If I were you, I would make a Game of Thrones Christmas Special. An in-between seasons episode of your most successful podcast (in terms of audience), with some speculation for next season, maybe an interview with somebody who works on the show (if you can find somebody), some listener feedback.... anything to make an hour of interesting content.
And then halfway through the show, a 10 minutes interlude to discuss the dire situation at Baldmove (do your best Jon Snow voice and talk about "winter is coming to the Baldmove studio"), and explain why people need to sign up as club members NOW.
To increase the call to action (i.e. get people to act immediately) anyone who signs up during the Christmas holidays can join a lottery if they like, from which the winner will get a super nice GoT price: a 10 minutes chat with Jim and A.Ron about GoT that will be broadcasted during the first podcast episode of the next GoT season. And/or some other GoT related price.
Yes, you would be whoring out your GoT podcast success, and it might piss off a handful of listeners. But I think the majority of people are pretty desperate for some new podcast-content during the Christmas holidays. Plus: desperate times call for desperate measures, so you should definitely try to reach out to your largest audience.
$8,777.87 already, what? Josh you may be a prophet. This is nuts ya'll!
I may be. The progress bar is showing $5333 though... Is it slow to update?
I haven't talked to Jim, since we discussed the thermometer. We discussed hooking it in live to our store, and I'd that was too hard given the deadline, manually entering it.
If it's hooked in it might not be accurately reporting the data. If it's updated manually it might just be behind what I was looking at. That seemed like a Friday number. I'm going to touch base with Jim and see what's up.
The other possibility is he's some how adjusting for what the club would be making based on projections, which would be smart, because that was already money spoken for. If that's the case, we should probably prorate it. We'll get it figured out before tomorrow.
Sorry, it's hard to get everything! The bar is on the help page, which appears to be linked to on the home page by the large banner thing. We got to work on placement and the banner itself seems like.
Sorry to see you guys in this position. I'll happily take an increase in membership fee. tbh I feel like I'm ripping you off paying only a dollar a month as it is. Just donated 50 dollars and hope tons of people do the same. Keep up the good work!
Is there any way you could maybe reach out to larger podcast networks for help getting your message out? For example, I think the Adam Carolla podcast alone has a few hundred thousand subcribers; if you could get on their show for a 5-10 minute phone call and briefly explain what BM is, the success you've had thus far, and the plight you're in now surely that would help?
Potentially tremendously I would think. If there are 200,000 ACS listeners and only 1% looked you up after hearing you on the podcast, and only 1% of them bought a 1 year subscription, that's still almost $10,000 right there. I really think that's a reasonable estimate too, not overly optimistic.
Honest question, do you think ACE would have us? We're in a pickle in that we're big by small time standards and small by big time standards. We grant interviews all the time, we're just not great about chasing them down.
@A_Ron_Hubbard - you might be surprised, I bet Adam Carolla would have you guys on. I actually went on his podcast last November to talk about a craft beer documentary I made. Happy to connect you with the booking person if you want to give it a shot.
A couple figures really stood out to me from the video - first, a quarter million listeners is really impressive! And second, it's amazing that only 1.7% are paying for it. I don't think this is unique to the Bald Move audience, it just goes to show how hard it is to make a buck in content creation. It' a bit distressing honestly, the scale necessary to make an enterprise like this profitable seems to be dauntingly vast.
Since everyone is throwing out suggestions...the model of offering podcasts for free, then having a paid subscription for a few extras, doesn't seem to work very well, in my extremely humble, naïve, outsider's opinion. After all, only 1.7% will put money out for something they could otherwise get for free. It's sort of like a magazine offering subscriptions for free, but if you pay for your subscription, you get maybe an extra article or two. Most will prefer the free subscription.
