Jeremy Shere, Founder & CEO of Connversa Podcasting discussed all things podcasting for businesses. Jeremy shares insights from his experience as a seasoned podcast producer, cautioning that while it may seem easy to get a podcast up and running, there's a lot of work involved. They also discuss the importance of setting goals and how to integrate a podcast into your existing marketing ecosystem. Plus, Jeremy shares tips on repurposing existing content as a podcast.
They also delve into the complexities of B2B marketing, with Steve sharing his fascination with the dynamic buying environment and the different dynamics at play. Jeremy adds that it's like a complex puzzle, with the pieces always morphing and changing, and shares some of his own experiences with closed deals that end up being postponed.
Tune in to this episode of the Interesting B2B Marketers Podcast and discover the power of podcasting for your business. Don't miss out on valuable insights and tips from podcasting expert Jeremy Shere. Hit play now and get started on your podcasting journey!
Key points of the episode:
With 25+ years of marketing experience, Steve Goldhaber is a former head of global digital marketing for two Fortune 500 companies and the current CEO of 26 Characters, a content marketing agency in Chicago.
Connect with Steve on LinkedIn.
Steve: Hey everybody. Welcome back to Interesting B2B Marketers. I'm your host, Steve. Welcome to Studio 26, today we are joined by Jeremy Shere. Welcome to the show.
Jeremy: Thank you, Steve. Thanks for having me.
Steve: All right, so cool. I'm excited today. As the listeners know, we always start off with case studies and there's gonna be a theme to today's case studies, which is all about podcasting.
And yes, of course, this is very meta. We're doing a podcast about podcasting. But let's just embrace it. Let's just go there. So the first case study you're gonna talk to us about has to do with a healthcare client that you've worked with. And it is interesting, right? Like we think of healthcare as just institutional unapproachable. So I'm curious as you walk us through this first case study of like, how do you break that mold in such a traditional category?
Jeremy: Yeah. Well, first of all, I should say that this client is a little unusual for us. Most of our clients are B2B businesses.
And this healthcare provider is, you know, I guess you'd call it B2P right? To patients primarily. Yeah. But they also have some kind of B2B component in that they're working with other physicians, cultivating referral partners and things like that, and attracting physicians to come work at their business.
So there is that component too. So anyway when we first got in touch with this, They had a couple things that they were trying to improve or kind of struggling with. One was patient education. I think all healthcare providers are interested in that in one form or another. You know, it can range anywhere from super old school, like you're sitting in the waiting room and there are some pamphlets around that look like they were, you know, designed in like 1972 and you know, those are not super engaging.
And if you go to a lot of healthcare provider websites, a lot of them are like very text and they might have really good information on whatever you're looking for, but you have to read through paragraphs and paragraphs as pretty dense text. And even if you're just looking to learn about who these people are, who are the physicians sometimes you'll see, you know, at least maybe a video, like a well-produced video of the position introducing him or herself.
But all too often, again, it's just some text where the person went to medical school, their specialties, which really doesn't tell you much of anything. So anyway, this client was interested in doing something different in reaching patients in a different way. And so when we connected, we kind of pitched them, what about a podcast?
You know, that's a way to not just have information that your patients can consume, but tell stories. And have an ongoing series where you're interviewing your physicians and having kind of in-depth conversations about them, who they are, you know, how they, how they got into doing what they do, why they care about it, and also the conditions that they have.
Kind of doing a bit of a deeper dive on those than you might get from just the website page about it. And I think even better, it's a discussion. And so you're not just kind of alone reading a bunch of paragraphs on some disease or something that's very technical. You're hearing a physician talk about it in just kind of a normal way, you know, in a way that anybody could understand.
And it's a discussion. So it can go in all kinds of interesting directions, and it's just more engaging that way. So that's one problem that we help 'em.
Steve: The great thing about podcasting as a medium is that, you know, you're on a webpage, you can skim information credibly quickly.
You can say, hey, in five seconds I'm interim out. I mean, you can fast forward, but you're not really gonna consume or see any of that content. So, it is a great medium where they just listen, after five minutes you can bail and say, ah, this isn't for me.
But it's hard to get there quickly. What was there? Tell me about it, I'm gonna guess that when you pitched the idea, there was probably a little bit of hesitancy because it just, you don't think of podcasting and doctors wanted the same, what was going through their mind when you pitched the idea?
Jeremy: Yeah, sure. I mean, there are always questions about, you know, how are we gonna measure if this is working or not? And beyond the obvious, beyond just like the number of downloads, although that's a question too, you know, do we get that kind of data? What are the benchmarks for what success looks like?
But actually it is, we always do point out that that's just one benchmark and there are other ways to measure the success of a podcast. I think the other, another big one was just the time that this was gonna you know, an already really overburdened small marketing team. How much commitment is this gonna be on our end and you know, so we always try to reassure clients that, well, it would be a massive and overwhelming time commitment if you were doing this totally on your own.
But the whole point of working with an agency like ours is that we'll do it for you know, you can do the fun part, which is be the host of the podcast and have the great conversations. We'll do everything else. All the stuff that's not as fun, like booking the guests and the editing and all the planning and that stuff.
