Golden Globes Add Podcasting Awards, YouTube Charts, and Apple Fee Updates for Creators

Brett Johnson [: 00:00:00

Welcome to the Circle sessions featuring the Circle of Experts. Each week, one of the Circle of Experts joins me to talk about critical aspects of growing your podcast. The Circle of Experts are Yasmine Robles and Izzy Dadosky from Rebel Marketing, Tonnisha English Amamoo of TJE Communications, and Don The Idea Guy. I'm Brett Johnson, My Podcast Guy from Circle 270 Media Podcast Consultants. This week, Don The Idea Guy is here. He possesses creative powers beyond those of mere mortals. Don The Idea Guy rescues those in need of innovative ideas through his brainstorming sessions. You can find out more at dontheideaguy.com.

Brett Johnson [: 00:00:39

Don, thanks for joining me today.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:00:41

Good to see you, sir. How's it been?

Brett Johnson [: 00:00:44

Good. Good. Good. Hey. Yeah. We've got lots to cover today. Fewer shows, but more episodes. Golden Globes and podcasting, if you've not caught that.

Brett Johnson [: 00:00:55

YouTube charts are in the play now. We're gonna get techie with HLS streaming. Can I, dig a little bit deeper into what that is and and why it's been around and why it's not We're definitely

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:01:06

not getting techie into it? We're just gonna share this information

Brett Johnson [: 00:01:09

At least

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:01:09

at least Justin Jackson, who's much smarter about podcasting, probably both of us.

Brett Johnson [: 00:01:13

Let's understand what those three letters mean. The Apple fee is gone and, which leads right into, you know, compensating creators. So but, yeah, the the listen notes came out with, it's podcast directory if you're not familiar with it, listener. Say that the number of active shows continue to outpace any previous years other than epidemic peaks, which I I think they need to throw that out because that, you know, that's just not a number to really look at. Yeah. Yeah. You can say, but that was just an anomaly year, year and a half. But so yeah.

Brett Johnson [: 00:01:46

They're they're saying that 475 well, nearly 476,000 podcasts have been active so far representing about 14 thou or four excuse me, 14% of all shows. So when you do I guess the lesson learned here, you know, quickly before we can go any further is, you know, you can banner around that there are 404,500,000, five million podcasts out there. There's only a small percentage. We're talking depending on the chart you look, ten ten to 14% of shows are actually active. So it's it's still the wild wild west. Create a podcast. Get in there and do it because you're you're up against yeah. It seems like a lot in a lot, but when it's when you really boil it down to the active shows, you're you're in good company.

Brett Johnson [: 00:02:36

Get a podcast going. Stick with it. Stick with it.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:02:38

It's, you know, I think they put this together just so they could have a sexy headline that talks about the activity being being near pandemic peaks.

Brett Johnson [: 00:02:48

Yeah.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:02:48

Because, yeah, people were stuck at home, and podcast listenership went up. Podcast creation went up. But this article and the numbers they're comparing is podcast creator activity. They really didn't address if listenership is if that activity is also pandemic, pandemic peak numbers because listenership went up during that time as well. Mhmm. It's still encouraging to know that podcasting was not a fad. People are still producing and creating podcasts, and the activity level is high. That's that's a a high bar to to measure again.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:03:27

So it is absolutely encouraging. What's maybe a little discouraging is I saw that you also included a stat from from, listen notes that talks about how you define an active podcast too. I would say an active podcast is one that's had an episode within the last nine months or so. You know, if you if you can birth a human child in nine months, you ought to be able to produce a podcast within that amount of time of podcast episode. But Listen Notes is saying that by their measurement, it's still a live show. It's only dead if the RSS feed has been deleted and the iTunes tag says it's dead. So Yeah. You can have this podcast that's out there and hasn't had any new episodes in twenty years.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:04:19

But if the RSS feed is still active, then they're still gonna consider it a live show. And that that makes no sense. You know, if your uncle Joe dies in your living room watching TV, he's dead. You don't count him as dead after the funeral and when you bury him in the ground. You know, he's been dead. Yeah. So it's a little weird. Their measurement tool, I I don't necessarily agree with that, but I do agree with you in that the production of continually growing number of podcasts and podcast episodes, that's exciting for the, for the category.

