How to Launch and Grow a Revenue-Generating B2B Podcast

There are about 4 million podcasts out there, but just a fraction of them have a large number of listeners. What does it take to grow a B2B podcast successfully and sustainably? What should you focus on and how should you promote your podcast? 

In our recent episode, we have an informative conversation with Harry Morton (Founder, Lower Street) about the lessons that he’s learned from launching and growing more than 50 revenue-generating B2B podcasts. During our discussion, Harry elaborates on why he thinks many podcasts have few (or no) listeners, what mistakes to avoid, and why having a strategy is important for your podcast. Harry also lets us in on his secrets to attracting your ideal audience, how to keep them engaged, and how to ultimately grow your revenue and impact.

https://youtu.be/V_9RkT35x2s

Topics discussed in this episode:

• Harry explains why many podcasts don’t have a large number of listeners [1:51] | [3:50]
  
• Some of the mistakes that people make when it comes to running B2B podcasts, and how they can be addressed [4:29]
  
• Harry elaborates on how to gain a better understanding of the ideal listener [8:49]
  
• Harry’s thoughts on promoting podcasts through paid ads [21:00]
  
• Some specific metrics that marketers should pay attention to when it comes to B2B podcasts [23:34]
  
• Harry’s thoughts on how podcasts can better differentiate themselves from their competitors [27:36]
  

Companies & links mentioned in this episode:

• Harry Morton on LinkedIn
  
• Lower Street Media 
  
• SparkToro 
  
• Voxalyze 
  
• Riverside
  
• Squadcast 
  
•  
  

SPEAKER

Christian Klepp, Harry Morton

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 our 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. 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 joined by someone on a mission to make award winning podcasts with B2B brands. So coming to us from London, England, Mr. Harry Morton, welcome to the show, sir.

Harry Morton  00:44

Thanks so much for having me.

Christian Klepp  00:47

Great to be connected, Harry. And I understand that you guys are just going through this ridiculous heatwave at the moment. So here’s me sending you a bit of cold air from Toronto. 

Harry Morton  00:57

Thanks very much. Welcome. Very welcome.

Christian Klepp  01:00

All right. Well, let’s get this conversation started. Because man, this is a topic that is relevant to me, it’s relevant to B2B marketers. It’s relevant to anybody that is thinking of running a podcast or is already running one. Show. Cool. So you know, you’re quite the expert when it comes to this topic. But for this conversation, let’s zero in on some of the things that you’ve learned. And there are probably a lot of things but like, that you’ve learned from launching and growing, revenue generating B2B podcast. So you mentioned something in a previous conversation, I think it’s worth repeating. Okay, let me see if I can get this right. There are 4 million podcasts out there. Right, but just a fraction of them actually have a large number of listeners or any listeners at all. So why do you think that is?

Harry Morton  01:51

Yeah, I think a podcast is easy to make. But a podcast is it’s actually really hard to make. Well, I think. So. I think that lots of people get excited to create podcasts, they produce one and they quickly find that actually finding listeners is really difficult. So I think of that, of those 4 million podcasts that are out there, I think a lot of those ones are ones that have begun and then quickly ceased to exist or stop producing episodes, because they’re not kind of getting that immediate, kind of hit of, of endorphins or whatever, when people kind of listened to their podcast. And, you know, I think we really find that podcasting, rewards consistency and sticking to it. So it’s not something that is going to kind of deliver results straight away. So I think that means that a lot of those 4 million podcasts are just things that have been up there for an episode or just a few episodes before quitting. But then there are lots of shows that are out there that produce on a regular basis and are still consistent but still don’t have a huge listenership. And in some cases, that’s because they’re hyper niche, right? And they just serve a very small audience. And that’s an actually for many people, that’s great. But in many cases as well, it is just very difficult to stand out from all of the other podcasts that are out there and grow listenership. So yeah, I think that’s why it’s easy to get started. But it’s not easy to do. Well,

Christian Klepp  03:13

Absolutely. And I mean, I’ve been running my own show for two years now. So I can attest to how challenging that can be at times. I’m curious, just going back to something that you said earlier, do you think that it’s also because they probably run out of steam? Because of the topics that are being discussed the content? There’s no, there’s no, I wouldn’t say overarching theme, but like, but yes. Right. Like, it’s not it’s the whole, like, call it whatever you want, raison d’etre. Like, why does your podcast exist? Right? It doesn’t serve? Right.