So time commitment, return on investment, the cost, of course. Those are the main things. Those are the, those are the main concerns.
Steve: How many in the group that you were working with, how many doctors did ultimately, or did you just have like one main doctor interview different folks?
What was the actual flow of the show?
Jeremy: Yeah, so the host is actually the marketing director and we did that deliberately because this is aimed at patience. So we thought having a host who's not a physician could help the audience, help that particular audience relate a little bit.
Because this is someone who doesn't have all the technical knowledge, you know? And so she can be kind of like an avatar for the average listener. And she interviews as many of the doctors at the practice who are willing to go on the show. And, so there are some repeat guests, but so far it's been really good.
I mean, a lot of these docs are pretty interesting people. That's not off, that's not always the case. Sometimes doctors, especially surgeons and the people that she's interviewing are like orthopedic surgeons for the most part. Okay. Sometimes these people are not so great at explaining what they do or just don't have the patience for it, you know?
But these folks are really good at it and they've embraced it, and I think they see a lot of value in this kind of way of engaging with patients.
Steve: Yep. And it's so funny getting to know doctors and their style. There's a great study about hospitals. They were trying to protect themselves legally, and they said, Hey, what are the variables that drive a patient to sue a doctor?
Is it technical performance? Is it ped? And the study came back with interesting results and they, they had a, they had a survey flag for like bedside manner. So like, Hey, was this doctor friendly, easy to work with? And the correlation that they found in the study was if they were really easy and really nice to work with, then the lawsuits went down.
Which makes no sense, right? Because you should be making that decision based upon are they good at what they do not, are they a good conversationalist?
Jeremy: But you know that sort makes sense to me. I guess it depends on what you're suing for, you know, some catastrophic thing.
It's not gonna matter, but all other things being equal. If you feel like your doctor cares about you and it takes the time to get to know you a little bit and you get to know them, think you're just much less likely to, you know, wanna harm them or, or punish them with a lawsuit. Yeah. And a doctor that just doesn't seem to give a crap, or treats you just like a cog in the machine.
Even if they provide good care. Well, you just, You know, you don't really know them and so you're maybe much more likely to be like, well yeah, let's sue 'em. You know, something went wrong, someone has to pay. Might as well be that dude who never says hello to me or whatever.
Steve: Yep.So how long have you been doing the podcast for the client and where, what are your kind of next steps? Where do you wanna take it?
Jeremy: So we've been doing this podcast for how long? I think it's seven or eight months. So, which in the world of podcasting is actually not that long. You know, this is something that takes a while to catch on and really build.
And we've taken this time to really get it into a good rhythm. And for the host who had never hosted a podcast before to kind of learn the ropes. If you've never hosted a podcast, a lot of it is just by doing it and then improving bit by bit. You know, we provide a lot of coaching and sort of episode by episode feedback.
But still the only way to get better is really just to do it. So part of it is getting the host in a good groove, kind of help finding the voice and tone of the podcast. That can take a little while. So now that that's pretty much established we're actually planning now to start a second podcast featuring a particular doctor, a new guy that they're bringing in.
It does a lot of publicity and is really keen on marketing. So we're gonna start a second podcast and we're gonna start focusing not only on patients so much, but also on using the podcast as a way for this practice to develop better and stronger relationships with other physicians who can refer patients to them.
And they'll do that primarily by inviting those physicians. To just establish a relationship and you know, folks who kind of know each other in the community a little bit, but have never really had the chance to sit down and talk at length. And so we're gonna start branching out into that pretty soon.
Steve: Yep it's such a smart strategy when you do a podcast to interview someone. And then, I was joking about someone or about this with someone and it's funny cuz it gets down to like, yeah, if you wanna have a conversation with someone and you're recording a live podcast, it's very difficult for them to, are we done? Can we just stop this conversation? It might get a little awkward, and I certainly don't wanna intend to encourage holding, holding anyone hostage. Right? Like, if someone has a super evil agenda, then yeah. Just walk out on it. But it is an interesting dynamic.
It's kind of like grabbing a cup of coffee. You're not gonna leave halfway through the cup of coffee.
Jeremy: Maybe better, even better than having a cup of coffee or it's like having a cup of coffee with extra benefits. Namely, you're creating content together, you know?
And so, I mean, I think personally, I like conversation. I like just being with other people and just having conversations, and especially during the couple of years of covid when we were all forcibly separated from each other, you know? I really came out of that and when things loosened up, it really struck home to me like, God, I miss being able to be with people and just converse.
Of course I did a lot of that through Zoom, but it's even better in person. And I, every single person that I've interviewed, and I've done like hundreds of interviews even before I got into podcasting. But definitely since I've gotten into podcasting, sometimes people you invite on might be a little nervous, you know, but I find that once you start talking and getting into it that nervousness just melts away and it's, people have.
Yeah. It's fun to have an opportunity just to talk and, and chat and kind of see where things go, just like we're doing now. I mean this is an enjoyable thing for me, and I think it is for a lot of people.