Brett Johnson [: 00:04:57

Yeah. I think, from my perspective as a podcast consultant working with podcasters, I think podcasters are getting smarter about how they're producing their podcasts, that they're outsourcing. They are figuring out what they wanna do with the season, what they're gonna do with content. They're they're they're going at it about about it more intelligent intelligently understanding how much work it does take, and it's showing in the number of active shows that are continuing on. So that's a good thing. That means quality content is out there. And and and people that are really wanna be in the space and creating stuff that, they they have a tribe for. They have a community for.

Brett Johnson [: 00:05:34

They they know where they're going with this, and they understand it takes a while for that to build up. It's not just made six six months I'm gonna have a Joe Rogan show. That doesn't happen. It's going to take it it takes a while. It takes a while. It just does.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:05:48

Even even if you're just thinking about doing a podcast and people go, oh, is podcasting still a thing? You know? I did I did I miss my opportunity? Yeah. No. That it's the highest growth, numbers since the pandemic. So, absolutely, it's not over. People are just still catching up to it.

Brett Johnson [: 00:06:06

Yeah. Well, and to to note, now large organizations are recognizing podcast to give awards to you. You caught this article about the Golden Globes in podcasting.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:06:17

Yeah. I mean, you really haven't jumped the shark on a technology that other media companies are just beginning to spotlight. This this past month, Golden Globes announced that they're adding a best podcast category starting next year. So, you know, you've got a lot of people touting, nominations and winners of Golden Globes for for acting, but you're gonna have podcasts as one of these categories now. That's huge. And Yeah. If the Golden Globes is doing it, who's gonna do it next? You know, is there gonna be an Emmy's? I would imagine Emmy's would be next, especially when you're talking about, Netflix and perhaps Amazon starting to add podcast categories to their online streaming services. It absolutely makes sense that they'd wanna win those awards.

Brett Johnson [: 00:07:03

Yeah. I would love to see, like an Emmy's come on board and really focus on the writers, the audio design of audio drama, that sort of thing. I think those those underlying currents of really what makes audio special could be could be spotlighted versus a a popularity contest. I mean, according to the gloves, which is fine, they have to start somewhere. The top 25 podcast will qualify with a total of six final nominations for the category. So again, it's gonna be a the typical, you know what they will be, the top 25.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:07:33

Yeah. But it says they're they're gonna celebrate the achievements in the audio and visual. So Yeah. I think that you do have an opportunity just like the Oscars does to to recognize the technological, contributors to the medium as well. But, you know, they have to structure this in a way that Joe Rogan's not gonna win every award because he's always the top rated podcast. Right?

Brett Johnson [: 00:07:54

Exactly. You're gonna have

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:07:56

to have the categories of dramatic or true crime or comedy. So I I think that's exciting. I think the podcasters ought to be excited for it. Imagine somebody listening to this could create a campaign to get themselves nominated for the Golden Globes. You're out there rubbing elbows at the celebrities, baby.

Brett Johnson [: 00:08:14

Right. Exactly. Well and and you make a really good point in regards to seeing Joe Rogan on these lists all the time. And I think, the industry kinda has to become a little wary of that because we can't continually look at the same again, yes. These top 25 podcasts or top 50 are wildly, like, the smart list of the world. They're wildly popular, and we don't wanna discount their that they stuck to it, and they got the job done, and and they're they they've created podcasts that are, bringing people into podcasting as a creator or a listener. But we I hope to see new faces. Who's the next Joe Rogan? Who's the next Smartless podcast? And time will tell.

Brett Johnson [: 00:08:58

I think these type of awards do help, including our our next topic of YouTube with charts.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:09:05

Well, I I think you get the darlings of the medium too. Right? So

Brett Johnson [: 00:09:08

Yeah. Yeah.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:09:09

The big blockbuster movies of the summer for the last few years have been the superhero movies. And it's you're not gonna you're not gonna beat them out of box office dollars by

