Newsletter #51: On podcasts 🎙
14 minutes reading time. Thoughts on startups, growth, and technology 🚀
Welcome to another edition of the Struggle.
The Struggle is a bi-weekly newsletter where I share my thoughts and learnings from running a startup in Southeast Asia.
Happy new year, everyone!
As mentioned before, I am moving to a bi-weekly frequency to give myself more time to research and write better content.
I want to kickstart the new year with some thoughts around B2B sales and marketing strategies. I intend to share some of the tactics that have worked well for us at Greenhouse while researching others publicly.
Today, I will focus on podcasts as an acquisition channel.
Similar to newsletters, people like to speak of podcast fatigue as there are so many podcasts nowadays. Yet, I still believe there is a lot of room for growth through audio; take a look at how podcasts compare to other similar mediums:
Active Blogs: ~500+ Million
Active YouTube Channels: ~27 Million
Active Podcasts: 700,000 (aka. NOT EVEN A MILLION)
Pat Flynn, host of Smart Passive Income, a podcast with over 60,000,000 total downloadds (December 2019)
Now let’s take a look at some podcast acquisitions that took place in the past 6 to 12 months:
In all, Spotify has spent €358 million ($400 million) to acquire three podcast startups in 2019 so far. In its Q4 shareholder letter back in February, the company said it had earmarked up to $500 million for similar deals throughout 2019
The deal, valued at $300 million, is the latest in a string of acquisitions as streaming platforms expand beyond music and video.
The Times, capitalizing on the success of its “Daily” podcast, continues an expansion into audio journalism… The Times paid about $25 million for the company, according to a person with knowledge of the deal.
Why podcasts?
Most podcasts don’t blow up like Joe Rogan but bring significant benefits and growth to the person/business behind the show.
Starting a podcast is affordable
While, at first glance, all successful podcasts look like the host has invested a lot in studio equipment and post production, the reality is that most start humbly, especially in today’s highly digital world, we have access to tools like Zoom, AirPods, Anchor, Skype, Ringr, Transistor, Simplecast, Podcast Edition, and many more.
I have been on several podcasts so far, and in my experience, stable internet, AirPods Pro, and Zoom have been entirely sufficient.
When it comes to post-production, you have two options outsource or edit in-house. Both approaches have merits, but keep in mind that in the early days, you do not need perfect post-production. In a way, hiccups in production quality can sometimes demonstrate authenticity and thus help you connect with your listeners. Alternatively, if you want to outsource it, prices for good freelancers start at $25 per episode, in my experience (check out Fiverr or UpWork).
Authenticity
“A podcast humanizes your brand, and the charisma and friendliness of the host become associated with it. It communicates the genuine knowledge, commitment, and passion you have toward your niche.”
Rachael Brown, Head of Content at Plant Sumo
Startups and small businesses need to earn trust to successfully sell products without a long history of proven track record.
What is a better way than giving a voice to the person behind the brand?
Through a podcast, you can broadcast your message to thousands of people, maybe even more. Yet, podcasts bring an authentic connection between the hosts and the listeners. Although you may never meet the host of your favorite show, after listening to them for awhile it does feel like you know them personally.
“Podcasting is the best way to scale intimacy.”
Build relationships
Podcasts allow you to meet with potential partners, investors, and even customers in a value-driven format. Since you are boosting their brands, most people will be happy to participate. Moreover, in conversations with such people, you will gain a valuable perspective. In the process, you will understand better your personas and ideal customer profiles.
Podcasts can be consumed on the go
“From a consumption standpoint, there is virtually zero friction involved in consuming audio content. You can listen to a podcast whenever, wherever, while doing almost anything. Driving, jogging, cleaning, relaxing, flying, cooking, working, mowing the lawn. You get it.”
James Carbary, Founder at Sweet Fish Media
Tactics for growing your podcast
Start with appearances on other podcasts in key industries
Participating in other podcasts, you will:
Learn best practices from the industry.
Gain confidence.
Build relationships with other hosts, opening opportunities for cross-sale.
Get SEO value through backlinks and content.
Improve your communication style.
Learn to improvise better.
Gain conviction in your ideas.
To participate in other podcasts, you can do one of the following activities:
Select a topic and find all podcasts in that space, e.g., SaaS, marketplaces, Small businesses, B2B, bitcoin, etc. Check out this search engine for podcasts: https://www.listennotes.com/
Ask your network for warm intros to podcast hosts.
Tap into relevant communities; I am a member of Acquired LP, IndieHackers, DemandCurve; each of them comes with slack channels or forums with thousands of people; many of them run podcasts.
Learn from people who have done it before. For example, Casey Hill, the Head of Growth at Bonjoro, has launched this course to share his learnings of booking the Bonjoro CEO, CMO, and himself on nearly 200 podcasts.
