Is starting a podcast worth it? Pros and cons

Hi, I am Praneeth.

In this blog, you are going to learn 6 reasons not to start a podcast and 5 reasons why you should start a podcast to understand if it is worth starting a podcast or not.

This is a pretty informative blog, keep reading through as each reason is filled with facts and stories.

Without further ado, let’s get started.

Here is a 30000-foot view of the blog.

6 Reasons not to start a podcast.

Here is a quick overview of the reasons.

1. You want to earn money fast.
2. Starting a podcast without a purpose and plan.
3. You don’t have google analytics to measure your growth.
4. You think podcasting is a piece of cake.
5. Don’t start a podcast without a reputation already built online.
6. You can’t outsource your work mostly.

Without further ado, let’s dive right in,

You want to earn money fast.

Look,

I can’t emphasize this very thing.

This is the most important thing to understand,

Blogging, vlogging, or podcasting are not the places where you can’t expect the money to roll in within a couple of days or weeks of your labor.

It is not going to work that way.

These things really take time to start making a decent amount of money.

Earning money through podcast QUICK is not the right intention and mindset you should have while starting a podcast,

Let me tell you why

• Podcast consumers prefer listening to the content mostly in gyms while driving and while doing other essential works.

How or why this thing affects podcasting income,

Let me tell you,

Because the people listening to this content away from their mobile phone or desktop most of the time,

They won’t take any action after listening to the podcast,

CTA can include,

• Visit a particular website.
• Grab a deal or offer.
• Download a thing.

Of course, the flexibility to consume content while doing other works like,

• Gym.
• Home works.
• Cooking.
• Driving.
• Walking.

If you expect your listeners to click on the deal you offered after listening to the whole podcast in the middle of the traffic or work or at least after completing their work,

No way,

They are going to forget that, People don’t have that much focus levels.

They are not free and they just forget things later.

This also boils down to the people and their age and other factors who listen to podcasts.

Because a podcast is a new form and emerging form of content consumption and the majority of people who consume the content are mostly aged between 12-34, educated people who have work to do.

The fact is that 1 out of 4 Americans who listen to podcasts, do in cars while driving it every day.

So they are definitely busy in their works rather than finding your podcast offer [you mentioned in the podcast] and clicking on the link you had to offer.

Of course, the flexibility that podcast brings with it like listening to wherever and whenever you want makes the podcast standout and really special, but for the creators of the podcast, it is slightly not in favor in terms of monetization.

If you are talking about earning money through ads.

You need to convince your advertiser who bids on your podcast for placing ads like,

The number of people who listen to ads to those who skip it is difficult to measure and you also need some amount of following and downloads of your podcast in order to get your podcast monetized by ads [cpm] or sponsored by someone.

Even after getting your podcast with ads, you need to have a shared cut of your ad revenue of at least 40% of your income depending on your ad network which means you can’t get complete revenue of your ads.

You know despite having good downloads and following your podcasts, the chances of selling an affiliate product are less because the people are not with their devices at all while they are consuming the content.

What else you can do to monetize your podcast and earn money?

Here are 5 ways you can monetize your podcast.

1. You can sell your own merchandise like shirts and books.
2. You can sell your own digital product like ebooks.
3. You can sell affiliate products.
4. You can do consultation and coaching services.
5. You can host events.

If you want to earn money through these ways, obviously you need some sort of following, downloads, and things in place which is not going to happen overnight.

If you got no audience in the first place, what is the use of affiliate links and digital products, whom are you going to sell it to?

I know the reason is quite long, but yeah, let’s move to the second reason why you should not start a podcast.

Starting a podcast without a purpose and plan.

If you are starting a podcast without a clear purpose which is your WHY and plan.

The podcast journey is going to be tough.

Let me explain.

I have already emphasized in my other blogs on starting a blog, to a vlog and this podcast,

Having a clear reason in your head is the most important thing to have behind starting these online businesses.

Your purpose could be anything starting from,

1. Helping others & increasing, expanding your network.
2. Satisfying your creativity.
3. Facing your fears or getting more responsible.
4. Learning new skills.
5. Getting a new audience, building a better connection with them.

