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Thoughts on podcasts, youtube, etc. and funding

Nutterbuster said:
I've actually relied on that some in the past. I just don't see it working with a hot, new item that's worth a lot of money. Say I want to review latitude outdoors' saddles. You buy one. I ask for a loan, and promise to pay shipping both ways, or ask you to split it for the cause...how willing are you gonna be to part with it? Especially if you bought it just in time for opening day?
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Dang you’re right. Definitely won’t work close to hunting season your right. And by the end of hunting season nobody would care much about the review if you got a loaner thar late, by then we are already freaking out over ATA gear that’s being teased.

For some stuff it would work though. Like reach out to us to get you the top 8 saddle packs and place them on a table next to your Natty Light and show us how podiums, Predators, sticks of all kinds and the like fit in the most popular packs and you would have yourself some clickbate!
 
I like the direction that @SILhunter has as far as a platform format - it's what would interest me personally. My fear for that would be either 1) a forced bias despite the product quality or 2) the interest level from suppliers to provide free gear without a guarantee of good ROI.

1) This bias could be a result of a couple things. One could be that you are asked by the company to not reflect poorly on the product despite how it performs (I don't know if this would or does happen... just a thought), or two: that you don't want to completely blow the product apart to keep interest from other companies intact. Who (company wise) wants to have a product reviewed from someone that is going to just blast and bad mouth a product?

2) This kind of builds on the first to an extent. No matter the size of the investment, almost all companies want to have some sort of a good return on it. Even if it's something nominal in cost to them, such as arrow fletchings or a pack, or something more expensive like a platform or bow, is the company going to risk potential bad exposure to give it away free for a review? I would like to think that companies have enough faith in their product to make that attempt, but I'm not sure.

In answer to your primary question, I would have no issue paying for a subscription To anything, provided I feel that I am getting good value out of it. I subscribed to your channel, so obviously I feel that I am getting good benefit out of it, and wouldn't have reservations to pay to continue it.

....And, speaking of that, now that I am employed again, I feel that I should pay for a membership here since I am getting great value out of it!
 
Nutterbuster said:
So I've had a real blast doing my youtube channel. It's allowed me to meet some really incredible people, help folks out, and it just gives me a chance to "jibber jabber" about stuff I love. I've been slacking in a major way this summer what with personal responsibilities and increased work load, but the bug is in me to get back in it after having some good talks with folks about hunting. Fall is coming!

I also enjoy writing, and have been blessed with the opportunity to get my name in a few publications. And people have asked me and I've tossed around and asked you guys about thoughts on a podcast. It's all a lot of fun and very humbling. Usually, the people I interact with on a daily basis would love for me to SHUT UP ALREADY about hunting. My boss would probably pay to have that nugget of my brain removed, lol. It's great to be able to interact with like-minded weirdos. I've met wonderful, smart, talented people who have made my life mo'better, and not just with regards to deer hunting.

But, real talk. Video equipment isn't free. Gear to play with isn't free (Usually. A huge thank you to everybody who has allowed me to opportunity to get hands on awesome gear without having to steal my wife's credit card or sell my soul. ;) ) Software isn't free. And recent events have made me realize my time isn't free to do what I want all the time.

Most entertainment content is paid for, ultimately, by people who buy gear (you and me). Usually, a corporation sponsors a content creator, who in turn puts the corporations products in their material in order to get it in front of a group of people the corporation views as a target market. Money in exchange for advertising, basically. I have looked into this option in order to get the money necessary to make more content. I have a few qualms about it. With regards to gear reviews, are you really an impartial reviewer if you were given the product or financially reimbursed? I know that I personally take anything written by somebody who didn't pay for the product with a grain of salt, even though i know and love a lot of guys with that "vendor" or "prostaff" icon in their profile on here. In a way, it turns the content consumers into a product. Google and youtube is a PRIME example of this. I signed up for monetization once I got big enough, and I still feel weird about it. Youtube and Google use the information they glean from my viewers to grow their analytics business, and they get funding from companies who buy the advertisements that show up on my videos. I get a cut for "feeding the beast."

