The Business Case for Podcasting

Lets assume that you are a business who runs an information site that makes its revenue on selling advertising to a specialized niche of people interested in that information.

For our purposes, the info could be anything. It could be about poodles. It could be about coffee mugs. It could be about business education for dentists. Let's assume, for the sake of this discussion, that the site is about poodles.

So assume there is an info website in place with people who visit it, people who write for it, people who sell ads on it, and people who buy ads on it.

Not Poodles but poodles is easier to spell!

As a growth and brand strategy, the info site would like to grow into all the places that people might want this info since people like to grow. But that is a lot of places. In some places, it might not make commercial sense. Overall, it would make more sense if the content could be created once, used everywhere. It would make less sense if the articles, videos, social media posts, podcasts, and so on were each an independent creation effort so there is no leverage and synergy.

In addition to a website full of articles info about poodles, the business might:
- syndicate its best content onto other platforms related to dogs, pets, families, and parenting.
- solicit other content writers about poodles and get their content onto the poodle website
- create videos about poodles and put them on Youtube
- create emails and newsletters about poodles
- hold conferences about poodles
- create social media accounts about poodles and fill them full of poodle info. This could include Facebook, Pinterest, Instragram, Twitter, and more.
- create ebooks about poodles and put them on kindle, iTunes, Google Play, and other channels
- create podcasts about poodles
- create new content on the new platforms as they emerge such as tiktok and interactive speakers (Alexa) and others that have not yet emerged

Is more always better? No, there is an optimal amount of expansion and content creation. You can  overspend on content creation.  You can over extend and put too much effort into too many media. You can create content around topics where there is no real advertising or business opportunity. Novels, for instance, are a powerful media but with NO opportunity for advertising. The color gray has a lot that can be said about it but virtually none of it attracts any advertising.   You can accumulate an audience but not monetize it.

What does, given all these possibilities, a business case for a podcast look like?

1. Envisage success. If all goes well, in 12 months:
1. What is the size of the audience that is following the podcast?
2. What is the value, in terms of advertising, of this audience?
3. These are easily answerable questions since we are buyers of ads on these platforms and we know what the revenue opportunity looks like. To think about it, a monthly advertising revenue estimate should be made.
4. In 12 months, to maintain this audience, what are the monthly costs of producing and publishing this podcast?
2. Measure progress.  Find some comparable successful podcasts and look at their history.
1. How big was their audience after the first quarter, the second quarter, etc.
2. Compare that growth pattern with the growth pattern that our podcast is showing.
3. Are we going slower or faster than our model of success?
4. Any adjustments we can make?
5. What is the current expense to maintain the current growth rate?
3. Create a spreadsheet and add it all up.  Does the business case make sense?  Is it a high ROI?  Is it a money pit?  
1. What's the alternative? Could we for a certain amount of money sponsor some other podcast creator?
2. Could the postcasts be published at the same time as videos on youtube and elsewhere?