How B2B Tech Firms Can Optimize Their Podcasts

Creating podcasts for B2B tech is challenging, and the work doesn’t stop when you launch the first episode. In this week’s conversation, we sit down with podcasting expert Justin Brown (Co-Founder, Motion) who talks to us about the importance of repurposing the podcast into premium audio, video, as well as written content. Justin also elaborates on why he believes this approach builds credibility and trust, the dangers of “pod fade”, whether you should monetize your podcast, and why you need to pay attention to the way your audience consumes content.

https://youtu.be/jMkIB1FI7hM

Topics discussed in this episode:

• Why B2B tech companies should act like media companies when creating a podcast [1:24]
  
• Justin elaborates on the challenges that B2B tech companies face when repurposing content from podcasts, and how to address these [10:46] | [15:12]
  
• Justin discusses whether you should monetize your podcast or not [23:30]
  
• The biggest challenges that face the podcasting industry is the (lack of) understanding of podcasting and the value that it brings to companies {28:55]
  
• Justin discusses a status quo that he passionately disagrees with [34:34]
  

Companies & links mentioned in this episode:

• Justin Brown on LinkedIn
  
• Motion
  
• Recorded Content podcast 
  
• Buzzsprout
  

Click here to access the episode key takeaways.

SPEAKERS

Christian Klepp, Justin Brown

Christian Klepp  00:00

Welcome to B2B Marketers on a Mission, a podcast for B2B marketers that helps you to question the conventional, think differently, disrupt your industry, and take your marketing to new heights. Each week, we talk to B2B marketing experts who share inspirational stories, discuss their thoughts and trending topics, and provide useful marketing tips and recommendations. And now, here’s your host and co-founder of EINBLICK Consulting, Christian Klepp.

Alright, folks, welcome to this episode of the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast where you get your weekly dose of B2B marketing insights. This is your host, Christian Klepp. And today, I’m thrilled to welcome guests into the show who is on a mission to deliver podcasting services that turn B2B tech marketers into what does he call them? Content marketing superheroes? So Mr. Justin Brown, welcome to the show, sir.

Justin Brown  00:50

Yeah, Christian, thanks for having me.

Christian Klepp  00:53

It’s a pleasure, Justin. So let’s just get the show on the road. And, you know, you’ve been running a successful business for a while now. And that’s a company called Motion, where you use in your, in your words, use podcasts to help B2B tech companies act like media companies, which makes sense. And you do that by repurposing the podcasts into premium audio, video, and written content. So talk to us about why you believe that’s so important, and why B2B tech firms should use that approach.

Justin Brown  01:24

Yeah, for sure. So I mean, it’s no secret that, you know, using pillar type content, whether it’s webinars, going to an event, and capturing interviews, and being able to repurpose content to use in a variety of ways, is an approach that good B2B marketers, especially on the content side, have been doing for years. And what my firm stumbled into a few years back was producing a podcast for ourselves. And we had always struggled to be able to stay consistent on content marketing initiatives, whether they were working, not working, pivoting, having time, whatever. And being a content marketing agency at the time, we realized how much great stuff you could get out of a podcast. So the way that we really help organizations is my company, you know, we have a very specific niche where we play is with, you know, marketing teams at B2B tech or SaaS companies, with marketing teams of one to five. And that’s really where we help is, you know, you have these marketers, you know, maybe it’s a CMO team of one or, you know, there’s a director of marketing, and maybe two junior level marketers, and they are just tasked with so many initiatives from, you know, the demand gen strategy to any paid strategy to, you know, running a newsletter to whatever it may be, they have so many things on their plate compared to, you know, enterprise level companies. And what we found with our clients is that by using a podcast, and very specifically a video podcast in most situations, by capturing that piece of 30 to 40 minute content, they can just turn it into so many things, they can turn an episode into show notes, it’ll be 500 to 1000 words, and you know, a longer form article that can be 1500 to 2000 words, you know, filling into your blog strategy, then you’ve got your, you know, bite size video content that you’re pulling out of that maybe it’s a couple videos there, and then you’ve got imagery that you can use pulling out quotes, then you can embed those things into places on your website. So what we’re really finding is, you know, these SaaS companies that are that have these small marketing teams, and these are their words, not mine, you know, they’ve used, you know, getting the amount of juice out of the squeeze, or I really feel like I’m punching above my weight class, really turning organizations that have historically had issues, putting together a really formidable content marketing strategy, or just getting so much out of podcasting. And what we try to do is we really take out that middle piece, which is the content creation of the written content, so show notes, feature articles, the video content, the promo videos, the full length videos for YouTube, the actual audio piece itself, images, LinkedIn sliders, our clients, on average, get 8 to 10 pieces of content out of every 30 to 40 minute episode. And really what we’ve been we’ve become in a lot of our clients is their main or, you know, top two, I don’t know, but usually their main strategy for content creation.