Brett Johnson [: 00:09:22

No.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:09:22

Trying to compete at that level. But, boy, you know, you win some darlings that are out there that, you know, the underrated, indie film that nobody saw coming. And I think those are gonna be the people who have opportunities, especially in the beginning with stuff like Golden Globes because of the list. You know, you were alluding to the next topic that Mhmm. YouTube has released now a weekly top podcast list on their website. And it reminds me of the old you know, calling back on our radio backgrounds, it reminds me of how much credence was given to Billboard magazine, Billboard magazine's weekly countdown. You know, you had Casey Kasem's top 40, which was taken from Billboard stats of of, songs played, on the radio and records sold or other measurements. Well, YouTube's got the weekly top podcast shows, and it's a chart like

Brett Johnson [: 00:10:15

Yeah.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:10:15

Any other chart. You know, the the top box office draws for the for the week too. So it's interesting seeing it, but we both kinda made a joke about how Joe Rogan's at the top. How often is he gonna be listed at number one? I really hope that YouTube breaks down these, these weekly reports into categories. You know, let's see the true crime. Let's see the comedy. Let's see dramatic, you know, gaming, whatever whatever podcast topics are out there. Come on, YouTube.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:10:44

You've had the you have the stats. Give us more than one podcast list.

Brett Johnson [: 00:10:49

Yeah. I'm right. And and I went to the link you sent to that you saw this posted up by, a a friend of yours. I've met him a couple of times of zeal, that I think the comments are worthy to comment about. There's one comment that, mentions that would love to see Google Trends shows trending YouTube searches would be cool if they started including podcast specific search trends here as well. That would be cool, and I I wonder if this might be the start of it. It just these things have to start somewhere. And Oh, and make sure the same thing.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:11:22

At that point. Right? So, you know, Google owns YouTube at least today. Yeah. So they haven't had to divest themselves of it yet. Right. They ought to be able to show those trends.

Brett Johnson [: 00:11:31

Yeah. Exactly. So I I know one time.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:11:34

Also launched their podcast page too. Like, they totally revamped their podcast section.

Brett Johnson [: 00:11:39

Right. Right. So I think it's it's it's a right the move in the right direction that it's one of those once it can be encapsulated, charted, or whatever, then searches can't, you know, searches for certain content can be delivered a little bit easier because it's now in this bucket of something that pod that, YouTube's created. Google has created basically. So if you're doing the right thing when you're posting up your YouTube, podcast or, you know, video version, audiogram version of it, do the right stuff, put the show notes in there, do a transcription, get all that stuff up there, make it let Google be able to find you. Don't just slap something up there and then don't they don't describe what you just posted on YouTube. Tell YouTube what you just posted. So yeah.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:12:21

And when you're dealing with data like this versus magazine pages, you know, magazine only had a a certain page size to list the the top number count of songs. Right. With with data like this, we're talking about trends or just simply the YouTube list. There's no reason they can't go back into the thousands. Like, who's in one thousandth place on the weekly top podcast show? Because it's less interesting to see the same three people rotating through the top five than it is to go, who's number 950? Well, like, I wanna do checkout nine fifty. What are they doing? And I think you have some fun going back and exploring some of these other shows that are making the list with their way down at the bottom of the list. Can I

Brett Johnson [: 00:13:08

sort and

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:13:08

show the oldest the show the highest number first instead of the the lowest number first? That would be

Brett Johnson [: 00:13:14

Right. That would be. Because I know Billboard at one they may still I don't know what it looks like online, but they used to always have bubbling under the top 100. So you're, you know, you you'd see that sort of thing. And and that's where radio there are a few, you know, alternative rock, you know, back in the, you know, eighties and nineties. That's where alt rock kinda came into play that, you know, you you grab these artists that were not making the top 100, but they were doing really good stuff. And you have the 97 x's of the world. Or here locally in Columbus, Ohio, CD 1 0 1, or, you know, whatever iteration it was at that point in time.

Brett Johnson [: 00:13:47

There there is a place where people that wanna find things that are up and coming and brand new, because they're looking for something new. So these charts blend blend blend to that.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:13:56

Exactly. I was going with the new. Like, where is YouTube's new and notable? That's one of the things people love about Apple's podcast listings is the new and notable section. Mhmm. You know, you get some recognition just for being a newbie. So, you know, I really hope that YouTube grows this. It seems like you're heading in the right direction. You know how I feel about watching podcast versus listing podcast.

