Pandemic Publishing Roundtable – With Lizanne Barber of Distripress

By Linda Ruth

We Will Once More Meet Face to Face

Our Pandemic Roundtable, comprising Joe Berger, Bo Sacks, Gemma Peckham, Samir Husni, Sherin Pierce, and me, started one year ago and is, amazingly, going stronger than ever. Recently we hosted Lizanne Barber, Managing Director for Distripress, the international association of distributors, publishers, and associated press industry supply chain service providers. Distripress’ mission is, as it has always been, to connect its international members in the world of publishing. It started almost seventy years ago, and has grown to, today, 200 members from 50 countries around the world. Many members have joined historically to take part in the Congress, where every fall they have had the opportunity to meet up with industry colleagues from the world’s markets. For decades the Congress served as the one way that people could meet up with their international colleagues and discuss their international business—and still is often the only time people meet their international partners face to face.  

Linda: I first attended Distripress in Toronto in 1988. The next year, when I went back, I was astonished that people remembered me from the year before; I was new to the industry, and it seemed no one in the US remembered me from meeting to meeting. Going back year after year, I came to feel a real connection with these people, even though we only saw each other a few days once a year. 

Lizanne: Yes, it’s all about building connections, and it really is a community. My first Congress was in Monte Carlo, and I had the same experience. Once you’re in Distripress you are in its community forever. Last year was the first year Congress couldn’t take place. Meetings by Zoom have been fantastic, but we’re all looking forward to meeting face to face again.  

Joe: As the new Managing Director, tell us about your mission at Distripress. 

Lizanne: Irreplaceable as the Congress is, I want to look at Distripress and make sure we’re offering connections throughout the year, and not just that once in the fall. I’m surveying our members and looking for touchpoints, finding out more about their businesses, about how they have been managing in the pandemic and how they are structuring their businesses coming out of it. So far, I’ve spoken to over 75 members. 

Joe: And what have you discovered? 

From Top Left: Linda Ruth, PSCS; Joe Berger, JBA; Samir Husni, MIC/Ole Miss; Lizanne Barber, Distripress; Bo Sacks, PMG; Sherin Pierce, Yankee Publishing; Gemma Peckham, Executive Media GroupMagazine

Lizanne: The main reason they are members is the connection with the community that we offer. And as we emerge post-COVID, we will continue to organise the Distripress Congress event, and look for more ways of strengthening those connections, and adding touchpoints, all year long. This year we plan for the Congress to be a smaller event, because there will be parts of the world where people still won’t be able to travel. But in the US for example, we’re finding that people are willing to travel again. That’s fantastic for our community.   People are willing – and wanting –  to meet up again face to face. So we’re planning a two-day conference in Zurich this fall, with a half-day forum of industry presentations and a day and a half of face to face meetings. For those who cannot attend we will be offering a virtual meeting platform a few weeks later and the opportunity to view and listen to the half day Forum presentations on the Distripress website, which will be available to all members. The planned – and widely anticipated-  larger Congress in Estoril has been moved to 2022 when we plan to welcome all members back in full force. People are really excited about the opportunity to meet again. It’s great to have virtual meetings, but face to face is a different level of connection. So many things can happen, so much can happen serendipitously, in person as opposed to over Zoom. 

Bo: Humans like to mingle. You can’t mingle on zoom. You can talk but not mingle. 

Samir: Keep Oct 26-28 open; that’s when ACT is taking place at the School of Journalism at the University of Mississippi. I’d hate for my attendees to miss out on Distripress. 

Lizanne: Yes, we’ll make sure we don’t conflict! 

Bo: The plans and procedure you’re describing is a brilliant synopsis of a competent association. 

Lizanne: We are also starting a bi-monthly newsletter for our members, to bring positive news stories to the community. The first one will feature a Q&A with the two French national distributors – a market that has seen a lot of change in the last 12 months and our members will want to read about what is happening. Plus we’ve got a Distripress half day virtual forum planned for the 9^th of June, with industry leaders presenting information on global trends, a retail perspective from Barnes & Noble and Lagardere Travel North Asia, plus a case study from Mediahuis a Belgian news publisher on their diversification in e-commerce, and an overview from CMG on the effect of covid on the US market.   

Joe: From the 75+ publishers you’ve spoken to, is there a single thread you could pull on, something that everybody seems to be thinking about? 