Steve: Awesome. Well, let's do this, let's jump into case study number two. This is, we're moving away from healthcare.
Now we're in the world of B2B tech. And the challenge you're gonna go over is what so many B2B marketers face is, how do I be more efficient at creating content? You know, like we all love the idea of content, but then when we get back to our desks and have to kind of bang it out, it's like, oh my God.
Like, here we go again. So interested to hear your story about how they can do that more efficiently.
Jeremy: So this is a client that one of their big challenges was exactly as you just described, a small marketing team. They, and they have a vibrant community of users of their product and they have a blog that's pretty popular amongst sales people cause their product is kind of a CRM type product.
And they wanted to build on that. They're like, you know, it's all we can do just to stay on top of this. What else? What's the most efficient way to not just pump out a bunch of content, but content that's up to the level of what we're already doing in the blog. And so when we connected and so, I guess podcasting was on their radar because they knew some other players in the space that were doing that, but they'd never done it before.
So when we first met with them, they just all had some really basic questions about again, how much time is this gonna take? What can we, when we record a podcast episode, what can we do with it, you know, besides just publishing the audio.
And that's where they really saw value. You know, how can you, what can you, what else can you do with the podcast? And Well, the good news was that we had a pretty good answer for that was, which was, well, you can record audio and video at the same time. You can produce the video in all kinds of interesting ways, long form videos, short form videos.
You can transcribe the audio and turn it into all kinds of written content, blog post articles, and so on. And especially now with all these AI coming out jet, chat gpt and such, it's even better because you can take a transcript and easily clean it up, like punctuation and spelling.
And all that stuff without too much, without having to do it by hand, without, you know, it just takes a few minutes. And that was pretty appealing to them, and they were willing to give it a try at least. And now we're going on. Coming up on just about a year, I think that's exactly what it's done for them.
You know, they're a little bit less focused on getting an X number of listeners for every episode. They're kind of letting that happen a bit more naturally. But they're really focused on the content and it's worked really well for them. It allowed a small marketing team to not just create more content, but good even better content.
And what I mean by that is that because it's an interview podcast, and so because every episode they're talking to a subject matter expert, and because it's a conversation, again, there's an element of surprise, an element of serendipity. You know, it's unscripted. And so unlike, I don't know, say your average blog post, which is very carefully planned, and it's rarely surprising.
You know, you're rarely sort of delighted when you read a blog post like, whoa that's right. Didn't see that coming in a conversation you often are. And taking that and transcribing that, taking the copy and then turning it into an article in a blog post can maintain at least some of that surprise because you do have that back and forth of.
Not just sort of an anonymous writer, writing this but two people kind of chopping it up, and throwing ideas around. And I think that's just better content all things considered.
Steve: Yeah, it is interesting. There is a love of authenticity. I'm sure you can edit afterwards and clean up what you didn't like, but when you do a blog post it's gotta be nine tips. It's either seven nine or 10 11 tips or something like that. So they do get very stale and yeah, I think you're right. There is no authenticity that happens in a podcast. You can't plan it. Like certainly you can, you can say, I want to touch on these themes.
There's a structure to it, but the actual content itself is, It's just way more authentic. And I think that's also after 10 - 15 years of everyone creating content, it's, it's nice in that, it, it is refreshing. You know, we don't know what we're gonna talk about in five minutes. So tell me about what, where are they at in their, like, you know, every client tends to dissect, all right, we've been doing this for three months, six months.
Where are they at in that decision of like, good idea, bad idea, and then where do they want to take it from? .
Jeremy: Well this is actually a good time to talk about that because typically, we have contracts for like a set number of episodes and they're up for renewal right now and they are renewing.
And so you know, they're pretty good signs to me that things have been going well and they wanna keep going. They just had a big bit of a shakeup. Like so many tech companies have, you know, some people have been let go. So there's, we're in a bit of a transition period to figure out who's gonna be doing what from now on, on their end with the podcast.
So we're, so actually right now hasn't been the best time for making a bunch of big new plans, like, let's take the podcast in this bold new direction. I think for now, it's been working so well from the content generation standpoint that they really want to carry on with that. And, that being said, even though we don't have a big plan to kind of evolve the podcast in some, you know, exciting way, every episode is a little bit of an evolution.
You know, we're always striving to make each episode just a little bit better than the one before. Better converse, more interesting, more dynamic, find better guests, you know, do slightly better prep to get better, more focused episode topics, stuff like that.
Steve: That's good. Interesting. So let's talk about that for a second.
Getting better guests. Easy to say, is it your screening more? Is it, you know, like, hey, let's, let's do an audit of where this person has been online, meaning like, if they've been on a podcast, let's listen to it, see if they're good. Cuz there is an element of just people being on a podcast.
Like some are great, they're entertaining, they're dynamic. So how do you, how do you do a better job of getting more interesting guests?
Jeremy: That's a great question and I've been thinking about that a lot recently. There's no one answer to this. And you're right, the guest is the big X.
It's just someone that you might have never met before. You do a prep call, or maybe you know, slightly, you know, but you just don't exactly know what they're gonna bring when all is said and done. So I think there are few ways you can go about this.