Christian Klepp  04:40

Yeah, that was a really good answer. I mean, you know, a lot of things you said, um, really, really resonated with me. And that’s, you know, it’s so true though, like, you know, with regards to the sweet spot, but I believe you identified, it’s targeting these companies where they’re just expected to wear multiple hats, right? And, and smaller teams that are expected to function like media companies per se, right. So that’s, that’s basically where you were somebody like you or your capabilities and experience can go in and help them.

Justin Brown  05:09

And a lot of times, they’re actually not expected to act like media companies. But the problem is, is they’re trying to track down and chase down bigger organizations that may be industry best in their space. And it’s very difficult for them to create content on the level of an organization that may have 40 people in marketing with, you know, an eight person content team, three writers, a full time video person, and you’re a team of two, and you’re going head to head with these enterprise level organizations, and you’re trying to compete, and what our clients have found is that through podcasting, they are able to function like that media organization, you know, you hear it in B2B all the time is, is act like this, right? Well, the problem is, is that people don’t have the resources to do it. I mean, I think everybody wants to do it, everybody wants to execute on the best practices that you hear across B2B all the time. The problem is time, budget, and just overall resources to be able to do that. And so what our clients are finding is that they’re on these small teams, and the podcast gets them the most traction, you know, from a content creation standpoint, versus anything else that they’re doing.

Christian Klepp  06:30

Yeah, no, absolutely. And, you know, there was something you said in the past couple of minutes that are, you know, got my attention. I just want to throw this question out to you there. Do you believe… you probably get this question all the time too… Do you believe that people’s attention spends are shorten, therefore, you need to make contents that are shorter?

Justin Brown  06:48

 No, not at all.

Christian Klepp  06:49

What are your thoughts on that?

Justin Brown  06:51

So I believe that people consume content differently. And, and I think different people consume content differently. I think people consume content differently in the different environments that they’re in on a day to day basis. So I’m not someone who can listen to music or listen to podcasts while I work. But I may be on LinkedIn, and I may consume a two minute video. Now when I go outside, and I’m mowing the lawn, I’ll listen to a podcast. Now when I’m sitting on the couch with my fiancé, and we’re watching a show together. And you know, it’s not like a drama, where we’re like, super into it. It’s just somewhat, you know, like, you know, reality TV or whatever, well, I’m not gonna throw in headphones and listen to a podcast while we’re spending time together. But I may be on my phone, and I may read something, I’m not gonna watch a video ‘cause I’m watching something on TV. So I may pull up your show notes, and read about what your episode is, so that I can queue it up for later. There are people out there who just don’t listen to podcasts, there are people out there, who the only medium that they really consume from a business standpoint, is podcasts and audio books. So the reason that we produce written video, audio, image based content is so that you can be in front of people in every possible way that they consume content. And there’s nothing that you’re kind of leaving on the… leaving on the table where if you just produce an audio podcast, the only people you’re going to get are people who consume audio podcasts in the specific environment in which they do that, versus setting yourself up with the opportunity to be in front of people wherever and whenever they’re consuming. Anything business related.

Christian Klepp  08:36

Yeah, no, that’s a really good point that you bring up in terms of the different formats or forms of content, because it’s, you know, you’re trying to, like, develop them based on people’s preferences. Because, you know, you always heard it, like, you know, growing up, going to school, like, you know, some people are visual learners, some are audio learners, and what have you.