Brett Johnson [: 00:14:20

Right.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:14:20

But they're they impressed me with their podcast page. I love what they're doing with the weekly list, but what are you gonna do next? Because that was the minimum lift. That that was the minimum viable, project you needed for a podcast show is a top 10 list. Let me see how else you're gonna break this down. Let me see who you're gonna help break as as a new star. Let me see the long tail of what's the most obscure podcast title we can find, and and let's make it fun and different. Yeah.

Brett Johnson [: 00:14:50

Exactly. And tie it into Google Trends. So you've got your every day, you got your Google Trends that you can look up easily on Google. It's like, what podcast is tied to this trend possibly? I you know, it could be they could play they could do a lot of fun stuff with this as time goes on. And but, again, don't expect it today, but it's that all these things like you could do this, you could do this, and we just have to suggest or keep talking about it out loud.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:15:13

And if they're gonna go if they're gonna go against Apple on this, I think Apple's showing weakness in the podcast category. I believe that, the the opportunity is ripe, for YouTube.

Brett Johnson [: 00:15:26

Yeah. Well and sticking with the Apple ID in the video, I I you you caught this, article or this video that Justin Jackson came out came away from the podcast movement, which happened in, April, late March. I forget exactly when. But utilizing the HLS streaming technology that Apple invented that they really aren't utilizing in helping podcasters in their own space.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:15:51

Yeah. It was very cool to have Justin kinda record this one minute video. It's on his, LinkedIn profile. Highly recommend you go in there and follow him. He he's always sharing some great insights into podcasting. Yeah. But he came away from podcast movement where Apple was talking about, this HLS streaming technology that they invented, and he rightly connected it to the fact that it's an opportunity for them to compete directly with what YouTube's doing with the podcast videos. Because Apple's already been the place to go through iTunes for the podcast.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:16:29

You know, they don't have to seek out podcast users. And they've got Apple TV, so they've got a video platform as well. It should be nothing to connect this HLS streaming to a a pipeline of, iTunes podcast or Apple podcasting content and just bring it in to the Apple TV platform because you'll increase, maybe some podcast subscriptions through its platform because they can absolutely charge for it through that platform. Yeah. You've got a set base of users. You know, we've we've covered the news in the past about how Amazon and Netflix have their eye on starting to add podcast content to their streaming channels. It's gonna be hard for them to go out and get podcasters into their environment. Apple already has them.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:17:19

Apple already has all the podcasters. Why aren't you turning on this video stream?

Brett Johnson [: 00:17:23

Exactly. And so easy to do. You've you're already used to up you know, putting your podcasts into Apple Podcasts when you're, you know, submitting your RSS. Boom. Done. If you've got a video form of it, it it should be two clicks and you're done. I mean, there'll be some parameters I'm sure that Apple will tell you it must have this kind of artwork. It must be this, must be four k or, you know, whatever it might be.

Brett Johnson [: 00:17:46

But Apple TV is a thing now up to compared to maybe, what, seven, eight years ago. I I don't know exactly when they started to do really

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:17:54

huge huge breakout hits, huge development deals. Yeah. Yeah. This they're missing out on a big opportunity here. Maybe you need to hire Justin to come in and consult on it because how did they miss I never heard of h l h HLS streaming before, Justin was talking about it. Mhmm. They need to have somebody inside knowing that they can make these connections. Why are they why are they connecting these dots?

Brett Johnson [: 00:18:20

Right. I think if I understand correctly from, listening to another podcast, the the owner of Blueberry hosting platform, I believe if you use Blueberry, you can put your podcast into Apple TV via their platform. It's it's I'm sure it's at an upper level because of the bandwidth to upload video. Yeah. I think so. Something with the Apple or well, not I I take that back. It's not Apple TV, but it's video within the Apple Podcast app. So that's been available That's

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:18:48

different though. That's been around It is.

Brett Johnson [: 00:18:50

It is. Early

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:18:50

on. That was around early.

Brett Johnson [: 00:18:52

Yeah. Yeah. But but it's the concept of video into Apple's, world. You know? Yeah. And the g d thing makes perfect sense. You're exactly right.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:19:01

Yeah. It never caught on. Just the iTunes environment is uncomfortable for most people to be in. Yeah. And, with them, they knew it. They rebranded as Apple Podcasting, and they don't even force you to go into iTunes anymore to do it. But this the streaming, the like for like, the the direct connection from podcasters going to YouTube, Netflix and Amazon getting ready to add podcast content. Apple TV should be first on the scene with the well, second.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:19:30

They'll be behind YouTube, but they should be there.