Please note that I don't necessarily condone the way this system works. I know a lot of awesome folks at all levels of it, and I think it can be a good thing. I don't fault folks trying to go about it that way. I just don't know that I love it. It introduces a little grain of grit into an otherwise very enjoyable activity for me, and I'm not alone in that I think. There seems to be a trend of a lot of larger youtubers and other content creators trying to cut out the advertising aspect and just have people pay the monkey for his dancing. Seems more direct in my mind and similar to how the rest of the market usually operates. Especially regarding gear reviews, it solves the bias issue because the people who want to see the product reviewed are paying for the product and the guy who does the reviewing. The creator isn't creating for the product manufacturer anymore, but for the end-user. I like that.

So with all that said, I'm interested to hear how folks feel about something like Patreon or some other way of donating. I'd love to be able to review every new thing that came out in the industry, and be honest if I thought it sucked and you'd be crazy to buy it. I'd love to be able to buy a 4k camera, and take an unpaid day off my 9-5 in order to learn how to use an editing software to make a better video. I'd love to buy a microphone so people could stop commenting to "speak up." I'd love to be able to send a fruit basket to John Eberhart to thank him for being on a video/podcast. I'd love to host a get-together or 2. I'd like to sell out to maybe go from losing money on this little hobby to breaking even or maybe being able to tell my wife, "Do you mind, I'm working here?" when she complains about me filming a video in a yard that hasn't seen a mower in two weeks.

I'd basically rather "sell-out" to the community I love instead of whichever company will give me a dollar in exchange for pushing their stuff. I'm open to any thoughts as to how to how to make that attractive to the folks who have supported my jibber-jabbering. Maybe doing give-aways of gear once it's been tested? Some way to make it easier for folks to request topics they are interested in?

I'm open to ideas, suggestions, folks with experience at it, or people who think I'm being silly and should just be quiet already. :)

TLDR; who will pay cash money to watch NutterBuster swing from a pole for them?
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JibberJabber
 
I'm in to help fund this, seems like we have a lot of reviews in a lot of different places about a lot of different stuff. What I really want is a "try before you buy" company that stocks all commercially available saddles and ships them to you all at once to try out. Videos are great and all, but saddles are so personalized that it's really hard to know what works for you unless you try it for yourself. Luckily for us, gear sells pretty quickly if it doesn't work for you. It is still a hassle to buy and sell. I would much rather try it all, then just buy whatever works for me. I've done that, and it is an annoying process. I guess it's fun for some....but give me a day to try it all out and I'll buy. Saddle hunters still represent the minority and that's why almost all of the vendors are direct to consumer as opposed to any other model. I've said it before and I will say it again, it is a great time to be a saddle hunter. The options are almost mind boggling.

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@Nutterbuster Im new here but I have to say your videos have been a huge help for me. I dont even have a saddle yet but have enjoyed your videos. Dont feel guilty about how you do your business or help your family. Most of all, you are helping this community. Especially people like me.

If you fell good about a product or want to do a Podcast, just do it. Your instincts will tell you what is right. Just dont get too big for your family. If you get that one thing wrong everything else is pointless in life.

I think this community will support you no matter what. Keep doing you.
 
It seems like growing your audience should be the focus. Joe Rogan does a podcast but video tapes it and puts it on YouTube. He makes more money from YouTube ads than podcast sponsors I think. Initially his YouTube was way down but it grew huge. Instagram is another avenue growing an account and receiving gear through sponsors there. Steve rinella writes books, tapes shows, creates web content, has good writing on his website, is on Instagram. If you don’t want to have a boss it’s a HUSTLE. I don’t think it’s easy in the hunting world. What I heard was that for YouTube and podcast you need to keep creating content on a schedule so people make you part of their routine. Once you miss a few weeks people find something else. My opinion: put up a pay wall and you’re audience can only shrink. No one new joins and members slowly fall off.
 