Lizanne: for publishers it’s ecommerce; everyone’s looking to develop this revenue stream, here in the US and all over the world. For distributors, the focus is more on exploring the expansion of potential new product lines. A sustainability note runs throughout. The exciting role that Distripress plays, is that we can put people together who are working on the exact same projects in different countries. They can share learnings, make swifter progress, avoid mistakes. 

Joe: Retail sales have consolidated dramatically in the US. Have you seen that happening elsewhere?

Lizanne: Absolutely, along with other universal challenges. Many markets have seen the loss of travel channel sales, which has had an impact on sales. But there are also green shoots coming through in different territories, places where sales are looking up and some surprising successes.  

Joe: For publishers, the choices of whom to work with are increasingly limited. 

Lizanne: This is a common theme across most – if not all –  territories. Most have only one main distributor, certainly for international press and even for domestic. The slow down in print sales you see in the US is reflected to differing extents globally. This drives the determination of the distributors to diversify to pick up efficiencies of sale that are needed.  

Joe: What kind of successes have you seen? 

Lizanne: Australia is doing well—it hasn’t been hit as badly by COVID, and the distribution route is direct to retail, as opposed to through the additional layer of wholesalers, and all key outlets have remained open. The distributor has introduced toys, board games, and other products to run alongside press to retail outlets. They have around 1800 retailers on board with their new program and 6000 SKUs (non-press). It’s called Market Hub; you can look it up online. Board games for example have had appeal during lockdown —and they are universally appealing and easy to pack. 

Sherin: Are there any markets where publishers and distributors are successfully collaborating to get magazines online or included in the retailers’ click-to-curb programs? 

Lizanne: I am aware of exploration into this area in several countries – for the same reasons as the US. Customers shifted to online sales from supermarkets and magazines have been under-represented. The technical aspect with frequency of product change is a challenge. 

Sherin: As customers are going to stores less frequently, we need to find new ways of getting our publications into their hands. 

Samir: Have you seen US publishers not so interested in shipping overseas as previously? 

Lizanne: We did see an initial reluctance to commit to supplies at the start of the pandemic. Australia in particular was looking for copies, because some of their supply was reduced, but the immediate impact, was seeing efficiencies improve. Publishers are more open now to putting copies back, but every country is in a different position.   Holland closed press retailers, and we won’t know how that damaged consumer purchase pattern long term till it opens up again. Every country is unique. Now, for the first time, by looking at the sales that held throughout the pandemic, markets can identify how much of the sales of imported publications go to the domestic purchaser as opposed to travelers. This data reveals the stable base sale. For travel sales, time will tell how quickly that segment of sales will return. 

Bo: Each country has re-trained its consumers differently, but overall we have set new buying and reading patterns. And it’s not all bad—in fact, in many cases it’s quite positive. Subscriptions are up, for example. How much of that will be maintained? 

Joe: Part of maintaining that growth in subscription sales lies in reigniting newsstand, and it’s up to publishers to do that. Are Distripress members talking about how to get people back to retail to look for magazines? 

Bo: Addictive content is the best lure. 

Lizanne: My discussions haven’t focused on that area. I am hearing more about how different companies are adapting generally. That might include how to set up office space, the new hybrid work options; companies are looking at how they might restructure, coming out of COVID, to keep doing what they’re doing in a strong way but take on board the learnings form the last year.  

Joe: Do you see any good as having come out of COVID? 

Lizanne: For one thing, we’re having video calls like this. There is more contact between members outside of the Congress, and that’s great. It’s enabled me to connect members, because I am aware of the similar journeys different members are on and where a conversation might be interesting.  

Bo: Like our roundtable. 

Samir: People are sick of screens. That’s why subscriptions are going up, board games moving, and so on. People need an alternative to screens.  

Bo: Samir tracks launches, and domestically we’re seeing a spike. What do you see worldwide? 

Lizanne: There have been over 50 in the UK so far this year; so yes, quite a bit of activity. Also I am aware of two French publications which have launched off the back of celebrity TV personalities.  

Joe: From big publishers mostly, or smaller publishers as well? 

Lizanne: Definitely smaller ones too, with quite a few niche premium products: knitting, crafts, transgender, very nice, rich product. 

Joe: Bo has said that one of the consequences of the pandemic is that the speed of change will all happen quicker. Is that something you see? 

Lizanne: Absolutely correct. Including in the field of sustainability. I expect the accelerated speed of change will continue apace till we see what the world is going to look like after the pandemic. There has been acceleration in change in every part of the supply chain and we are going to have to figure out how to keep up with it. 

