July 17, 2021

I recently embarked on a 5 week long project with a Toronto-based start up company named uCast. uCast’s mission was simple: fill the gap currently existing in the podcasting world for the lack of monetization help for small podcasters. The idea was to pair small businesses with relatively small podcasters in a similar field of interest, allowing them to help each other create ads. Along with a team of 5 other UX designers, we were tasked with coming up with the building blocks of their product: a website interface to facilitate this process. My personal task was to conduct primary research

My main research methods were the Moderated Remote User Interview and A/B Testing. However, I did also employ the Survey method & Stakeholder Interviews as well. As part of a large team my methods were driven by the necessary deliverables, and I consistently updated my testing goals when the needs of the product changed.

The company wanted to make sure we were familiar with the problem space so they provided us with helpful secondary research that had already been conducted. They provided us with PDFs of the following white pages:

Another member of my team also constructed an Affinity Map based on the initial survey responses to prepare the design team to begin working while they waited for me to complete my research. He also created an initial persona based on the secondary research we had received.

I was provided a list of willing research participants by the company, these people had been recruited by the company’s social media blast initiative. These participants had already passed through an initial screener survey, and all of them were small podcasters at various points in their career. My first task was to construct a Calendly with my week’s availability, and then invite the podcasters to sign up for a 30 minute interview with me. The subjects only knew that I was collecting data about the opinions and habits of podcasters. Of the initial survey, the response rate was about 50% out of 44 persons, and I conducted video interviews with 20 people.

The company decided on a two level interview model, where the initial half of interviews would focus on the habits and insights of podcasters and the second level would focus on more specific product features and insights. As the product was built and developed the team would send me more specific needs and goals for the interviews and I would adjust my test script accordingly.

First the company drafted a list of questions that they wanted to find out from the podcasters, that generally centered around their opinions of monetization, the experience they had, and whether or not they were a part of any podcasting communities. I went through the list of questions and removed all of the leasing elements, or questions that were not open-ended enough to facilitate a natural interview. 

You can find my test script here: Test Script uCast

The first week and a half of my interviews all surrounded the habits and opinions of podcasters, such as whether or not they actively participate in podcasting communities or if they are currently monetized and how the research into that process went. A few early problems I encountered was the podcaster's opinion of “ I am not interested in monetizing my podcast ever “ which essentially made the second half of the planned interview useless. It was important to keep track of however, as a huge gap in the company’s initial business model did not account for the fact that small podcasters are more interested in keeping their endeavor an ad-free passion project rather than trying to capitalize on minuscule gains. I presented this problem early on, and gave the company detailed descriptions of the reasons small podcasters mentioned for not wanting to monetize their podcast. 

You can see examples of recorded interviews here: Video Interviews 

You can see a sample of some of the note taking here: uCast Research Notes

Early on I started to see some key issues with the direction of the research that I find important to mention here. First, because the participants of the interview were all recruited from Reddit I believe the demographics of the sample more accurately match the demographics of the social media network rather than the demographics of podcasters as a whole. Second, the interviews that had been scheduled out further in advance had a much higher “no-show” rate. 

90% were male

100% were over the age of 30, 

100% under the age of 60

100% were employed in non-podcasting related fields 

90% of podcasters had less than 1k listens and downloads

The Questionnaire sample has a demographic bias, since participants were recruited through a singular social media network, thus it should be kept in mind that podcasters not in this demographic might answer these questions differently or respond in different ways. After the interviews were completed and notes were assembled I constructed an Affinity Map based on quotes and topics mentioned by each interviewee. 

Link to Affinity Map: https://www.figma.com/file/Eca8G1cAjsViYOLDxdIEf3/AffinityMap_uCast

After transcribing the key points and topics interviewees mentioned during their interview I organized them into 5 Categories which are as following:

1. Emotions and Opinions

2. Desired Product Features 

3. Pain Points/Dislikes

4. Community & Communication

5. Competition/Other Ad Hosting Companies

Through these associations I was able to derive a few primary insights which are as follows:

Further Insights:

90% of podcasters interviewed said they were most concerned with boosting listeners and improving content. 

Of podcasters interviewed 10% were currently monetized. 

The main consistent deterrent for podcasters to monetization is not having enough viewers. 

Only 30% of podcasters listed monetization as a main goal, the newer the podcast the less they prioritized monetization. Furthermore, of the sample of podcasters I’ve interviewed only about half were interested in monetization at all, many stated that advertisements ruined the listening experience, when asked if it mattered where the ad was placed in the episode and if that had an effect 60% said not. 