Justin Brown  08:53

Exactly, I mean, and I think that’s the same way, for the way that people consume content. And people hear podcasts, and they just automatically think it’s this audio channel. And I just vehemently disagree. I think it’s a channel in which you are capturing longer form content, no different than writing a long form blog article that you’re going to break down into smaller pieces, or, you know, video content that you capture over a few days, at an event that you’re gonna slice up into different videos. It’s the same idea, but it has a super low barrier to entry where it’s, you know, conversations a lot of times that are you’re having anyway, you’re just kind of hitting the record button, having a nice intro/outro and the theme of the show and, and then cutting that up into bite sized pieces that you can distribute different places. And then of course, you want people to go consume, you know, the full episode and if you’re doing a good enough job on your distribution of those smaller assets that you hope that people will go find your show and search it out.

Christian Klepp  09:57

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, there’s this nice little like tool on the back end of you know, all these guys. Um, you know, in the podcasting world, you got your, whatever platform you’re using. And you can see, um, whether somebody has like, listened to the entire, you know, episode from start to finish or not, right, you’ve got the completion rates. Right. Okay. I mean, on the topic of producing content in its various forms, right, Justin, you’ve been doing this for a while, you’ve probably seen it all. So just talk to us about some of these common mistakes and misconceptions that you’ve seen out there when the B2B tech companies make in terms of repurposing content from podcasts and what you think needs to be done to address these.

Justin Brown  10:38

You know, I think that first and foremost, something that we’re just seeing is that people just don’t know where to start when it comes to a podcast. You know, people don’t know how to get it up on as simple as getting it up on Apple podcasts and Spotify and places like that, which, you know, for us we look at, and we’re like, that’s, that’s the easy part. And then I think from there, you know, just trying to make content that differentiates you. I think if we’re talking about the full length episodes, I think there’s a lot of stuff out there that is very similar to each other. I think that, you know, something that I try to stay away from, is just having conversations, like, you know, I appreciate the way that this episode is going where it’s like, okay, you know, we’re not just chit chatting, you’re asking me very specific questions about a thing, which is podcasting within a space for B2B marketers. So they can listen to this and actually, hopefully take something away. And then in terms of the actual…. you know, the work that goes into it, it’s not only editing the episodes, but then creating the repurpose content. And so what we’ve found is that, you know, where people really struggle is that they take on this new initiative that they don’t know much about. So they have to learn a lot in terms of what it takes to, you know, get it live and cut the audio, which isn’t the hardest thing in the world. But when you’re learning all these new things, it’s like every single thing is, is learning something new. And people spend so much time learn, you know, they task will see it, right, they task, some junior person, like, go and make us a podcast. And that person’s like, okay, I’m gonna go learn how to make podcasts. A lot of times, that person is like, really excited about it at first, right? Like, I do this, like new, cool thing, podcasting is hot, it’s hip, like, that’s awesome. And then just like, there’s pod fade, which is a real term that, you know, basically, the average podcast last five episodes or less, just like there’s, there’s pod fade for, you know, your average person who wants to go and, you know, do a, you know, do a podcast about the show friends, and the last three episodes, because they’re doing it for funsies. And after three episodes, they are exhausted, the same thing happens with your employees is that they spent so much time trying to learn how to create a podcast, learn something new, and then it’s pretty redundant work where, I mean, you’re cutting audio, and you’re publishing it. And then if you have time, you’re then editing, you know, editing and pulling out clips, and whatever it may be. And, you know, it’s less than, less than exciting for those folks who most of the time are marketers by trade, who wanted to do a job that’s going to drive revenue that’s going to drive results. And you know, that the podcast definitely can do that. But if you’re on just the content creation side, and not the distribution and execution side, it can be pretty thankless work. And so, you know, what we tried to do, and what we try to tell people that we do is that, you know, we allow marketers to market, we take away that, that actual creation part, because we were watching marketers spend so much time creating, that they don’t spend any time in marketing, and they don’t have the time to actually take this amazing thing that they made, and go get it in front of people. And so I think that is probably the biggest misconception or struggle that I see is that, you know, A) people don’t know what goes into it and then B) is by the time they figure out what goes into it, they’re, they’re exhausted by the work that it took, and it doesn’t end up getting in front of as many people as you would have hoped.