One Year and One Month and a Few Weeks In…

One year and one month in I have learned that:

• I need to sit up straighter during my Zoom calls.
• My dog mostly sleeps behind me while I am working.
• A month after he passed away, I found out that one of the two people who helped me set up my business had passed away.  
• Losing a mentor can be as upsetting as losing a family member.
• Sometimes, a Zoom, or Team or Google meeting can be fun. Sometimes.
• The hours you put into work are just the hours you put into work.
• There are a lot of people out there in the world who need help.
• Sometimes people don’t really want help.
• If it’s clear that someone is asking for help, you’ll feel better if you offer to help. So offer to help.
• Sometimes people just need to complain. Just listen.
• Volunteering for almost anything (so long as it’s not a committee) is better than not volunteering.

Publishing guru Bo Sacks aptly pointed out that the Covid-19 pandemic advanced the timeline in the magazine publishing business. I think he was right. Titles that would have dragged out their death throes over the course of several embarrassingly painful years found that the combination of the pandemic, their anemic ad sales, subscription revenue, declining newsstand sales or marginal digital revenue quickly brought their demise. Sometimes quietly.

We witnessed similar instances of fast corporate deaths in both the worlds bricks and mortar retail, and e-commerce.

In the shallow tidal pool of the newsstand world, we discovered that we’re still very good at rapidly adjusting print orders in response to wholesale or retail closures. I suppose that was a good thing. How it’s not a skill I want to advertise, practice or maintain. Not surprisingly, some retailers that may have kept magazines in their stores a while longer, like Costco, simply looked at their bottom lines and kicked their magazine racks into the dumpster.

And now that the world, or at least the USA is opening back up? What will we do with these lessons?

Well, I do intend to try and sit up straighter throughout the day because it doesn’t look like Zoom, Teams or Google meetings are going anywhere. I promised my dog that I will periodically take more breaks and engage her a bit more. Why should her days be so long and boring?

My sometimes helpful editor. You can find her on Instagram, of course, @iamsummerdog

Beyond that, the optimist in me thinks that we could see a blossoming of print magazines outside of the traditional channels of distribution and circulation and that would be an excellent source of revenue for small publishers. Even better, we may see more cooperation within the newsstand channel: Publishers, retailers and wholesalers cooperating on opening up racks, testing new approaches to distribution, opening up magazines to single copy e-commerce (Note: The latter is something I have been rallying for since, oh, say, the dawn of e-commerce?).

Of course, the other half of me, the cynic, thinks much of the opposite to the above. This is also a wonderful opportunity to shrink the size of checkout and mainline racks down to just a handful of titles and SIPs produced by the largest and most profitable of publishers. Retailers can sell the space off to the latest three month wonder. On the subscription side, there’s no reason to think that anyone will ever regulate how autorenewal subscriptions are managed and why would anyone think that subscription prices should reflect the actual costs to produce?

Sometimes it’s just easier to fall back into old habits. Update the app or website? Why? It’s working. And look at all that revenue now that we can have live events again…

Until the next pandemic.

I’ve learned to try to be more hopeful and optimistic.

I like to think that those of us who are still here have learned. Managed. Grown. Survived. Thrived? That would be nice. Magazine publishing remains one of the most interesting careers available. Honestly, all facets of the business are fascinating, to me at least. With a regular publishing schedule you have the opportunity to create, and distribute, and sell, something new every time you press the button that sends your publication to the printer and/or out into the ether.  Each time you press that button? You also get to meet new people? How about that?

I trust that we’ve learned. I hope that we’ve learned. I would like to keep learning.

Pandemic Publishing Roundtable: One Source Magazine Wholesale – Front End Merchandising With a Twist

Article by Linda Ruth

Last week, at the Publishing Pandemic Roundtable—Bo Sacks, Gemma Peckham, Joe Berger, Samir Husni, Sherin Pierce, and me— spent our hour with Gregg Mason of One Source, the distributor to major Natural Food specialty retailers, discussing the unique nature of the One Source checkout program, the changes that the pandemic has brought, and what we might anticipate for 2021. 

Joe: Can you give us some background on One Source and your role in the company? 