So one good suggestion that you just made, if this person has been on other podcasts, check 'em out or go to other podcasts kind of in your space and see who has them. Listen to a bunch. And if you find a guest like, Ooh, this person's really good. They're just dynamic and a good storyteller. Okay, well they've kind of proven that they can do that.
So you can reach out and invite them onto your podcast and chances are they'll say yes cuz they're the kind of person that likes to go on podcasts. Right. I also like to, I'll sometimes check out conferences and look at the lineup of speakers. I try to find ones that are relevant to whatever podcast we're dealing with.
And I like doing that because these are people who are already putting themselves out there. And have probably had some experience with presenting and being frontal, kind of performing for a crowd. You know, a podcast is not exactly that, but still it is a performance both on the part of the host and you, you don't want it to be a very mannered performance. You know, you want it to be natural, but it's a show, right? And you want it to be entertaining, and so you want a kind of high level energy. And so I think finding people who are already doing stuff like that in one form or another is a good way to go.
Another thing, and this is something I've been trying to emphasize much more just very recently, is finding people with good stories too. Because I think some of the most entertaining podcast content is storytelling. We always say that, and I think all B2B marketers kind of agree.
Just generally like storytelling. That's really important. That's really good. But I'm not exactly sure what it means often, and it's pretty rare that when I'm consuming like B2B content, that I actually am riveted by like a tale, you know, like an actual really good story. It's the old cliche that is kind, everyone has a story to tell and that's probably true.
But sometimes you have to dig for it. I find sometimes people have good stories to tell and they're not even aware of it, or they think like, that, like, who would be interested in that? And I'm like, well, I am, you know, and as the host, I'll bring it out of you. We can work together to actually pull out what's really interesting about that story.
So finding people with good stories to tell. I don't, I don't have any, like one awesome way to do it. I think one way is whoever you're talking to ask for it. Ask for stories. And what I mean by that is what is a story, right? The classic kind of structure is a main character or group of characters who are trying to do something and there are all kinds of obstacles in their way and they have to overcome.
And triumph in the end, or not triumph in the end. Maybe it's tragic, maybe it's funny, you know, but I think that's in a very simplified way, kind of the basic structure of all stories. So you can ask for that stuff. You know, you're talking to someone and say, what's something that you've, what's a goal that you accomplished recently that you're really proud of?
And everyone has something right? Then you can work backward from there and say, okay. Take me back to the beginning of the process of working toward that goal. Tell me that story of, yeah, first of all, why you wanted to do it in the first place and let's, let's break this down step by step.
You know, and I think that's one good way to, to at least dig for stories. Not all of them are gonna be as good as you hoped, but I think if you do that, you can often find some really good ones. Some really good tales that people are carrying around with 'em, and if you're good at digging for them and extracting them, then you can get some really good content.
Steve: Yep. All right. Cool. Let's go into story number three, our last story, and I'm passionate about this one because it's about real estate. Selfishly I've been renovating at home for the last eight months, so as a heads up for all the viewers out there, my background eventually will be changing into my new place.
But I love real estate. Maybe it's because I've watched too many episodes of Million Dollar Listing which, you know, I'm a loyal fan of over the years. But anyway, give us the background on this one. We're talking about how do you revive and rebrand something that's a little tired.
Jeremy: Yes. Right. So, you know, some of the best prospects for us are B2B brands that have a podcast, but it's been dormant for a while, and that was the case with this client. They had podcasts that they'd run for a while, had I think over 50 episodes, but for whatever variety of reasons. It had stopped publishing a few years ago, but it was still on their website, so they hadn't just completely abandoned the idea.
And so we got in touch and I just simply asked them like, Hey you know your podcast, I've listened to it. It's pretty good and I don't remember the exact reasons, but it was mostly time. They just got busy with other things and you know, there was no one at the company or, or I think it's often we, we often hear this, whoever at the company was in charge of it and doing it wasn't there anymore.
So they lost that talent and there was no one else who was willing to pick up the mantle and kind of run forward with it. So they just had other stuff going on, so they just kind of let it linger and that's the problem that we help them solve, right? Like, Hey, if we can step in and take over the production, we'll get your podcast up and running again.
And they were willing to give it a shot. And we were about, probably about six months into that process now. and it's gone really well. They have a co-hosted podcast and they have two guys there that just work really well together. Like they both know the industry inside and out, and there, they know each other, so they have good rapport and they've worked together and have a lot of like inside baseball kind of stories and when we relaunched this thing almost right off the bat they were getting really good engagement, like really good listener numbers. And I think they're good at marketing the show and they just have a really engaged audience for not just the podcast, but a lot of the content they put out.
And one thing that's really cool that I've seen, because I'm on a lot of the prep calls that we're doing with guests and sometimes on the recordings too, although we have an engineer that typically runs those. But what I'm seeing is that the podcast is just providing an awesome opportunity for them to get to know people in the industry that they may have heard of and have always wanted to have a chance to sit down and chat, but it just never happened.