@Nutterbuster meet @enkriss
@enkriss buys every single piece of the latest and greatest saddle, stick, clothing and gear to hit the market. All you need to do is convince him to let you borrow his gear to review and you’re golden! Being able to review every piece of equipment to hit the market will allow you to grow your following more and spend your money on production stuff for the time being. Once your following is up you can ask for money in any way you want and you’ll be more likely to get it. I don’t know of any sub 3k YouTube channels that people are paying to support. I think growing your channel on your own dime so that it’s to a place that would be desirable for company’s to advertise in/with is the cost of entry. You typically notice that as channels grow, so does their video production.
 
gcr0003 said:
@Nutterbuster meet @enkriss
@enkriss buys every single piece of the latest and greatest saddle, stick, clothing and gear to hit the market. All you need to do is convince him to let you borrow his gear to review and you’re golden! Being able to review every piece of equipment to hit the market will allow you to grow your following more and spend your money on production stuff for the time being. Once your following is up you can ask for money in any way you want and you’ll be more likely to get it. I don’t know of any sub 3k YouTube channels that people are paying to support. I think growing your channel on your own dime so that it’s to a place that would be desirable for company’s to advertise in/with is the cost of entry. You typically notice that as channels grow, so does their video production.
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I do not...

@Nutterbuster if you look at how people do reviews these days they only mention the positive aspect of the product. Not the negatives. There are three reasons for this.

1) They can’t give a negative review. They will lose getting free stuff from that company.

2) They are to wimpy.

3) Fear of the fanboys bombarding them if they say anything negative about their beloved product.

Number 3 is probably the biggest... speaking from experience.
 
Good discussion. In addition to direct sponsors, product sales and subscriptions, there are a couple other ways I've seen people in the outdoor industry do it.

One is to make so much in your day job that you don't need to take on other sponsorships. That one's tough to change. People like John Dudley have their own product line or branded products. Basically merch on steroids. No one's gonna blame you for pushing your own stuff. But it also detracts from being able to review a bunch of different items and give an unbiased review. And it takes extreme status level usually. But I like that idea.

Regarding gear reviews, what I have learned is that the only way to give a totally unbiased review, is to give a totally unbiased review. Even if that even if equipment is paid for, bias due to brand loyalty, justification of money spent, etc can also influence a review. Personally I'd trust a review of someone who gets everything for free but is still able to list pros, cons, and proper applications of things (think Aron) rather than someone who gets a product and talks only of the advantages. I think it's generally easy to tell for the viewer, but not always. If you get free gear, you dont have to feel exclusive to that gear, and can be upfront about that with the company. In fact, I've seen a lot of smaller companies who truly want legit feedback and pros/cons and wouldn't want a review video to come across as an add. I've also seen some bigger companies who want to set a salesy agenda in exchange for product. There are some reviews that actually are paid for, and when that happens, law dictates that there is a declaration to the viewer. On YouTube you'll see those as videos where there's a "Includes Paid Promotion" banner. If you don't see that banner, it should mean there was no money exchanged.

Regarding sponsorships, taking one outside of your main area of focus is a way to stay unbiased about the thinks you like to tinker with. Think about camera review channels who do ads for Squarespace or instance.

Affiliate programs are another thing I'm not sure was mentioned but can provide some side income. Amazon has affiliate codes, and even some individual companies now have codes. You could review 5 competing items, and the viewer could still choose what they want based on the content of the videos. Amazon is probably the biggest overall player here though. It's hard to find a big YouTube channel these days without Amazon links.

Regarding Patreon, the only downside is that you have an extra sense of responsibility knowing that your viewers have dropped actual money for you, and they now have a right to complain if they don't like the content. So you might feel more pressure to please. Usually the Patreon supporters can gain access to exclusive content, so you'd need to determine what content goes to the supporters, and what content goes to the general public.

Hope that helps a little. Basically do whatever you feel the most comfortable doing. I think Patreon sounds like it could be good, but at the same time I wouldn't look at reviewing free things as such of the grain of salt. It's about how you communicate with your audience that's an overriding factor IMO.