Harry Morton  03:50

Exactly. Yeah, I think a lot of people don’t have a very clear mission when they when they start. And, so then consistently coming up with new topics and ideas and guests can be a challenge. Yeah, I think for the most people the reason they quit is just because they’re not seeing the results that they want. I think that’s the most common reason. But yeah, certainly coming up with consistently coming up with content is it can be a challenge. Yeah.

Christian Klepp  03:50

Absolutely. Absolutely. And yeah, for this next question, you’ve probably seen them all, but like, tell us about some of the mistakes and misconceptions out there. When it comes to running B2B podcasts and how these can best be addressed.

Harry Morton  04:29

Yeah, so common mistakes, I think are we very commonly see people just get very excited about podcasting. We want to start a podcast we’ve got this great idea. We’ve got internal buy in we know that, you know, leadership are keen for us to do this. So we’re going to interview X subject matter folks on Y topic and it’s going to be really interesting. I’m going to put it out there and that’s gonna be wonderful. Which, which can work, but I think more commonly than not it doesn’t necessarily resonate on any kind of level. Because what we’ve not done is it we’re sort of thinking quite internally, we think these are the things that are interesting to us. And we’re having to go out into the marketplace and say, hey, look, here’s this content we made. Are you interested in it? And I think what we want to do is sort of flip that on its head and instead start and certainly where we kind of recommend the work we do we are always beginning with who is the listener? And what are we trying to achieve in in reaching them with this show? And working backwards from that? So what podcasts? Are they already engaging with? What content is already out there that they’re, you know, raising their hand and choosing to listen to? And what can we learn from that and sort of sculpt the ideas that we’ve got for the show we want to make in such a way that we know will actually serve a purpose for our audience resonate and gain that listenership that we’re looking for. So I think that’s probably the biggest mistake is just sort of putting content out there and hoping for the best. And instead, we want to sort of really carefully consider who we’re trying to reach and working backwards from that. I think the other the other sort of issues that people run into is the way that they sort of promote them. And we can talk about kind of marketing podcasts later. But I think a lot of people sort of really lean into social media and all this sort of stuff, which can be really great. And it’s certainly important for us to utilize social media and promoting our podcast. But it’s, it’s actually not where we see a lot of the growth for shows happening. Instead, we really want to focus on areas where folks are already listening to podcasts. And already sort of in that podcasting mode, when you’re in social media in sort of short form bite sized mode, it’s very difficult to make the leap from scrolling your Instagram feed to then spending 40 minutes listening to a really kind of deep piece of content and an audio. And instead, what we want to focus on is reaching people where they’re already in podcast mode, and marketing to them there. So I think that’s another really common mistake. And it’s the sort of combination of those two if we don’t get the content, right, and our promotion strategy isn’t right, then we sort of we don’t get the results that we’re looking for. We don’t get that listenership and the engagement that we’re hoping for. And then it tends to a lot of it tends to lead to a lot of podcasts sort of dying before their time, really, and not, you know, given not being given the chance that they possibly deserve.

Christian Klepp  07:10

Dying a quick death, as they say. Yeah, I mean, well, that’s incredibly interesting, because like the the two mistakes that you’ve highlighted, in theory, that almost sounds like, well, yes, Harry, of course, that’s what you should be doing. Right. But an application, we’ve all seen how difficult that can actually be. I like your first point, because it’s almost like that could be applicable to B2B marketing across the board is that gives us like, taking that outside in approach versus like, internally, everybody says, This is awesome. And then let’s take it to market and like, oh, wait, hang on how come, the results that we’re generating aren’t the ones that we’ve hoped for. Right.

