It's the rare podcaster who doesn't want more engagement or
Speaker:feedback from their listeners.
Speaker:But getting people to do so has been historically hard.
Speaker:Maybe the incentives need to change?
Speaker:Hello, and welcome to another Podcast Pontifications with me, Evo Terra.
Speaker:Voicemail and podcasting have made for some strange bedfellows
Speaker:since the beginning of podcasting.
Speaker:At its core, voicemail is about giving the listeners a chance to talk back
Speaker:to the podcast, something that seems like it should be incredibly easy given
Speaker:the fact that most podcast listening takes place on a mobile phone, right?
Speaker:Well, as podcasters, we all know how hard it actually is.
Speaker:One company, PodInbox, is trying to change all that and use the power of
Speaker:voice, both for the listener and the podcaster, to increase podcast engagement.
Speaker:PodInbox is the Branded Benefits Sponsor for today's episode, and I
Speaker:asked the founder, Pat Cheung, how PodInbox will make podcasting better.
Speaker:The way I see it, podcasting is a very one-sided conversation, normally.
Speaker:When a podcaster jumps on the mic, they're usually just speaking into the void.
Speaker:The trend of podcasting these days is for audience engagement, right?
Speaker:And there's a lot of technologies tackling this with live and social audio.
Speaker:But we have a little bit of a different way we're approaching
Speaker:it in that [PodInbox is] letting fans interact with the podcaster
Speaker:asynchronously through audio messages.
Speaker:How does the information get back to the podcaster, and how
Speaker:do other listeners/users of PodInbox interact with the content?
Speaker:Every podcaster gets a PodInbox page where their fans go and interact
Speaker:with them by leaving audio messages.
Speaker:All the messages are public, right now at least.
Speaker:Our philosophy is let's keep all the messages public to make it a
Speaker:little bit more of a fun and social atmosphere to share messages.
Speaker:So we make podcasting better by allowing an audience member to talk back to the
Speaker:podcaster, and to have that shared comment - in voice - available to other people
Speaker:who might also want to listen to that podcast via the podcast PodInbox page.
Speaker:Am I capturing things properly?
Speaker:Yeah, I think you said it better than me.
Speaker:So, if we look at SpeakPipe and Community and Google Voice, and you
Speaker:compare those to PodInbox, what does PodInbox do differently than the other
Speaker:solutions in the market right now?
Speaker:One of the big differentiators we started with is, what if we
Speaker:made these voicemails public?
Speaker:That's already very different.
Speaker:It seems so simple, but that nuanced difference is important
Speaker:because when someone comes to your page, let's say, there's not much
Speaker:social proof of what you do there.
Speaker:You don't really get to listen to other fans.
Speaker:You don't get to meet other fans.
Speaker:So we like to say ours is a lot easier and a lot more fun.
Speaker:I'm always curious who else is listening to this podcast?
Speaker:Through our app, you can actually see who are the other super fans interacting with
Speaker:that podcaster.
Speaker:And we have
Speaker:these social profiles, too, similar to what you might see on Instagram
Speaker:or Twitter, these little profile cards that you can actually learn a
Speaker:little bit about the other fans, too.
Speaker:So we think that's interesting and different.
Speaker:You're almost combining reviews with voicemails.
Speaker:Those reviews are public, and they act as really good social proof.
Speaker:I see many podcasters, I am one of them, who, if I get a nice review, I will
Speaker:share that across my social channels.
Speaker:Do you see something similar for PodInbox?
Speaker:Reviews is a good analogy, but I think we go a little bit beyond reviews.
Speaker:We really think about it as engagement because when a fan leaves
Speaker:a message, you as a podcaster, can also leave a text or an audio reply.
Speaker:So we really believe that just a slight touch point of engagement
Speaker:can really get that fan excited.
Speaker:When the fan gets really excited, that's when they become a super fan,
Speaker:and that's when they actually spread the news about your show with their
Speaker:spheres of influence or whatnot.
Speaker:So a reply is very different, right?
Speaker:Let's say you got a voicemail; you can't actually leave a voicemail reply
Speaker:to the person who gave you a voicemail.
Speaker:You have to call them back.
Speaker:So it's way too involved for a lot of podcasters.
Speaker:We really designed this whole product with the podcaster in mind,
Speaker:like how much time they have, how manageable these voicemails will be.
Speaker:So in their dashboard, we give them tools to download the audio
Speaker:clip to play on their show.
Speaker:We see a lot of podcasters do this to spark this fan engagement.
Speaker:And that's one of the downsides of, you mentioned this other tool, Google Voice.
Speaker:It's actually really hard to download an audio file from Google Voice.
Speaker:We see a lot of people still saying, "Email me your audio clip."
Speaker:W e've heard that many times and we're like, wow, people are still doing this?
Speaker:Then, of course, there's this weird exchange where people say, "Well,
Speaker:how do we email you an audio clip?
Speaker:There's no record function on email."
Speaker:And then, the podcaster has to reply and say, "Download an audio app, and
Speaker:you record your audio, you download it into your Drive or whatever, and
Speaker:then you add it as an attachment."
