By 2030, Podcasting Will Be Worth Billions – Should You Jump In Now?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome everybody to this episode of the NerdBrand
Podcast, where we're going totalk about the state of
podcasting, what its growth is,some of the latest numbers and
what to expect by 2030.
Because you know why not?
Let's look forward.
Hey everybody, welcome to thisepisode of the NerdBrand Podcast

(00:37):
the state of podcasting.
So what's going on?
What's its growth?
Is it a thriving market?
Should you do it?
Let's see if we can answer someof those questions.
Yes, yes, no, I kid.
Anyways, it is experiencingrapid growth.
It's increasing itslistenership in a thriving
market.
It's just continuing.
It has slowed because of thequality of some of the shows.

(01:00):
I can't really say that I'm ofquality, but you're listening.
So there we go.
There's 584 million people thatare worldwide who listen to
podcasts.
Now it's still pretty much theaverage about 12 podcasts per
person with, I believe, aboutfour out of those 12.
They're kind of trying out tosee if they like them, but

(01:21):
pretty solid the rest of themthey're loyal to and subscribe,
but they expect the industry tobe worth billions.
That's billions.
It's B as in boy by 2030.
So Discovering Podcast and itsconsistencies of that and the
landscape of it it's very, very,very diverse.

(01:44):
It's the landscape of it.
It's very, very, very diverse.
Um, discoverability issomething that any channel way
you can get your podcastdiscovered and take advantage of
that.
Do it if you have the money.
Um paying for ads.
Uh, appearing as a guest onother shows, having guests paid,
guests even on your show.
Um, having um paid.

(02:07):
You know, paying like payingfor sponsorships, was a little
backwards because usually youwant sponsors to pay you, but
you know as you grow yourlistenership you don't have
enough listeners.
Then you know they're not goingto pay you for, for you know
the few handful of people thatare hearing you.
So you do have to take a lot ofdifferent tactics, do a lot of
different things to getlistenership, and so most of the

(02:28):
US population is 55% age 12 andover.
So keep in mind, if you're abusiness and you want to podcast
, be very specific about yourtopic, because you really don't
want a bunch of 12 year oldslistening to you because, I mean
, what are they going to do tohelp you?
Really?
Okay.
So every now and then we dive inhere on nerd brand and state of
marketing and SEO and webdesign and UX and all the fun

(02:51):
stuff, but you know it's good tokind of take a break and like
let's talk about what's going onand let's see how the big boys
are doing at AKA.
You know Marvel, you know thetime they spend listening is
about 23% of their week.
It's about 10 hours um of everyweek.
So if you're generating enoughcontent, you're trying to grab
some of that 10 hours.
But it could be more.
Uh, the the ad spend is a littleover 4 billion um on people

(03:15):
spending ads on a podcast, andthere's a lot of people that
have I've seen over the lastfour goodness five years now try
to make a podcast advertisingthing and then offer that to
business owners and say we'regoing to advertise you on
podcasts.
Well, it's a streaming platform, it's not radio.
So a radio is it's going toshow or it's going to list.

(03:39):
They're going to be able tolisten to it a certain time of
day, during prime time or not.
And then podcasting everybodylistens to a podcast passively,
meaning that they may do itwhile they're walking their dog,
they may do it while they'redoing a.
Maybe they're just drivingpoint point A to B and they need
something to listen to andyou're it.
And so, um, by the time,whether or not they get to their

(04:00):
destination or done, or if thedog's done or whatever happens,
they're not going to catch 100%of your show.
They may even they may not evencatch maybe 20% of it.
So you have to keep in mindthat it's not probably the
biggest channel to advertise on,but it is something that, if
you do know, if your audience isthere, if you're a retail brand
or if you're um any kind of B2C, then it's probably worth it

(04:22):
because you can talk about yourproduct, you can talk about your
business, especially if you'relocalized.
They could probably help youout and a great deal as well.
So there's a lot of challengesin podcasting.
This is an audio-only podcastfor a reason because it takes a
lot of time and effort to dovideo and I do not have a face
for radio.
Let's just say that, in myopinion, lot of things and or at

(04:57):
least understand how thesemechanisms work with video you
don't just turn on a videocamera and then record with your
iphone, unless that's the gistof your show.
But as you've seen, many othershows they're they're very much
interview type, where there'stwo people, they're in chairs
and they're on camera and it'sreally kind of gone back to
video in the way of the tonightshow, rather than actually
progressing as an actual podcastchannel, where people are on

(05:19):
the podcast and they're justhaving a conversation and you
get to listen as a fly on thewall.
Speaking of which, in a coupleof episodes, you're going to get
to do that very soon, if notthe next episode, because Mitch
and Michaela will be back.
We may have to remote Mitch in,but Michaela will be on the
show with me and we'll betalking about several things on
the next couple of episodescoming up.
We're going to talk about theCloverfield conspiracy and the

(05:41):
viral marketing that goes behindthat, and listening and trying
to see if we can find anyexamples out there while we are
on the show.
Live, just determine if theyare spinning this up because
there is another Cloverfieldmovie coming, because there is
another Cloverfield movie coming, and so everything requires
marketing and therefore theywill probably do the same.
Also, we'll talk about theThunderbirds.
Is it Thunder?
See, it's already that bad forme.