Harry Morton  07:50

Exactly. And yeah, I think, you know, everyone has an interesting story to tell, I’m not trying to put anybody off telling the story that they want to tell. But I think we have to think about where it’s going to end up and how it’s going to be engaged with and packaging it in the right way. And because some of that, oftentimes the work in the work we do we go to clients come to us to say we’ve got this great concept for show. And we’re not throwing that totally out the window and saying no, this is a terrible idea what your audience wants, is this, what we’re doing, instead of sculpting that massaging that kind of tweaking it slightly so that we’re presenting it in the right way, so that we will be received in the way that we want. So yeah, it’s not to say that all those all those ideas that are out there are terrible. It’s just like that maybe not positioned correctly.

Christian Klepp  08:32

Absolutely. You talked about this a little bit already in the past couple of minutes. But can you elaborate on the importance of having a strategy for your podcast? And back to what you were saying earlier to understanding who your ideal listener is? Because I think that’s so important. 

Harry Morton  08:49

Yeah, exactly. Well, I think, you know, we talked about the number of podcasts that are out there. And by the way, this compares to 2018. There were 550,000 podcasts, right? So it’s just been a total explosion over the last four years and predominantly through the pandemic. Now, that’s a wonderful thing, by the way, because it means there’s more people listening to podcasts, and that number of 4 million, although I think there’s sort of something like two and a half million sort of active podcasts. But anyway, that number is still pales in comparison to what we see on YouTube or the blogosphere, if that’s a term that people still use. You know, so that, you know, there’s still loads and loads of opportunity in podcasting. But nevertheless, there is still a lot more competition than there used to be. So just sort of throwing up another interview-based podcast on whatever your chosen subject might be. You’re not going to have the same level of success as you might have done if you’d done it in 2015. So instead, what we want to do is, is it’s really important to, to have a very clear concept of a raison d’etre as you, as you said, a reason to exist, that that gives it an identity and something for listeners to sort of cling on to. And so, the way that we go about that is to firstly, clearly articulating that target listener: who we’re trying to reach on, why is that? And if we can clearly articulate who we’re trying to reach them, we can sort of go away and understand what podcasts they’re already listening to, we can look, we can use certain tools to understand, based on demographics, what are the kinds of podcasts that are really common among that audience? Spark Toro is a really great tool for understanding that if anyone’s familiar, we can look through based on it on a keyword basis, you know, what are the if we searched within Apple podcasts for the terms that surround our show? What are the podcasts that are coming up in those searches. So let’s say for example, we’re trying to reach C suite execs in the technology space, so or let’s be more specific in the kind of machine learning space. So we’re going to reach C suite folks, and it’s in the C suite, in machine learning, so we’re gonna go into Apple podcasts, we’re gonna type in machine learning and all of the sort of other topics, subcategories within that that are relevant to us and look at what are the podcasts that are being surfaced for that. And then the other the other way that we want to look at it is we want to look at sort of shows that have an overlapping audience with the podcast that we think are most closely aligned with us. Now, there are some really exciting tools being developed around this stuff. But there’s actually a very straightforward way that we can learn this. And that’s by going into Apple podcasts searching for a show that we think is really closely aligned with our audience with our subject matter, whatever that may be. And if you scroll all the way to the bottom of that page on Apple podcasts, it’ll say, listeners of this podcast also listened to and they’ll give you a kind of list of other shows, and what Apple is telling you there is subscribers of this podcast, also subscribe to this podcast. And so when we combine all of those different things, the keyword research the demographic information, and the audience overlap data, we can build a really robust kind of competitive landscape within which our podcast is going to live. And that’s where we start every project that we work on, because we want to understand what are we competing with? But also what can we learn from those competition you have the best performing shows the most popular the best produce whichever metric, you know, whichever kind of way we want to slice it? What are the common themes there? What are the you know, how long are episodes typically is a very rudimentary question to answer. But you know, what, what are the format’s? What are the topics they’re discussing? What are the angles they’re taking on those subjects? What are the styles of podcast production, and we can learn from that okay, of the best for me shows, those are the ideas we want to maybe integrate into our show, because we know that that’s what the market is wanting and looking for. But also we can look okay, well, where are there gaps here? Where is there something that we can uniquely bring to the table where machine learning experts and clearly we’re seeing that there’s a lacking in this particular space? And that’s where we’re going to present ourselves? But I think that yeah, it’s not, it’s not enough to just to just create a new podcast in in your specific niche, I think it’s really important that that podcast has a very clear point of view, and mission, if you want, you know, this is what we stand for. This is our point of view, because it’s that, that strength of opinion is good that people are going to grip on to write or disagree with vehemently. And that’s great, too, because you get that sort of conversation going. And where it’s just yeah, being very general, is probably not where you want to be anymore.

