How do I grow my show? How do I market my podcast? How do I increase my downloads? These are just some of the questions podcasters constantly ask and struggle to find meaningful answers. Podcasting Tech has got the keys to unlocking this puzzle. 

Tune in to this episode with Timothy Voice,  the CEO, and founder of PodCards, and discover a game-changing solution for podcasters looking to elevate their listener growth strategy. 

PodCards is a revolutionary platform designed to aid podcasters in their growth by leveraging data and analytics. With a rich background in web development and podcast technology, Timothy brings a wealth of experience and innovation to the table.

Understanding your audience is key to growing your podcast, and PodCards offers the tools to make that happen. In our latest episode, we dive into Timothy's journey from a web developer to a podcast tech entrepreneur, the creation of PIPA, and its eventual acquisition by Acast. 

We also discuss the core features of PodCards, including its advanced analytics capabilities, and how it stands out from other podcast promotion tools. Timothy also shares invaluable insights and strategies that any podcaster can use to better market their show. 

This is a must-listen for any podcaster serious about using data-driven strategies to amplify their show's reach. Expect insightful discussions on the importance of analytics in podcast marketing and practical advice on leveraging PodCards for optimal listener engagement and growth.

IN THIS EPISODE, WE COVER:

• Timothy’s background and journey into podcast technology, starting from 2017
• The inception and development of PodCards as a tool for podcast discovery and analytics
• The unique features of PodCards, including landing page analytics and conversion tracking
• Practical tips for cross-promotion and understanding audience engagement through data
• The future of PodCards: upcoming features and analytics integrations to further aid in podcast growth
• Timothy’s recommendations for tech and tools to help podcasters improve their reach

Links and resources mentioned in this episode:

• PodCards
• Follow Timothy Voice on LinkedIn
• Get your free PodCard
• Rode Podmic USB: https://amzn.to/3VxoJiE
• Riverside. fm for virtual interviews: https://riverside.fm/?via=mathew&utm_medium=Captivate&utm_source=Captivate&utm_content=signature

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and join us on this exciting journey to unlock the full potential of your

podcast. It is the question that

podcasters ask constantly, how do I grow my show? How do I market

my podcast? How do I increase my downloads? Well, lots of folks are trying to

solve it, but one gentleman who's joining us today on this on the show, Timothy

Voice, he's come up with a platform called PodCards. He's the CEO. You can

find his platform at pod.cards. Yes. The URL is

just pod.cards, and we're gonna find out more about it. Tim, thanks for joining us

today. Thanks for having me. Pleasure to be here. So how did you

before we even talk about what PodCards does, like, what's your background? What

led you into platforms for podcasters?

Yes. I've been in the industry for since about

2017, beginning of 2017. I

originally, joined,

building podcast technology. Before that, I was a web developer. I've been in

web development for, quite a while.

And at that point, an old friend of mine from

from middle school in South Africa, had just joined Techstars,

which is a tech incubator.

And they were building, PIPA, which was a podcast

hosting and distribution platform. So they had just gone into Techstars

in January of 2017. At the time, I was working,

on various other, projects, but, they invited me

to join there as a software engineer and and cofounder.

So I joined them 2017, started building PIPA.

We built that, out over the next, two and a half

years or so, which was a very

interesting experience, not only building

the platform, but also an interesting time to be in podcasting.

When we when we left the Textiles

Incubator, the middle of 2017,

You know, we were we're sort of like a traditional, start up

environment, so we went out trying to raise, some capital for the

project. But 2017, there was basically

0, venture capital interest interest in the industry

or at least in in sort of the platforms that we were building,

which, you know, I think initially was quite frustrating because we sort

of had the idea of of the kind of company that we were going to

build. But it sort of forced

us down a path that I that I think ultimately was much better for

us. We we focused on profitability. We focused on

on building our customer base,

and, I think that was much much more uncomfortable,

mode for us, in the end. You know? We we were really in

touch with a lot of podcasters. We focused, a lot

on the indie podcaster, trying to make that experience of

distribution, and hosting as as simple and

straightforward as as we could. And we

built that business over the next 2, two and a half years.

And as everybody know, 2019 came around, and

Spotify entered the space. And then suddenly, there was just massive interest.

Right? There was massive interest in podcasting. There was massive interest

in, in podcasting tech. And

fortunately, at that point, we sort of had built the business, to

a point where it was profitable and running on its own, and I think that

gave us a lot of options, when it came to,

talks around acquisition. And it was at that

point that we joined ACAS. So ACAS acquired

PIPA, in April of 2019,

and I joined along with, my other cofounders,

in ACAS. And, I was at Acast for around two

and a half years, integrating, what was

PIPA into Acast, and it became the,

the primary hosting and distribution platform for all of

Acast's podcasters. Very cool.