That's what this is allowing them to do. And I'm seeing it happen in real time. It's just really cool. Even just during the prep calls, they're having these great discussions, throwing around ideas, and you can see in real time that relationships are forming and connecting. And it probably is something that's gonna last well beyond just the podcast interview because these are people who have everything in common.
They've just never had the opportunity really, they've just never naturally crossed paths in a way that's gonna allow them to hang out in a kind of a relaxed way. and talk shop a little bit. So they're getting great value from the relationships they're building and from the, and the audience that the podcast is creating, or the audience that's building up around it. And it's just going really well for them.
Steve: It is fascinating that there is nothing new about podcasting. It is just people talking and you just happen to capture audio or video. So it is an interesting ability. To elevate relationship building and where do you think that comes from?
Why is it such a, like, flattery thing? Is it, ooh, this person has a person, has an audience, so I'm gonna be seen. What do you think drives people to, to do it?
Jeremy: So you mean if you, like, like a guest, right? If a guest, correct. Get an invite to come on the podcast. Right? Why do they? So I think that, well, look, I think, you know, it's partly human nature.
It caresses the ego a bit to get that offer. Like, Hey, would you like to be a featured guest on our podcast? Same when you reach out to me, it's the same thing, you know I'm like. Oh well first of all, that is a little bit flattering. You know, the first thing I do that anyone will do is go check out the podcast.
And by the way, you do a really great job of, with the marketing and just the outreach, cuz you have some really great graphics that explain all of what the podcast is about. And so kudos to you for doing that. I thank you. That's a really good, really good idea. And but anyway. It's, you go check out the podcast and you see like, oh wow, they've had this many episodes and they've had these people on it.
You know, even if I don't recognize any of the names, I see like, oh, they're marketing leaders at a wide variety of companies. They've talked about all this stuff. Cool. Yeah. It's sort of flattering, like an honor to be thought of as belonging amongst this kind, these kinds of people. And then also of course, we're all, you know, a little selfish.
Not in a bad way, it's just, it's your time, right? So you're like, all right, well what am I gonna get out of this if I devote an hour to, you know, doing this interview? We're like, well we're gonna get some content out of it. There's gonna be a podcast episode that's gonna feature me and my voice and my face if it's video too, right?
So that seems pretty good. And we'll get to talk about something I'm in. And, you know, it's not every day I get I'm in a situation where someone is willing to listen to me talk Yep. About the stuff that I wanna talk about. You know, it's that you don't often have that platform. So I think it's a very attractive proposition for most people.
And I've found that when I'm the host I'm reaching out to guests as well.
Steve: So here's the other thing too, about the real estate story. I feel like the one thing about real estate agents that I know is you 're in an office, maybe an hour here, two hours there. And then mostly it's like they're on the road, they're working open houses.
They're going out and meeting with people. So it is a great thing that you can listen into a car or, you know, it's one of these mediums where, you know, It's not as fun to get your laptop, laptop out and watch something or do something. But it's kinda like, well, it's on my phone.
It's there. I got 20 minutes to kill. Why not? So it lends itself to a lot of, a lot of gaps filling in our crazy lives. Well,
Jeremy: It's very convenient in that way, right? And you know, whether it's when you're in your car or doing the dishes or walking the dog or you know, around the park or It's pretty convenient.
Steve: This is kind of my, this is maybe a little too much information, but I'm, I'm now in this routine where I'll shave, let's call it two, sometimes three days a week and it's like my own routine. And I do a podcast and it's more, this is an adult podcast because my kids are sleeping.
This is gonna be a 15 minute thing. I'm gonna put the podcast on and. You know I've filled time. Instead of just looking at my face in the mirror shaving, I'm now, you know, enjoying something in the background. Mm-hmm. .
Jeremy: Yeah, I do that too, actually.
And you know what would be funny or a good idea if there was a podcast about shaving? You can listen to while shaving, while you're shaving, with like, you know, tips for how to get a smoother shave or something.
Steve: I like that. Yeah man. A star was born today. Someone's gonna hear this and take it and let's just at least buy the domain so we can take advantage of that.
All right, cool. So we're gonna jump now into just getting to know more about you. I'm gonna go way back in time. Like when was that first moment that you were like, you know what I'm, I like marketing. There's just something there about either helping sell something or making someone or a company look better than they are.
Jeremy: Well, I first started about really seven years ago, and this was when. For a long time I'd been a freelance writer and which kind of morphed into learning also how to be like a freelance audio producer producing stuff for public radio and whatnot. And, but then I took a job as a copywriter at a medical device company.
So kind of suddenly I found myself as part of a, a marketing team, a B2B marketing team. I had zero experience with all that I had actually never worked at, just like a corporation, show up to the building, sit in the cubicle, that kind of thing. And so that was all new to me. It was all really interesting.
You know, I wasn't even really aware of even the most basic things like b2b. What does that mean? Oh, business to business. Okay. Right. And that's a very different kind of marketing than B2C. Oh, what's that? Business to consumer. Oh, okay. Right. You know, I was starting really from scratch and, but I learned, I was there for five years and I learned a lot about how B2B marketing works and also how it doesn't work you know, or mistakes you can make.
