Spark Minute » Be the Voice Podcast

ESPN: Making Money from Podcasting

David Spark — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:04:43 +0000

This interview is part of my series “Making Money from Podcasting” (read summary “9 Successful Techniques for Making Money from Podcasting”) where I interview podcasters who are actually generating revenue from their podcasts. There are many techniques, and here’s one person’s tale of how his company is making money from podcasting.

Marc Horine, VP of Digital Media at ESPN

Build your own media network of programming and sell advertising against it

Marc Horine is the VP of Digital Media at ESPN, the ubiquitous sports network that has built up more than 100 podcasts (about 75 audio and 25 video). ESPN was one of the first media companies that got into podcasting in the summer of 2005, said Horine. In those early days, their podcasts began as a “best of” ESPN radio shows and some other repurposed content. Demand for additional content soon morphed into a full blown podcast network of shows, many of which are original content, separate from ESPN Radio programming.

Interview (Time: 15:12)

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ESPN’s presence is impressive with a full blown ESPN Podcenter hub on ESPN.com, a featured podcast provider button on iTunes, along with a page to display all their podcasts.

All of this content is categorized and sold to sponsors. They do pre-roll and post-roll advertisements. While pre-rolls are hugely popular for advertisers because they’re guaranteed listens, post-roll ads don’t do nearly as well. According to Matt Cutler CMO at Visible Measures, twenty percent of the people don’t watch a video all the way to the end (see my short video interview with Cutler on this subject). When I asked Horine that question he didn’t offer up any statistics but rather explained that sports fans are a unique and passionate bunch and he believes they listen to shows all the way to the end. While he didn’t have any statistics in front of him, he didn’t think his listeners fell into the “quit and run” viewing/listening category.

Sponsor branding can go beyond just a pre-roll and a post-roll. ESPN can offer a completely integrated ad experience as they do with their sponsor Subway who has ads in podcasts, on the ESPN site, and also in iTunes on the ESPN Podcenter page where podcast sponsorship can be seen in the icons for the specific shows.

ESPN works with the ad insertion company Ando Media to place all the podcast ads. Ando Media delivers detailed reports to ESPN and their advertisers.

Sell an iPhone application along with your podcast

Two weeks ago ESPN launched a podcast iPhone application ($2.99) that has been incredibly successful. It’s currently the fifth best selling paid iPhone application. The application has scores, live streaming, breaking news, and access to about 40 podcasts all within the application. Stats of usage are showing that people are gravitating most towards the live stream. That’s bad news for the satellite radio industry where ESPN also has a presence. But once you have a live radio stream on an iPhone with a 3G network, there’s no need for satellite radio. Access to radio programming far exceeds what any satellite network can provide. Horine described a colleague who drove the two hours from New York to Bristol (ESPN’s headquarters) listening to the live stream the entire way, and it never cut out. And that’s on the AT&T network! And we all know how much that sucks.

The success of the iPhone application flies in the face of a massive ESPN flop, the ESPN phone which back in February of 2006 was selling for the ludicrous price of $499 at launch, dropping down to $99 two months later. It appears this new iPhone app along with ESPN’s other sub-$5 iPhone applications offer all the same capabilities as the ESPN phone did, but they’re doing it a lot better, and obviously with a much more reasonable and digestible price.

For more, listen to my interview with Horine as we talk about the success of the iPhone app and what works and what doesn’t for advertisers on their podcast network.