So what did you voluntarily leave

Acast? Are you still helping out? No. I left Acast.

I left Acast because, like, it

was it was a fantastic company to work for, and I really

enjoyed my time there. And, you know, fortunately, I was able to work with the

core team that we brought over from PIPA for most of that time.

But I left ACAS because I I really like the vibe of small

companies. I really like building myself, and there,

I was more, not so hands on in the technology and and

more sort of, like, on the organization side.

And it just felt like the right time. You know? I think at that point,

the platform was mostly integrated. The team was mostly integrated,

and so it felt like that was a a good point for me to sort

of go off and and see what else I could do in the space.

So that takes you to the concept of PodCards

or were there a few other ideas that maybe didn't, you know Yeah.

Quite flush out in between? There were some side projects, which

actually sort of led me to PodCards. So,

immediately after Acast, I took a little bit of a break, but then started

building, a little side project called

syndicated, which was, again, like,

focused on on sort of, like, how do how do people discover new

podcasts. I think I think that's always been the question, and I

think the answer typically is, you know, word-of-mouth or other

podcasts. And syndicated was was a

simple little app that would allow you to sort

of create a subscribable RSS feed from a bunch of other podcasts. So you

could sort of, like, create a shareable playlist that people could subscribe to in their

in their other apps. So

and that was you know, I think it was a really interesting

project, but what it what I sort of I built

the project and then came up against this issue of like, okay. So you

have these RSS feeds. How do you share them?

And that sort of, like, led me down the path of, okay, how do

you share a podcast in general? Like, what is the best way to do that?

And I built podcasts as sort of, like, an add on to that the

original sort of, like, MVP of podcasts. I built as an add

on to that, platform, and then and then quickly realized

that, actually, there's, a need,

in the industry in general around discovery. And for

me, sort of given my background, my technical background,

I started focusing on analytics. So not

only is sharing an issue in

podcasting, but more importantly from my perspective,

there's no sort of transparency around the analytics of

sharing. Like, what does your funnel look like? How does someone what does that listener

journey look like going from discovery to engagement to

conversion? And and that's sort of that was

the seed of the idea of PodCards, and it's has sort

of expanded over time since then. So there's a lot of

services like PodCards out there. Right? The idea of almost like this

podcasting Linktree service where you have your show,

your artwork description, title, right, all that stuff. And then, you know, often these

services will display all the various platforms

where somebody can find that show. But you

did take a slightly different approach because I noticed, you know, I signed up for

it and, like, I could see there is, a way

to put a prefix into my RSS feed. So there's more to it

than just creating this landing page. What, like, what led you down

that path? Yeah. I think the landing page I think, so my

my interest is my interest in the industry is definitely on

the indie podcaster side. I think there's just so much innovation

happening, sort of outside the main players, and

I think there's, like, a lot of opportunity for

people who are producing, like, really high quality content and really

good content, but are struggling with the growth side because they

don't have the sort of built in network that a lot of other people have.

So podcasts as a product, as as you just described, sort of like the

Linktree style shareable, web page,

for me, it's just sort of like the entry point for a podcaster, like, somewhere

where they can just sign up and and get something going right out of the

gate, something that looks good, that they're able to

share. But then for me yeah. As you

mentioned, like, the the more important part for me is the

analytics around it. So it's great that you're you're sharing your podcast, but,

like, what does it actually tell you about how you're sharing it, and what

what information can you use to sort of improve your audience

development strategies in general? So the the pod card

itself is is wired up to, an analytics

platform, and the prefix as well. And so,

I can sort of correlate that data to tell to give you more information about

your listener journey. So someone lands on your pod card,

they click an episode, they play an episode,

they click on one of the the apps, and then they go on

and listen in whatever podcast platform, they're

using. And we collect data

at every stage of that so you can see, you know, what is

your conversion rate. So a 100 people land on your pod

card. 50 of them listen to an episode. 20 of

those click on one of the the apps, and then 10 of those

go on and listen, in their podcast app. So it really gives you sort

of visibility into how your sharing

strategy is performing. So maybe it it's,

maybe you wanna test LinkedIn versus Instagram versus your

newsletter. You can actually compare those different marketing

channels and see, okay, I might get a bunch of traffic from

LinkedIn, but not many of those people are converting into listeners. Instagram is

actually really effective for me in actually converting people, to,

longer term listeners of my podcast. Interesting.