To be fair, the medical device industry is highly regulated and so it's really, it's a little frustrating if you're a content marketer. It really limits what you can do and say and all that, but still there, that's also where I started to get the idea for that podcast. Could be an interesting marketing tool because the or at least an interesting communication tool because this company had a large sales force all over the world, spending a lot of time on the road, and they were actually literally asking for a podcast that, so they could learn from each other, you know, from the top sellers and like, how, how do you close deals?
You know, what do you do? I thought, whoa, that's what a great idea that makes so much sense. It had never occurred to me cuz I'd never worked at a company that had a big sales force, you know? And I was like, oh cool. I raised my hand. I'll do it. I'll volunteer. I know how to do that stuff and I'll, maybe I can build out like a whole podcast division at this company.
Who knows? You know, what the future might bring. Yeah. Long story short, it never really happened. Company just never quite got behind it for a variety of reasons. But the idea stuck with me and this is a good idea. Certainly other companies might see value in this kind of thing, so I just started reaching out on places like LinkedIn, you know, like on on in my own time.
And it took a while, but I finally realized that actually the, the, there was the most interest in demand as podcasting as a marketing tool, not necessarily so much as an internal communications tool. I'm still a little surprised by that. I still think it's a good use case for things like sales enablement or whatever.
But it turned out that a lot of the people I was talking to were more interested in marketing for all the reasons that we've been talking about so far, creating content, connecting with people, and so on. And that's, that's really when I first started seriously looking into what B2B marketing is? What is B2B content marketing? How does it work? What are the main issues? And this was already like, I guess about five years ago, cause I was like two, two years into that job and learned a lot, started talking to people, started talking to marketers just to learn.
And, even in just the five years since then, things have changed. I feel like B2B content, marketing's just always changing, always evolving. And so I just got really kind of fascinated by it. Like started participating in conversations on LinkedIn and thought, wow, this is a really interesting group of very smart people who are faced with a very challenging thing, namely getting B2B buyers to buy things, to buy your in, dealing with these long sales cycle.
and trying to create content that's gonna cut through the noise and engage people. I'm like, yeah, that's hard. That's hard to do. And yeah. And so it's, it was just really interesting to start having conversations with people about how you do it? You know, what are the challenges?
Steve: Yeah. I can really relate to that.
I grew up in the BDC world. What I, you know, what I loved about the BDC world was decisions happen fast. May, you know, maybe if you're buying a car that's, you know, you may need two months to get there. Or I spent some time in the satellite business early on, and that was, you know, eh, it takes about three to four visits for someone to like to commit to it.
But the B2B world is just crazy. It is such a dynamic buying environment. Sometimes you don't even know all the buyers or the influencers, right? You rarely understand all the context and the politics behind how a decision gets made. You know, it's like there's so many off the record things that you don't know, like, well, this person has a good relationship here.
I've even had stories of like, well, this person's on the board of that board. [00:37:00] This shouldn't really have you know, nothing to do with how good your marketing or sales was. It just got to, like, this isn't gonna happen due to some other issues. And that, that rarely was the case in B2C. So I became fascinated with B2B in that it's just, it's not easy to do it, it's hard, it's a longer process.
Even people who aren't in charge sometimes proclaim to be in charge, you know? They're like, no. I make these decisions. And then you find out like, no, you are not, you're just a facilitator. Like, it, it's fascinating the, the different dynamics of
Jeremy: Play it's like this complex puzzle and the pieces are always sort of morphing and changing, you know?
I mean, we've definitely had a bunch of times when I thought that we, you know, had a closed deal, even to the point where I'm like, okay, please send us the agreement. We'll get it signed. Okay, awesome. Let's get started. And then like a week goes by, I'm like, what's going on? They're like, oh yeah, no, sorry, we have to, we're gonna postpone what happened.
Sometimes I have no clue. Like you said, it's just you don't know what's going on behind the curtain, or sometimes it's as simple as, Owes one, one person. One person left the company and it has this ripple effect. That suddenly everything's changed , and it's not even the main decision maker. It's just like, well now everything's changed and we have to figure it out, and blah, blah, blah.
And that can be pretty frustrating. But it's also such a challenge. You know, you wake up, wake up every day, and I'm like, I almost feel like all. I'm going off to war. You know, this is a battle for the attention of these people who are super-duper busy. And I'm just one, you know, measly vendor trying to get their attention.
There are thousands of others who are pinging them and trying to do the same exact thing. And you know, at least for me and part of my education on all this stuff, I'm It's a matter of timing and no matter what I do, no matter how good my content is or how good my value proposition or pitch, ain't nobody gonna buy from me unless, until they are ready to buy.
Until the circumstances align. When it's almost like they kind of don't have a choice anymore. Now is the time and they have to do it. And that rarely has anything to do with something I've done or said. You know what I mean? Yep. So it's all about, and you can't time it like, like the stock market.
You, you just don't know. Despite all of the, in my opinion anyway, despite all of the tech and software out there that's kind of pr, you know, purports to be able to help you at least know a little bit better and, and, you know, I'm sure a lot of that stuff can at least help you, but at the end of the day, you just have to be in front of these folks and stay top of mind.
