And now a word from…
Since the first week in April, I’ve been evaluating an alternate form of revenue stream for the site. It’s no big secret — chances are you’ve heard the lovely Leann (her podcast Tag in the Seam rocks) extolling the virtues of iFrogz and just how cool you will be if you go buy one. But maybe I should back up a bit and talk about this holistically. In fact, I’ll be extra kind and continue this (probably long) exercise in open-kimono-ness behind the more link below. If you are interested in non-evil intended advertising and finding revenue streams, read on. If not, I certainly don’t blame you.
There are lots of ways to succeed by giving things away for free. All of our authors are providing their works to you for free for different reasons, many of which are paying off in spades. And while that’s great for the authors, it’s also kinda fun for me and the staff at Podiobooks.com as well. We often get the question “how do you get paid” when we describe what it is that we are doing here at Podiobooks.com. True, there is no clear-cut revenue stream for us. And that’s OK, because we’re having a lot of fun doing what we’re doing. For me, it give me the ability to play around a bit with preconceived notions of what you can and cannot do in a market place. In other words, I get to break the rules.
I’ve worked in advertising and marketing for coming up on eight years now. Interestingly enough, I despise most forms of advertising — especially online advertising. I think it’s clutter, interruptive and generally a major turn off to most people who encounter it. So I work in the field, but I’m always trying to find ways of being “non-evil” and looking at unconventional opportunities to get a message across — without the tenacity of the HEAD-ON people. If you don’t get the reference, consider yourself lucky.
I know that we’ve cultivated a lot of goodwill with Podiobooks.com listeners over the last two years and that that goodwill is partly what let us survive the massive outage we recently experienced. I’ve burned a few more karma points that time with our “iFrogz” promotional message as well. But I’ve heard absolutely zero complaints (honest) from anyone during that “campaign”, so thanks for the gracious acceptance as we try things out.
Curious how it went? Well, it looks like between 15 - 25 people each day, on average, actually visit the URL we provide in the intro file of our chapters. And more often than not, each day one or two folks actually make a purchase from iFrogz. That’s actually a very good conversion rate, and I’m pleased with the results. But no, we’re not getting rich. We’re lucky to see a couple of bucks as commission from an average sale over there. But still, it’s encouraging.
I think I can do better. I did a lot of things “wrong” with that iFrogz spot. It’s too long and it tries to both brand iFrogz and get you to follow a URL at the same time. That’s just not going to work (IMHO) in audio. Plus, I didn’t spend enough time associating why the product would be beneficial to you. And truth be told, maybe such a relationship doesn’t exist. I own one of their products, but so what? If being in advertising and marketing has taught me anything, it’s that I am most certainly not the average audience. At any rate, I think I can do better.
So in a few days, expect a new campaign with a different (though not necessarily new) advertiser. This clip will be shorter and takes a very different approach to “branding”. It’s highly possible this one will be a miserable failure. Or it might work brilliantly. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Oh, and before you ask the question — these are not exclusive sponsorship deals I slaved over with dozens of phone calls. I just signed up for an affiliate account on Commission Junction and picked out a few sponsors I had personal experience with that might work with our audience. Much easier than actually calling companies and begging for dollars!
Thanks for listening.
May 14th, 2007 at 4:45 am
Evo the advertisement for Ifrogs is not bad. And if you do not like it you can all ways skip it. and beside you do what you have to do
May 14th, 2007 at 7:18 am
So, I know I might be an atypical user, but you might be overlooking some possible revenue.
I’ve been an audiobook devotee for years. I’m unlikely to listen to a book until it’s finished, and even then I merge it into a single file and it drops into the audiobook queue.
I can only guess as to what you are talking about, BUT I have been in the market for a new iPod case, and I’d love to support this site. Was the ad run on the site anywhere? Did you call it out on this blog? Either of these are more likely to get my attention.
May 14th, 2007 at 7:32 am
Thanks for your response, Jason. And you are atypical. The vast (and I mean vast) majority of our listeners do not regularly visit the site. That’s the beauty of RSS deliver. We get a fair amount of page views and visitors, but it pales in comparison with those that get in, get subscribed, and don’t bother to come back until their books are complete and they are ready for more.
But you have given me an interesting idea to play with.
May 14th, 2007 at 7:59 am
Just to clarify, I do the same thing. I sign up, subscribe via RSS and ignore the feed until I see that theend.mp3 has come down, or see the post on here saying the book is complete. In that respect I probably look, to you, like everyone else.
The difference is in when I listen to the files. It might be next week, it might be five years from now.
But I do subscribe to the feed for this blog, so I know when books start or finish, and any other interesting things you may be talking about. Duplicating the ads here might be a good idea.
May 14th, 2007 at 10:29 am
I may or may not be atypical as well, but I’m not sure I like the repetition as much as I would like variety, believe it or not. Using a few different products and cycling through them, either week by week or book by book, as I listen to multiple books at once (anywhere between 5 and 15). Hearing the same add over and over really does get tiring.
Also, to back up what Jason was mentioning, some presence of the product on the site wouldn’t be bad - perhaps a simple link, below “Products mentioned in our books…” I have heard the iFrogs add countless times (although 20-30 times could be close), I have no idea what URL to go to when I’m sitting at my computer.
- Doug
May 14th, 2007 at 5:23 pm
I’m doing exactly what Jason does because I think listening to stories as a whole makes it easier to follow the plot and to grasp its atmosphere, and thus more enjoyable.
While I have to admit that I’m still new to this site and, by now, I have only listened to two and a half stories, I assume most authors start each episode with a small intro. Add the ad and the podiobooks extro and you’ll get something between one and two minutes of more or less repetitive audio content. Sure, you can skip it, but if you prefer listening to podiobooks as if they were audiobooks this might become mildly annoying after a while (in particular when stories consist of many relatively short episodes). My suggestion would be to offer “plain” versions without the advertisement, without the intro and without the extro, available to those who chose to donate a certain amount of money, either as a goody or even as an incentive for donations. Of course, this would be rather useless if nobody else is using podiobooks the way Jason and I do.
May 14th, 2007 at 5:33 pm
TDH,
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that “nobody else” uses the site as you and Jason, but you are trying to put a square peg in a round hole. These are serialized versions of audiobooks, so you are going to hear repetitive content at the front and back of every episode. We’re not out to re-make the audiobook landscape, nor do we have the hubris to suggest that all audiobooks should be enjoyed “our way”. No, you didn’t say that — I’m just reinforcing my position.
To get to your specific comment — the idea of a “traditional” version of the stories has been brought up in the past. It’s not off the table, though it does present its own unique set of challenges. Thanks for your comments.
May 16th, 2007 at 7:30 am
Just a thought. If you are only going after affiliate dollars right now, and trying to keep the sponsors you choose relevant to your audience, why not set something up with Audible.com, and Amazon.com. If you just joined their affiliate programs, you could see a little revenue, but I have a feeling at you could call them and set up something with a little more support and favorable numbers.
Maybe I am being too on the nose in assuming that people who like free audio books in podcast form, might also like audio books from some authors that will not post them for free, and audio books in CD form, and even books. However, my thought is that you have people listening to genres and authors that they like, so, you could have much more targeted advertisement, if you wanted. I realize that this is a bit of work. But, if done correctly, the ads might seem reasonably intrusive, and you might even see better conversion rates.