Gregg: One Source is a traditional direct distributor, in that it orders its product from publishers and ships to one location for pick and pack. We service primarily the natural food segment, with close to 2000 retailers nationwide. Our largest chain is Whole Foods, with 500 stores, followed by Sprouts with 365 locations. We also service a small sports retail segment.  One Source started small when the chains were small and grew along with them.  Our approach to magazine merchandising is unique—we don’t have mainlines. We are front-end focused with pockets at the checkout-only, and with non-logo’d pockets. Without logos, it allows dynamic movement of magazines which caters to the impulse buy of shoppers. We can sell more of what sells and the fixture presentation changes often.    When our retailers wanted a magazine program and looked at what traditional grocers had, they wanted something different, something fluid and dynamic. Something that would appeal to both new and returning customers; something that had the ability to drive high efficiencies. This fluid checkout was the solution. 

Bo: Does the fluidity you exercise with different titles in the pockets create a better sell through?

Gregg: Having the titles move around drives greater sales and sell through as they do stay in store but get shifted. Older product moves down, newer product comes in at the top of the rack. Titles with enough product at release for two pockets consolidate down to one over time. In this way we can extend shelf life for high-selling magazines. Our best-selling regular-frequency titles are all either bi-monthlies or quarterlies, we’re able to give them their full on-sale period.

Joe: Traditional retail stores don’t always follow their so-called “fixed” planograms; you can spend a lot of money participating and find you’re not in the program you paid for. In the One Source program you have opportunity to show if you’re capable of performing; though, on the other hand, these efficiencies can regulate a title out in the end. 

Gregg: Yes, it’s somewhat Darwinian; we look for not only high sell through but high sales per store. As draws come down, it’s hard to maintain the volume needed to stay in the stores, which can be frustrating to publishers. On the other hand, we don’t charge for the up-front placement; so if a title can perform, it will do well. For example, city titles can be the highest sellers in their home markets; so we created a city magazine placement at the front end.   Recently the efficiency rates have come down somewhat with the shift to high-priced, low-frequency bookazines. It’s amazing how the migration from regular frequency magazines to the bookazine model has dominated the business direction. With high-frequency mags, a normal order regulation system works; but with bookazines, different topics on same bipad can have widely different sales. For every single bookazine we order, we create an individual distribution for it, from the ground up.  

The Pandemic Publishing Roundtable from top left: Linda Ruth, Joe Berger, Gregg Mason (of One Source Distributing), Bo Sacks, Sherin Pierce, Gemma Peckham. Missing: Samir Husni.

Joe: Isn’t that considered bipad packing? 

Gregg: It would be in certain circumstances. What I’m referring to is a loose overarching editorial focus with different subjects under one brand. It’s literally a full-time job, managing these releases; but it’s necessary to garner volume sales.   

Joe: What changes did you see as a result of the pandemic? 

Gregg: We were lucky; our retailers stayed open. Sales were hit hard in the spring; since then it’s been a climb and partial recovery—creeping up, flattening out several times over. People have been gradually returning to more normal patterns. Our largest category is food and cooking; and those titles did well during the pandemic. We all cooked a lot more this year and turned to titles that can help. And publishers stuck with us. The children’s category, almost non-existent before the pandemic, took off like gangbusters. We found that the product couldn’t be too educational; it had to have a fun presentation.  We partnered with a publisher who collaborated with PBS kid shows—the product was just educational enough, just fun enough. Also the Highlights bookazines were hugely successful.  Shelter was a pleasant surprise. Domino took off, along with other shelter titles, primarily lower frequency titles and bookazines.  One area that has continued to lag are the city titles. They have not come back yet. Our stores are firstly suburban, secondly urban, and the urban stores are slower coming back. The commuting stores that cater to the people who work in the area have yet to come back; the residential area stores have.  

Joe: How are the indies and smaller chain stores doing? 

Gregg: We service Fresh Market and Natural Grocers, 160 stores each, they carry narrow edit, mostly just food, cooking, and health. Because they’re primarily suburban, they came back pretty well. And the independents have very loyal customer bases, so they also held up well. 

Sherin: Can you tell us a little more about Sprouts, what sells well? 

Gregg: They are located overwhelmingly in California and throughout the southwest. Their shoppers tend to be more price-sensitive, although certain higher-priced titles do very well, such as Willow and Sage at $14.95. Sprouts also tends to do very well with the vegetarian and Vegan titles. 

Sherin: What about getting their magazines on drop-down menus for online shopping? 

Gregg: We’re exploring and looking to move in that direction. 

Joe: MBR has started an initiative where they are talking to retailers about including magazines with electronic orders. You should be in that discussion. They’ve signed an agreement with an electronic platform, all the wholesalers should be at the table with this. 