More episodes of “Making Money from Podcasting”

Never Not Funny (Technique: “Partial show for free – full show paid”)
Personal Life Media (Technique: “Build your own media network of programming and sell advertising against it”)
Pregtastic (Technique: “Get your own sponsors”)
Elsie’s Yoga Class (Technique: “Sell an iPhone application along with your podcast”)
Mac OS Ken (Technique: “Give away five shows for free, make them pay for the sixth”)
Alaska HDTV (Technique: “Get your own sponsors”)
Duct Tape Marketing (Technique: “Build your brand to sell your services”)
ScreenCastsOnline (Technique: “Give away every other episode. Make them pay for the rest.”)
Izzy Video (Technique: “Give away every other episode. Make them pay for the rest.”)
Slate Gabfests (Technique: “Integrating sponsorship with the show’s editorial”)
Wizzard Media (Technique: “Got audience? We’ll get you sponsors. Or, get sponsors on your own and we’ll insert the ads” PLUS “Sell an iPhone application along with your podcast”)
Premiumcast.com (Technique: “Build an audience and sell premium podcasts”)
Manager Tools (Technique: “Build your brand to sell your services”)
Mevio (Technique: “Motivate your audience”)

Elsie's Yoga Class: Making Money from Podcasting

David Spark — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:42:23 +0000

This interview is part of a series “Making Money from Podcasting” (read summary “9 Successful Techniques for Making Money from Podcasting”) where I interview podcasters who are actually generating revenue from their podcasts. There are many techniques, and here’s one person’s tale of how they’re making money from podcasting.

Elsie Escobar, host of Elsie's Yoga Class

Sell an iPhone application along with your podcast

Elsie Escobar is the host of the podcast “Elsie’s Yoga Class Live and Unplugged” which is simply an audio recording of her actual yoga classes. She’s been giving away her show for free and has wants to continue to give her show away for free. Escobar started the podcast because she wanted other people to be able to experience her yoga class who wouldn’t necessarily be able to pay for it.

Interview (Time:11:34)

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Those people can still get her show for free, but for others that want a little bit more, plus have access to all her content wherever they go, she’s now offering up an iPhone application that was created by Wizzard Media. The application only costs $3.99, which is less than a latte, notes Escobar. Once you have the application you have anytime access to more than 70 different yoga classes along with PDFs that show the sequence of the classes. Escobar has only had the application available for a week so she doesn’t have any revenue estimates, but soon she plans on adding more content such as videos of yoga poses.

Not only has her podcast given her an opportunity to sell an iPhone application, but it’s increased her brand outside of her local community. Another small revenue stream from the podcast has come from podcast consulting. Her recognition and credibility as a tech-savvy yoga instructor has yielded her opportunities to consult with other yoga instructors that want to produce their own podcast.

Elsie was taking care of her child during our interview and I was quite impressed with her ability to maintain focus on our interview plus also take care of her child. You’ll hear some noises of a baby throughout the interview, and here’s a shot of them together while we were doing the interview.

Listen to the interview and you’ll learn about her passion for creating the podcast, how the iPhone application is a natural fit for her work, and how she’s been able to promote her yoga personality through her podcast.

More episodes of “Making Money from Podcasting”

Never Not Funny (Technique: “Partial show for free – full show paid”)
Personal Life Media (Technique: “Build your own media network of programming and sell advertising against it”)
Pregtastic (Technique: “Get your own sponsors”)
Mac OS Ken (Technique: “Give away five shows for free, make them pay for the sixth”)
Alaska HDTV (Technique: “Get your own sponsors”)
Duct Tape Marketing (Technique: “Build your brand to sell your services”)
ScreenCastsOnline (Technique: “Give away every other episode. Make them pay for the rest.”)
Izzy Video (Technique: “Give away every other episode. Make them pay for the rest.”)
Slate Gabfests (Technique: “Integrating sponsorship with the show’s editorial”)
Wizzard Media (Technique: “Got audience? We’ll get you sponsors. Or, get sponsors on your own and we’ll insert the ads” PLUS “Sell an iPhone application along with your podcast”)
Premiumcast.com (Technique: “Build an audience and sell premium podcasts”)
Manager Tools (Technique: “Build your brand to sell your services”)
ESPN (“Build your own media network of programming and sell advertising against it”)
Mevio (Technique: “Motivate your audience”)

Never Not Funny: Making Money from Podcasting

David Spark — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 19:53:47 +0000

Partial show for free – full show paid

Matt Belknap is the co-host and producer of the “Never Not Funny” podcast starring comedian Jimmy Pardo. The show is an interview show where Pardo and Belknap invite comedians in to talk about whatever, and it’s very funny.