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@RainingBlades I've read that too about a regular schedule. What's odd is my own channel didn't necessarily grow better during the several month period where I was posting videos weekly. Also, I feel like doing that sometimes results in "fluff" that I'm not really interested in filming and people really aren't interested in watching. It DOES undoubtedly help SEO, but I feel like it's a classic example of people forgetting what the main idea is. The idea isn't to make google and youtube happy with my channel, it's to make guys who saddle hunt happy. Subtitles are a big SEO boost from what I understand, but who on here feels like my videos, or anybodys, would really be awesome if they had better subtitles?

As far as a pay wall shrinking the audience, I guess it depends on how you define audience and target market. If you're just talking about view numbers, you're 100% right. Adsense pays per x amount of viewers who view the ads on the videos. It doesn't really care about who is behind the screen. Sponsors will be more able to see that sometimes a small, niche channel has value because it is EXACTLY what the shared target base is interested in. Viewers paying to view will in my mind probably be more interested in saddle hunting than those just watching for free.

Compare huntstand or onx and google earth. I pay huntstand every year without a second thought because it's exactly what I want.

@gcr0003, you're not wrong in that you have to bootstrap until you make it. I don't expect to 100% offset the cost of the channel immediately, or maybe even ever. It's a nice, fuzzy pipe dream, sure. But the reality is I think it'd be a success if I could use my money to buy the gear I wanted to have for myself anyway, and use whatever money the channel earned for when something came out that I wasn't personally interested in, but would be good for the channel/audience. Take the phantom earlier this year. Not something I'm spending $200 of my money on, but lordy at the questions I got about it. Yes, you can always buy it, review it, and sell it a week later, but then what happens if you want a follow up video? Or if you want to actually put the thing through the ringer for a season? Maybe pass it around to some other folks to get their opinions?

@bowhunter15, I'm super-glad to see you on here. You bring up excellent points about what makes an objective, unbiased review. Everybody is biased, and everybody has an agenda. All you can do is try and spot it and align yourself with those who share your own. I did get an amazon affiliate account, and I really like the idea of it. Problem in this situation is not a lot of saddle gear is available on amazon. It definitely helps though, and I personally am not turned-off when I see affiliate links in videos the same way I am turned off by sponsorships or offers of discounts at particular companies.

I've noticed what you said about smaller companies wanting to improve. Anyone who watched my original treehopper drill review know it was NOT favorable. Mark was not AT ALL happy that I wasn't happy, and he proceeded to make an absolutely wonderful little drill that I now believe is the best that has ever existed.

It's a tough problem to figure out, mainly because value is such a tricky word. I guess the main question I'm wrestling with is if there is enough value to non-sponsored hunting media to offset the costs of not being sponsored.

Shoot, I may just start gofundme's for all the new products and let folks decide what they wanna see that way! ;)
 
I don't know what you're talking about with subtitles, but I watch a lot of videos with the sound off so subtitles are a big deal to me. I even asked @swampsnyper to add subtitles to his videos if he could. The only problem there was youtube struggled translating cajun.
 
gcr0003 said:
I don't know what you're talking about with subtitles, but I watch a lot of videos with the sound off so subtitles are a big deal to me. I even asked @swampsnyper to add subtitles to his videos if he could. The only problem there was youtube struggled translating cajun.
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Sorry for blowing up all your threads. If you haven't noticed I've been on SH waaaaay to long today. It's basically Friday and I am ready to get on out of here (work).
 
gcr0003 said:
I don't know what you're talking about with subtitles, but I watch a lot of videos with the sound off so subtitles are a big deal to me. I even asked @swampsnyper to add subtitles to his videos if he could. The only problem there was youtube struggled translating cajun.
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Lol. You had to prove me wrong.

Subtitles are text. Text can be crawled easier by AI than video. So if you're talking a lot about a keyword like "tree saddle" a bot can see that word in subtitles, but not necessarily video and audio. Making sure the search engine knows what your stuff is about is what SEO is.

