Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:05 I think when you look at the podcasting landscape here at the end of 2019 a lot of people say, Oh, I want to start a podcast, or I've just started a podcast, but it's not really doing what I want for my business or for my church group, or for whatever kind of organization that you're a part of from from hobby to passion project to your business or a side hustle even. And I think that the, the reason behind this is that a lot of people find starting a podcast as the objective, but the real objective that we're all shooting for is to build a podcast that really has an impact on whatever we're doing. Again, whether that's that's your brand, your business, your church group, organization, charity or your Dungeons and dragons group, right? So I think that that what we're wanting to do is not start a podcast, but to build and grow a podcast.
Speaker 1 00:52 And that's what audience is all about. Audiences, a real time behind the scenes, raw and unfiltered. Look at what one brand Costos in this case is doing to grow a podcast that really matters. And I think that defining what really matters is going to be different for all of us. Right? For some of us it's getting a couple hundred downloads an episode and that's, that's a really noble and worthwhile goal for a lot of people. And for some it's, it's tens or hundreds of thousands of downloads per episode. Like some of the more story to podcasts out there from you know, this American life and the cereal brand and things like that that have hundreds of thousands and millions of downloads and episode. Uh, I think the answer to this is different for everyone and we shouldn't let ourselves get caught up in the, the, you know, podcast analytics, race and keeping up with the Joneses if you will, that a lot of people are doing is, is comparing yourself to other people and that's just really not fair. I think we all have to decide for ourselves what a success looks like. And that's not just analytics, that's what ends up happening with our brand or our cause or our <inaudible>
Speaker 0 01:55 business because we have a successful podcast
Speaker 1 02:02 for us here at <inaudible>. The audience podcast here is really kind of a show and tell of things that we know, things that we believe and that we practice and showing you the listener, how to put them into practice in your show to, to grow your audience, to have a bigger reach with your podcast and share your voice in a more meaningful and impactful way with your audience and with the people that listen to you. And so what this podcast is really going to look like is you following along in our journey from just starting a brand new podcast to exploring various ways to grow our audience and experimenting with different types of content in different formats for our podcast. Uh, and, and along the way we will, we will have our ups and we will have our downs and we will share all of that with you here.
Speaker 1 02:45 Uh, I think this level of transparency is particularly impactful in the podcasting medium where, um, it's not a, uh, a kind of hyper competitive space where if, if I'm winning, then you're losing by nature. I think that's, that's how some of these things are. But our view here is that if we can share what we're doing that that works and which doesn't work, that that will help everybody be better. Podcasters be more effective, what they're doing with their show so that it then can of furthers whatever reason behind your podcast you have, whether again, whether it's your brand, your business, your special interest or charity or hobby. And this is going to take a couple of different forms. A two. So to begin with, we're gonna, we're gonna look at why we're starting a podcast, uh, how we're starting it, uh, everything from gear to set up to content planning.
Speaker 1 03:29 From there, we're going to go into a little bit more of what our goals are around our podcast. And these are specific to us, but I'll be talking through the, the thought exercise that I go through with our marketing director, Denise, to, to talk about, you know, why did we decide to start the audience podcast? What, what is this gonna do for our brand? And both from a an altruistic perspective, what can we share with the world but also for, for our own interest, you know, what is it that, that we hope to get out of this for our brand and our business and to move, move the needle there. And then we're going to go into the, the several different kind of areas of growth that, that we all expect to, to kind of explore in this podcast. And just kind of off off the top that, you know, those areas are really broken down into organic and paid growth. And we're going to be exploring both of these heavily within the organic bucket. You can think of things like social media and email marketing and influencer outreach and sharing. And then on the paid side you can think of things like paid ads, um, in places like overcast, the popular podcasting app or in places like Facebook and Instagram. We're going to be exploring,
Speaker 1 04:40 I guess I should start by introducing myself. My name is Craig Hewitt. I'm the founder of <inaudible>. <inaudible> is a podcast hosting an analytics platform. And so our goal here really is to a bit kind of practice what we preach. So we're a, we're a podcast first company. And so creating a podcast about podcasting and how to really Excel at this form of content is a, it's something that we feel that we have a lot to offer. And so that's what the audience podcast here is all about is, is a podcasting company sharing with you, the listeners and the podcast and community, uh, what not just starting but growing a meaningful podcast to your brand is all about. And in this we're, we're going to show a lot of the behind the scenes, uh, kind of raw and unfiltered view of things. It's not going to be a sunshine and rainbows and unicorns.