Christian Klepp  13:13

Yeah, well, this was a really, really interesting points, I want to go back to something that you said earlier and get your thoughts on it. Like you spoke at length about things like keyword search, and, you know, some of these features that within Apple podcasts or whatever platform, you know, you go to the get your favorite podcasts and whatnot. Do you think that keyword search is something that is underestimated? When it comes to producing podcasts? Like people, people tend not to give it the airtime that it actually deserves?

Harry Morton  13:45

Yeah, well, I think it’s, it’s a really kind of, I guess, you could say it’s an emerging space in the sense that, you know, SEO, podcast SEO, it’s its own beast, you know, we’re not dealing with Google here, we’re dealing with the Apple podcast algorithm, or the Spotify algorithm or whatever. And, and so, you know, when we’re looking to acquire listeners that, you know, one of the big ways that people are discovering content is just literally searching for it and their podcast apps. So definitely, SEO is a really important thing that we want to consider when positioning and packaging our show. And that’s, you know, again, that’s where a lot of these opportunities can be there are some really great tools that focus on podcast SEO. Voxalyze is a company out of what to say Switzerland, or maybe it’s France, I forget now, but that’s a great tool for doing exactly this, understanding the SEO performance of your podcast and trying to optimize that. I want to be clear that, you know, I think great content is the most important thing. I think it’s very easy to get focused on the hacks and the tools and the tactics and I’m a big fan of all that. So don’t get me wrong, I hence me sort of name dropping a bunch of tools, like it’s always a lot of fun. But I think first of all, the most important thing is that we as I say, sort of understand our target list now build up that really kind of robust idea of where our podcast is listening what that ecosystem looks like in audio already, and creating a really kind of clear strategy and concept for your podcast. And then we can start adding in all the wonderful things like, you know, hacking the SEO game and all that sort of stuff.

Christian Klepp  15:15

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. On to the next topic I’ll talk to us about, and you mentioned some of these things already. But talk about the essential components required for actually launching and growing a B2B podcast successfully. I think I’m gonna throw in that word successfully.