Bo: Home delivery is not going away. We’ve retrained the consumer on how to shop, and that’s going to continue. Magazines need to be involved in this system. 

Gregg: Agreed, grocery was a last bastion of retail where people went to the store. Now many more people are getting delivery, and that won’t go away. And yet, although sales haven’t returned to where they were, they’re better than we expected, one year later. But you can’t make up for lost foot traffic.  

Joe: How do we get people back into the stores, or encourage them to find and buy the magazines? 

Gregg: We encourage our publishers to promote on their sites and social media platforms, to let them know we have their product, that it is available. In the stores, our biggest challenges are maintaining our pockets and keeping them open. The product that blocks the checkout are often at lower price points, lower profit. The migration to bookazines has helped show the financial impact of magazines, and what they bring to the retailer. 

Sherin: The Old Farmer’s Almanac has listings online of where to buy; we have robust PR when we go on sale; and we provide floor displays to appeal to consumers. 

Joe: What are you looking forward to in 2021? 

Gregg: We’re hoping to avoid a repetition of 2020’s peaks and valleys—and that the distribution of the vaccine will get people back in the stores. We’re prepared for an uptick in the city stores.   We’re poised to respond to changes as quickly as we can.

Pandemic Publishing Roundtable: “I Used to Be Somebody” – Planning Your Next Act With Carl Landau

By, Linda Ruth

Editor’s Note: The “Pandemic Publishing Roundtable” started a few weeks after the closing of most Barnes & Noble stores instigated a smattering of new articles proclaiming the end of that storied chain and the end of magazines at retail. While it is true that prior to the pandemic the future of single copy sales of magazines was at best a tenuous proposition, it’s death didn’t seem likely to happen any time soon. So once again, I was aggravated with the conventional wisdom of those who write about magazines. 

I reached out to my colleague, Linda Ruth and together we came up with the idea of starting a weekly roundtable discussion with other members of the publishing community. We could talk about almost anything. We could invite other publishers, distributors, consultants to come and talk with us. 

As we were all isolated from our places of work, the meetings became a great help this year in maintaining a feeling of connectedness to something, anything. 

The article below, is the write up my colleague, Linda Ruth wrote and was posted in the BoSacks newsletter, and on his website. Joe Berger January 19, 2021

Carl Landau, founder of Pickleball Media and publisher of the podcast and newsletter I Used to Be Somebody joined the Pandemic Roundtable—Joe Berger, Sherin Pierce, Samir Husni, Bo Sacks, Gemma Peckham, and me—to talk about what to do after you finish doing what you’ve been doing all this time.

Joe: You used to own and run the popular Niche Publishing Conference for the magazine industry, and sold your company a couple of years ago, so I’m very interested in hearing what you have to say about second and third acts. 

Carl: Yes, I sold Niche Publishing to Second Street Media a year and a half ago. They are a platform for contests—they bought us for our database of 18,000 publishers. I worked for them part time for a year to help with the transition—which was a peaceful one. The year gave me my first opportunity since my paper route when I was 14 to have a part time job. It was refreshing.   After that, my wife and I planned to travel. Then COVID hit. This left me thinking about what to do with my time, experience, and energy. And my mind turned to podcasting.

Eight years ago I did a podcast—Events: What Wakes You up at 3 am. It was a lot of fun, and garnered some interest, but I had a full time job, and really couldn’t sustain it. What I enjoyed most about it was building the audience.   And I love podcasts; I listen to four or five of them every day. You’ll find that media companies selling for a lot of money are podcast forward. Several that produce podcasts have sold for over 200 million. Now there are hundreds of thousands of podcasts, and smart companies looking for growth areas turn to them as another way to build audience. 

Sherin: Podcasts are great because they’re so portable. You can be out for a walk and learning about a subject. 

Joe: The podcasts that are successful—where does their money come from? The events they throw? Advertising? 

Carl: Sponsorship. Some podcasts have audiences of millions. That’s bigger than mainstream news. I just sold my first sponsorship, starting in March, after 12 episodes. My first weekly episode came out in October.   For me, the demographic that is most interesting is the Baby Boomers. There are 80 million of us. Ten thousand people a day turn 65. And that will continue another 5-6 years. For baby boomers, there are at least 25 podcasts about money, by financial advisors. I was more interested in what boomers might do for a second act.   Twenty years ago, you were done at sixty. Now continuing on is the rule, rather than the exception. 

Carl Landau of Pickleball Media – Source: https://pickleballmediahq.com

Linda: Do you think that’s because of the nature of the people turning sixty, or because Social Security has been pushed back? 