Speaker 1 05:26 It's going to be, we tried this thing and it didn't work. We really took a, an approach on paid advertising for our podcast and we're not finding the traction. We're looking for maybe a, we hope we're going to share a lot of wins along the way. Uh, we, we have dozens of years of experience, uh, amongst our team. And so we think we have a really good chance at building a strong podcast here. So in each episode we're going to cover a particular aspect of growing a podcast. There's a bunch of areas that we're going to explore here, things like SEO, email marketing, paid acquisition. But then on the organic side is, you know, content planning and storytelling and what makes interesting content for listeners and then how to engage your listeners in between and outside of the episodes so that you start building a real community around your podcast. So each episode is not just going to be me talking like this episode, but this is kind of an introduction to what the audience podcast is all about. But in each episode, we're going to have a mix of me sharing the experiences and the results that we have with growing the podcast, but also really industry leading experts in podcasting, sharing their best content and advice and information and the lessons they've learned along the way with me. And I'm in this with you about how we all can go about growing up.
Speaker 0 06:36 Okay.
Speaker 1 06:42 We look around the podcast for podcasting space. We see a lot of, of kind of how to podcasts of how to get started and a lot of folks that are kind of keeping up with the latest news and trends and stuff and podcasting, and we love a lot of these shows and they're all fantastic and serve their purpose. And we're hoping that this podcast is a little different. And, uh, and this is kind of one of the lessons of, of how and why to start a podcast is, uh, you don't want to create the same podcast that everybody else does because it's tough to stand out like that. Uh, truth be told, the, the Castillo's brand had another podcast before this. It's called podcast hackers. Uh, and we've since kind of retired all of that content. Uh, it's archived on our website, but it's not available under this feed.
Speaker 1 07:25 Uh, because we felt that, uh, the podcast was really a lot of the same stuff that you hear other places. And that's not, that's not cool. And for us as content creators, we need to do better than that. And I think that's a, it's probably a lesson for everybody is that you have to do better than what everyone else is doing. You know, here at the end of 2019, uh, you can't have the same show with the same guests on talking about the same things and expect for your podcast to really stand out and get some traction. Uh, and so we created the concept around audience that this is a behind the scenes, kind of raw, unfiltered look at what growing a podcast looks like. And, uh, and with that, you know, we really think that, that it will be a learning exercise for all of us.
Speaker 1 08:04 Honestly. It will be learning exercise for me and for our team. Uh, and for everyone who's listening along, you'll be able to learn the things that we're learning as we go. This kind of thing has been done before. I know a lot in the the website creation space. People create sites from scratch and see how much traffic they get and things like that. But I don't know that this has been done for a podcast, uh, to this extent. Um, so we're really looking to, to kind of break some ground and forge some new frontiers, uh, with the audience podcast here. Uh, so what can you expect, uh, to learn and, and what can you expect to get from the show here in the next couple of episodes? You know, as I mentioned, we're going to, we're going to start with the guts, kind of the nuts and bolts of podcasting gear and RSS feeds and all these kinds of things.
Speaker 1 08:46 And we're going to blow through that pretty quickly because the fact is there's a ton of content out there on our site and on other sites about how to get started. And that's not really goal. The goal is not to get started, but the goal is to really Excel and be successful with the show after you get started. So getting started is definitely part of it and we'll cover all this really quickly, uh, in a couple of episodes. Um, but then we're going to get very quickly into how we're growing our show. Again, both from the organic and from the paid side. Cause the fact is some folks don't have the money for paid acquisition for podcasting. Um, and some folks don't have the patience for organic growth. So, uh, so we're gonna we're going to cover both sides of these and they're both really important to, uh, to grow a healthy audience.
Speaker 1 09:27 Um, you know, we, we think of paid acquisition is just an amplification of the existing content we have. Yeah, a good podcast certainly starts with great content and then everything else goes from there. So stay tuned to this feed. Subscribe today so that you get the first episode of the audience podcast coming out one week from today, Thursday, December 19th, just ahead of the holidays. We sincerely hope you enjoy the podcast here. Uh, thank you so much for, for listening. If you want to follow along with the show notes for the podcast here, you can head over to <inaudible> dot com slash podcast where you'll find all the information about the show and all the episodes coming up and be able to subscribe via email to get special alerts each time a new episode is dropped. We'll see you soon.