Harry Morton  16:00

Sure. Sure. So. So yeah, once we have a clear concept in mind, it does come down to a few things. The first one is, so we’ve talked about sort of differentiating on a content basis, I think we also need to hit a certain bar and certain terms of production quality, too. And that’s getting ever easier. So there are a million blog posts out there on how to start a podcast. I won’t bore you with the details now. But getting yourself a decent quality microphone, recording on a platform that is optimized for podcasting is a great win. We’re recording right now on Zoom, which is fine. But I would recommend like just a suggestion to you I’m sure you’re aware Christian of platforms like Riverside and Squadcast. It’s a small additional investment, but they are really optimized for recording high fidelity audio and video and makes a huge difference to the production quality, it’s a very easy tweak to make, that will kind of, you know, really up the level of the audio and your listening experience. And I think that’s really, really important box to tick. It’s a very easy box to take very sort of, you know, step by step thing to go through, there’s no kind of intense strategy required for that. But um, but it definitely makes a big difference, because as I say, you know, the bar is getting higher as competition increases. So I think getting that right. I think having a very clear launch and promotion strategy is really important. When we’re trying to, you know, we’ve got buy in from the from internal stakeholders that are that are signing off on on this project. They want to see results, right? So we can say, Okay, we’re going to trial, this many episodes, we’re going to create this podcast for the first time. So it’s imperative that there is a promotional strategy that goes alongside this to ensure that people actually discover it and listen to it. So I think that’s a huge part of successfully launching and growing a podcast is having that plan. Now, there are all sorts of ways that we can approach the launch. But I think, you know, some of the most, the most impactful things that we can do. If I just took actionable bits here, I think the first one is to make a really fantastic trailer that very clearly positions and sells your show sort of two minute long, real pitch for your podcast, and why someone should listen, we want to then create a bit of an event around the launch, I think, contests work really well here, you know, for your chance to win a $50 voucher or whatever it might be. Follow our podcast in Apple and leave us a rating review to just get that engagement going. Now, Apple podcasts, by the way, I’m gonna get specific on kind of the growth piece here for a second. And that is where Apple podcasts algorithm, the way they rank shows is based on the number of new subscribers you’ve received in the last 24 hours. Basically, there are other elements that go into it, but that’s the key one. So basically, what that means is the number one ranking podcast in Apple podcasts is the show that’s received the most new subscribers over the last 24 hours. And that’s just a constant rolling thing that goes on. It’s I’m oversimplifying it, but just for the sake of simplicity. Now, so what that means is we want to have a spike in activity, a bunch of new subscribers to our podcast, and that’s going to push it up the ranks. So our launch is a great opportunity to do that. And a contest is a great way to incentivize that engagement. So I think a contest is great. But also, we want to lean into our unfair advantages. As a brand. You know, this is a B2B podcast we’re creating. So it’s not just about a hobby or a side project, we actually have huge advantages there. So we have email lists, we have websites, we have social accounts. But also depending on the business, we might have other things we might have physical locations, I don’t know we’ve produced podcasts with hotel chains before and they’ve got you know, they can put QR codes for their show in all of their rooms, for example. Or we might be attending lots of conferences, and we can leverage that to really kind of build awareness around the show. Or we might have a software product and we can bake in adverts for the show into our software products. It’s free real estate for us. Great opportunity to kind of see the growth of this this this show at the outset. So yes, I could go on and on about promoting your podcast but I think to successfully launch and grow show, you really need to have the content dialed be producing it really professionally so that it stands up against the competition, and then have a really sort of strong launch so that you get the results you’re looking from early for early on, and can continue then to justify By investing in it to make sure that it grows and prospers.

Christian Klepp  20:32

Yeah. And those were those were some really great points. And as you said, you probably could have gone off for another five hours.

Harry Morton  20:38

Yeah, sorry, I get very excited and carried away with this stuff. So you have to interrupt and tell me to shut up. 

Christian Klepp  20:46

No, no, no, I love it. I love it. That’s what you’re here for. Um, but I did want to go back to something that you briefly mentioned. And only because I’ve seen a lot of posts about this on LinkedIn, your thoughts on promoting podcasts through paid ads? What are your thoughts.

