AP 0894: What Length and Frequency Is Optimal for My Podcast?

AskPat 894 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up, everybody? Pat Flynn here. Welcome to Episode 894 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions five days a week.

We have a great question today coming in from Maarten, but before we get to his question, I do want to thank today's sponsor, which is DesignCrowd. You know, if you're stuck on ideas on how to develop your logo, website, or any other design related things, why don't you utilize the creative minds over at DesignCrowd? There's over a half million designers, worldwide, that can help you custom and crowdsource graphics. It doesn't matter what kind of business you have. You can get a perfect design every time or you get your money back. Here's the call to action for you. Check out DesignCrowd.com/askpat. You can download a free guide there to crowdsourcing and $100 off, too. All you have to do is go to DesignCrowd.com/askpat and enter the promo code “AskPat”. Easy enough.

All right. Thanks so much and here's today's question from Maarten.

Maarten: Hi, Pat. Maarten here. I've been listening to all of your podcasts for a few years now and have accumulated a ton of great knowledge, and reading the book is next in the cards for me. I followed your YouTube step-by-step guide on how to start a podcast and it's going really well now.

My question is that my podcast is short and sharp, a lot like AskPat. I'm wondering, what are the pros and cons of having a podcast be at around the six to ten minute mark? You have five episodes a week: Is this more of a strategy for growth or profit? What's the effect on getting ads, if you have a high publishing rate, because you're getting more downloads but fewer impressions, because most of those listeners are the same, between episodes?

As a subscriber to all your podcasts, it seems to me that AskPat is maybe a priority for you, so just wondering, have you noticed an advantage for growth, or gaining revenues, or perhaps being able to fit in more calls to action in a short, more frequently-published podcast?

My podcast is called Passive Fat Loss. I help people lose weight with a method called intermittent fasting. It's going much, much better than I expected. I'm helping a lot of people, so thanks for getting me started and thanks for all you do, Pat.

Pat Flynn: Hey, Maarten. Thank you so much for the question. I felt like, with the tone of the call that came in, you were about to break out into a song. I don't know. It just . . . Anyway, thank you so much for the question. I think it's really interesting, because AskPat came about as a result of, really, a need to better serve my audience. I had featured questions at the end of my other show for a while. People were like, “These questions are great, but they don't really fit into that show. It's kind of an add-on. Be cool if it was another show.”

Once I learned from John Lee Dumas, over at Entrepreneur on Fire, that this could actually be done and not actually take that much time as I thought, because I'm batch processing, I'm utilizing a team—boom, here we are at Episode 894, approaching episode 1,000. It's awesome.

There's a lot of great things that have happened as a result of this. For one, and the most important thing is, I think it's just allowed people to see that I'm interacting and I care about my audience. You know, it's that community-building aspect of it, because it's happening so often, because of the way it's formatted, getting voicemails. I mean, people just heard your voice, Maarten, and because of that, they can connect with you and they feel like they're a part of that audience. Because I'm answering you, they also feel like I'm answering them. For that community-building aspect, it's really important.

Now, in terms of just the size of the show, it's become a lot easier to produce, hence why there's more of them. Related to advertising, you're right, it's a lot of people listening to the same shows every time, but it's the same with the other ones, too. But it's definitely made it a lot easier for people to share, because they might find an episode that really relates to them or really answers the question that they have, and they're going to remember that. They're going to remember the ones that really matter to them. With this show in particular, they ask very specific questions, which is why the download numbers are actually a lot less, even comparatively, month over month. You're getting more downloads with “Smart Passive Income” versus this one.

I definitely don't feel like this is a priority. This is . . . I don't want to say this is not a priority, too, it is, which is why I'm sort of ahead of schedule, and keep going with it, and have been consistent with it. It maybe just feels like that, it feels like a lot of content because it's a lot of content broken up into little bits and pieces. The other show is making a lot more money. It's definitely serving a bigger audience and it's definitely my top priority. It's where most people find me from and then discover AskPat from there. This isn't a top priority, but it is a priority. I don't want people to get the wrong idea with what I just said.

In terms of disadvantages, the advertising dollars are a lot less. I might be able to get $80 to $200, to sometimes $400 dollars per episode for AskPat, versus anywhere between $3,000 – $5,000 per episode on Smart Passive Income. So there's that. Also, a lot of the questions don't pertain to a lot of people, which is also another reason why the download numbers are lower. Some people might not be interested in this question, which is why they're not . . . They're not worried about podcasts, so they're not listening to this episode. I think with this, it's sort of hit or miss for people. As a result, that's why there's not as many reviews, too, even though there are ten times—not ten times, but maybe four or five times—more episodes than my other show. My other show has over 2,000 reviews. This one only has like 300, so guys, come on. No, I'm just kidding. You can leave a review if you'd like, but I'm not going to force you to do that and there would be no way to force you to do that, anyway.

But, anyway, yeah. That's all I can say about that. I just absolutely love doing the show. It's one of my favorite ways to interact with you in a controlled manner. I think that's another benefit of doing it this way, is that I can field questions, answer them, but it's controlled. I answer them in batches, on my own time, and they get pushed out to you. It also becomes a fun way to know whether or not your question gets featured. I also give away a teeshirt; you're going to get one, too, Maarten, for having your question featured here on the show.

I know a lot of people who actually prefer this. I think that's the other big thing. I've met a lot a lot of people who have switched over to primarily listening to this show because it's a lot shorter and it fits into their time schedule for how often they drive, or how long their drive is, or how long their walk is, versus a much longer episode, like on Smart Passive Income.

Anyway, just some thoughts about that. If you have any follow up questions, feel free to hit me up on Twitter @PatFlynn. Thank you so much. I appreciate you. Like I said, I'm going to send you an AskPat teeshirt. I'm going to send anybody who gets their question featured here on the show an AskPat teeshirt.

Actually, I also run a live show right out of my studio, a brand new studio that was just put up last month. You can find that live show at Facebook.com/smartpassiveincome, live every Friday, 1:30 p.m. I answer questions, just like this, but I do it rapid fire to those who are online. I also give away free prizes there, as well. You can check that out. 1:30 p.m. Pacific, every Friday at Facebook.com/smartpassiveincome.I'm also going live a lot inside my Facebook group and Facebook community. There's over 31,000 people there. You can find that at SmartPassiveIncome.com/community.

Then, finally, I just want to thank you all for taking time to listen today. I really appreciate you. If you have a question that you'd like potentially featured on the show here as well, all you have to do is head on over to AskPat.com and you can ask right there on that page.

Now, thanks so much. Here's a quote to finish off the week, as always. This one comes from Albert Schweitzer, and that is, “One thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.” Man, love that. All right, guys, take care. Thanks so much for all the reviews and all the time and attention. I'll hopefully see you on AskPat Live. If not, I'll see you next week on the next episode of AskPat. Cheers, guys. Bye.