Brett Johnson [: 00:19:33

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:19:35

Maybe they missed it because they've been busy in court.

Brett Johnson [: 00:19:39

Possibly. If you haven't heard the news that, Apple's thirty percent fee, gone. Gone. It's 86. Patreon and and and this article is focusing on Patreon. Patreon iOS update lets podcasters bypass the Apple's thirty percent fee. That's a whole lot of money. That's a lot of money over time.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:19:58

Let's be clear what this fee is. Yeah. These were these were, purchase tariffs inside of

Brett Johnson [: 00:20:06

Right.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:20:07

Apps running on the Apple platform. Mhmm. So and the the best example I gave that I could think of whenever you shared this news with me was Kindle. I have an iPhone. I have an iPad, and I use it to read Kindle books. And it used to be that I could open up my Kindle app on my phone or my iPad, and I could purchase another book from Amazon to read. Well, I had no idea that Apple was charging them 30% of the sale. So I'm buying a dollar 99 book, and 30% of that, they have to pay to Apple just for the privilege of being able to buy within an app they developed, that Amazon developed, they had to pay that back.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:20:53

I mean, it's Yeah. It is incredibly punitive, and it cuts deep into, profits for any company. Gaming apps were really going after, you know, the, you know, going into the app and buying the extra weaponry or the armor to protect your character inside your your, war game. They were really leveraging a lot of lawsuits against Apple, and I think that's Yeah. They were willing to take this fight to Apple, and I think they finally won. I'm anxious to have the ability back to buy new content within the Kindle app. The headline you shared is Patreon. You know, Patreon's pushing their podcasters

Brett Johnson [: 00:21:33

Yes.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:21:33

To go ahead and start charging subscriptions through the Patreon app so that they can bypass this this, now down voted 30% cut.

Brett Johnson [: 00:21:42

Yeah. So, yeah, the updated app for Patreon gives, the users a variety of options to make in app purchases that includes credit cards, Venmo, PayPal, and Apple Pay. Spotify said earlier this month, this being May of twenty twenty five that, they announced a similar update in the wake of the court ruling against what many called an Apple tax. So that you automatically got a raise if you use Patreon. And, you know, podcasters for the most part are that's their default. Patreon is where they're going in just because it the the Patreon's been very podcast friendly. So if you've if you if you decided not to use Patreon because of the 30% fee of Apple, it's gone. Get in there.

Brett Johnson [: 00:22:24

Make some money.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:22:25

You weren't paying as a podcaster. You weren't paying that that 30% fee to Apple.

Brett Johnson [: 00:22:31

But it

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:22:31

was being taken out. Yeah. So if you were still able to buy through Patreon I don't know if Patreon took it down, their ability to purchase. I I don't know.

Brett Johnson [: 00:22:40

Yeah.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:22:42

Most of the apps took out the ability to make purchases in their app Yeah. For I for Apple devices. So Spotify, we talked when they originally launched audiobooks. It was really exciting. Spotify was gonna be this place to go for audio, and I thought it was very smart for them to add audiobooks to, to their catalog. But, really, even before the launch got going, they had to pull the ability to buy those, those audiobooks out of their Apple apps. So Mhmm. You could listen for free to audiobooks, which is great because they gave every, premium, Spotify member fifteen hours of audiobook listening as part of their existing membership.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:23:26

But if I like the book and I wanted to buy it, they would not let me buy it within the Apple app because it was gonna cost them 30% of the purchase. Mhmm. And that's the same reason Amazon pulled the ability to buy Kindle content from their app because they were going to have to pay that that Apple tax to allow a transaction to happen within their own app environment. So this is huge. I'm I'm really excited about it and can't wait to see some of that really customer friendly, ability to make those purchases without all the friction that had been introduced because of Patreon or because of, because of the Apple tax. To buy more content from my Kindle to read on my iPhone, I had to go to the Apple website. I I could view it in my browser on my phone in my phone browser, but I had to go to the Amazon store there. I could not buy it from the Amazon app.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:24:23

So it's friction that was introduced because of the things Apple was doing, but it made Amazon and Spotify look bad because it looked like it was their fault. And the the original lawsuit that was there in the contracts I'm sorry. The original contracts that, Amazon and Spotify signed to have their apps available on there, they were not allowed to say that's why you couldn't buy in the app anymore. It was in the thing, and Apple threatened to sue them if they said, well, it's Apple's fault or Apple's charging us. So they were not allowed to say it. So you couldn't even give the customers a reason why you couldn't buy stuff.

