Build a Hit True Crime Show with Advertising & Patreon
Welcome to the 20th edition of our newsletter. This is where we feature journalists from around the world who are creating investigative podcasts.
Nicole Engelbrecht is the creator and host of "True Cime South Africa", a hit podcast that started in July 2019 and recently cracked over 70 episodes.
“Looking back, at least from a personal perspective, my passion for the topic is probably one of the reasons that it has been so successful. If you are going to go into podcasting it needs to be with a topic that you are passionate about.”
Tip 1# - Consistency is key
“People now expect their episode every Friday and if they don’t get it then they are very unhappy. Which is a nice problem to have,” says Nicole.
“You need people to 'buy in' to your podcast. No matter what the topic. Because once you have that they will share it, tell their friends and family about it, buy from your sponsors and contribute to your Patreon account,” she says (more on Patreon later). “It’s your community that will ensure the continued popularity of your podcast.”
Nicole doesn't have any formal training with audio production. “At first I was a YouTube addict consuming all the True Crime I could. And then, through YouTube, I was introduced to podcasts. I looked around and I couldn’t find anything like this that covered South African crime on a consistent basis.” She says there were limited investigative series, but nothing episodic that covered a crime a week.
“My production process at the moment is a little 'chicken without a head',” she says. This is because people have come to expect their weekly episode. She ploughs through court transcripts, non-fiction books, conducts interviews, sends emails and finally scripts the episode. She likes to tell every story chronologically.
“Humans love a mystery. They love to be able to figure things out. But also by listening to these stories of victims and perpetrators it might be a way of for us to convince ourselves that it would never happen to us. That might be a bit of wonky psychology, but it’s how I have always thought about it,” she says. “It can happen to our neighbour, but we don’t want to take on the belief that it can happen to us… until it does.”
“I tend to find people that don’t enjoy my content are far more interested in the perpetrators than the victims,” she says. “People prefer solved cases to unsolved cases when they listen to True Crime and the reason for that is people want to know that the so-called ‘monster’ is in the cage. Many people don’t like to think that someone who has committed a heinous crime is still walking among them,” Nicole says.
“Many of these stories stay with me. I do think about them. But people ask me: does this affect my mental health in a negative way in the long run... it doesn’t," she says. “I always say to people that if listening to this stuff week after week is weighing on you then stop listening for a while, please. Go listen to something else and come back.”
LISTEN NOW: True Crime South Africa. This podcast is presented and produced by Nicole Engelbrecht. She investigates solved and unsolved true crime cases from South Africa.
Listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Tip 2# - Listen to everything
“It’s very important to listen to podcasts in your genre," says Nicole. “However, you’ve got to try and not emulate those other people too much. You’ve got to find the formula that fits for you.”
She says that you do your best in episode 1 and trust that it will get better. “Once you are getting feedback from your listeners take it on board, but know where to draw the line.” If she followed all the feedback she gets then the podcast would go in fifty different directions.
Nicole has a distribution deal with TimesLIVE (and their media house Arena Holdings). They contacted her three months into doing the podcast. “We made a ‘Gentleman’s Agreement’,” she says. They share the RSS feed. She writes an article for them that they publish on the website and she plugs them in the podcast. “It’s not even a written agreement. It is verbal, but I am incredibly grateful.”
The other key to her success has been Patreon, a platform where artists can charge for their content and even give bonus material to their members. “I started my Patreon only six months into the podcast. I was very hesitant to ask people for money,” she says, laughing. “And the reason for that was because of my content. If you are doing a music podcast or an art podcast it is different. But with my kind of content I needed people to really understand who I was as a person and that I wasn’t trying to make money off the back of victims. That was very important to me,” she says.
“I was really surprised at the uptake on Patreon, because I didn’t think the South African public was attuned to the platform. I was clearly wrong because people have taken it up very well," she says.
She has advice for podcasters asking for money: "If you do start asking for money immediately then don’t go in with a whole bunch of free stuff that you are going to do because then you are going to struggle." She started by simply saying she would give a shout out on the podcast to anyone who gave money. When she reached 200 people she started giving away an exclusive members-only episode. “It is a nice source of income that allows me to spend more time on the podcast. Start small and build your way up.”
“On the advertising side - when I first started out I thought I needed a certain number of listeners or downloads so I left it,” she says. And then a year ago brands started approaching her. “That was pretty cool,” she says. And these weren’t brands that were specific to her content. “It came down to brands that wanted to be a part of this journey.”
All the best,
Paul
If you'd like to chat more about podcasts you can just hit "reply" to this letter. I'd love to hear from you.
LISTEN NOW: True Crime South Africa. This podcast is presented and produced by Nicole Engelbrecht. She investigates solved and unsolved true crime cases from South Africa.
Listen on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.