Have a YouTube first approach
Split episodes into short YouTube videos with highly optimized SEO titles. After all, YouTube is the second largest search engine. Getting guests that are actually searched on Youtube is hard but may work very well from a discoverability perspective.
“The bottom line is that “YouTube processes more than 3 billion searches a month. 100 hours of video are uploaded every minute. It’s bigger than Bing, Yahoo!, Ask and AOL combined,”
Mushroom Networks
Exchange episodes with other shows
Submit the show to all popular directories
Ideally, you will need to find a tool that helps you manage all that because submitting all shows to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon, Tunein, Pandora, and Mixcloud Soundcloud, Castro, Audible, etc. can be time-consuming.
Incentivize people to follow your show
Let’s say your ideal audience is startup founders.
A good way to encourage them to follow you at scale is by doing a giveaway. Every time founders follow you on your show on the platform of your choice, give them a database of something valuable e.g. templates, investors, curated blogs, grants, etc.
That will likely result in a lot of followers, but your engagement might be low. Most probably, only 10 to 20% of all those people will end up engaging with your content in the long run, but even then, if your giveaway creates noise, it can give you the necessary boost to kickstart your podcast.
Cold outreach and LinkedIn
Reach out one by one to all relevant connections on LinkedIn and ask them to support you.
You would be surprised how many people will agree to do that. Make sure the “time to value” is short, meaning your episodes must be consistently great.
Here you go a few ideas of how to leverage LinkedIn as a distribution channel:
Avoid writing LinkedIn aritlces, they give less exposure than regular posts.
Shorter paragraphs perform better than longer content.
Add links in the first comment instead in the update itself.
Reply to every comment.
Encourage your team to quickly leave comments, like and share your content to trigger LinkedIn’s distribution algorithms.
Engage with other people in your industry, share their content, leave comments, simply support them until they notice you.
Add popular episodes as featured posts under your profile to maximize exposure.
Start strong
Get as strong line up as you can
If your content sucks, people are not going to continue following you. As much as you can, get great people as guests, and never publish bad episodes.
Batch content at first
When you are done planning start recording, prepare as many episodes as you can upfront. No one likes finding a new podcast that looks promising to discover that they only have one episode released.
Most people would not subscribe to a show with only one episode. In my opinion, you need to have at least 6 to 10 episodes recorded and ready to release once the show launches. Here you go the benefits of starting strong:
Credability.
Higher engagement.
It’s better for platforms like Apple Podcasts as they will rank your show better.
SEO
Make sure every episode’s topic is relevant. Identify the keywords with the highest search volume and ensure there is sufficient keyword density when posting episodes. Post each show not only on platforms like Apple Podcasts but also on your blog.
When we at Greenhouse optimize similar content, we typically go through the following checklist:
Key words in title and first paragraph.
Add internal links.
Add external links.
Include graphs, pictures, and charts.
Simplify long sentences.
Sufficient volume and density of longtail and focus keywords.
Post on all relevant social media platforms (in our case LinkedIn and YouTube).
Post as an article on your blog.
Embedd video / podcast to your articles.
Add subheaders and table of content to make the article easier to read.
Repurpose episodes into decks
Create a deck template you can use for each episode.
Simplify the content from each show and use the template to share it on LinkedIn, Slideshare, and Instagram.
Include most interesting insights from your conversation and add the contact information of the guests you are featuring in your show.
Build webpages to feature all episodes
You can even pick a separate domain to grow your podcast, but I would advise yo uto keep it on your main domain for SEO purposes.
Here you go a few examples:
https://salesengagement.com/podcast/
https://www.techtablespodcast.com/
https://thestartupchef.com/podcasts/
Walking away, I hope you remember to:
Be a guest on other shows before you become a host.
Start strong.
Cross promote with other podcasts.
Every piece of content coming from your episodes must be optimized for SEO and distributed through multiple channels.
Consider having a giveaway to grow your audience.
List on multiple platforms.
Have a YouTube first approach.
Nurture your relationships with your audience and guests.
Leverage LinkedIn as a distribution channel.
Build dedicated webpage for your podcast.
Good luck 😎
Greenhouse’s podcast
Do you want to see how we are using everything mentioned above to start a podcast from the bottom up?
Drop me a message and I will send you the first episodes as soon as we release them.
In the meantime, here you go a glimpse into the podcast we are working on - The Growthspurt.
About Growthspurt
A series of interviews highlighting the many successes and failures of startups and SME leaders expanding into new markets.
Why?
Because their learning lessons can be extremely valuable for others planning to do the same.
Line up
Every week we invite founders of fast-growing startups, investors, and business leaders from renowned organizations. We have already confirmed and are in touch with brands like: