In Part 2 of our interview with Jeff and Callie Dauler, they tell us exactly how many downloads they’re getting, how they plan to manage ad inventory and how they plan to grow the business.
If you missed Part 1, read it HERE.
Radio Ink: What are the download numbers?
Jeff: We have 65,000 daily show listens per week, since our launch, and we’ve done some bonus episodes. We did one on 9/11 as Callie’s dad was second in command at the legal department of Delta so he had a unique story to tell. So, with all that we are at about three-quarters of a million listens since launch. It is unreal.
Radio Ink: You are getting all these listens, advertisers want in, but you don’t want to sound like a radio station bombarding listeners — how do you manage that?
Jeff: We just had our first official advertiser run this week. We were transparent with our audience saying we’ve wanted to do this for a long time and so we have to put ads in the show. We promised to be different from radio, you won’t hear eight ads back to back. We have control of when they run. You won’t hear us say, “we will give you the rest of the story right after these commercials.” We’re going to make sure everyone who advertises actually fits in with the programming.
Callie: I thought Jeff’s head would explode in a positive way when the guy who is repping our advertising came to us and said, “do you want to work with X advertiser.” We didn’t like them. We said we would rather not and the guy said “okay it’s your podcast, if you don’t like them we will just move on.”
Jeff: I wrote back saying I’m really sorry it doesn’t feel like a good fit. He wrote back saying you don’t have to apologize, you know your show. For 25 years I said no to sales departments only to have them come back and say well they’re spending a lot of money. Then you get called into the manager’s office.
Callie: It is more authentic. We asked our listeners what bothered them about advertising and we took their suggestions. They don’t like ads back to back or sirens in ads, etc. That has become our filter for ads.
Jeff: Attention radio: the biggest turn-off is sirens, people knocking on doors, and car horns honking…listeners hate that.
Radio Ink: You said someone is repping you, are you using one of the podcasting agencies?
Jeff: We are represented by Advertise Cast. I met with them at Poodcast Movement and talked with others. They are very passionate and have a good roster of shows similar to ours.
Callie: We loved that they are not about the mega podcasts. We talked to some bigger firms and knew we would be the smaller fish there and thought we would not get a lot of attention.
Radio Ink: Have you thought about doing a live show and charging for it?
Jeff: Absolutely. With the live show event I also do stand-up comedy. The podcast was simply supposed to exist and make some money off it, but it was going to be a way to market other events, live events, merchandise. It has taken off so quickly that all of our attention is on the podcast, but events are a big part of the plan. Hopefully our audience will stay engaged.
Radio Ink: Are you putting out the show at the same time and at the same length? How do you market it? Are you doing a lot of editing?
Jeff: It goes out every Monday through Friday at 2 a.m. so people have it when they wake up. The time is 25 to 45 minutes. We wanted it to fit nicely into a commute. The editing is not that time consuming but I’ve worked in radio for 25 years so I know enough of the tricks so it might take someone else longer. We’ve used our social media following and a weekly newsletter that goes out with our mailing list which is now at 20,000. We also started a Facebook group for fans of the podcast. It sits under that gratitude theme and it has grown to almost 10K members.
Callie: We have activated our own listeners. We said we want to make a living at this so if you like it tell your friends, and they do. They’re excited to help. I think people underestimate the power of the people who listen to the show.
Jeff: I made a jingle. We have told the listeners we want to double our audience by the end of the year. We promised the audience once a week we would give them a count. Every Friday we play our jingle and give them the number. People will send us video of their kids singing the jingle, which makes me overwhelmingly happy.
Radio Ink: Jeff, how do you take what you’ve built so quickly and make the same money as you did in radio?
Jeff: That is my biggest fear. I have never before worked for myself. The radio talents I’ve encountered think one of two ways: either they are the greatest or everything will go away tomorrow. I’ve always fallen in that second group. I check the numbers every day to make sure they are going in the right direction. I just started running some social media advertising. We’re going to partner with other podcasts to cross promote.
Callie: We also have merchandise that isn’t necessarily related to the show. Our first piece was a joke from the show and threw it on a T-shirt and started pre-selling it. We’re being strategic about not biting off more than we can chew, but we have a vision for how we continue to monetize the show. One is the more listeners you have the more advertisers pay, also the live events, the merch store.
Jeff: Exclusive content via Patreon. This is on the list of things to do too. And, I have call with Supercast.
Callie: We have to figure out our balance. It’s not that every show takes so much energy that we couldn’t do something else, but I have a full-time job too. It is figuring out to do it well and create value. We don’t want to take money and not give them what they want.
Radio Ink: If the phone rings and a radio station offers Jeff a job what would he say?
Callie: No. we’ve discussed this a lot. We believe 1000% that podcasting is the future. We think it will explode. Now he has said if the right opportunity came to do it with creative control and use it as a vehicle for the podcast, maybe. But to go back to what he was doing for the last 25 years is a no go.
Jeff: What is going to happen is podcasts will become radio shows. Just using ours as an example, someone will hear us and say they have good chemistry, good content, I want to buy it, chop it up, and put it on during morning drive of my radio station. It will be a big one first like Joe Rogan. He will have enough currency to get creative control.
Callie: It will cut the budgets for radio stations. It’s cheaper than paying a cast and crew to be there.
Jeff: It’s the way of the future. I would go back if the contract said you’re employed for this period of time, you can’t be fired. Do what you want and get us ratings. I think the model that morning shows have been following, and the model they will keep following, is not long-lasting. People don’t have the attention span for it anymore.
Callie: Jeff made a great point saying he was listening to a super-compelling show, he was engaged, and then got a text and didn’t realize it until eight hours later that he missed the segment because they had an ad and he started checking Twitter. There are so many distractions and disruptions.
Jeff and Callie’s podcast is called The Upside
If you missed Part 1, read it HERE.
