Making it Rain for Creators with Scott Moran: Market Principles Podcast Recap

SamCart co-founder Scott Moran recently sat down with ARCatar CEO and host of the Market Principles podcast, Matt Harris.

Market Principles covers the latest news and trends in gaming, social media, music, the internet, and culture. In his episode “Making it Rain for Creators with Scott Moran,” Matt and Scott discuss the creator landscape and dig deep on data we uncovered in our 2023 Creator Profits Report.

You can listen to this episode anywhere you listen to podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, and we’ve summarized our favorite moments from their discussion below.

Micro-interests storm the Internet

On average, SamCart creators have been able to 7x their business over the last two years, and Matt asks Scott how the creator economy has been able to grow so rapidly.

One of the tailwinds Scott discusses is the rise of micro-interests on the Internet and how much easier it is to find these interests and rally around them. “It’s such a different world on the Internet,” Scott says. “Before, things were so much more condensed. Now, they’re so spread out.”

The downstream effect of having such specific niches and interests is that it allows creators to find their people and create products and services they’d be specifically interested in.

What successful creators are doing differently

In looking at the Creator Profits Report, Matt points out that “something magical happens once you’re making $50,000 or more,” so he asks Scott to break down what successful creators are doing differently than those who approach selling online as a side gig or a hobby.

“Once you’re there and you put in full-time effort on your business, it pays off. Most of our job is to find businesses that have some kind of traction – once you get to $10,000 in sales, you have something. You have an audience that wants it, and they’re willing to pay for it. Step on the gas. Double down. Create more products. Find more of your audience. You have the correct recipe for a serious business, and the missing ingredient is time and attention,” Scott says.

Some of the other findings of successful creators Matt and Scott discuss include:

1. No matter how much money you make, the highest converting channels are uniform. They are:

--> Email: How do I get people off of social media and into my email inbox so they can hear regularly from me

--> Website: If someone goes to your website, they’re a warm lead. They know who you are

--> Facebook organic: To this day, it’s the third-highest converting social media platform for creators by a massive margin

2. if you tap into Expansion Revenue at checkout – meaning, you give them more of an opportunity to buy things – SamCart creators grow each customer's average order value by 129%.

What’s going on with checkout technology?

“We’re really downstream of big companies,” Scott says. He goes on to recount when Amazon had a patent for one-click checkout for years, only recently expiring in 2013.

“The kinds of things that make Amazon and Apple so enormous? Think of how easy it is to buy from them. Your credit card is stored, they keep you logged in, and it’s all so frictionless to add something to your order, add other things to your order, then checkout,” Scott says. “All we’re trying to do is enable individual creators to have the same kind of technology. If you’re selling something online and people have to log in before buying, you’re missing out on ⅔ of your customers.”

The pain points creators still face

Turning the corner from passionate creator to a business owner is one of the biggest pain points creators still face, and these creators often spread themselves too thin trying to be on every marketing channel promoting their business.

Our data suggests that the opposite approach is most lucrative – doubling down on one or two things that work really well.

“The huge majority of our Creator CEOs – our top creators – are built off the back of one platform,” Scott says. “Double down on warm traffic. That hasn’t changed in decades, and it won’t anytime soon.”

Listen to the Market Principles podcast episode with Scott Moran, SamCart co-founder

Every creator, whether just starting out or years into their business, will benefit from the data discussed in this episode of Market Principles. You can listen to it here, and check out the 2023 Creator Profits Report here.