Episode Summary
Marketers across various industries have started to see the value of a well-rounded content strategy and podcasts. But many hosts look at creating and hosting a podcast as a transaction. Podcasts are way more than Q&A sessions; they are powerful tools for building relationships with guests and audiences. They are also a valuable source for various content pieces you can later distribute to different channels.
Therefore, marketers aspiring to bring additional value to their customers and take their podcasts to the next level must focus more on the conversation.
In this episode of Recorded Content, our host Tristan Pelligrino shares tips on how to make a conversation exciting for the audience, the host, and the guest. These include research, setting goals for the episode, and drafting an episode outline. While discussing the episode outline, Tristan explains the ABT framework.
Guest Profile
Name: Tristan Pelligrino
What he does: Tristan is the co-founder of Motion, a done-for-you podcast agency for small scrappy B2B tech marketers.
Company: Motion
Key Insights
- The power of podcasts lies in sharing a story. More and more companies acknowledge the importance of a well-thought-out content strategy that in most cases involves a podcast. However, podcast production is a layered process and hosts aiming to make it perfect often make it too perfect or too staged. I still see marketers treating podcast interviews as a transaction. And it’s just another check box on a long list of to-do items. And when this is your approach, your interviews start to feel calculated.
- The episode quality depends on questions and the question structure depends on quality research. Every creative process starts with deep analysis. Podcast production is no different. Hosts aspiring to stand out and create compelling content must spend time learning about the guest, their background, interests, company, and current role. Otherwise, they risk creating an episode where the guest answers the same questions they’ve already answered before. If you’re looking for added value, unique stories, and engaging episodes, you have to do the work. It’s as simple as that. By going above and beyond in learning the basics about your guests, you can create podcast interview questions that go deeper into their journey. You can avoid generic questions and capture something unique for your listeners.
- Let your curiosity lead you. Many podcast hosts agree that one thing that makes them enjoy podcasting even more is the possibility of learning something new with every guest. And yes, the audience turns on a podcast to hear from a subject-matter expert, but they keep coming back because of the host. Therefore, podcast hosts must be curious like reporters and passionate about bringing relevant, complete, and objective information to their audience. Additionally, Tristan shares how his natural curiosity helped him discover more about a guest by asking them questions about their interests and not just the episode’s main topic. That particular question helped me uncover something different about Brett, the guest, and it gave the audience a glimpse of something more personal than just his traditional background.
Episode Highlights
Research is key to crafting better questions
When I see or hear a stale interview, I can tell it’s a result of little to no research. It seems the podcast host barely viewed the guest’s LinkedIn profile.
And what happens in these situations is that you end up going through everything podcast audiences have heard before and your interview guests tell the same stories in the same way they’ve done countless times before. You’re not able to surface anything new.
Identify the goal of the interview
I like to identify a core problem or conflict to explore when I research. I try to align the experience of the guest with problems my audience may face. I then develop questions to help connect the guest’s experiences to the audience.
The research you do helps pique your interest in a guest. And a lot of times I use research to build rapport in the earlier stages of an interview and to set the stage.
Create an outline
The framework I typically use is called the ABT Framework. Park Howell, the host of the podcast The Business of Story, designed the ABT Narrative Framework. He took the elements of great long-form stories and boiled them down to a three-part framework: AND-BUT-THEREFORE.