In my initial round of interviews people were less concerned with the specifics of advertisements but in the second round multiple interviewees mentioned a want for relevant ads in order to retain the trust of their audience. 

Of podcasters asked 80% said they found ads were most effective in the beginning of an episode, as advertisements in the middle were too intrusive and advertisements at the end would be skipped. 

Many podcasters find the process of finding ways to monetize overly complex; so this would be important to keep in mind for onboarding, visuals, and copy. Limiting business jargon and not overwhelming podcasters with too many analytics or statistics would be important. Interviewees emphasized the need for a clear and easy to understand onboarding process. Podcasters also mentioned that they did price comparisons when searching for options for monetization. 

When asked about what kind of research podcasters had done about monetization or partnering with advertisers 50% of podcasters said the information was too difficult to find or that they were not a candidate for monetization when they had approached other companies about it (because of too little views or downloads ) 

Communication has been an issue for podcasters contacting businesses or vice versa 

Reports of being “ghosted “ by businesses, and this then resulting in loss of drive to monetize at all 

100% of podcasters interviewed who had already been monetized did so because a company or business contacted them with an offer ; no podcasters interviewed had success trying to reach out on their end 

While waiting for specific features to test I decided to see what some initial impressions podcasters had on the visual experience of the application by showing them the design for the homepage.

Screens and experiences designed for uCast by Aaron Jaro, David Anderson, & John Glen

Link to Affinity Map: https://www.figma.com/file/Eca8G1cAjsViYOLDxdIEf3/AffinityMap_uCast

Podcasters were generally intrigued/interested by the coupon concept 

About 30% of the podcasters commented that they were not ready for this kind of experience 

The second round of interviews had a much lower response rate, with only 8 people being the ones to participate in some basic A/B testing and specific product feature questions. The problem with this, however, was that podcasters who stated at the beginning of the interview that they were not interested in monetization were less likely to give meaningful or helpful input about specific product features, since they were irrelevant to them. Due to the time constraints of this project more interviews were not able to be conducted.

When asked if podcasters would like to browse CPA deals (affiliate deals) from a list, 

or if they just want to receive fixed rates CPM deals (Cost per 1000)? 

When a podcaster receives an offer, would they want to message the Advertiser before they decide to accept or reject? Or do they want the option to message only after they accept the offer? 

Before Accepting An Offer: 100%

After Accepting An Offer: 100%

Accept/Reject the offer: When a Podcaster receives an ad offer, would they like a simple "Accept" or "Reject" button. Or would they like an option for a "counter-offer" as well? 

Counter Offer Option 

Yes: 1

No: 0

Don’t Care: 4

The primary concerns of the stakeholders were the reasons and habits surrounding monetization, and as such they requested specific responses in regards to why podcasters did not consider monetization as a goal. Below, as requested, I included the specific reasons from interviewees as to why they did not want to monetize their podcast:

“My clients view podcasts for their brands as part of their marketing effort, they have no interest in ads being inserted in their podcasts. Our podcasts are not produced to create income, but rather be a sandbox for showcasing our production skills to clients. “

Does not have enough viewers to incentivize a company to partner with the podcast to monetize the content, so the goal is to build up the viewership primarily. Reached out to people in the past but it was never followed through because it is too small of a podcast
Partnering in the past with advertisers did not go successfully, was ghosted which is demoralizing.

Sees monetization as something they could potentially be doing themself so doesn't want to invest money into having somebody do it for them unless they were very trustworthy. Companies they looked at for monetization looked like scammers. Would change their mind for the right person. 

Doesn’t have enough viewers to monetize currently.

Considers it a passion project I just want it to be fun.

Advertisements would take away from the story.

Doesn’t want to ruin the experience for listeners by making them sit through an ad, especially if it's something the podcaster don’t really believe in.

With this research I was able to construct a couple personas that represent this specific subset of Podcasters, that should be kept in mind while designing in this problem space. Personas were one of the primary deliverables requested of me when I consulted with uCast about their needs. These personas are quite different then the one initially created by a member of my team, as I conducted the interviews I noticed that the initial persona did not accurately meet the demographics or needs of the people I interviewed.

The clickable prototype created by my team members can be accessed here: https://www.figma.com/file/5iturhx3WTWraDvWH7ur4i/uCast-Working-File?node-id=0%3A1