Brett Johnson [: 00:25:04

Right. Exactly. Exactly. So yeah. So it's it's changed. I think it's that if you I as I mentioned earlier, that if you'd been on the fence to to use Patreon, do it. And and not that you were losing money necessarily. I I misquoted myself, but it's that now Patreon's updated that you can utilize them for anything, which is great or any kind of payment option.

Brett Johnson [: 00:25:26

So it's just Which

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:25:27

is very cool.

Brett Johnson [: 00:25:28

Yeah. Exactly.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:25:29

Good news. Yeah.

Brett Johnson [: 00:25:30

Yeah. And and and our final article you had found, through, eMarketer that, they they did a a poll of marketers facing challenges when determining creator compensation. So it's these marketers there who work with creators.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:25:48

Yeah. This is as of February. They were talking about the percentage of US Marketers who work with creators listed these things as, their biggest challenges when trying to compensate creators for Mhmm. For deals that that they're trying to work with them on. They, they listed, the the top one was, internal budget constraints. You know, you're always gonna run into budget issues, but that's their problem when working with compensating creators, their own internal budget constraints.

Brett Johnson [: 00:26:19

Right.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:26:20

The second one was lack of standardized pricing benchmarks. You know, we've talked before about everybody charges something different for the prices. You know, are you charging pennies per pound for impressions, for for these individual plays of an ad? Are you charging premium prices for live reads? Are you sponsoring content? There's a lack of standardized pricing benchmarks. That was how they define this this challenge, and that makes it harder for them to just go out and buy things because they everybody's calling it something different, and everybody's charging something different. Right. Next up was inflexible or high rates from creators. Creators rightly believe that what they produce has value, and they're trying to charge accordingly. The people who are in a position to compensate creators for that content say that that's a problem for them, because creators aren't willing to wheel and deal off of the high rates that there's the high in quotes, air quotes, right, that they're setting because everything's relative.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:27:19

Right?

Brett Johnson [: 00:27:19

Yes. Correct.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:27:20

Another was unclear ROI metrics. You know, we know from working in advertising, ROI is something everybody's interested in after the campaign has run. You know, they they don't tell you what they're trying to do before the campaign unless you really pry it out of them. But at the end, they just tell you the ROI wasn't there even though they can't define what that ROI was gonna be. And then finally, it was time consuming to go through negotiations. Yeah. In in a flat out picture, that information is helpful to know that that's how they're defining it. But as a creator, you need to look deeper.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:27:56

You need to look into what's really behind what they're saying with these, these labels. And, for example, if they're saying internal budget constraints is a big challenge, you, as the creator, if you're gonna work with somebody, you need to know as much as you can about the client budget.

Brett Johnson [: 00:28:16

You

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:28:16

know, if you know how much they have to spend and what they're trying to achieve, which goes to speak to ROI, you're gonna be able to create something custom that will define how it performs by the ROI and will work within the budget they have. You know, they they talk about the inflexible high rates. Certainly, publish rates at whatever you think is fair for what you do. Yep. But be willing to customize what you're doing to help them achieve their ROI, to help stay within their budgets, and get them to work with you, make it easy to do business with with you, and help eliminate and alleviate some of the, some of the friction they're feeling from these categories. Could mean all could mean all the money in the world to you. You know, if everybody's going through these agencies and the agencies are all working from the same price list and they're all lowball and stuff, the value is not gonna be there on the ROI. Mhmm.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:29:12

Custom projects. You know, Brett, you worked in the same environment I did with media. We always had more success with custom campaigns rather than selling off of our price list. Right? Everybody asked for a rate card, but nobody wanted to buy off a rate card.

