The Power of a Podcast Network with Michael DeAloia

Josh (00:00:02) - All right. We got five minutes on the clock. What is your name and what is the name of your podcast shows? Yeah, sure.

Michael (00:00:09) - My name is Michael Deloitte. I'm the CEO of Evergreen Podcasts. We've got over 330 shows on six distinct networks. Evergreen podcast being the largest, about 42,000 episodes. So it's been a journey, Josh, over the last seven years.

Josh (00:00:26) - Wow. How many episodes?

Michael (00:00:28) - 42,000.

Josh (00:00:30) - 42,000. So at what point did it go from expensive hobby to moneymaker? Talk to us about your audience growth and monetization program.

Michael (00:00:39) - Sure. Well, real quick context on growth. Our first year we did four shows, 17,800 downloads for the year. This year, you're going to skip forward seven years. We'll do like I said, about 330 some shows, 26.5 to 27 million downloads. And next year we're sort of targeting 40 plus 40 million plus in downloads. Nice work man. And we were talking offline earlier, Josh, about how how do you provide discoverability and revenue at the same time.

Michael (00:01:14) - And that's I can tell you, after seven years of fumbling, bumbling and stumbling our way through this, we've kind of come up with a little formula. And that is for discoverability. We're using a really affordable tool called Trailer Gram. So we're taking our top 25 shows plus some independent networks that we control, and we're spending $500 a month on those individual shows. So for us next year, we'll have a total of about 40 shows spending 500 bucks a month on on Traylor Graham that generally provides 7 to 10,000 additional downloads a month. And so if you're hitting that five 10,000 a month hurdle and everyone hits that wall, we all we every show hits it. Maybe with the exclusion of Rogan, but everyone kind of blows, you know, kind of hits that wall. This is a way to blow through that. And then we started to integrate some. Revenue tools with that. So as the shows growing and downloads, we're using pod roll, which would insert a like minded show into your feed. So right after your episode, it's playing another Like-minded show your history show it downloads a history show and people listen to it.

Michael (00:02:37) - It's a $50 CPM, which is well above market rate for a typical ad CPM placement. And or so we're giving our shows a choice. You can do pod roll or you can do intro casts which then inserts. A really a promotion of another show out of network as the second in your feed. So if I'm just binging on your show today. I'll hear this five minute segment. The next segment will be this intro caste show or promotion again, $50 CPM. So we're trying to load up our shows on above average CPM rates, using Trailer Gram to grow the show and to offer discoverability.

Josh (00:03:22) - Yeah. At what point should someone start thinking about investing in ads or additional revenue tools? You know, like I just got started with this show specifically, I've run up three others, but like this is a month old. Like, at what point should I go? I'm gonna throw some ads at this. I'm going to throw some additional revenue sources at this.

Michael (00:03:41) - Yeah. If it's a new show and it's still below 2500, which is our baseline for monetization, you probably want to do trailer gram early, you know, set aside and $500.

Michael (00:03:52) - I know for some that's a lot of money. But if you can afford it, get into trailer gram because it can do both. It can help with Apple subscription and it can drive the download growth of the show. Cool.

Josh (00:04:05) - So you've got less than a minute left. I want you to name all 333 shows.

Josh (00:04:09) - So. We're going to.

Michael (00:04:12) - Blow through an hour. Man, that's a lot. Uh, but some of our bigger shows Warriors in their own words, five minute news, uh, disturbed, uh, the RR show. Yeah. They're so.

Josh (00:04:24) - Cool. All right, so the show that, um, how many of them do you host or which show do you host?

Michael (00:04:31) - I have given up being. I've got too many. You know, I gotta run the whole network.

Josh (00:04:37) - You're a sage now with the grey beard. And your job as sage is to build and invest in others.

Michael (00:04:43) - That's right, my man.

Josh (00:04:44) - All right, so where can people go to find out more about you and your network?

Michael (00:04:50) - Everyone can go to evergreen podcast.com and check us out.

Michael (00:04:53) - And obviously my contact information is on site.

Josh (00:04:56) - Cool. Hey guys, I hope you're enjoying these five minute clips to help you learn, grow, monetize your show all in five minutes or less. We'll see you on the next one.