Christian Klepp  14:34

And those are all genuine, you know, challenges and pain points that a lot of people out there are struggling with, right? And you probably um, this next question is probably for somebody like yourself a given, but I see it out there in the space right. Do you feel that a lot of guys are a lot of folks out there are struggling with repurposing content and what to repurpose, because they don’t understand who it is that’s listening to the stuff. Or like the target audience, like the viewers, the listeners?

Justin Brown  15:04

Well, okay. So, like two-prong answer is what… I think people struggle with repurposing content period. I think people struggle with creating the content before you even needs to get repurposed. I mean, you, you see that creating a podcast is hard. I’ll be the first person to tell you that. I’m lucky that I have a team that works with me on my podcast, and I have a team that works on my clients podcasts. But the actual execution of a podcast is very difficult. And if you think about the way that my business operates, you know, I have a different person who edits the audio, I have a different person who writes the article, I have a different and a lot of time that person writes the article then writes the show notes, the show notes, then go into how we’re creating the images like a LinkedIn slider or a quote card. And then on top of that, you know, maybe we have an episode card. Then on top of that, we have a different person who’s creating the video, I’ve got like six people at this point who have had their hands on one episode. So for one person to create anything is very difficult. And I didn’t even mention the audio piece is a different person. This is a sound person. And so you know, I’ve got six people who are touching one episode. So I think on the front end of answering your question, not only do I think repurposing is hard, I think it’s just hard for anyone. And there’s a reason if I go back to pod fade, I think there’s a reason why that exists is because the actual just creation of the podcast itself, is a challenge for people to find the time.

Justin Brown  16:36

Now, you talked about, you know, getting in front of the right people, people struggle with niching their pod, niching anything, because people are afraid if you niche down and you find a specific audience that you’re going to alienate people. And that’s something that we talk about all the time, which is it’s the way to break through. We had to do it with our business. And so if you just look at my background as one of the cofounders of Motion. When we first started, we were a video production agency. And we said we were video for business, which in and of itself is very broad. At the time, we thought that was too broad. What about nonprofits? What about associations? What about professional, you know, a professional services company, or, and that’s probably not the best example, or healthcare organization, and they don’t really consider themselves a business, you know, because they work in healthcare. So then we just became a video agency, for anyone and we can help anybody. And, you know, it made it very challenging to win contracts at times because we weren’t specialized. And when we went down this podcasting path, and we decided to niche our business, I mean, we went very narrow. We are a podcast agency that works with B2B technology companies with marketing teams of one to five. And that’s also who our podcast speaks to. And what it’s led to happen for us is that we’ve had more interest in our business than ever before, because an entire segment of people know that we speak directly to them. The problem is there are I mean, Buzzsprout is the hosting platform that we use, which is one of many, I mean, there are 105,000 podcasts in Buzzsprout. I don’t know, one to 2 million podcasts in the world. I don’t know if that numbers accurate. Sounds accurate enough. Yeah, there’s 1 to 2 million podcasts in the world. And you’re going to go make a podcast that is a marketing podcast. Good luck. Good luck. There are so many people out there who have marketing podcasts, you need to narrow in on who you speak to. So when it comes to creating, repurpose content, I mean, I think it goes to the theme of your show of who does your show speak to. And then that and then when you create the repurpose content, all that repurpose content you focus on is helping that segment of people. So again, you know, my podcast, if you look at it, which is called Recording Content, by the way, my podcast speaks to and if we go back to my company, and I’m gonna even narrow it down a little bit, but my podcast speaks to B2B marketers on teams of one to five at B2B technology companies who have an interest in podcasting. So like, I’m like six layers down. And now I’m not going to say that I know everything, but like, you know, I had Chris Lochhead on my podcast, who’s the you know, author of Play Bigger and who also wrote a book on niching down. And, you know, he, he talks about it all the time. So this isn’t just coming from me. And the way to break through in today’s landscape of podcasting and I’m not a business consultant, so I’m not going to tell you what to do with your business. But on the podcast side, if you want to differentiate your podcast, you need to speak to a very specific audience, then from there, and here’s another great example that I have, the ABM conversations podcast, a good friend of mine, they started out very niche. I mean, early on before like B2B, podcasting became as huge as it is now. And they were having conversations with B2B folks about ABM. And as their show grew and evolved, they were able to broaden out and there’s this like, common misconception that you should, that people think they need to start broad, and then figure out who their audience is. And what I’ve seen is the people who start very narrow, have the ability to grow, and then you can grow into something more broad. And now he’s, you know, interviewing people like Seth Godin, or whoever else it may be. I mean, he had I mean, he had Guy Kawasaki on, like, he has huge ballers come onto his show that aren’t necessarily talking about ABM anymore. But he started there, he started super narrow, the narrow audience of people who then loved his show. I mean, people ask, people buy t shirts on them, people interact with him directly, and ask him all about new topics. And he has like this community of people that he has built this relationship with, all from starting very narrow. And everything that he built out of it was very narrow, and now he’s been able to go more broad. So I think when you’re thinking about repurpose content, it should be how does this content that I’m pulling out of my episode, and every one of the questions that you ask should be around that set around that segment. And it’s not mean it doesn’t.. also doesn’t mean that you need to have always like, guests that are very specific to your segment, but you need to just tie, tie it back into how your show helps these people. I like having crazy different people on my show, and then talking to them about how they’ve used content or what have you. My most recent episode, I had an NFT artist, come on. But I talked to him about how every night during the pandemic, seven days a week, he ran a live podcast on YouTube at 10:23pm, every single night, seven days a week, he ran this live show and it put him on the map and just the idea of consistency, and talking about how consistency helped him to break through. Now he’s not a B2B person, but the content could still be valuable to a B2B marketing audience that’s trying to understand and get across the value of consistency and why a podcast matters maybe to a CEO or something like that. So niche getting narrow, focusing on your audience with everything you do.