I knew Jimmy Pardo back in Chicago when I was doing stand up comedy and I was a big fan of his then, and I’m a big fan of the Never Not Funny podcast as well. What I’m really impressed with is their business model which is to offer the first 20 minutes of their program for free and then if you like the show and want to hear more (the full 90 minute show), you need to pay to subscribe ($19.99 for a season of 26 episodes on audio, $24.99 for a full season of 26 episodes on video). The model has proven very successful as Belknap estimates that 35% of their total audience has converted to paid subscribers. That’s a number that’s grown from about 20-25 percent, said Belknap.

Interview (Time: 12:20)

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But they didn’t always charge. When they started, Belknap and Pardo produced 100 shows for free just to grow their audience. Once they had their audience, they made the switch to the partial show free or full show paid model. Not only are they generating revenue from subscribers, but audiences are coming to see Pardo’s stand up afterhearing him on the podcast, plus the podcast got an amazing gig on “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien.” Listen to the show to hear the story.

More episodes of “Making Money from Podcasting”

Personal Life Media (Technique: “Build your own media network of programming and sell advertising against it”)
Pregtastic (Technique: “Get your own sponsors”)
Elsie’s Yoga Class (Technique: “Sell an iPhone application along with your podcast”)
Mac OS Ken (Technique: “Give away five shows for free, make them pay for the sixth”)
Alaska HDTV (Technique: “Get your own sponsors”)
Duct Tape Marketing (Technique: “Build your brand to sell your services”)
ScreenCastsOnline (Technique: “Give away every other episode. Make them pay for the rest.”)
Izzy Video (Technique: “Give away every other episode. Make them pay for the rest.”)
Slate Gabfests (Technique: “Integrating sponsorship with the show’s editorial”)
Wizzard Media (Technique: “Got audience? We’ll get you sponsors. Or, get sponsors on your own and we’ll insert the ads” PLUS “Sell an iPhone application along with your podcast”)
Premiumcast.com (Technique: “Build an audience and sell premium podcasts”)
Manager Tools (Technique: “Build your brand to sell your services”)
ESPN (“Build your own media network of programming and sell advertising against it”)
Mevio (Technique: “Motivate your audience”)

14 Successful Techniques for Building Your Industry Voice with Social Media

David Spark — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 02:05:15 +0000

This article is part of a road show presentation series I did in Toronto for Intertainment Media, owners of Itibiti Systems.

Social media is far from prescriptive, that’s why I sought out stories of people who succeeded in creating their own industry voice using social media. The result of my research is this article, “14 Successful Techniques for Building Your Industry Voice with Social Media.”

Register here with Spark Media Solutions to download the article for free:

Check out the summary below, read the article, and/or watch an audio slidecast of the live presentation I did in Toronto.

Summary

Get inspired to capitalize on social media for your business with these successful tales of building industry voice.