I've always thought putting everything behind a pay wall (like a magazine sub), but an infinitesimally small one, could possibly work for podcasts - kind of like what A.Ron wanted to do with the original club pricing, but applied to Bald Move in general. You get to listen to maybe three or so episodes for free, then if you want to listen to anything else, you must subscribe...for less than five dollars a year, maybe even as low as one to two dollars a year. Anybody can afford that, and with a large enough audience (like the one Bald Move seems to have) it can translate into real money. Idk, is that crazy?
@Stackpile Unfortunately I bet you'd still have 2% paying with rest moving on to other services' podcasts. And if the authenticated member feeds don't work for some reason different apps you e got serious problems, whereas right now it's just annoying.
@Stackpile - I don't think iTunes can support paywalling of podcasts. If so, in order to make that plan work , the guys would need to leave iTunes which would be a massive hinderence to growth. I'm sure a lot of Bald Move listeners are like me and just searched for Walking Dead/Game of Thrones/Westworld on iTunes and an addiction was formed!
I used to listen to a poker podcast that had some free episodes and continuing on cost a monthly fee. You paid for it and then got sent a feed in iTunes which you had to enter your credentials into. It's possible, just annoying.
@Stackpile - I don't think iTunes can support paywalling of podcasts. If so, in order to make that plan work , the guys would need to leave iTunes which would be a massive hinderence to growth. I'm sure a lot of Bald Move listeners are like me and just searched for Walking Dead/Game of Thrones/Westworld on iTunes and an addiction was formed!
I used to listen to a poker podcast that had some free episodes and continuing on cost a monthly fee. You paid for it and then got sent a feed in iTunes which you had to enter your credentials into. It's possible, just annoying.
@Stackpile - I don't think iTunes can support paywalling of podcasts. If so, in order to make that plan work , the guys would need to leave iTunes which would be a massive hinderence to growth. I'm sure a lot of Bald Move listeners are like me and just searched for Walking Dead/Game of Thrones/Westworld on iTunes and an addiction was formed!
Ah OK... My bad... Didn't know that was possible! So if you've subscribed to the free feed for too long did iTunes stop you listening to that one so you had to subscribe to the paid one?
No, the free feed only had a few episodes in it that stayed there and I'm not sure it was ever updated. I didn't pay much attention to that at the time.
You all are one of my fav podcast I listen to. I can't stand the politically correct overly produced podcast that the bigger companies put out! I've wanted to sub for a while but it seemed like it would be hard to figure out how to listen to the ad free version when it's quick and easy to just pull up my podcast app. I guess I'll figure it out since I just subscribed lol I also left a comment on your YouTube video about Twitch being something for you all to look into. Love you guys and thanks for all the amazing content!
I tried to update my subscription from 3 to 5 a month, but because of the prorating for the remainder of my month, it was too low to allow me to check out. Womp womp. Will try again next week when the "month" restarts.
I have no problem paying more for my annual subsciption. $1 a month is nothing considering how many of your podcasts I listen to every week. I can't switch my membership fee now, so I made a $50 donation to help out. Hope many, many more help out in any way they possibly can. Hang on in there!
I have always paid the month to month because it was more money to you guys. I gladly cancelled the $2/month and renewed at the $5/month. Many thanks for all the entertainment that you both provide to me on a weekly basis!
No, the free feed only had a few episodes in it that stayed there and I'm not sure it was ever updated. I didn't pay much attention to that at the time.
Ah cool. Think the issue with that "manual separation" with older episodes available for free and the latest behind a paywall is it would be hard to get new listeners. Like if I was a Bald Move virgin, searched for a GoT podcast on iTunes four or five episodes through the next season, and there was a Bald Move free feed which only had the first couple of episodes of the season in and a message saying pay for the latest ones I'd just skip over it and look at another provider because I wouldn't be interested in listening about the first couple of episodes at that point.
But then if the free feed always had the most recent episode in to attract new listeners there isn't as big an incentive to pay a subscription because the latest episodes are going to be available for free on the free feed at the time they're most relevant. It's a Catch-22 for a TV (or sports or news) podcast where the relevance of an episode and the downloads it gets are time-affected.