Speaker:That's a little cumbersome, obviously.
Speaker:What's on the roadmap?
Speaker:You've got a great system, nice and easy.
Speaker:But what can podcasters look forward to with PodInbox in the coming units of time?
Speaker:The feature we're really excited about is helping podcasters
Speaker:monetize from their audience.
Speaker:So if you think of the Patreons of the world or the Buy Me A C
Speaker:offees of the world, we want to add that functionality to PodInbox.
Speaker:The reason why we're excited about it and a lot of our users are excited about it
Speaker:is our philosophy is that at the point of
Speaker:engagement, that might
Speaker:be a good place to ask for monetary support.
Speaker:A lot of times, we hear podcasters asking them to go there, to go
Speaker:do something, which is, maybe not the most natural thing, right?
Speaker:You have to go there to give money.
Speaker:And what we think might be a little bit
Speaker:more natural—we study Twitter a lot and other places—w hen they're
Speaker:already engaging, when they're finding
Speaker:that value,
Speaker:I know you talked a lot about value for value, when they're
Speaker:getting value directly
Speaker:from that podcaster, then they might be
Speaker:inclined to say, wow, this podcaster actually
Speaker:puts a lot of work into this.
Speaker:I want to
Speaker:support this podcaster
Speaker:with a tip or a donation or whatever.
Speaker:They might be inclined to do that.
Speaker:So if you can
Speaker:imagine, they leave
Speaker:you a voicemail, and maybe they really
Speaker:want you to hear it, maybe seeing a donation that comes along with that
Speaker:might be very eyecatching . A lot of the
Speaker:creator economy is based off of this notion of being appreciative for what
Speaker:creators do.
Speaker:That's
Speaker:what we're trending towards because there's a lot of ways to monetize, right?
Speaker:Sometimes there's an expectation of getting something when you give.
Speaker:We think
Speaker:that Patreon is a little
Speaker:bit built on that premise where you get content and things
Speaker:like that.
Speaker:Right, support
Speaker:me, and I will give you access to these things, a t-shirt, a
Speaker:sticker.
Speaker:Buy something to get something,
Speaker:yes.
Speaker:And we're not too sure how well or not well that works
Speaker:in the podcasting industry.
Speaker:A lot of podcasters
Speaker:have a lot of things to give, like t-shirts, and they have the
Speaker:time to do that, but a lot of
Speaker:podcasts don't
Speaker:. We think a lot of times fans are just
Speaker:so excited even to engage; that is reward enough.
Speaker:Right, just
Speaker:having that
Speaker:connection, enabling
Speaker:that engagement, and then finding clever ways to have some sort of
Speaker:monetary value attached to it as
Speaker:an option is an interesting
Speaker:way
Speaker:for them when they want to take the next step.
Speaker:A special thanks, again, to Pat for his insights here and to PodInbox
Speaker:for being the Branded Benefits Sponsor for today's episode.
Speaker:Engagement is at the center of everything that Pat mentioned
Speaker:during this short interview.
Speaker:And I tend to agree with Pat that the public nature of
Speaker:voicemails really changes the entire
Speaker:landscape of feedback and reviews in
Speaker:general.
Speaker:I talked
Speaker:about it very quickly, but I really think that this concept might be the better
Speaker:reviews we've all been looking for.
Speaker:But try it out and see for
Speaker:yourself.
Speaker:Even better,
Speaker:if you enter "Evo," my name, E-V-O, into the promo code box when
Speaker:you sign up at PodInbox.com,
Speaker:you'll save 30%, which gets it down to like less than six bucks a month.
Speaker:And if you want to see it in action, there is a PodInbox page for this show.
Speaker:Just go to
Speaker:PodInbox.com/evoterra, and you
Speaker:can listen to the messages people have already left me.
Speaker:And
Speaker:leave your own, as well.
Speaker:Of course,
Speaker:there's no way I can have a fun conversation like this without my
Speaker:mind spinning and having other ideas.
Speaker:I want to talk about engagement more.
Speaker:Specifically, about the power differential that exists between
Speaker:listeners and podcasters.
Speaker:And by the way, it's in our favor and we need to
Speaker:change that.
Speaker:So that's
Speaker:going to be
Speaker:tomorrow's episode.
Speaker:Later this
Speaker:week, I'll dig into the
Speaker:ethics behind non-standard
Speaker:monetization options.
Speaker:And I'm going to wax poetically
Speaker:for a long time about a world where all of the data of all
Speaker:podcasts is made public.
Speaker:That should be fun!
Speaker:I shall be back tomorrow with yet another Podcast Pontifications.
Speaker:Cheers!
Speaker:Podcast Pontifications is written and narrated by Evo Terra.
Speaker:He's on a mission to make podcasting better.
Speaker:Links to everything mentioned in today's episode are in the notes
Speaker:section of your podcast listening app.
Speaker:A written-to-be-read article based on today's episode is available at
Speaker:podcastpontifications.com where you'll also find a video version and a corrected
Speaker:transcript, both created by Allie Press.
Speaker:Podcast Pontifications is a production of Simpler Media.