Christian Klepp  22:38

Yeah, that’s absolutely right. It was such a great answer to and yes, Yaagneshwaran Ganesh, I think is his name. Yeah, he’s made quite some waves. Not just an ABM. But just in the B2B marketing world online in general, I would say.

Hey, it’s Christian Klepp here. We’ll get back to the episode in a second. But first, is your brand struggling to cut through the noise? Are you trying to find more effective ways to reach your target audience and boost sales? Are you trying to pivot your business? If so, book a call with EINBLICK Consulting, our experienced consultants will work with you to help your B2B business to succeed and scale. Go to www.einblick.co for more information.

Okay, um, I’d like to get your thoughts on this. And this is something we discussed in a previous conversation. It was a, it was something you posted on LinkedIn, I believe was July 13. And that, that was regarding a topic that many podcasters think about, myself included. Right. So the question is, it’s one of these to be or not to be questions. Yeah. To monetize or not to monetize. But are your thoughts?

Justin Brown  23:49

Yeah, for sure. So July 13, on LinkedIn, that’s like, that’s like an eternity ago. Right. Yeah, so, so to answer your question, um, so I was in a situation recently where I was talking to someone, and they were talking about monetizing their podcast. And they got advice from someone who was a CEO of a company. And that CEO said, Do not monetize your podcast. And now this person is running their own podcast, right? Like a side by side project type podcast that they’re that, you know, they’re just running because they enjoy doing it. And I don’t monetize my podcast, because I’m also the owner of a company. And when I first heard that, I was like, yeah, you know, I agree. Like, you shouldn’t monetize your podcast, you should be trying to, you know, cultivate an audience and bring value and good content and all the BS that you always hear. And then I disagreed with myself, because I realized, why do I have a podcast? I have a podcast to fuel my content marketing strategy for my business, so that people will buy for me. I’m selling something. So I don’t need to monetize my podcast because the thing I’m selling are podcast services. But for an individual who’s running their own podcast for me to say you shouldn’t monetize because what are they selling? Like, what are they getting out of it, I guess, an elevation in their career maybe where people think this person is better because they have a podcast? And I just don’t necessarily know that I agree with that logic. Because at the end of the day, I’m selling something with my podcast, I’m selling my expertise. And my goal is, you know, is a hope that one day the people who listen will buy from me. So I mean, I think that it’s very circumstantial. I don’t think there’s a clear cut answer. And I think every situation is probably a little bit different. And it probably comes down to is this a business podcast? And when it comes to a business podcast, I mean, I don’t think that you should be trying to monetize that necessarily, like, let’s, let’s say, start a Patreon, right? And let’s, let’s say you get 150 members, I don’t know I got a calculator here, let’s say you get 150 members at $10 a month, times 12 months is $18,000 a year. That’s going to pay, you know, if you add in taxes and everything that’s going to pay what a quarter of an employee’s salary. Well, what is that worth it? I don’t know, if you’re a, if you’re a $5 million a year business, you make 18 grand? I don’t know. I mean, I don’t think it would be worth it. And I, you know, we’re not a very big business, I don’t think it would be worth it for me. I’d rather give away the content and have people come buy from me than say, I’m going to get it behind a paywall. Maybe the content is like, show amazing that I can then sell it. So I think if it’s a business podcast, in most scenarios, probably 99% of situations, monetizing your podcast as a business is not going to make that much sense. As an individual contributor, or just a person. I think monetizing can make sense. If you feel like you can provide so much value that somebody will be… you’ve, you’ve cultivated a big enough following, that people love your personal brand, or whatever you want to call it, they just love you enough that they want more, and you feel like you can provide more, then go make your money. It’s the same thing. It’s the same thing I’m doing. And it’s selfish of me as a business owner to say that you shouldn’t do that.

Christian Klepp  27:51

Yeah, you broke that down really well. I suppose the the short version of the answer is it depends, right?

Justin Brown  27:57

Yeah.

Christian Klepp  27:58

Because if there’s like you said, there’s no like yes or no as well, there is a yes or no answer. But it really depends on the person’s situation and circumstances and the organization itself. Right. Okay.

Justin Brown  28:08

If you have, if you have, if you’re getting 10 likes a day on Twitter, or LinkedIn, or Instagram, or wherever you are, and you’re like, I’m gonna monetize my podcast, good luck, you’re just gonna end up having zero listeners.

Christian Klepp  28:20

Sure.

Justin Brown  28:21

Like, you need to have a brand that people love that they feel like if I pay money, I’m going to really get something from this, maybe you have a private community attached to your podcast, where you’re distributing, you know, very specific, you know, materials that you can only get within that community or, you know, whatever it is, maybe it is just a specific podcast that, you know, is breaking down complex subject matter, and it has accompanying materials, or whatever. But you better have something that you better have a personality that people love, and you better have some content that people feel like it’s worth it. Otherwise it can have a, you know, I think an adverse effect on what you end up doing.

Christian Klepp  29:01

Yeah, yeah, I tend to agree with that. Oh, you’re gonna have a field day with this one. What is one of the biggest challenges that you see facing the podcasting industry right now?