I think you'd always have to either have to sacrifice one of being attractive to new listeners (by having a recent episode that potential listeners want to download available in the week that people would want to listen to it) or having the incentive to subscribe (by paywalling the latest episodes).
ARon has said a paywall would be anti-growth and I think for a TV podcast like the guys do it really would be. For a language podcast you can have the first 5 episodes available on a free feed and then 6-120 behind a paywall because the first few episodes don't get old. If I wanted to learn Japanese episode 1 will always be where I start no matter how old it is. If I want to hear opinions on Walking Dead the most recent episode is where I'll start. So a TV podcast need the latest podcasts available for free to encourage people to listen to the podcast. But then that doesn't incentivise subscriptions. It's a Catch-22.
Overall I completely agree with A.Ron and Jim's non-paywall ethos for the type of podcast they do. It just means they need to work out a way to encourage enough people to join the club to keep Bald Move afloat!
Updated my monthly subscription and kicked in an extra $50. Good luck fellas. You most definitely produce the best podcasts on the air! Wish you the best.
I tried to update my subscription from 3 to 5 a month, but because of the prorating for the remainder of my month, it was too low to allow me to check out. Womp womp. Will try again next week when the "month" restarts.
That would be hilarious were it not so tragic. Thanks for the effort, and again, we'll be getting this bullshit fixed before year's end.
Comments
@A_Ron_Hubbard
If I were you, I would make a Game of Thrones Christmas Special.
An in-between seasons episode of your most successful podcast (in
terms of audience), with some speculation for next season, maybe an
interview with somebody who works on the show (if you can find
somebody), some listener feedback.... anything to make an hour of
interesting content.
And then halfway through the show, a 10 minutes
interlude to discuss the dire situation at Baldmove (do your best Jon Snow voice and talk about "winter is coming to the Baldmove studio"), and explain why
people need to sign up as club members NOW.
To increase the call to
action (i.e. get people to act immediately) anyone who signs up during
the Christmas holidays can join a lottery if they like, from which the
winner will get a super nice GoT price: a 10 minutes chat with Jim and
A.Ron about GoT that will be broadcasted during the first podcast
episode of the next GoT season. And/or some other GoT related price.
Yes, you would be whoring out your GoT podcast success, and it might piss off a handful of listeners. But I think the majority of people are pretty desperate for some new podcast-content during the Christmas holidays. Plus: desperate times call for desperate measures, so you should definitely try to reach out to your largest audience.
If it's hooked in it might not be accurately reporting the data. If it's updated manually it might just be behind what I was looking at. That seemed like a Friday number. I'm going to touch base with Jim and see what's up.
(I think they're getting lost in the many posts but that's ok.)
Thanks for the info! You're kicking ass so far! $135k will soon be just around the corner!
But then if the free feed always had the most recent episode in to attract new listeners there isn't as big an incentive to pay a subscription because the latest episodes are going to be available for free on the free feed at the time they're most relevant. It's a Catch-22 for a TV (or sports or news) podcast where the relevance of an episode and the downloads it gets are time-affected.
I think you'd always have to either have to sacrifice one of being attractive to new listeners (by having a recent episode that potential listeners want to download available in the week that people would want to listen to it) or having the incentive to subscribe (by paywalling the latest episodes).
ARon has said a paywall would be anti-growth and I think for a TV podcast like the guys do it really would be. For a language podcast you can have the first 5 episodes available on a free feed and then 6-120 behind a paywall because the first few episodes don't get old. If I wanted to learn Japanese episode 1 will always be where I start no matter how old it is. If I want to hear opinions on Walking Dead the most recent episode is where I'll start. So a TV podcast need the latest podcasts available for free to encourage people to listen to the podcast. But then that doesn't incentivise subscriptions. It's a Catch-22.
Overall I completely agree with A.Ron and Jim's non-paywall ethos for the type of podcast they do. It just means they need to work out a way to encourage enough people to join the club to keep Bald Move afloat!