The reasons are pretty basic but it really depends on the person to person, what their reasons to start the business actually are,

These reasons and the purpose [WHY] will drive you in the tough times of your journey which are inevitable.

Now that you have a purpose, if you don’t have any, get one or have one, don’t start a podcast getting motivated by your idols or someone, looking at their earning reports through podcasts or other things which are temporary.

You got to be really interested in podcasting, In recording your audio, in helping others, You need to be passionate about it.

Having a plan is the next big thing.

You need to figure out,

1. Your equipment costs, the gears, and software that you need if you want to create a high-quality podcast is very important & expensive as well if you are really serious about podcasting, you got to invest money.
2. Your ideas or topics you want to do podcasting on, plan at least 50 ideas before starting to not run out of ideas, and stay consistent in uploading content.
3. How are you going to promote your podcast and give a reason for why people should listen to your podcast investing their 30-45 minutes amid hundreds of other podcasts that are there on the internet.
4. How you are going to schedule your time to record the audio, editing, and other essential works.
5. How you are going to direct your audience of the podcast to different things like a blog, an email list, a sales funnel, and capitalize the audience you have for money aka your monetization strategy.
6. Which skills you need to work on and improve for such as, better communication and public speaking skills, better storytelling skills, better-interviewing skills, better planning, and researching skills to ask the right questions to ask your guests to get the most out of them in your podcast.
7. How are you going to attract more eyeballs of your audience over your content through marketing the content on different platforms aka your marketing strategy?

You don’t have google analytics to measure your growth.

This one is pretty important to be taken into consideration.

You don’t have google or youtube analytics data to see how your podcasts are performing,

Like blogging, you have google analytics and search console to give you some of the important details of your website like,

1. How many people have visited your site?
2. Dwell time and bounce rate of your website.
3. How many people are there on your website, their country location, and the pages they visited?

Similar details you have access to your youtube channel if you publish videos on youtube then.

There are many other things the tools help you if you have a typical blog or a youtube channel, but having a podcast, you expect the same,

But,

You will be very disappointed to know the fact is that you can’t measure your growth properly.

You don’t have access to some of the most important data of your podcasts such as,

1. How many people listened to your podcast.
2. How much part of each episode people listened to podcast [dwell time].
3. What’s the demographic location of the people who are visiting your podcast.
4. What device your audience is using to listen to this content.
5. How many people are listening to your content at the moment?

You simply can’t measure your growth if you can’t have this data to see, if you can’t measure your growth, its tough to estimate which sort of content people lied the most from you.

In that case, you either keep publishing more and more content and podcasts or simply give up.

The only way you can keep track of your growth is by downloads of your episodes and the subscribers of your podcast.

Basically, your podcast is published in some important places like,

1. Your website if you have one like a blog.
2. A free or paid hosting service for podcasts like buzzsprout.
3. Listening networks apps like google podcast, Apple iTunes, Spotify, stitcher.

Because these things are not in direct control of google or any other search engine, you don’t have the data you would typically expect having with you other than the downloads of the podcast episodes.

You think podcasting is a piece of cake.

Podcasting is definitely not the right thing to do for lazy people.

Podcasting demands few mental skills like,

1. Self-discipline & self-motivation.
2. Time management.
3. Patience.
4. Hard work.
5. Lots of preparation and planning.

Once you are in the podcasting business, the only rule of success mantra in podcasting is being CONSISTENT amid silence.

What do I mean by this,

Well, all those people who start an online business as a blog or vlog face this period of silence [i like to call it this way] when you see nothing is happening around like no growth or no movement of your work, absence of result for your labor.

And the podcast is no exception.

Whether it is a blog, a vlog, or a podcast, exceptions are always there for a few creators but the thing is that you gotta be consistent in the tough times,

This phase of time is a very important phase for everyone who starts a podcast as it acts as a barrier to entry.

You have to be consistent with the uploads of your podcast every week.

There is no other option here.

But with being consistent you can’t screw the quality of your content,

You can’t compromise in quality at all.

You need to give a reason for people to visit your podcast and invest their next 30-45 minutes of their life listening to you.