Without completely annoying them and trying to sell them every single second . And that's content marketing, right? I mean, that's why we're pumping out all this content and trying to stay top of mind. And it's a big challenge and it can be really frustrating. Cuz you don't always just see immediate returns all the time.
At least I'm sure there are marketers who are much better than me. I mean, I know there are, but I'm learning as I go, you know, so it's, it's never, never never boring to say that much.
Steve: Yeah. It's comp I can relate to these challenges. I mean, I've done things as a marketer doing his own marketing.
Is it good or bad? I've had moments when I've done my marketing and, and thought, my God, these, these 70 people that I wanna reach, they're, they're just not engaging. And I, you can kind of say, well, are they consuming? Yeah, I think they are the, it looks like they're opening emails or they're clicking on links to websites.
But every now and then I will be re reaffirmed and kind of do marketing work in a way that I want it to where I had a prospect I've been trying to engage with for two to three years and, you know, send them all the content they're not really engaged in. And then out of the blue a phone.
Oh my God. A project came up and I instantly thought of you. And then when we had that conversation, the person was like, oh yeah, I've read all the blog posts. I actually bought your book. I read your book. Nice job on the book. And it's just like, you think that person is not engaged, but it's like, no, they actually are engaged.
It's just not time to buy, So it is such a long-term game that you've gotta play
Jeremy: And you know, I think there. people engage with content in different ways, right? Some people like this, I don't know, maybe call them the super engagers, you know, they're gonna comment on your blog post or on your LinkedIn post and just be, you know, very active that way.
But I think those people are probably in the minority, and it's the vast majority of people who might scroll through LinkedIn. and they might see your stuff and read it and be like cool, but not, not like it, or it is necessarily engaged for whatever reason. That's just not their thing, you know? So you just don't know.
And I've had similar experiences where, out of the blue, someone will reach out and they'll be like, oh, I read your thing. And I'll be like, oh really? I, okay, cool. That it, it does give you, yeah, it does. It's nice to get that cuz it gives you some hope that like, ah, this isn't just a total waste of time, or I'm not just, you know, screaming into the void and no one cares.
Steve: Yeah. So what you just shared, it reminds me of a really old content engagement model. And the premise of it is 1% of the people create 9% engage. And the remaining 90% are just there watching and you never really understand the value of the 90% of the people they're watching, but they and, and it, and it helps
Jeremy: Like the silent majority, you know?
And it's just, it's good to know that, although I will say you know, as and actually like one thing I want to make clear is that like I'm not really a professional marketer you know, I'm a podcast producer and I run this business, and by necessity I do marketing because we have to.
And you know, we're a small startup, so without outside funding or anything. So a lot of this falls to me and I get help, you know, like, I don't know what I don't know, but still a lot of it is me doing this stuff. So I have just great respect for like actual real marketing leaders who run this kind of stuff for a company and really admire what they do and feel, you know, kind of privileged to be able to have a podcast where I interview a lot of these folks and learn from them.
So, you know, kind of getting a crash course on it. But because I'm doing it alone, it can get just kind of lonely and it's hard to know sometimes really, if like, is this working? But, it's good to know that there's that 90% out there who are watching. It's just sometimes in the moment it's like, Ugh, I really wish more people would engage
Just gimme a clue that you're out there. You know?
Steve: Where do you see the world of podcasting going? I mean, it's clearly been on a trajectory. It's easier to do. You know it. It's not a mass medium channel. Right. But like it is a thing that's here to stay. Where do you see it going?
Jeremy: Well, I think it depends a little bit on what kind of podcasting you're talking about.
So broadly, generally when, when we're talking about you know, just kind of consumer podcasting or podcast built for just anyone who's interested in trying to build the largest audiences. It seems, I think podcasting will keep growing even though it seems so ubiquitous still compared to like even just radio.
Way more people listen to regular, good old radio than podcasts at this point. But year on year, a greater percentage of people are listening to podcasts all around the world. I mean, I know the stats best for the United States, but there are many reasons for the world where podcasting is growing even, even faster in, in, not in English, in all kinds of languages, you know so I.
That's one realm where we might see some really interesting growth podcasting around the world in a wide variety of languages. I think in the B2B podcasting space that's a much smaller world and a very kind of niche world and. My sense is that, first of all, there are more and more agencies like ours popping up all the time offering pretty similar services.
And so I think in the coming years we're gonna see some consolidation of these smaller companies like mine joining up. I think it'll be interesting to see to what degree, if at all, we, we see the, in the B2B podcasting industry kind of professionalize. And what I mean by that is in the, in the larger podcasting industry it's, it really has professionalized a lot.
There are annual conferences, there are many newsletters, organizations and there's a lot of money in the B2B world, cuz it's so much smaller, there really isn't much of that at all. But as more and more B2B companies take on podcasting, and I do think that's something we're gonna see, think right now it's, I, I don't have, at one point, I think I read somewhere that maybe 20% of B2B companies have podcasts.