Ride current hot news and cultural memes: Mobile gaming company capitalizes on the Bernie Madoff scandal by launching a “create your own Ponzi scheme” game.
Build your own memes: An unexpected Internet entrepreneur starts a new celebrity tracking trend.
Connect an existing brand or talent to your brand: From complete nobodies to big product brands, more and more companies are using celebrities and entertainment to connect audiences to their brands.
Focus on content, not social media: An unbridled focus on content and not gaming social media technologies is what made Alec Saunders a thought leader in Voice 2.0 communications.
Use your own product to tell your story: Alec Saunders demonstrated Calliflower, his company’s free conference calling application, by hosting a daily roundtable podcast in which anyone could participate.
Manage your industry’s community: An SEO entrepreneur launches his city’s professional networking community. With no revenue model, the connections and recognition have built invaluable goodwill with potential and existing customers.
The community is the best help desk: Intuit is helping customers find answers quickly by building social networking capabilities right into its applications.
Take care of your best resource, super users: Like Tom Sawyer did with painting the white picket fence, Boxee turned the arduous task into manning a booth at CES into something customers competed to do.
Convert potential buyers into a word-of-mouth advertising network: Unknown book author becomes a New York Times best-selling author by podcasting his book for free.
Feed everybody’s needs all along the sales cycle: In order to sell a new product, Microsoft engages with decision makers, and tries not to fall short of satisfying everyone.
Own a word: With laser-like intensity and determination, The RFP Database focuses its energies on owning one word and succeeds.
Customer’s perception of what they get must be greater than what they give: General Mills’ Yoplait Kids asks customers if they’re willing to trade personal information for a coupon.
Own more real estate: NBC extends its reach to every screen, but also uses itiBiti to get prime placement on the user’s desktop.
Do the opposite of what everyone else is doing: If everyone follows the same advice, social media becomes very crowded. Sometimes, as Harry McCracken of Technologizer discovered, it’s best to do the opposite.

What’s wrong with your current solution or why haven’t you chosen one yet: Most companies haven’t made the leap into social media because they’re either still trying to uncover social media’s ROI or they lack the necessary structural change in company communications.

To get your copy of this free article, register to download the PDF - It’s FREE.

cc photo credit to Fabio Trifoni.

Build Your Industry Voice with Social Media

David Spark — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 01:25:38 +0000

Building Your Industry Voice with Social Media

View more presentations from David Spark.

Above is an edited version of a presentation I led in Toronto as part of a social media road show sponsored by Intertainment Media, owners of Itibiti Systems.

The companion article to this presentation is entitled “14 Successful Techniques for Building Your Industry Voice with Social Media” (view on docstoc, download PDF, Summary of article). The article includes many more examples than you’ll see in the presentation (Time: 38:44).

During my research I was inspired to adopt many of the techniques for myself. I hope you find the same is true for you as well. Please watch and let me know what you think. If you have any stories of your own, please let me know as I’ll be writing a lot more about this subject.

Investing in Web 2.0 and how to get noticed

David Spark — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 13:43:00 +0000

This article is part of a road show presentation series I’m doing in Toronto for Intertainment Media, owners of Itibiti Systems. This post has been reprinted on the Intertainment Media blog.

After conducting a talk at Research Capital in Toronto, ON, I chatted with David Shore, SVP & Head, Technology Group at Research Capital and Alec Saunders, CEO of iotum, makers of Calliflower, a free to pay conference calling application.

Shore organized the event and authors the Web 2.0 Weekly, a newsletter covering the financial aspects of the Web 2.0 space. Looking for trends and investing opportunities, he follows this space closely.

Alec Saunders is an old friend who I’ve interviewed before in my “Be the Voice” podcast and he was part of my presentation. He successfully launched his unknown product by being passionate about blogging and podcasting. He’s got one other tip on getting recognized. Watch the video.

Social Media Realities: Interview with Patty Azzarello

David Spark — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:23:28 +0000

Last week I conducted an interview with Patty Azzarello, CEO of the Azzarello Group. Patty does career coaching for C-level executives. I met Patty at the CMO Club conference in November where she gave a presentation entitled, “CMO is a Credibility War Every Day.” I was really impressed by Patty. First, at the last minute, because everything was running late, The CMO Club had to move her presentation slot during lunch. Having to give her presentation over lunch did not deter her. She just plowed through and gave a fantastic presentation.

What I liked most about her session were the tricks she offered to manipulate the presentation of your budget to other C-level executives. If you manipulate the labeling, grouping, and numbers as Patty advises, you can often get the budget you need to do what you want. Definitely read her advice on this.