Harry Morton  21:00

So this is the many times as digital marketers, this is our go to, right? We understand if we put x dollars into Facebook ads or whatever, we get results. Now, of course, Facebook, Google, everybody, they’re very good at taking our money and making sure they drive those clicks, so that they can bill us. But actually, what we found is that it’s, it’s really not the most effective way to grow podcast. And the reason for that the short version is I may have just said this a moment go. But just to kind of set it up. If you’re scrolling through Instagram, or Facebook or Twitter, you’re in short form bite sized content mode. And so it’s very, very difficult to make that leap we’ve discovered for the user from that short form version into your short form content into Okay, now I’m going to spend the next 40 minutes listening to a really in depth piece of content. So it’s really important that we’re on social for brand awareness for engagement with our community for kind of continuing the conversation beyond the episodes. But it’s not where we’re going to necessarily drive a lot of our acquisition of new listeners. So yes, it’s important to be there. But it’s not where we recommend people spend a lot of their budget because it just won’t, it’ll drive short term results, but not long term listeners that are going to stick with the show for a long time. So instead, what we recommend is is working inside the podcast ecosystem and advertising to podcast listeners where they’re already engaging with content. And that can be through partnering with other podcasts and promote cross promoting on each other’s shows that could be being a guest on another podcast, it could be sponsoring other podcasts or just you know, the pay-t-play version of that. It could be by advertising within the podcast apps themselves. Some of them allow you to pay for kind of visibility in their home screens, not Apple and Spotify, but many of the others. And that, you know, there are a bunch of other ways that we can do, but those are some of the key ones there. So I always sort of strongly recommend that B2B marketers that are launching a podcast, they definitely want to utilize their existing social channels, of course, you must, it’s a great opportunity to repurpose your podcast content for social, and it’s a great place to just make people are aware that the show exists. But we really want to focus our proactive growth efforts in the podcast ecosystem directly.

Christian Klepp  23:19

Absolutely. Absolutely. Those are some really great points. What are some specific metrics, in your opinion that marketers should be paying attention to when it comes to B2B podcasts? And I hope you’re not going to say the number of downloads.

Harry Morton  23:34

Yeah, that’s the that’s the of course it matters, right, though, of course, it matters. But I think we need to perhaps reevaluate what we consider as good because it’s very easy to get carried away with how many millions of views we’ve got on our Tik Tok campaign, and sort of apply that to podcasting and be disappointed by the numbers that we see. Because I think the level of engagement we see in podcasting is just massively, it massively outweighs what we see in other forms. So for example, in, in audio, it’s very common for us to see 70, 80, 90% percent completion rates of the content we’re producing. Whereas if you put a five minute video on social, you’d be lucky to get more than 5% average consumption. So, yeah, we’ve got a real kind of opportunity in podcasting. And if we were to say that our podcast has only got 200 listeners per episode, which many of our clients have, and has seen tremendous results from it, they’re extremely happy and been producing it for years. As a result, if we were to say you could get 200 highly qualified people in a room at a conference to listen to you speak, you’d probably be pretty excited by that opportunity, you know, obviously, depends on who the buyers are and what your product is. But, you know, that’s, that’s a pretty kind of appealing prospect. So I think we need to sort of reevaluate what success looks like in terms of numbers. But of course, down that numbers is something that’s always of interest to people. However, the number that we really focus on and encourage clients to really obsess over is that completion rate, so I mentioned it before Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google podcasts, they provide you with the data around of each episode. This is the number of people that listened. And on average, this is how long they listened for. And actually, they give you a graph so you can even see on a second by second basis, where people that where you’re losing your listeners where you’re gaining your listeners, so you can understand okay, how is the audience engaging with this content? Where are they getting bored? Where are their opportunities for us to improve Where are they skipping? But most importantly, where are they dropping off so that we know okay, well, this, this isn’t working, either this guest isn’t working or this topic isn’t working or the structure isn’t working, whatever. But we see that if you’re if you are getting listenership levels or consumption rates of 80% plus of your podcasts on average, the show is going to grow almost organically, because basically, you know, I think it’s fair to say, if, if you’re consuming 80% of a podcast like and it’s a 30 minutes show, you know, you’re engaged with that content, you’re enjoying it, there’s some value in that for you. And that leads to people sharing that and talking about it and sending it to their, to their friends and colleagues, and so on. So if we instead shift our focus from the sheer number of people downloading the podcast, and instead go of the people we have got, how engaged are they? If we get that bit right first, and that the audience growth piece will just naturally follow and be much, much easier?

Christian Klepp  26:26

Yeah, no, exactly. That’s a really good point. I mean, we focus on the completion rate as well, as opposed to the number of downloads, and it’s interesting to see that, right. Yeah, absolutely. It’s a good gauge to tell like, and there’s a number of factors involved, as you said, right? Because it could be the topic. It could be the guest, right? Because sometimes, excuse me, sometimes the topic is great, but maybe sometimes the I’m gonna just be politically correct and say the method of delivery.