(06:01):
I have gotten that far behindon my Marvel stuff.
But the yeah, the new Avengersthat it was spoiled to be, and
the marketing and how that went,and I'm sure there will be
plenty of other things we candiscuss that will be coming up
on future episodes of thepodcast episodes here and we
will be discussing and, uh, youknow, trying to be nice, but the
state of entertainment's not.

(06:23):
It's not been great, um.
So, yeah, how about thatMinecraft movie?
Anyway, um, challenges andtrends.
Back to podcasting.
Again, let's focus ondiscoverability, finding the
content.
So, yeah, google, facebook,like you know, the digital trend
or the digital channels thatyou can advertise on, but there

(06:46):
is a challenge in findingcontent.
There's so many podcasts, whichhappens whenever a market grows
so rapidly.
Whenever a market grows sorapidly, I mean, there's over
450 million, I think uh is thenumber here of, uh, yeah, people
that are listening in 2023.
And those numbers were, um,they're expected to reach 619

(07:06):
million by 2026.
So you do have high engagement,uh, with 34% of Americans
listening to an average of 8.3podcast episodes, that's
episodes per week.
Sorry, um, not necessarily shows.
Episodes and shows are not thesame, so don't hear me say the
same episodes.

(07:27):
It's like television when youwould watch the big bang theory
but you're on episode season 12,episode one.
It's like that in podcastingfor some.
Um, but it's still a challengebecause, um, the industry is
becoming saturated.
You know, if you want to doGoogle ads for your podcast,
that's neat, um, but at the endof the day it's probably a loss

(07:49):
leader for you to do that.
Uh, it's going to be a lot ofword of mouth, it's going to be
a lot of people that kind ofknow you, that want to hear what
you have to say.
Um, you know, I've looked at forour own show like things that
we could do and what could weincorporate and guests that we
could have on our show.
And you know, I've thought ofeverything, uh, from having
business coaches, consultants toother people's our own clients

(08:11):
on our show, you know, to talkabout what they're doing and how
they got to where they are, andso it's a very, very eclectic
group that is out there for sureto source for guests, and
everybody wants to be heard.
It's a piece of content thatgoes out that you could market
yourself with, and the companythat did the podcasting say us,
could market ourselves with too.
It's a win-win for everybody,but people finding out about it

(08:34):
is the biggest thing and it'sthe hardest thing.
So, um, advertising channelsare just going to be your best
bets and I can't go through allof them because there's so many
channels out there for marketing.
But get creative, Um, so,anyways, and of course, 67% of
Americans will listen to apodcast in their lives by 2024.
So that's as of last year.

(08:55):
It's all data.
And uh, again, it's just goingto increase.
So, as podcast listening goes up, well, you're probably thinking
, well, I should do podcasting.
Well, here's the part of theshow that I started with.
Maybe not.
It's very difficult to sit andtalk on a mic with someone.
Now you can get into the grooveand if you're with a good host,

(09:15):
they can pull you in and thenget you to forget about the
microphone that's in front oftheir face and the earphones on
their head, if that's your setup.
But it is an art.
It is very much something where, if you're going to do a
podcast, you're that person thathas to do that for your guest,
and so if you're very good atcreating an environment for
somebody to open up in and totalk and not compromise

(09:38):
themselves, then you could hosta podcast and you could have
guests and you could do prettywell.
But you got to have a good hook,you got to have a good reason
for people to want to listen.
So it comes all down to theprop value, just like anything
else in the business.
Why should I give you my time?
Why should I spend my time ormy money or effort on this?

(09:59):
Well, hopefully, on this show,for example, you can take away
examples of how things you couldperceive within what we say and
with what we do, and why it'sbeing done the way it's done,
because we are merely mimickingother people to the best that we
can with the resources we have,and you should do the same.

(10:22):
Not everybody is Disney orMarvel.
Not everybody is.
You know, for example, hbo, maxand Warner talked about how
they rebranded and went back totheir old branding because of
the equity and people knew thename, and so you kind of have to
go back and say, okay, well, Iwant to do this, but you also
have to realize your name.

(10:42):
Whoever the host is, that's thename they're going to associate
with your brand, because you'rebeing the face of it, and I use
this example all the time withour clients Are you Steve Jobs
or are you Tim Cook?
And if you don't know who TimCook is, that's the CEO of Apple
, because most people thinkabout the brand Apple now.
First, tim Cook is in the back,but for years we would think

(11:03):
Steve Jobs before we thought ofApple.
So it is something to kind ofrecognize in your own company
and it's okay.
If you've been doing it, though, for 30 years and people still
know you, then yeah, you're alittle behind the ball on kind
of making that switch, becauseif you retire, sell the business
, move on.
Well, people are going toremember you, and so it's very
smart to go ahead and make thatchange now, because putting that

(11:24):
together that really allows asuccession plan to be successful
if and when you're ready topass the baton, because
otherwise the other peoplethey're just going to live under
your shadow, and thankfully TimCook figured out a way not to
live under Steve Jobs' shadow.
So, anyways, that's a real worldexample.
Hope you found this useful.
If you enjoyed listening tothis podcast, you know where to
go.
Listen to it again, and we willcatch you next week when we

(11:46):
have Michaela and Mitch back onthe show and we start talking
about some nerd stuff andCloverfield theories.
So remember, until then, keepyour nerd brain strong.