No Bull – How AgProud Monetizes Video

AgProud, a B2B agricultural magazine that publishes Progressive Dairy, Progressive Cattle, and Progressive Forage for the U.S. and Canadian markets, has expanded its video strategy and has plans for more products.

We caught up with Walt Cooley, VP of publishing, to walk through these video initiatives.

The Real Producer Exchange

The newest inititiave is The Real Producer Exchange  that kicked off in 2025. 

It showcases real world use cases with a spotlight on farmers in their audience and followed by a live webinar.

“This series isn’t just about celebrating what’s working—it’s also about learning from the unexpected outcomes. By sharing the good and the not-so-good, we aim to uncover valuable lessons every dairy producer can apply.” 

To find interesting content, Cooley goes on a Farm Tour, which is like a “ride-along” with someone in the industry who is already out visiting farms, such as a veterinarian or professional.

Cooley brings his iPhone, a mic that attaches to the phone with a “dead rabbit” cover for wind, and a tripod in case he needs it, but mostly, he just shoots, holding the phone, “trying to be very still.”

In addition to interviewing farmers for the webinar, he creates a short video “promo” that serves as a sneak peek of what will be shown when the webinar airs live.

Both live attendees and people watching later need to register, which includes a free subscription to the magazine, helping to maintain the audit status required for a lower postage rate.

A title sponsor acts as the co-host, but the farm manager interviewed is the star.

The contact information for all the registrations before and after the event is shared with the title sponsor, plus up to two additional sponsors. Companies can nominate customers to be on the show, and if, the vendor “earns” the right to become the sponsor of that webinar.

Each sponsorship pays $2750,  for a total of about $3500 to  $6250 per show.

Content extension: Show robots with cows

Cattle and dairy cows have a built-in telegenic appeal, so another purpose for video is to add a “show, not tell” component to the editorial articles.

For example, the editor recently surfaced a video of a unique type of robotic milking machine for a written story about how one farm uses it.

The videos are also loaded on YouTube, which serves as a discovery channel to entice people back to the website, where AgProud can capture a registration. The YouTube channel itself is about ten years old and houses about 400-plus shorts, including different kinds of video types.

Twice Weekly Podcasts and Sponsorcasts

The third way AgProud uses audio/video is through weekly podcasts that run on the home page of the website and which are distributed through Google Play and Apple Play.

The production editor serves as the podcast editor and host of the sponsorcast, which is an interview audio file conducted over Zoom.

The platform utilized, Podcast.co, not only distributes the podcast across channels, but also delivers the key report used to sell sponsorships: The number of downloads.

A good podcast has yielded 7,000 downloads, but even 500 will “move the needle” for some vendors because the news is consumed by farm managers with significant purchasing power.

Point in proof: The podcasts sell out every year.

When I asked Cooley to walk me through the video production process, he said that interviews were recorded on Zoom, they also ask farmers to send videos if they have it, and he does most of onsite shooting on his own iPhone, sharing to Dropbox and sending the files and edit notes to production.

Lessons learned

AgProud’s keys to success are  instructive for other niche publishers working on video strategies:

• It doesn’t always take a new hire. Creators, editors, and business side leaders armed with a camera or Zoom can go a long way. AgProud was able to leverage leadership and the in-house production team, which, one might say, is udderly effective.

• Webinar sponsorships can command $3700 to $5000 – and that number may actually be low. The purchasing power of the audience ultimately determines the price.

• The key metric for selling podcast sponsorships is the number of downloads. Selecting a hosting provider, such as Podcast.co, for distribution channels is key.

• As always, create scarcity by selling out, then raise prices.

• Use YouTube as a discovery channel, but don’t “give away everything.” An enticing snippet can lead viewers back to the website, where gated content captures a registration, building the owned audience.

Many thanks to Walt Cooley, VP of publishing at AgProud for sharing these strategies.