You can’t serve them crap.

There is a lot that goes into preparing a podcast which seems like a piece of cake for many at the top level.

Here is how things happen in the background of a podcaster.

If you are not in an interview of a podcast,

The process is,

1. You start with obviously selecting an idea if you haven’t prepared yet before, the most tricky part is coming up with unique ideas for your podcast.
2. Then performing extensive research of the topic to collect facts, stats to make your podcast super helpful.
3. You then start writing down the script, another tricky part, you got to be good, sound like a human, not like a robot and be friendly in your approach.
4. Setting up your gear in place, scheduling time, and right mind frame.
5. The most important phase, recording the audio file, making the audio file ready for editing purposes, if things go wrong, you might have to start things from start in recording again.
6. Editing, trimming, and sound effects, other editing works of the audio which is so much time-consuming task to do.
7. Uploading the podcast on the hosting service you purchase & promoting it on different platforms to catch more eyeballs to your content.

The most important thing is to repeat the process, again and again, every week maintaining that consistency so that your podcast subscribers are happy with your content.

What if you have an interview podcast, most things are not in your control in that case,

But,

You got to do hell lot of research and preparation for asking the right questions to your guest on your podcast to make your content super helpful.

Despite all that preparation, you might have to schedule your time based on your host time schedules, you can’t direct things.

You got to maintain that rhythm and that momentum and partnership throughout the podcast with your guest on the podcast to make it user friendly.

It’s a lot of workmen.

It all boils down to being patient and perseverance.

If you are not that guy who fails to fall in this category, sorry you should skip podcasting and online business in general, as all of these businesses need these 2 things.

Don’t start a podcast without a reputation already built online.

Look, you should not consider starting a podcast without a reputation already built-in on other platforms like,

• You have a blog, author of a book, etc.
• You already have a youtube channel and a following.
• You are an influencer or a celebrity or a public figure.

The reason is, the chances of you being heard increase when you already have a reputation built-in online rather than doing all by yourself fresh in the podcast.

You can redirect your audience from other online platforms like blogs or youtube channels or Instagram followers to your podcast to listen to them.

People prefer listening to the advice [podcast] from people who can be trusted and reliable than from a random person whom they don’t know or who does not have a reputation online at all.

You can first start a book, a successful blog, or a youtube channel or anything.

That anything should give you some awareness about people who you are, what you do, and some reputation online.

Here are some examples of some podcasters who leverage their existing network to grow bigger on podcasts.

1. Reid Hoffman-He has one of the successful podcast, the reason being is he leverages all the existing networks he has a building in companies of silicon valley, He has networking connections with people like brian Chesky, Mark Zuckerberg, etc who appeared as his guest and gave his podcast his boost.
2. Pat Flynn of smart passive income has a successful podcast because he already has a name, reputation built, and started the podcast way back in 2010, with the audience on his blog.
3. Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk & many other people who start podcasts already have their successful business ventures in different places built-in.

The thing here to know is,

In order to get successful in podcasts, you need to do interviews with top business people and the only way you can do that is through network and connections which you can’t build if you just jump right in the podcast without a reputation already built-in.

You can’t outsource your work mostly.

Look,

Outsourcing your podcast work like,

• Editing and adding sound effects to your audio takes time and energy for you, you can outsource the work to freelancers which cost you a good amount.
• You can outsource your marketing work.
• You can outsource your maintenance of the podcast.

All these outsourcing works are pretty expensive and cost you an additional couple of hundred dollars.

But,

You can’t outsource some of the most important work which is preparation, planning, and research works when you are doing the interview of a podcast.

• You can’t outsource your work for scriptwriting & researching for your podcast.
• You can’t outsource your work for recording your audio of podcasts.

Unlike blogging and vlogging where you can completely outsource the working majority of your work without your interference, in podcasts, you don’t have the luxury of outsourcing.

5 Reasons you should start a podcast.

Here is a quick overview of the reasons you should start a podcast.

1. The podcast helps you have a personalized experience with the audience.
2. The podcast helps you build a professional network.
3. The podcast helps you depict as an authority and expert on the subject.
4. The podcast is less competitive than other mediums of content.
5. The podcast is an incredible tool to produce long-form content.