Justin Brown  29:14

One of the biggest challenges facing the podcast industry. So I’m going to focus on B2B podcasting. And I think one of the biggest challenges that’s facing B2B podcasting right now is just companies understanding what it even is and the value that it brings. You know, when I hear how many downloads did I get from this past episode, it makes me cringe. Because if that’s the only question that you have, you’re asking the wrong questions. And I know it doesn’t always come from, you know, people that I talked to, you know, a lot of times it’ll, it’ll come from higher ups, you don’t know what they’re, what they’re even looking at. And you know, if you look at something like download numbers, I again, I use Buzzsprout. And so Buzzsprout has analytics from 105,000 podcasts. If you get 28 downloads per episode, I think if you brought that to the CEO of the company who didn’t know much about podcasting, and he or she said, How many downloads did we get? He said, I got 28 downloads on this, this episode that we were that were really seven days ago, the CEO would be like, that’s it? And my question would be what do you mean that’s it? What, tell me more about why your why you say that? And the answer is it stems from nowhere. They don’t know what they’re what they’re talking about. And the furthermore, the answer is 28 downloads puts you in the top 50% of podcasts on 105,000 podcasts. So frankly, you know, Mr. or Miss CEO, you don’t know what you’re talking about. And I think that a lot of the B2B podcasting community is struggling with, I think a lot of times justifying why we should launch a podcast, I think once it’s launched. Another thing that I’m hearing is the CEO falls in love with the podcast and thinks it’s one of the best things that the company is doing. But I think the justification early on, so getting it started, like getting the approval to move forward with this strategy that is going to fuel your content. That’s a struggle. And then the early pushback of when’s this thing going live? Because it takes a little bit of time to get it going, when’s this thing going live? And then what are the results? And then if you are a business that bases things on, you know, MQLs and things like that, like how many, how many forms did the podcast drive. I mean, then you’re really going to struggle. But what we’ve seen is, you know, once these, once our customers get to like the five episode level, I mean, I just start hearing, the sales team loves the podcast, you know, the CEO loves the podcast, everyone’s so excited about this direction, but the lack of education around it, because it’s such a new medium, just people struggle to get struggled to get started. And, you know, face a little bit of pushback as it’s getting up and running. So for me, that’s probably the just the biggest struggle that I see people dealing with this. Marketing knows this is an amazing opportunity and an amazing channel. But others within the organization is especially when you have VCs and things like that want to do the same thing that they’ve always done, you know, go to an event, get names, have BRs reach out to those people. And and then count how many leads you’ve got. podcasting is going to be a tough strategy for you. If your organization is you know, 90% sales 10% marketing.

Christian Klepp  33:09

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, to your point about the number of downloads, I mean, that one drives me crazy, too, because at the end of the day, like, okay, let’s just say for example, somebody says, okay, we had, we had 1000 downloads on one episode, well, what are that? What are those 1000 downloads, then? Are those conversions? Are those? Are those people within your, you know, to your point from a couple of minutes ago – Are those people within your niche? Are those your potential buyers? Or are they are those people that are like, you know, just consuming this content? You know, while they’re doing something else? Alright. Yep. Hard to say.

