movement
or the podcast show or a pod fest.
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I'm talking, it was like the NAB show with
the tiniest little thing bolted onto it,
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which was almost a series of small meetups
and we called it a podcast conference.
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So I went out there, I sort of, I came
from this agency world where it was
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very much, all right, it's dog eat dog.
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You do your quote, we'll do our quote and
never the twain shall meet, we'll never
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be friends, we'll never see each other.
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And I thought that's crazy.
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So when I got into podcasting,
it was insane to me because
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everyone was really supportive.
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Everyone was collaborative.
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Everyone was friendly.
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I've made some friends.
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At that very first conference that I
still talk to, I'm still great friends
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with people like Jonathan Oakes, who
I still see to this day, wonderful,
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wonderful people and people I've gone
on to work with Rob Walsh from Libsyn,
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Todd from Blueberry, Elsie Escobar,
so many people that I class as friends
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that I've got to know over the years.
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And that's the thing I love about
podcasting is that no one's dragging you
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down, No, one's got tall poppy syndrome.
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We're all allowed to grow.
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We're all allowed to flourish because
there's enough room for all of us.
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And that's, I think that's the beauty.
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And that's what I still
love about podcasting.
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My big tip for a podcaster would
be focus on sustainable growth.
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All right.
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Let me explain that a little bit more.
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So everyone's looking for a quick win.
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Everyone's looking for a hack.
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Everyone's looking for the next big thing.
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Everyone's looking for how do I
go from one download to 10, 10 to
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a hundred, hundred to a thousand,
thousand to 10, 000, so on and so forth.
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But what they want to do is they want
to connect those dots too quickly.
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So what they're tending to do, especially
now, because companies are popping up
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that will give you quick downloads.
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And what they're doing is they're
seeking that next jump in downloads.
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But what they're not doing is
growing a sustainable audience.
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So that's what I want you to remember.
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Downloads are different from audience.
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What we're actually trying
to grow is audience.
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Because if we have an audience that's
genuine, if we have an audience
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that wants us and that likes us.
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Think right back to what I said
about the diversity monetization.
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One audience member will probably be
able to buy more than one thing from you.
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Merchandise, live event tickets.
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If you go and do a live recording, they
will be able to do things like give you
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a tip via something like Captivate's
tipping system, or they will be able to
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subscribe for five, 10, 15 bucks a month.
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and access bonus content, exclusive
content, early access windowed content,
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and you'll get that all from one person.
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Whereas if you're chasing downloads.
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The only thing that you can do is
keep chasing those downloads and you
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have to keep getting more of them.
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And it's not sustainable.
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In fact, you make less money that
way as an indie You will make less
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money that way than just focused
on a smaller, stable audience base.
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So focus on sustainable audience growth.
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You can find me at markasquith.
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com and at captivate.
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fm.
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And you can see all of my
links in the show notes.
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Thank you so much for
listening to podcasting people.