Putting “Media” back into “Social Media”

Patty and I got to talking and she invited me to be part of her monthly call for her podcast series. We chatted and decided to do a show called “Social Media Realities” where I spent more time emphasizing the “media” part of social media, rather the “social” side which is what most social media consultants spend their time discussing and selling.

Patty has a fantastic write up of our interview and the questions I fielded from her live callers. She boiled down everything to ten issues.

Content vs. Technology
Do an Assessment
Build an Editorial Plan
Maximize Production Costs
Participate where it Matters
Be Helpful!
Grow Revenue Faster
Build Your Voice
Who are you online?
Great Q&A

But that’s just the tease. Make sure you read her descriptions and listen to the interview and the Q&A right afterwards. Since these interviews are relevant to my “Be the Voice” blog and podcast, I’ve added these interviews to the podcast series.

Download interview (right click and select “Save As”) or listen here streaming (Time: 39:31).

Download Q&A session (right click and select “Save As”) or listen here streaming (Time: 39:25).

It's not viral, it's a World Wide Rave

David Spark — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 03:26:49 +0000

Everyone wants their stuff to go viral. I’ve had clients request it. And I’ve seen it in creative briefs: “We’ll create a viral campaign.”

What these people mean when they say they want to create something viral is they want to spread a piece of content, a product, or an idea on a network (The Internet) of which they have absolutely no control. If you could actually pull that off, who wouldn’t like that?

A friend of mine, David Meerman Scott, who I’ve interviewed on video and on my Be the Voice podcast (“It’s OK to be a dork online”) has written a new book “World Wide Rave” that I believe clearly explains the difference between what constitutes a bad viral campaign (cheap tricks to drive traffic) and what is a good viral campaign (triggers that people want to share). David sent me an advanced copy to read, and here’s a summary:

A bad viral campaign: Classic bait-and-switch tactics purely designed to draw attention and draw traffic (e.g. Win a free iPod). Any marketing or advertising company that promises to create something viral are often hucksters using old “fool the audience” tricks that only drive traffic for that specific campaign. Often the reason created to drive traffic to your site (e.g. see nude pictures of Jessica Simpson) has nothing to do with your product and as a result it does nothing to build relationships. Inevitably, once the “viral campaign” is over, the traffic and interest to your business is over as well. The viral campaign built no good will with your audience.

A good viral campaign – When you create something that people want to share. And “want” is the operative verb. Since you can’t control your audience, the only way you’re going to be able to spread anything is if people “want” to share what you’ve created. In an effort to distance the good viral campaign from all the negative tricks associated with a bad viral campaign, Scott offers a new term, world wide rave, to indicate good viral marketing. What triggers and content are you creating that causes people to want to rave about it?

Smartly, Scott has decided to attempt a world wide rave of his own with his book. And so far it’s looking pretty good. He’s offering up high resolution images of his book cover out to anyone who wants to download one and print it out. All he asks is people take a photo of themselves with the poster and he’ll put it up in a gallery on his site.

If you’re not clear what it takes to create content that people want to share, then pick up and read “World Wide Rave.” You’ll see 30+ examples of people who successfully pulled off World Wide Raves.

Read my review of Scott’s last book, “Tuned In.”

Don't make ads, make news – Be the Voice podcast

David Spark — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 20:09:34 +0000

Interview with Bob Thacker, Senior VP of Marketing and Advertising for OfficeMax, about building a new voice with their “Life is beautiful. Work can be too” campaign.