Harry Morton  26:52

Sure, yeah. You just get some Wofully Brit, who just like bubbles on for ages. And everyone’s like, this is boring. And I’m out of here. And I can totally understand that. So yeah, and exactly, we want to look at that on an episode by episode basis. And then we want to drill into our most popular episodes and really try to understand like, why are they performing? Well, like, which parts are people really kind of engaging with? And I think there’s just so much insight to be drawn from that.

Christian Klepp  27:13

Absolutely. Absolutely. Harry, I’m gonna go back to something that you mentioned earlier. And I just want to expand on that a little bit. And it’s, it’s on the topic of differentiating your podcast from competitors. So clearly, things like content and production quality, right? Those are probably right up there on that list. But any other things or any other examples that you can give the listeners?

Harry Morton  27:36

Yeah. So I think having that really strong point of view, is inevitably and definitely a differentiator. You know, if we’re uniquely asked if we have our own opinions and stand by them, then that that makes something unique right off the bat. But beyond that, the like, you know, what, something like actionable and useful that we can think about and consider, and I think there are a few opportunities in podcasting, that the straightforward interview podcast, the tried and true format, is well and truly done, it’s out there, like not done like, there’s always going to be new topics that come up, always new subjects that people can create shows around. And um, you know, I’m not certain, certainly not the depth of the interview. There’s a huge amount of value to that. But I think we can think possibly beyond that a little bit and think about, okay, well, we’re in an industry with five to 10 podcasts already covering this this topic, like what, how can we stand apart and I think we can think about, well, maybe we don’t need to rely on guests, the same guests that everybody else who’s speaking to maybe instead, what we could do is create a short form podcast, like a five minute bite sized piece of content that really has kind of really short and sweet and concise actionable takeaways for our audience, maybe we can think about creating daily content, I think there’s a huge opportunity in daily content. The New York Times daily is one of the most popular podcasts out there. And it’s because it becomes a part of someone’s daily routine. And so maybe there’s an opportunity for us as a brand to create that for our industry. By the way, going back to short form, Spotify loves short form content, because they can slot it into their playlists among their music tracks and stuff. And so if you have a slightly younger skewing audience, you know, short form could be a really interesting opportunity to look at. I think there are loads of different ways, you know, our focus at lower Street is a really on kind of narrative lead podcasts. So really, you know, we’ve talked about sort of production quality and so on, but then we can also go further in terms of storytelling, and, and really, kind of making almost documentary style shows. You know, we produced lots of interview style shows as well. But I think that that next level can really just differentiate us by creating something that’s, that’s a lot more immersive. And I think there’s just so much uncharted territory in podcasting. You know, I think YouTube has taught us so much about what kind of content that people want. And there are so many formats there that just don’t exist yet in audio, you know, where all the I don’t know, let’s go really left field like quiz shows, you know, there’s no like, you know, what else product reviews is a huge kind of category in YouTube, and I’m not really seeing that in podcasting yet. You know, fiction, for example, drama. There’s, you know, increasing amount of kind of fictional content in podcasting, but I think brands can really lean into that and make something truly unique by by fictionalizing. Their content were actually just to give that make that tangible and so that it makes sense we’re actually working with In an organization that focuses on depression, and they are building tools to serve folks with depression, and they instead decided, instead of interviewing a bunch of experts on the science of depression, and how you can understand it, and fight it and cope with it, and so on, they decided instead to create a fictionalized narrative based around a character who’s learning about her mental health, through the story of this podcast, and all the while interacting with all of these experts that we’re going to be interviewing for the podcast, but it’s just framed in this totally different way through the lens of a character, I think that’s just such a cool opportunity for for, for brands to meet with their, their, their customers, with their audience, in a totally different light in a different way. So, so yeah, I think there are lots of different opportunities to differentiate because there’s just so much uncharted territory here. There are no rules.