Carl: I think it’s a combination. We’re also living a lot longer. If you’re going to make it into your 80s, that’s a lot of post-retirement time on your hands. 

Bo: Does what happens vary by industry? In publishing we have a consistent pattern of getting rid of institutional memory. When you turn 65ish—you’re gone. You make too much money and you get to save the company’s bottom line. It is a historic pattern.  

Carl: I see that everywhere, in every industry. An amazing amount of wealth and intelligence is concentrated in this group—and yet it is mostly ignored by the media.  I Used to Be Somebody is for people who had successful careers and now want to do something entirely different. I like to get emotionally involved with them, find out who that person is, what they’ve done. That’s my format, and it’s how I engage my audience, which has grown in this short time to almost 1300 subscribers. 

Joe: Your company is called Pickleball Media. Should we be looking for a pickleball magazine to come out sometime soon? 

Carl: There is one. Pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in the US. Close to 5 million people play it, and no one’s heard of it! If it weren’t for pandemic, it was going to explode this year. This is what’s really helped me in this transition. Getting out of the familiar thing I’ve been doing for 20 years has energized me incredibly. I’ve been doing all this new stuff, podcasts, pickleball, and learning new things. It’s been really fun having this year to explore these opportunities. And that happens a lot with the people I interview. One big time lawyer took up photography and poetry. Those are the stories I explore in my podcast. It’s been really inspiring talking to these people. Having a podcast gives a forum you can talk to people you’d never have otherwise met. 

Linda: Could you distribute podcasts for other people? 

Carl: I wouldn’t, but there are lots of people who do it. There are so many opportunities, so many directions to go in. There is room for another event in the field, focusing on teaching people how to do podcasts, how to sell sponsorships. Right now I’m teaching older people how to listen to a podcast. So far I’ve taught 40 people, and it’s helped them a lot.   This is a field that costs next to nothing to get in. 

Sherin: What you need is good equipment and a good story. 

Carl: That’s right, and the equipment costs like nothing. You can get a good microphone for eighty dollars. I use Zencastr to record for $20 a month and it’s like I’m in the same room with my guest. Between the prep, recording, and editing, one episode takes 8 hours to put together.   I use Lidsyn for distribution and that’s $20 a month, and it gets you on Apple, Spotify, and 20 other platforms. They provide a report, too. I Used to Be Somebody is already in 60 countries. We have over 60 people in India alone that listen to my podcast.   Joe: How would somebody begin their second act?  

Carl: I’m the jump in the pool sort. My wife is more the ease into it sort. You could do it either way. But some people, if they jump in too soon, feel that they haven’t given themselves enough time to get a sense of what they could do. And a lot of times they end up doing the same thing they were doing—which is not what you want to end up doing.  Go within your network, talk to your friends. Ask them what they could envision you doing that you’re not doing, maybe haven’t considered. These are the kinds of things that come out in my interviews; it’s why interviewing is the most fun. It can take six or eight before you get comfortable. The way to bring it to life is, don’t worry so much about what your questions are, but make it a real conversation. 

Bo: It’s worth pointing out that you have a magic way of engaging. You did it in the Niche conferences, where you got people to engage with you and, most magically, got them to engage with each other. I saw that same methodology in the podcast.

  

Carl: Most of the people I interview have been interviewed dozens of times. I try to make it new, to humanize them with questions that they might not get as often. 

Joe: Is there a way to track if people listen to the ads? 

Carl: Not that I know of, and the download reports I get also don’t tell anything about the audience, except how many listened and where they’re from. That makes podcasts different from other media. What’s helped a lot is before I started the podcast I started the newsletter. You know your newsletter audience, and you drop the newsletter promoting each podcast.   Beyond that, audience growth tends to be word of mouth. Someone likes your podcast, and tells a friend about it, and the friend goes back and starts at episode one and listens on through. 

Sherin: AARP would be a huge audience. They have a ton of members in the demographic, many of whom would benefit. 

Joe: I can also refer you to a company called Get Set Up. It’s an interactive learning platform for adults 55 and above—taught by seniors, for seniors. 

Carl: Over half of aspiring entrepreneurs are Baby Boomers, and 1 in 5 people who remain working after age 65 are self-employed. It’s really different from what we’ve seen in previous generations.

Editor’s Note: You can download the Podcast, “I Used to Be Somebody” on Sticher, Apple and many other podcasting applications.