Brett Johnson [: 00:29:26

Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And I think, you know, the the the other items that you noted about just understanding the pain points, it's that you've gotta ask questions. You've got to ask what what is the the ROI. And then also control some some metrics if you can. So so and have access to them as well too.

Brett Johnson [: 00:29:49

If it's let's say it's all based on okay. The the call to action is sign up for our newsletter. That's what we want you to accomplish with what we're gonna pay you to do. The the call to action the call to action is sign up for newsletters. Well, if they don't show you what the end result was in a in a ninety day campaign that the goal was 500 sign ups, but they don't tell you that they didn't reach it or they reached more than what they reached. That maybe they got 750, but, you wanna know that information.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:30:18

Yeah. I a lot of people will tell you they wanna grow their customer base. Right? So they I wanna grow my list. Okay. Great. How many people do you get on your list a week now? So know the base number that you're working with. Oh, we get three or four sign ups, or we get a hundred sign ups. Okay.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:30:34

Great. So you know that you need to come up with a campaign that will generate more than the sign ups they'll get just by default.

Brett Johnson [: 00:30:41

Right.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:30:41

And I think my experience has always been best if I control the sign up form. So I can produce a sign up list that is calling for my audience to sign up for my client's promotion, and they can sign up on my form. So I know exactly how many people are coming in. I know that I got 10 today. I know I got 20, the day before, and I can keep an active count. I can adjust my, my messaging and my efforts based on the results I'm getting rather than waiting till the end of the campaign, you being completely blind to how many sign ups you were getting and relying on them to tell you and base the ROI at the end of the campaign. Oh, well, normally, we get 10 sign ups a week. We ran your campaign, and, you know, we we didn't get that many more.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:31:31

Okay. What's that mean? I mean Yeah. Did you actually send them a hundred? And how are you in a position to debate the numbers you signed up?

Brett Johnson [: 00:31:39

Yeah.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:31:40

So I think you need to have as much under your control and monitor to make it successful for your client. In the end, you're you're giving them the list because people signed up for their list. But this way, you have insight into it while you're collecting, and you know the health of the campaign as you're going along rather than waiting to the end when it's too late to do anything about it.

Brett Johnson [: 00:32:00

Yeah. I think it's that don't be afraid to ask. You might be surprised that they will tell you what they're looking for. Because they obviously, they probably contacted you initially. Maybe you didn't go knocking on the door. They contacted you to do this. Well, they they want it to work. They're interested.

Brett Johnson [: 00:32:16

They they they you you've intrigued them with what you can do. So get that conversation opened up. And and

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:32:25

And that's a smart question. Don't just start with what's your budget. Like, don't do that.

Brett Johnson [: 00:32:29

What

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:32:29

are you trying to achieve?

Brett Johnson [: 00:32:30

Yeah.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:32:31

And ask what they're doing now so you know how and if you can help them improve on it. I remember working with a car dealership, and we said, you know, what's your goals for the campaign? Like, we wanna sell a hundred cars this month. Okay. How many cars do you normally sell in a month? Ten. Yeah. We're not gonna be able to help you sell a hundred cars this month. We've never sold a hundred cars in a month before.

Brett Johnson [: 00:32:53

Right. Right. Exactly. Well and and some of these areas, one that really catches my eye is the unclear ROI on metrics. That may be something that a lot of marketers are not smart about anyway. They just start to throw money out there and you the ROI may be what bites both of you in the butt, quite frankly. Yeah. You just never know.

Brett Johnson [: 00:33:13

But it's that but to get some clarity though, try to be get that clarity as much as possible. Maybe help that marketer get through this, that they have higher hopes than they really should with what the you're under contract to do, and and kinda go, you know, I think, like, we keep saying it at the number 10. 10 is reality. Let's let's let's shoot for 10. Let well, that's what's 10? Let's put it actually, another way of saying this is how many, what what is 10 worth to you? How much is $10.10 you would represent? Yeah.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:33:43

Yep. It's helped a lot of customers are gonna need you to help them understand what the real ROI is. Mhmm. So when you talk about, hey. We got 10 people on our list. What's that mean? How many people on your list? What's the what's the percentage of those people that will buy once? And then what's the percentage of those people returning to buy again and for how long? You know, we get into what's the lifetime value of a customer. Let's just start with what's the initial value of a customer. What is that actually worth to you? And if you can get three or four of those out of the campaign, sometimes a campaign investment is cheap by comparison to how many customers you can get out of that.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:34:22

But it's a it's a matter of asking the right questions. And I think that one of us on this show actually wrote a book about podcast questions.

