The Podcasters' Studio

The Podcasters' Studio


TPS097: Cheap Gear, Advertising and Being Niche

January 27, 2016

On this fairly opinionated episode, I discuss my thoughts on "cheap" gear, advertising rates, audience numbers and who your podcast's intro should serve.
"Cheap" Podcast Gear
Cheap gear is not the same as affordable gear. One I have a problem with, the other I do not.

Gear that is made poorly and creates issues like noise that shouldn't be there, is cheap gear. That is the kind of gear you want to avoid. Affordable gear, is something that works well at a budget friendly price. And that kind of gear I recommend often.

The best example of gear that is budget friendly yet performs at a professional level would be the ATR2100 microphone. I love this mic., because it's less than $60 and the sound it produces can compete with microphones that are five times as much. It's built well but it's not perfect. I have seen the USB connection go back but the good news is it has a lifetime warranty so there is little risk to getting this microphone. This is a great piece of gear that a beginning podcaster can buy and instantly have the capability to produce professional level audio. 

I cover a lot of gear on this show and many people would not consider a lot of it to be affordable. This is true, it's not compared to the ATR2100 but it is a lot less money than a lot of other professional gear that I myself have never used. The Heil PR40 is pro level microphone (built very well) and sits in the middle of the price range for microphones. This is gear I would not consider affordable by most podcaster's budgets but it is affordable compared to many mics that cost one-thousand dollars or more.

So there is definitely a continuum of podcasting gear and while I use a lot of different gear on this show, I fully support any setup that produces good quality while allowing you to start your podcast without having to save up a bunch of money.

As an example, I recently worked with someone who already had a Blue Yeti microphone and had used Garageband. These would not be my first recommendation for gear and software but I also knew that I could produce great sounding audio with each. So we set her up with the gear she already had and her recordings sounded great. The key to getting started in podcasting is to actually start. Don't let the gear stop you from getting your show started. Invest, at a minimum, fifty dollars (if you don't have useable gear already) and start recording. You can grow your gear, if necessary, as you progress in your podcasting journey.

Ad Rates
I've heard it said that ad rates for podcasting are declining and to that I say, so what?

My question to you is are you really interested in fighting for a small piece of an apparently shrinking pie to then have to serve two audiences, your listener and the sponsor?

You'll end up making a preset amount determined by a third party that you have share revenue with. Is getting a Squarespace (SP) ad (nothing against SP btw, in fact I like them more and more as a hands off approach to website management and even podcast media hosting) the end goal? I chose SP as an example because they are a prolific podcast advertiser and in fact I praise them for supporting and believing in our medium early on but to make money with that kind of advertising (cost per thousand downloads CPM) you'll need a very large audience, not something the average podcaster has.

Do you want to take ads that pay you $20 an episode (and that is probably higher than you'll get) that you spent 4 plus hours making and now have to interrupt your content to ask for what will amount to pennies when you add up time spent to revenue made? I'm not downplaying the value of any amount of money but you should think about the return on your time investment (ROTI) and how you'll have to change/interrupt your content to serve a sponsor that if you're lucky will barely pay your ho...