Yeah. Now is are all of those features that by the

way, anybody listening to this is like, oh, that's very interesting. Go to pod dot

cards. You can claim your podcast right now, and, you know, start

to access most of these features, but there are upgrades to it. So how

far do you have to go to get the most out of PodCards, or what

is the most that we can get out of PodCards if we're subscribed to the

service? Excellent question. So it's really designed to give

podcasters who are are just sort of, like, new to this,

the space around analytics, like, the best way to to get

in there. So your pod card is free. It starts

to you start to really if you start to take this more

seriously, then you wanna sort of look at your, data over

time. And you want us maybe, employ

various strategies. So, not only your pod card,

but you also have a website that you might wanna integrate with it, and

you also are running, audio ads, so promos

across maybe, a network that you're part of or another

network. And that's where that's where sort of, like, the

upgrades come in. So you might want to,

customize your podcast a little bit, but as you sort of become more,

as you sort of become more involved in this

way of, growing your show around analytics and

data, and once you start to employ various marketing channels, that's

where the upgrades come in. So we're talking specifically

like, audio to audio ads. So if you're,

if you're running on a platform like Megaphone or whatever, then, we'll

give you a pixel that you can associate with, your audio promo

on another pod another podcast, and you can

then track another podcast, and you can then

track that conversion rate in podcast as well.

Interesting. Okay. Have you found

podcasters are starting to take advantage of that? And if so, what have

been the sort of success with that? Yeah.

I mean, I think, you know, I think in the

podcast industry, the sort of tried and

true has always been converting people from other

podcasts. So podcasts that sort of they're already listening

to that that share sort of a similar listener base,

that's sort of, like, been the highest, conversion,

that we've seen in the industry. And I think that's, you know, I

think podcast technology is a little,

eccentric, but it's very robust.

And I think that what people have you know, the the

audio to audio promo stuff is really like bootstrapping,

an algorithm where, you know, other creators, video creators

on YouTube or or similar platforms, they sort of

have a built in algorithm that's managed centrally by a

platform like YouTube. In podcasting, we don't really

have that because people are, you know, listening across

multiple platforms using many different apps. And so there

isn't really a central algorithm, and I think the best thing that we have

come up with is is this, like, cross promo,

cross promo strategy.

So, yeah, sort of bootstrapping bootstrapping an algorithm.

If somebody were to sign up for a pod cards and and, you know, go

down this hole and, like, take advantage of everything, any tips or

advice for cross promotion? Right? It's it's super

tempting to just say, let me find the most popular show out there, try and

buy an ad, and, you know, reach the largest audience. But that's

not probably gonna do it for a lot of people, is it? Yeah. No. I

think I think if you're if you're interested in a platform

like PodCards, if you're interested in analytics, if you're interested in

taking a more data centric approach to audience development,

then I would just be experimenting as much as you can. So,

anywhere that you're sharing your podcast, I would use a link like

pod cards so that you can really measure your marketing

channels and compare them to each other and see, and see how they're

performing. I don't have a podcast. I haven't

really been involved directly in growing a podcast,

but I have built, several sort of Internet

businesses and Internet companies. And for me, the beating heart of that

activity is really the analytics.

I need to know, like, how how my marketing strategies

are performing. Like, for example, with PodCards. Right? I'm I'm measuring

I'm measuring the full funnel of, okay, I'm promoting

PodCards on various channels. I'm running ads. I'm

I'm participating in newsletters, all of that kind of thing.

And I need to know exactly how how well those

various channels are performing. So I'm looking to see

okay. I have x amount of LinkedIn traffic. I have x

amount of traffic from, like, a pod cue pod, pod

news, press release, etcetera, etcetera. And I'm I'm

measuring that traffic. So I might get a bunch of traffic from LinkedIn,

but because it's typically people who work in podcasting, not

necessarily podcasters themselves, I'm getting a bunch of traffic, but not a

ton of conversions. Right? However, Pod News, for

example, is, like, wed read very widely,

amongst people who are in the industry, podcasters themselves,

and so that has been, very good in terms of conversion rates.

And so now I can focus my strategies on various marketing

channels that are growing my business. And for me, I feel like

there's there's a big gap in podcasting where, like, this

is this is information that I think is has been

readily available and has been used across many other medias

before, this sort of, like, data first strategy. But for me,

it's been missing in podcasting. And I think as

as the industry grows, as the industry matures, as, you

know, more people enter the space, more people from other

industries enter the space in in sort of formal marketing

positions. They're sort of looking for this data. They're sort of looking

for, the ability to use these strategies, to use the

data first strategy when they're when they're, promoting their

podcasts. And I feel like there's there's

just a need in the industry. I feel like, especially for indie podcasters.

You go on Reddit and, as you mentioned at the top of the show, you

know, nearly every question every day is like, how do I grow my

podcast? What is the most effective social media platform? Etcetera,

etcetera. And I think there's a lot of advice

on there that sort of ranges from, you know, are

you making good content? To very specific advice and

maybe not so helpful advice around, like, well, you know, you can focus on Twitter,

but don't expect a lot of people to convert from

your social media into your podcast. But still do it because it's really

important. And I think those questions could really,

really easily be answered with just some data.

