Turning B2B tech companies into media companies with Justin Brown

Episode Summary

The advances in technology, the internet, and the growth and popularity of social media have caused companies to consider becoming media companies, regardless of their industry. Further, the digital space offers convenience to businesses by allowing them to use different channels to bring their offering closer to a target audience. A podcast is one of those channels.

However, running a podcast comes with many challenges. As a marketer considering launching a podcast, you must first convince your executive team that podcasting is the way to go. Once you get their consent, the roller coaster of a podcast begins. You need the right tools and team to bring that idea into reality.

This episode of Recorded Content is a bit different. Our host Justin Brown was a guest on Christian Klepp’s B2B Marketers on a Mission podcast. In this episode, Justin shared his experience as a podcast host. He also talked about the reasons for and benefits of repurposing a podcast and whether podcasters should monetize their shows. Justin also discussed the most common struggles and misconceptions people (the clients they work with) have around podcasting.

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Key Insights

Use a podcast as the foundation of your content strategy. A podcast is more than an audio format; it is a piece you can repurpose to create different types of content that you can then distribute across various channels. So the question is not whether you should start a podcast; it's whether you have the resources, especially people, who can commit to such a project. If your answer is yes, prepare yourself for a lot of work, but the results are worth it. ''What our clients are finding is that they're on these small teams, and the podcast gets them the most traction from a content creation standpoint versus anything else that they're doing.''
Find your niche. Many podcasters believe they will be more successful if they speak to a broader audience. But, as Justin explains, the key is to be specific. Find your niche and the people you want to share your message with. Otherwise, you risk staying unnoticed in an already crowded podcast space. ''You need to narrow in on who you speak to. So when it comes to creating repurposed content, I think it goes to the theme of your show — who does your show speak to? And then, when you create the repurposed content, all that repurposed content should focus on is helping that segment of people.''
Podcasts don't have to be entertaining. One of the misconceptions about podcasts is that they have to be fun. As Justin says, there's nothing wrong with being funny in a podcast, but if that's not part of your personality, don't force yourself to make it like that. Finally, you want to bring value to your audience to show your podcast is worth their while. ''I think that B2B podcasting should be actionable and helpful for your specific niche audience that cares about the content you're making, and it should help them get better at their job.''

Episode Highlights

A Podcast Can Be a Fundamental Part of Your Content Strategy

”By using a podcast — and very specifically a video podcast in most situations — capturing that piece of 30- to 40-minute content can just turn into so many things.

We try to take that middle piece, which is the creation of the written content — show notes, featured 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 eight to ten pieces of content out of every 30- to 40-minute episode.”

Repurpose a Podcast to Meet Different People’s Habits and Preferences

”I believe that people consume content differently. Different people consume content differently. I think people consume content differently in the different environments they’re in on a day-to-day basis. […]

So the reason that we produce written, video, audio, and image-based content is so that you can be in front of people in every possible way they consume content. And there’s nothing that you’re leaving on the table. If you just produce an audio podcast, the only people you’re going to get are the people who consume audio podcasts versus setting yourself up with the opportunity to be in front of people wherever and whenever they’re consuming anything business-related.”

The Biggest Misconceptions/Struggles Around Starting a Podcast

”First and foremost, we’re just seeing that people don’t know where to start when it comes to a podcast. People don’t know how to get it up on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. […] We’re talking about full-length episodes. I think there’s a lot of stuff out there that is very similar. […]

And then, in terms of the actual work that goes into it, it’s not only editing the episodes but then creating the repurposed content. And so where we’ve found people 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 get it live.

[…] That is less than exciting for those folks who, most of the time, are marketers by trade — who want to do a job that’s going to drive revenue and that’s going to drive results. And 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.

What we try to do is allow marketers to market. We take away that creation part because we were watching marketers spend so much time creating that they weren’t spending any time marketing, and they didn’t have the time to take this amazing thing they made and get it in front of people.

And so I think that the biggest misconception or struggle that I see is that a) people don’t know what goes into it, and then b) by the time they figure out what goes into it, 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 thought.”

To Monetize or Not Monetize a Podcast, That Is the Question

”I was talking to someone, and they were talking about monetizing their podcast, and they got advice from someone who was the CEO of a company, and that CEO said, ‘Do not monetize your podcast.’ And now, this person is running their podcast.

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, I agree. You shouldn’t monetize your podcast. You should be trying to cultivate an audience and bring value and engaging content,’ 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 from me. I’m selling something. So I don’t need to monetize my podcast because the thing I’m selling is our podcast services. But for an individual who’s running their podcast, for me to say you shouldn’t monetize, like what are they getting out of it?

So I think if it’s a business podcast, in most scenarios — probably 99% of them — monetizing your podcast as a business is not going to make that much sense. As an individual contributor, I think monetizing can make sense if you feel like you can provide so much value, and you’ve cultivated a big enough following that people love your brand or whatever you want to call it. They just love you enough to want more, and you feel like you can provide more. Then go make your money.”