Christian Klepp  31:22

I love it. I love it. This this really like strikes me as this brainstorming session, you know, that we’ve got going on. I love how you brought up the how brands can use that fiction and drama approach, right? Like there would probably be many B2B companies out there that would argue that that’s probably not the way to go. But then again, if we were talking about differentiation, yeah, then you try to do something that’s a little bit more unconventional.

Harry Morton  31:51

That’s exactly right. And look, I like to kind of position the extremes, so that then the not so extreme, doesn’t feel quite so scary anymore. Because I think a lot of people they come in with the assumption of, we’re just going to make an interview show, and that’s great. Or maybe a panel discussion show. Wonderful. Like, there’s no problem with that. But if we go well, hey, how about what these guys are doing? That’s really crazy. And then all of a sudden, something that’s a bit more crazy? Doesn’t seem so scary anymore. We might not go the full fictional podcast route. That is pretty scary. But, but I would encourage everyone to be a bit braver in how they think about what content they should put out there.

Christian Klepp  32:24

Absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Now the next question, what is the status quo in your area of expertise, where you say, the quote, the British expression, that’s all bollocks.

Harry Morton  32:42

So well, I don’t know. So it’s a very exciting one. But I think that so coming back to social media, one of the big methods that people use to sort of promote their podcasts on social media is the audio gram. For anyone that’s not familiar with an audio gram, it’s sort of a usually around sort of 30 seconds to a minute clip of your podcast. Usually, it’s got a static image, and then an animated waveform to sort of show that there’s audio there and an animated transcript. If they don’t, they get very, very, very low engagement. It’s a sort of industry standard, everyone does them just because everyone does them. But actually, I don’t think many people are really investigating whether it’s worth doing it. And it’s, and it’s, in our experience, a total waste of time. So we really strongly recommend that you think about creating social native content around your podcast. And that could mean by the way, that we’re just here on this on this show together. And like during the conversation, you get your phone out, you do like a selfie style, hey, I’m just like on the phone with Christian Right now we’re having this great interview, it’s like really wonderful, like a behind the scenes kind of thing. Or you might just finish the interview and then do the shirt shot, like, oh, we had this great conversation about this and that, you’re going to love it for this reason that you’re making their native content, it’s not too much more of a lift to kind of create that. But it will receive a much kind of better rate of engagement in our experience. So yeah, depth to the audiogram I guess that’s my, I don’t know how, how sort of, you know, unconventional that view is, but certainly, that’s, that’s, that’s one thing that I I would suggest everyone doesn’t do. What does didn’t go

Christian Klepp  34:20

okay. I mean, that definitely will give me some food for thought at least about our approach, because we do use audiograms. But we, we stopped using the stack, the static image, right? And actually inserted like, actual footage from the video interview itself. But um, yeah…

Harry Morton  34:39

You can now make an audiogram for this episode trashing audio grams. How about that? That’d be a nice conversation.

Christian Klepp  34:47

Exactly. Exactly. Well, it’s not it’s not necessarily just to take a stand, but it’s in this is the purpose of the show. It’s getting people to think differently about how they’re doing things, like in this case about B2B podcast, so it’s not so rank and file because I think, if I’ve learned anything about you in this conversation, Harry is that you’re not a big fan of rank and file, you’re actually a fan of like, Let’s do things differently. 

Harry Morton  35:10

Right. All right. Yep. 

Christian Klepp  35:12

Fantastic. Fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on the show and for sharing your expertise and your experience with the listeners. So please, quick introduction for yourself and help people out there can get in touch with you.

Harry Morton  35:25

Awesome. Thanks, Christian. It’s been fun. I hang out on Twitter. a lot you can find me @podcastharry. I’m on LinkedIn, of course and all the work that we do is over at lowerstreet.co. And thanks for having me.

Christian Klepp  35:38

Fantastic. Fantastic, Harry. It’s been a pleasure. So thanks again for your time. Take care. Stay safe and talk to you soon. 

Harry Morton  35:45

Thanks, Christian. 

Christian Klepp  35:46

Bye for now.