Now that you know the reasons why you should not start a podcast, let’s know why you should start one.

The podcast helps you have a personalized experience with the audience.

Every time people keep headphones in their ears to listen to your podcast, it is like a one on one conversation happening between both of you.

It is like you speaking with your audience like a conversation-starting between both of you which is a lot personalized and private.

No other platform like blogs and vlogs gives you the ability to have this personalized experience that podcasts do.

The podcast helps you build a professional network.

The podcast is not just about you speaking in front of a microphone recording the audio, etc all by yourself.

It is about interviewing famous popular people as well.

When you start doing these personalized interviews as joerogan does on youtube, you build long-lasting relationships with your guests and increase your network of people.

Look, the greatest asset of life is not money or wealth rather it is a network of people and connections,

You can lose your money and wealth and cannot be built again but having a network of people whom you can trust can help you build a bigger empire than what you can do by yourself.

The podcast helps you depict yourself as the expert and authority over the subject.

The podcast helps you depict yourself as the expert and authority over the subject.

If people are listening to you,

• Your knowledge,
• Your perspectives.
• Your stories and expertise.

That means they see you as the expert over the subject you are talking about, that impression helps you build that authority and personal branding of your self.

This thing also helps you gain the trust of the audience on you.

The podcast is less competitive than other mediums of content.

There are over 500 hundred million blogs, on the internet.

There are over millions of youtube videos published every single day on youtube and online.

There are not more than a few million podcasts on the internet.

You know the podcast is still in its infancy, though it started a decade ago, still, it is growing and not that competitive as compared to these other forms of content consumption.

What makes podcast stand out is the flexibility it provides,

You can listen to the podcast and consume content while,

• Having a bath.
• While driving a car.
• While doing other home works and walking.

This flexibility is not there in other contents like blogs and videos,

That makes podcasts special and attracting more people and growing faster than ever.

A podcast is an incredible tool to produce long-form content.

Having a podcast means no distraction but a complete focus on the audio and your work.

People feel tired to read a few thousand words blog post due to its length and focus levels and the distractions that are there like,

• Sidebars, notifications.
• Ads.
• Unnecessary popups.

In videos on youtube and either platform.

People don’t feel watching a long video due to the distractions it brings.

• Other youtube videos.
• Ads.
• Social media notification and other stuff.

That is the reason why people spend less time on these platforms consuming content [people hold their devices in their hands all the time in blogs and videos]

But on podcasts, in one sitting people complete 30-45 minutes of content consumption without any immediate distractions, like:

• There are no popups or ads that distract the reader’s attention.
• There is no sidebar sort of things.
• Most people are away from their mobile devices while listening to podcasts.

People can listen to something that is of a couple of thousand words of content through audio more conveniently than reading a blog post.

This makes podcasts a great tool to produce a long-form of content successfully.

15 Niches where you can start a podcast today.

Here are 15 niche ideas you can start a podcast today.

1. Book summaries and reviews.
2. Business.
3. Daily news updates.
4. Inspirational and motivational stories.
5. Technology.
6. History of the world.
7. Life & career advice.
8. Travel and daily life hacks.
9. Comedy podcast.
10. Sports.
11. Life lessons of famous people.
12. Top 10 list podcasts.
13. How to use certain mechanics and home appliances.
14. ASMR podcast.
15. Teaching students on different subjects of academics.

• Read, podcasting equipment required to get started.
• Read, how to start a podcast from zero.
• Read, how to market & grow a podcast.

Ending remarks.

There you go, I have answered all the queries regarding whether to start a podcast or not.

The decision depends upon you,

Do let me know what do you think of this blog, whether you are starting a podcast or not in the comment section below, I am happy to know.

Please do consider sharing the blog with your family and friends, you know let them also know about the fastest-growing content format [podcasts].

Sharing is caring, please.

Do consider checking out our other blogs,

• Read, blog vs podcast everything you need to know.
• Read, 10 truths about starting a blog.
• Read, blog vs vlog, everything you need to know.

I will catch you next time, till then,

Keep learning and keep growing.