Brett Johnson [: 00:34:31

Yeah. I think so. Somewhere around that. It's it's floating around there. You know how you write stuff. You kinda put it in Google Drive and

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:34:37

Why don't you dust that off and make it part of the show notes? Because I shows. Yeah. People remember some of you early on Yeah. Writing a book of podcast questions.

Brett Johnson [: 00:34:46

Podcast questions. Exactly. Yeah. Well, and, you know, I'll go deeper into this rabbit hole in regards to this ROI stuff that, you know, it's actually, you could learn about your viewers, listeners with this exercise that let's say that, you know, again, the number of 10. Let's say you got, a 10 new clients for them, and you have a long term contract with them. Let's say it's over 90 or, you know, it's six months. You start to learn about what your listeners do. Are they long term clients? Long do they continue to buy over and over again if it can be tracked? That's kind of really cool information to know about what your listeners do as as we keep reading that podcast listeners are rabid for their podcast.

Brett Johnson [: 00:35:34

So basically, whatever you say, they're gonna continue to do over and over and over again if it's a an opportunity to buy something over and over. You know, if it's a a a GoDaddy, well, that may how many domains can you can you own other than if you're, you know, don the idea. You really wanna ask

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:35:49

me that? Exactly. I'm a wrong guy to ask that question.

Brett Johnson [: 00:35:54

That's why I brought that up.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:35:57

Yeah. I know you as a collector of I know people buy some domains. Exactly.

Brett Johnson [: 00:36:02

I know of other people that are LLC collectors, you know, that sort of thing. Just own it. But I I I I think, you know, this is really a good, jumping off point and ending point for us that, hopefully, this is a listener, you're you're kinda this is getting your wheels turning about what what questions to ask. How do you go with this? I mean, we've got other examples. We'll probably talk on the next episode about some opportunities to, you know, basically sell your episode to Yeah. Or, you know, sell yourself as a as a content creator.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:36:35

We did not have time to talk about it this episode, but next one, we're not gonna talk

Brett Johnson [: 00:36:39

about this. There were there were some some link issues that we didn't wanna talk about it yet in regards to, you know, giving you the whole picture. But there is some really cool creative ideas, which you always get from this podcast with this episode between, Don and myself. If you want to talk more about this, Don, let's talk about how to get a hold of you. You know, dive into any of these Best concerns. Yeah.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:36:59

Best place to find me anywhere online is just, search for Don the idea guy. Accept no substitutes. It's Don the idea guy.

Brett Johnson [: 00:37:06

It's gonna say that's pretty long, Don the guy. You accept no substitute. That's a long title. Yep.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:37:11

No. Well, I might go by that domain except thosesubstitutes.com.

Brett Johnson [: 00:37:15

It would probably be available in some fashion. Exactly. Yeah. And if you wanna talk to me a little bit more about, you know, the the the you've got the podcast and you wanna develop it into that. I mean, we'll get Don in a call. Either way, go to mypodcastguy.com. Get on my booking calendar as well. It doesn't matter.

Brett Johnson [: 00:37:30

We'll we'll both be on the call if need be. If you, you know, just, hey, I want Brett along or you know, Don, you're fine. You know, that sort of thing. Please do because that's what's what we're here for. We love doing this stuff. We know it leads to if it doesn't lead to business, it's okay. We know that having these conversations with you, we work for the referral as well. We want, you

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:37:49

know, to

Brett Johnson [: 00:37:50

you did you to know that, yeah, we we know what we're talking about, and we helped you get to where you

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:37:54

needed to. Take one of our cool ideas, put it into action, and, somebody goes, hey. Where'd you come up with that? And you go, these two clowns gave me this idea.

Brett Johnson [: 00:38:03

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. We'd love to have that. Don, thanks for joining me again. Appreciate it.

Don The Idea Guy [: 00:38:08

Always fun, Brett.

Brett Johnson [: 00:38:09

Yep. Thanks.