The “M” Word: Alternative Ways to Monetize – (How Podcasting Consultants are Making Money off of You)
Mark Tafoya & Jennifer Iannolo from Culinary Media Network, Cliff Ravencraft of GSPN, and Rob Blatt from The New York Sun opened this session at PodCamp NYC 2.0.
Jennifer Iannolo talked about ROI and the amount of work that is put in as a content producer, whether it be blogging, podcasting, video podcasting, or just social networking. “People are unaware though, of how much money they can save using Web 2.0” she noted.
This particular session was a real eye-opener for any publishers in the audience, in regards to how publishers aren’t taking responsibility for their own content and are outsourcing the work. Why? In this session, Rob Blatt from The New York Sun told the audience how the paper hired him and gave him a project plan that was to make money within 3 years with a series of 12-15 podcasts, and gave him full creative control over content. “Sure, I had access to years of archives, but if I wanted to create a podcast about beer, so be it” he noted.
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Tafoya stepped in to say that businesses already have existing content, they just don’t know how to do something with it. In the Culinary Media Network, Iannolo and Tafoya create video podcasts for themselves, but they also are hired to create podcasts for outside companies, “leveraging our skills to form a consulting firm”.
Iannolo showed us a case study on “Partida Tequila” and how they created a mini-series for the website, where Iannolo and Tafoya went to Mexico to shoot the videos. This project went so well for Partida Tequila that they’re starting another project for them called “Tequila Confessions” where they take people who drink tequila at bars and introduce them to fine tequila.
On the publishing side, Tafoya talked about a book called Secrets of the Young and Successful as another success story, also a bestseller by the New York Times. What they did was cut every chapter into a podcast. The client was worried that offering these podcasts for free would deter from the sales. The opposite happened: sales went up.
“It’s not about being sleek, it’s about grassroots production, it’s about an authentic production” Iannolo said in regards to what she tries to convince clients about their podcasts. But if it’s “authenticity” we’re going for, aka a low-budget production, there’s no reason that we as publishers can’t do it in-house. Right?
