About four years ago, a very popular remote recording platform offered me money to talk about them on this show. I'd been using it that week. It had also, that week, lost one of my recordings. Not glitched. Lost.

I said no. And I want to be clear that this wasn't a moral decision, because it wasn't. It was arithmetic.

This episode is about the thing you're holding and consistently failing to price. Because the belief is that sponsorship is a reward for volume — hit some magic download number and you're finally allowed. So you wait. And when someone eventually offers you something, you say yes very fast, because you've been told this is the gate opening.

Here's the problem with that. Only 7% of podcasts reach 5,000 downloads an episode. Two per cent reach 20,000. The benchmark show you've been measuring yourself against is a rounding error. You've been waiting for permission from a category that's almost entirely empty.

Meanwhile the advertising industry — not me, them — describes mid-tier and niche shows as underpriced. They're on record. And when you look at what they actually pay, business and B2B shows pull $40 to $80 CPM while the big broad comedy and lifestyle shows pull $15 to $35. Narrow is worth more per listener than popular.

So the question stops being will anyone ever pay me? and becomes what's the cheapest I'd take for it? Most podcasters have never answered that. Which is exactly how you end up saying yes to something you've never used.

There's an uncomfortable bit in here about what actually happens when you do. It isn't unsubscribes. Nobody storms off. It's quieter and considerably worse than that.

In this episode:

— Why the download benchmark you're chasing barely exists

— The word the ad industry uses for shows your size, and why it should annoy you

— Why a $50 CPM show can be a better buy than a $15 one

— What it actually costs you when you endorse something you haven't tested

— My entire sponsorship policy, which is one sentence long and slightly embarrassing

— One thing to write down today, on the back of a receipt

Tools mentioned in this episode. I record on Boomcaster, I edit in Descript most weeks, and Captivate hosts this show. I have affiliate links for all three, which means I earn a commission if you sign up through them at no extra cost to you. I'm telling you that because the whole episode is about people who don't. If I stopped using any of them, I'd stop talking about them.

— Boomcaster: https://www.boomcaster.com/?ref=AzyWVAUu8UgsoCAZT (Free trial, plus 50% off your first three months)

— Descript: https://descript.cello.so/Kct9xUy3ilR (50% off first two months)

— Captivate: https://www.captivate.fm/signup?ref=nealveglio

Want in on the Podmastery Community? We're opening the doors to the public soon. To join the founding members, go to https://podmastery.co/podcasting-community

Stuck on something specific? Come and get your next podcasting challenge solved one-to-one with me at https://podmastery.co

Podmastery: Podcasting Insights is my podcast for people who've actually had a go at this and are a bit sick of being told they're doing it wrong by people who've never properly done it at all. I'm Neal Veglio, the Podmaster.

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 wanna tell you why that wasn't a moral

decision, because it wasn't.

It was basic arithmetic.

This is Podmastery: Podcasting Insights.

I'm Neal Veglio, 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 gonna 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% reach 20,000.

2%. 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 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 that 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 it's 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, $15 to $35.

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

sceptical about anything you recommended anyway, because generic is sceptical.

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 check, then the question stops being will anyone pay me?

And it actually becomes what's the cheapest I'd take for it?

And most podcasters have never answered that, which is how you end up saying

yes to something you haven't even used.

So let's talk about that.

What happens then?

Not the theory, the actual mechanism of this.

You don't get unsubscribes.

That's the sort of fear-based programming that we visualise, the myth.

Nobody storms off and there's no angry email.

Nobody's got time for that.

What happens is a little bit more under the radar, but it's actually much worse.

Somebody hears you recommend a thing, and then a week later they hear someone

else who's actually tested it out say, "Nah, don't. That's not reliable. Steer

clear of that." Someone like me, frankly.

I mean, that's the job I do on this show to a certain extent.

And in that moment, your listener's then gotta decide

which of you they need to believe.

They've got a genuine choice to make about your credibility,

and you're not even aware of it.

They're not gonna tell you what they decided.

They'll just be a little bit less moved next time you say anything,

especially if it comes to endorsing a product, and then the time after

that, and then the time after that.

It compounds and you never find out that it happened because the cost of

that never shows up on any dashboard.

But that's what $200 a month is buying, not the money, the gradual

conversion of you into someone whose opinion needs to be considered.