Justin Brown  33:42

Yeah, I mean, I’ve run it, I run a podcast where, you know, the person who posts on LinkedIn gets a couple 100 engagements for every video that they post, but they get 50 downloads. So is that, you know, what are we what are we? What are we looking at here? I don’t know. I’m gonna look at the LinkedIn number. I mean, it’s killing it. It’s getting in front of people’s getting for the right people, they’re commenting on it, they’re engaging with it. It’s hard for me to point to one thing, it’s more of a body of work. And it’s hard to, it’s hard to quantify sometimes to people who don’t appreciate, you know, content marketing, and inbound marketing and getting people to, you know, buy into what it is that you’re producing, and getting them to love your brand.

Christian Klepp  34:35

Exactly, exactly. That’s absolutely right. So just staying on the topic of podcasting for B2B tech, right and repurposing content from said podcast. What is a, at least in that department, a status quo or a commonly held belief that you passionately disagree with? And why?

Justin Brown  34:54

So one thing that I passionately disagree with, is that your show should be entertaining or funny. I don’t think it can’t be. I think if you’re naturally a funny person, that’s great for you. But I also think that I could go listen to Jason Bateman show who’s a movie star and hilarious and makes killer comedies along with, you know, Will Arnett and they can they’re interviewing Adam Sandler. So like, why do I need you for funny? I think that B2B podcasting should be actionable and helpful for your specific niche audience that cares about the content that you’re making, and it should help them to get better at their job. Again, I don’t I don’t hate fun, I promise. You’re welcome to be funny. But I hear just too often, this show needs to be… it needs to be different. It needs to be entertaining. But if you’re competing with entertaining, you got to go against Mike Tyson. Literally, like not figuratively, like there’s heavyweights like no, like, literally, I want to go listen to Mike Tyson talk because he’s hilarious. And so when you have that, I don’t know, I don’t want to go against that. I want to go against the people in my space who are creating content, and I’m going to make better content than they are. I’m going to make content that you feel like you can’t live without as a professional. And because I’m so niche in what I do that, you know, I’m speaking so directly to you. They are like every episode that Justin puts out, he is talking to me and I can’t live without this show. And that will make, you know, in B2B content creation, I believe that will push you further forward than trying to be entertaining. There are people in B2B who are entertaining and I think they are needles in a haystack. And I’m not trying to dissuade them from doing what they enjoy and love. But setting out to find lightning in a bottle like that. Good luck. It will be so much easier for you to focus on. What does my ICP struggle with? And how can I create a show that will help them that if they listen to it afterward, they want to call me and say Justin, thank you for making that episode. It cleared up x for me. There are ways to get people to love you without being funny or being kitschy and, you know, having stick and what have you. I know when I set out to listen to a business podcast, I’m heading out to get some education. I’m not heading out to get some entertainment. I’ve got those podcasts. And I want I come back to podcasts that I feel like help me.