What is the “Be the Voice” podcast? Interviews with individuals developing thought leadership for themselves and their organization to drive business growth.
Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes
Subscribe to the Be the Voice blog

Here are some of the highlights from my interview with Bob Thacker:

Summary:

Office supplies are not traditionally an exciting and fun space. The category is known for big dull bland spaces that are pretty much all alike.
OfficeMax’s “Life is beautiful. Work can be too” campaign is trying to change that viewpoint.
ElfYourself was OfficeMax’s attempt to associate its brand with Christmas. It succeeded hugely.
ElfYourself was one of twenty applications they tried during the holiday season. It just so happened it was the one that went hugely viral. The Web makes it cost efficient to bet on every horse.
Make content people want to pass along.
OfficeMax is now trying to associate its brand with fashion. First step, create a comfortable and fashionable work space during Fashion Week.
What we want our audience to believe is this is a company that really understands work. We don’t just sell stuff.
OfficeMax “made news” by launching “A day made better.” They gave supplies away to teachers. They created and published stories.

Read the entire article and listen to my interview with Bob Thacker [27:30 m].

Check out other episodes of the “Be the Voice” podcast.

My top blog posts for 2008

David Spark — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 07:20:47 +0000

On television, when they make a best of the year clip show, it’s just a lame ploy to get more viewers with some old content. Who says the blogosphere can’t learn something from television? Here’s my lame ploy. :)

In no particular order, here are my top ten blog posts (or sometimes clusters on a given topic) for 2008.

I just sent 325 personal video holiday greetings-How I did it and I just sent 325 personal video holiday greetings-The Response. I started this experiment in 2007 and wrote about it in 2008. I repeated the experiment again this year with an update entitled, “I just sent 555 personalized video holiday greeting cards-How I did it.”
Twelve great tales of de-friending. This was a post I wrote for Mashable that was probably my most read post of the year. I followed it up with a couple more posts, The awkwardness of de-friending and When technology tells us we have no friends. ABC Radio caught the story and I was interviewed by Curtis Sliwa on the subject.
Biggest mistakes by social media gurus. Another popular post for Mashable that brought the social media elite back to earth when they admitted their foibles. Joseph Jaffe interviewed me on the subject for his JaffeJuice podcast.
Sixteen great Twitter moments. Another successful post I wrote for Mashable. The idea to write the post came to me when Twitter saved me $150.
Any problems you’re hiding will eventually blow up in your face – Be the Voice podcast. One of my first “Be the Voice” interviews with industry analyst Charlene Li.
The Social Media Fallacy. A Slideshare presentation that busts the myth of social media. It’s not about the Twitter and Facebook and other social media tools, it’s about creating the content that people want to share.
I’ve annoyed a journalist. Amusing live video streaming incident that blew up privately, and way out of proportion. Both of us involved agreed to conceal the identity of the other and we’ve patched things up.
VIDEO: Interview with George Carlin’s last opening act, Rob Paravonian. Rob’s an old friend of mine from my Chicago stand up comedy days. We had scheduled a dinner in San Francisco, and then days before he arrived, George Carlin died. I interviewed him about working with Carlin as his opening act.
Side-by-side comparison: Flip Video Ultra vs. Flip Mino. I’m a huge fan of the Flip. Ironically, the new Mino (at the time, now there’s the Mino HD) appeared to deliver poorer quality than the older version, the Flip Ultra. I heard an inside story that the videos in this post caused the engineers at Pure Digital to redesign the Flip Mino.
My podcast listening lineup. I’m a huge consumer of podcasts, and people always ask what I’m listening to, so I thought I’d put it together in this post.
The worst product demonstration I’ve ever seen. It’s always amazing when negative stories do so well. Had I written “The best product demonstration I’ve ever seen,” I don’t think anyone would have read it.
Who’s funnier? David Spark or David Sparks?. I stumbled across this similarly named comedian and Jerry Seinfeld look alike and asked readers to put their “Last Comic Standing” vote for who’s the funniest.
How to deal with rough crowds: A stand-up comic’s advice for Sarah Lacy. The Sarah Lacy/Mark Zuckerberg incident at SXSW was a seminal Twitter moment. The bloggersphere was on fire. I took a different stand, and offered some advice from my years as a stand up on how to deal with rough crowds.

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