So here's what I do instead, and it's really simple.

In fact, it's so simple, it's embarrassing for me that I even

need to mention this really.

I only take money for things I already use.

I know, and staggering, isn't it, right?

So Boomcaster, I record on it.

Descript, I sometimes edit in it.

In fact, I sometimes edit in it every single week.

Some shows I don't.

Some shows I use Adobe Audition.

But some shows, yeah, most of the workflow is carried out in Descript.

Oh, and Captivate hosts this show.

Now, I have affiliate links for all three of these.

Do I talk about them enough?

No.

I'm a terrible marketer, just like you, at my own stuff.

I can help other people market the bejesus out of their shows.

But cobbler's shoes and all that, I don't tend to promote my

affiliate links as much as I should.

Now let's talk about these tools that I do endorse.

Are they perfect?

No.

Descript has moments where I wanna throw my entire computer system across

the room because it's buggy, and anyone who's used it for any length of time

knows exactly those moments that I mean.

Sometimes you'll zoom into the timeline, and you'll end up with the whole of

the screen zoomed in in a ridiculous way, and the lack of responsiveness

sometimes, it's so infuriating.

But overall, it's a decent tool.

None of these three are flawless.

They all have their little moments.

But overall, they're decent tools, and they're certainly better than

some tools that everyone promotes just because they've got a generous

affiliate marketing package.

They're the best tools available right now for the jobs that I need doing.

That is my claim, not that they're perfect, but they're the currently

best available on my system this week. There might well come a time

where another podcast hosting company comes along that does everything

a lot better than Captivate.

At that point, I will have to seriously consider, loyalty aside,

do I now need to jump to this tool?

I did that with my previous hosting company.

I was with Libsyn for the best part of two decades.

The amount of technical debt that they were accruing just, it, it

wasn't working for me anymore.

I had to go somewhere else, and the somewhere else that I chose was Captivate.

Not because they've got an affiliate marketing package.

Honestly, if the best hosting platform in the world didn't have an affiliate

marketing offer, I would've still gone to them because that is my primary

focus, using the best tool for the job.

The fact that they're willing to give me a little backhander in return for using

them and endorsing them is a bonus. And that is my whole qualification on this.

If I stop using any one of these tools, I would definitely stop talking about it.

That's it.

That's my entire policy.

Which is why the thing four years ago was totally about

mathematics rather than ethics.

I wasn't being noble.

I looked at a couple of hundred dollars a month and looked at what that would

cost me to spend a bit of my credibility on something that had just lost one

of my recordings, and the cheque was far smaller, absolutely smaller.

And everyone who took that money spent something that they hadn't

fully priced up, their credibility.

One more thing, because I wanna be fair about this, that platform

has probably improved since.

Software does tend to.

I see people pushing back on me saying, "Oh, that tool that you're

slagging off is actually really good. I've never had a problem with it."

Well, that's software.

Some people have problems with software, some people don't.

But that doesn't retroactively make those endorsements honest because

the people taking the money weren't saying, "I've tested this and it works."

They were saying, "I've been paid." Those are very different sentences,

and listeners can hear the difference.

So my advice to you, if you wanna take some money from your podcast,

from an advertiser that is completely aligned with your industry, think

about whether or not you are willing to have every single member of your

audience decide you're not credible the moment they try that thing out and

discover it's not what you claim it is.

If you're still willing to endorse it with that risk, have at it.

I'm gonna say a little bit more on this with a bit of an actionable final

thought, but after this short break, I'd love to play you a podcast from one

of our Podmastery community members.

We'll be opening the doors to the public soon.

If you'd like to join the founding members, go to

podmastery.co/podcasting-community.

That's podmastery.co/podcasting-community.

All right, here's something I want you to do before I leave

you again with this episode.

Write down three categories you would absolutely not take any money from.

So we're not talking about a policy document.

We are talking three lines written down on the back of something

like a receipt or a Post-it.

Do it now while nobody's offering you anything, 'cause the whole point is

that you can't think clearly about this with a cheque on the table.

If you decide on it cold, you'll never have to decide on it warm.

That's not an ethics exercise.

It's a pricing exercise because the moment you know what you'd refuse, you've worked

out what the rest of it all is worth.

I'm Neal Veglio.

Go write your three lines, and good luck with your continuing

journey towards podmastery.