Christian Klepp  37:57

That’s a fair point, man. And just remind me to keep all my jokes I have up my sleeve to myself. (laugh)

Justin Brown  38:05

Again, I’m here I’m here for the jokes. I’m here for you know, a good time on podcast. I love getting on podcasts and having engaging conversations sometimes more lighthearted than others. But if you’re if you’re setting out for that, you are, you’re setting yourself up for pain because it’s hard. Ask any stand-up comedian ever. It is hard to be funny. And when I did video production, and people came to me and said, Justin, you’re trying to make this video for our brand. We want it to be funny. Have you seen hey Justin, have you seen that video? The Dollar Shave Club. We want to be like that. And I’m like oh yeah, this video that cost $7,000 that was like the greatest internet ad of all time yet. Let’s just recreate a completely viral ad with like it setting out for that. Good luck. I mean, I wish you the best of luck wholeheartedly. And the odds are significantly stacked against you but if you do succeed props! I’m just not gonna do that.

Christian Klepp  39:21

Yeah, no that’s fair enough.

Justin Brown  39:23

That is it… I know that I can create something more… with a higher likelihood of success. They can still cut through they can still break through the noise, without having stick and without you know just just setting myself up for a very difficult thing to go find.

Christian Klepp  39:43

Or setting yourself up for disappointment if it doesn’t work out right. Okay, so just the just the…

Justin Brown  39:50

Have you ever been to a stand up show… Have you ever been to a stand up show where comedian bombed.

Christian Klepp  39:54

Yes.

Justin Brown  39:55

It’s brutal. It is absolutely brutal. You feel for that person. And when I try to stay away from my clients is having them go back and listen to their show. And the people in their space. Listen to their show. And think oh my gosh, good. Good try.

Christian Klepp  39:55

Yeah, yeah,

Justin Brown  40:14

Good try. I commend the effort versus hey, let’s identify who you’re making content for. And let’s make that content amazing. And that you can do. If you have a very keen eye on who you speak to, what problems they deal with, and how you can help. They’ll come back to that kind of content. They will. You’ll see it.

Christian Klepp  40:38

No, absolutely. Absolutely. Justin, thanks so much for you know, sharing your experience and expertise with us and the listeners. And yeah, just tell us a little bit about yourself and how best to reach out and contact you?

Justin Brown  40:52

Yeah, for sure. And I promise I’m a nice light hearted guy.

Christian Klepp  40:56

I bet you are. (laugh)

Justin Brown  40:58

My LinkedIn is Justin Brown motion, you can connect with me there. And then our company is motionagency.io. Feel free to set up time to talk to me reach out on LinkedIn. I post just about every day. I’m very active. I talk about podcasting all the time. So if you’re ever interested in podcasting tips, seeing what I have to say, LinkedIn is probably the best place.

Christian Klepp  41:22

Perfect. Justin Brown. It’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for your time. Take care, be safe, and I’ll talk to you soon.

Justin Brown  41:30

All right. Thanks, Christian.

Christian Klepp  41:33

Thank you for joining us on this episode of the B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast. To learn more about what we do here at EINBLICK, please visit our website at www.einblick.co, and be sure to subscribe to the show on iTunes or your favorite podcast player.