I do not remember where I saw that, or, and I have no idea how accurate that is. But just anecdotally, just from what I. Still, most B2B companies don't have a podcast. But I think that's gonna change. I think that in the coming years, within maybe a decade or so, maybe less podcasts will be as common as blogs for B2B companies.
And that will drive, I think, consolidation and professionalization in the B2B podcasting industry. And I'd also love to see one of my focuses this year and it's really kind of a dream in a way, is to start producing different kinds of B2B podcasts. Right now, almost all of them are interview style, which is fine.
There can be some really, really good interview podcasts, but I would love to see some more, more highly produced storytelling podcasts. Kind of like if you've ever liked, like in the mold of, of this American. Or the podcast, how I built this with Guy Raz, which tells the stories of how entrepreneurs built their brands.
And, it's done in a much more dynamic way with sound effects and music and a narrator, and snippets from the interview and maybe multiple voices, you know, more than just 2, 3, 4 voices coming in. Kind of like mini audio documentaries, I do some of this kind of work, not for our B2B clients right now, but for some other clients we have.
And it's really dynamic content and I think that B2B brands could do well to really stand out with the podcast doing this kind of thing. It's more complicated, takes more time. It's a little more expensive if you're paying for it, but I think it could be worth it just to do something new and more dynamic.
Steve: Yeah. That's fascinating. Jeremy, I've really enjoyed getting to know you more and, and really diving into the world of podcasting. You're, you're super knowledgeable about this. My final question would be for someone out there who's in a B2B role who's just kind of like, maybe this is the year we do it.
What's, what's the advice that you give to them as they think that through?
Jeremy: Well, first of all I think that there are few things that you can easily do right away to kind of give, get a better sense of if it's worth doing. One is go on Apple Podcasts, go on Spotify, or just Google, see what other podcasts are already out there in your niche.
And you can kind of get a sense right away, I think of has it already been you know, are there already like a dozen podcasts that cover pretty much what, what you had in mind on a podcast that could be, that could tell you like, well, okay, no, let's put our energies elsewhere. Or you could look and see, okay, well there are a bunch of podcasts, but let's look deeper and see if we can find a niche within a niche, something that these podcasts aren't quite doing and that we specialize.
What is our special sauce? What, what is our point of view? Why do we exist as a company? And that's a good way to kind of start building an idea for a podcast. So one is to go see what's the competition, what's already out there. Can we, do we have something to add to this ongoing conversation? And I think that can give you a pretty good idea.
I think another thing to do it's, it's also important to look within your organization and say, do we have someone here who would be a good host for this? Because the host is absolutely key. And you're not gonna be a hundred percent sure, but a good host is someone who is a good conversationalist, has energy a good listener, you know ultimately you're not gonna know until you try
But If you come up with a total blank, you're like, there is no one here who I would trust to host the podcast. Yeah. Then that's a problem. And so that might mean, it doesn't mean you can't do a podcast, but you might need to find a host from elsewhere, you know? But that would make it harder. But on the other hand, if you do have like, you know, Jane over there, she would be so great at this. She has a little background in that's another sign that like, okay, yeah, we could maybe do pretty well with the podcast. And then I think it's worth reaching out to, you know, to a podcast producer. An agency, even if you don't necessarily wanna work with an agency, just to get a sense of what's involved, what does it take to get a podcast up and running?
If you just Google that, you'll find a lot of stuff that, in my opinion, makes it sound easier than it actually is. Stuff like, oh, you can just record into your phone. Throw it up on Anchor, which is like Spotify's free hosting platform. And that's it. You got a podcast. Congratulations, It's not how it works.
I mean, you can do that, but the podcast won't be very good. And so I think it's good to have a realistic sense of. What will it take to get a podcast up and running and then to keep it going and to do it at a high level to accomplish the goals that we wanna accomplish with it. And yeah, by the way, another thing is right away say, what would be our goals?
Why? What do we wanna accomplish with this podcast? And As we've been talking about a little bit, there can be different goals. You know, one might be, well, we just want to build up an audience. We want to become the destination, the go-to source for information in our industry. Let's do it through a podcast.
It might be generating content, it might be both. It might be a networking tool, right? And you also want to think about your existing marketing ecosystem. You know what? How will a podcast play with what we're already currently doing? If you're already doing, say, like a video series or a webinar series and doing it regularly, is there a way maybe you can take that audio and repurpose it as a podcast without having to reinvent the whole thing?
Maybe it's a good idea. Talking to a seasoned podcast producer will help you answer these questions. And also give you a much better idea of whether or not this is something you could try to do in-house or if you might need to hire somebody from the outside. So that's my advice. Yep.
Steve: Yep. All right, great.
Well, Jeremy thanks for joining us today. Thank you for our listeners and our viewers, you can, you can download the podcast, just an audio format or watch it on YouTube. I have one piece of homework for our listeners and viewers today, and that is to think about who might benefit from listening or watching interesting B2B marketers.
So if you're, you're out there listening. Think about sending the show to one or two people that you think would enjoy the show. But that's all we've got today. Thanks again to Jeremy, and thanks again for tuning in to Studio 26. Take care, everyone.