They're getting smarter, but they cant understand yokels like myself too well. My auto-generated subtitles are sometimes atrocious. But I'm not writing them out or paying to have them done.
 
gcr0003 said:
Sorry for blowing up all your threads. If you haven't noticed I've been on SH waaaaay to long today. It's basically Friday and I am ready to get on out of here (work).
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Same man. I took lunch to put a killswitch on my outboard and fab up a new, longer handle. Ready to ride the river and find some DEER.
 
@Nutterbuster - from what I understand you would like to review gear but not pay for it. You can purchase your own set up. I think it’s important to define how much that is annually. Let’s take 5 saddles, $250 each, 5 platforms 150 each, 5 brands of stick 100 each. $500 for ropes, gear, gadgets, Amsteel whatever. You mentioned a camera but if you have an iPhone that’s good enough until you have cash reserve. That will be $3000 a year. You have 2130 subscribers. I think charging even $2 a year is an obstacle when there is free content out there. You won’t get all 2130 to give $2. Let’s say you get 100 people to pay $2. I bet of Those 80 Might pay $10. You have to be pretty die hard to pay for saddle hunting videos but that would be $800 and you can resell the gear to try to recover the remaining $2200. i Don’t like that way but you seem to be leaning That way. I’d say for the newest reviews do a free intro video and hide the majority of content behind the pay wall for maybe 2-3 months? This gives subscribers/addicts a unique value because everyone wants to know about the gear as soon as it launches and you can monetize your video (Remove pay wall) with ads after the buzz has died down.

What I would like to know is, “what would it take to earn $275 a month with YouTube?” That’s $3300. Also, you won’t pay tax on that income because you offset the expense of the equipment purchases from income. I bet it’s easier to make $275 off a popular YouTube channel than to ask people for $3000 a year to subsidize your gear. There are other companies that pay for ads for men ages 25-45 (or whatever your demo is). That’s the glory of YouTube. Pickup trucks, hair growth, boner pills, life insurance, if you have viewers they will pay you for access to your viewers. They need to spend the money somewhere. If they pay for tv everyone sees it and they pay. Targeted ads are more cost effective to them.
I like the affiliate link idea. Amazon is great. I’d reach out to the marketing departments of your favorite brands and ask if they do affiliate or promo codes.
lastly you will have way more freedom to do what you need and earn more if you are talking to a bigger audience. Make a 1-2 year plan to achieve your monthly nut of $275. Focus on other media sites Instagram, Facebook, even LinkedIn to get contacts in the industry. You said you tried a few month to go regular weekly. If you try for two years and it doesn’t work you could say with confidence it doesn’t work. Attend outdoor trade shows and film but also meet people and get business cards to give away. I think $3000 is achievable. if you hit it reevaluate your goal and raise the bar.
 
I personally can’t stand a video that I can’t hear the person talking. A lapel mic is expensive but way more valuable than 4K video. Most people are watching on phones and computers and can’t use much better than 1080 anyway.
To me something like Patreon is for those that have “elite” status. I hate the term elite but something has to separate you from the other thousand internet experts. I’m not saying you can’t be but I wouldn’t compare your channel to someone like hickok45. It may be eventually but I guarantee he spent thousands and thousands on his own because he lived it before he got buds and federal sponsorship.

Now if you just want to offset costs on gear to review don’t hesitate to test a freebie. Especially if you have to return it. Also it would seem smart for several to form a group and share gear to review. So I could buy a tethrd product, you could buy a cruzr and a couple other people buy saddles and we could all review them and sell them when we are done. Or maybe a giveaway if you like, share etc to increase traffic. Same with climbing sticks etc.
 
Eric that’s a very creative idea. I’m not sure how many you tubers there are here but networking with fellow you tubers and cross promoting is a great angle. Inviting other you tubers on your show, planning a hunt with them is fun, grows your network, and will result in more opportunity. I‘Ve seem friendly debated (sticks vs steps) each guy chooses a side and you encourage comments and likes to vote. It can be contrived but helps w seo. Finding those guys to chip in and then do a gear swap is great you should be promoting each other.
 
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