A lot of those questions are very podcast specific. Where is your audience? Where is

your platform? And if you just had a little bit

of data around, like, where is your traffic coming from and how many of those

people are converting, then you could answer that question for yourself, and you could

really invest in the platforms, that are

more effective for your particular show.

Good insight. Are there other features that you have,

in mind for PodCards that you can share with us that might get

people excited to sign up and and be ready for it? Yeah.

Absolutely. So as I as I mentioned, I think pod cards, the

pod card itself is is a really easy way to get started, a

really easy way to, just sort of bootstrap,

your entry into data driven audience development.

But what I'm really excited about is bringing bringing that analytics

engine to whatever platform you're using. So we're working

on an analytics tag that you can put onto your own website.

Like, you've invested a bunch of a bunch of time and energy into

into building your presence online or wherever.

And so I wanna take, the analytics engine that

we're using for PodCards and help you, put

that anywhere that you want. So we have right now a

feature called the follow wall, which is a a bunch of

player badges that you can embed on your website, and

we track all of those clicks, on those

badges so you can see how well your website is converting,

into actual listeners. And I wanna sort of expand that strategy so

that people can use whatever channels, whatever

platform they're currently using, but still get the analytics engine that that

we've built so that you can, really measure across

your pod card, across your website, whatever, anywhere that people

are discovering your podcast, and, you know,

visualize that full list in the journey, visualize that funnel.

So that's one feature I'm really excited about, and that's that's sort of, like, the

front end of things. And then on the back end, on the data side,

I really wanna expand the insights that that we give to podcasters.

So things like listener retention, cohort analysis, you know, things

that are are pretty standard in sort

of, like, building a software as a service company,

that are really critical to understanding, like, what is your

customer lifetime value, all of that kind of thing. I think bringing that

that sort of, analysis into podcasting, I think, would

would give people, a real leg up in terms of their audience

development. Very nice. Yeah. Well, again,

folks, if you want to be a part of this journey and check it out,

get your free pod card, just go to pod.cards. We were chatting with

the CEO and founder, Timothy Boyse. Before we let you go, Tim,

we have a couple of questions that we'd like to ask everybody. I I have

a feeling the first one you've kind of answered, but maybe maybe you wanna expand

a little bit. Is there a place you'd like to see some improvement in the

podcasting space, whether it's from the content creator

side or even from the listener side? Yeah. I mean, I can't really speak to

the content creator side, but I think for me, it is

around this audience development side. That's obviously

why I'm building podcast, but I think I think there's I think

things could be a lot easier. I think they could be a lot more informative.

And I think that indie podcasters, and, you know, networks

alike could really use some more data around,

around discovery. Makes sense.

What about is there a piece of technology that

you would really like to get your hands on? Whether it's something that already

exists that you're just like, oh, I really wanna buy it, but it's not on

my budget, or something that you're wishing someone would make that would make your

life easier? Yeah. I mean, I

think, I think the more mobile that

we can make this sort of thing, like, podcasting, podcast

technology, I think, the more like, these

these RODE NTS or NT mics, are fantastic

because you can just travel with them. And I think, you know, there's a whole

bunch of things, as as you know, that go into creating,

content, like lighting, microphones, cameras, all of that stuff. And I

think the more the more compact to mobile that could be, the

better. Good answer. Good

answer. And lastly, are there podcasts on your

app that you subscribe to now that, like, they're just your favorites? You

know, maybe you have a bunch, but when this podcast or a few of these

podcasts, they released a new episode, you were stopping what you were doing, and you

were listening to them? Absolutely. The 2 that come to

mind, and they're extremely different, is the

Cafe Insider, which is, a podcast run

by Preet Bharara, who used to be the southern district of New York

attorney general. And they go him and Joyce

Vance go through sort of, like, the daily or the news

cycle, but they go through it from a legal perspective. And I really appreciate

going through, you know, all of the crazy stuff that happens,

around politics and and the world in general, but from a technical

standpoint, so from, like, a technical legal standpoint. So that

that's one I always look forward to. And the other one, is much more

fun, and it's Doctor Game Show, from the MaxFun network.

It's sort of, it's like

listener created, listener generated games that the 2 hosts,

play. And it's just, you know, it's like a a breath of fresh air.

It's really fun. It's really interesting, and it's just something that

you can sort of throw on and, have a laugh and enjoy.

Interesting. Well, you've just given me 2 to check out on my, listening,

journey. So I appreciate those two suggestions. Once again, we've been

chatting with Timothy Boyse, CEO and founder of PodCards. Again, if you're

looking for a tool that will help you not just market but better

understand your marketing efforts with your podcast, we encourage you to check them out at

pod.cards. Tim, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you.

It was a pleasure. Thanks for joining us today on Podcasting

Tech. There are links to all the hardware and software that help

power our guest content and podcasting tech available in the show

notes and on our website at podcastingtech.com. You

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