Shownotes
This week, our featured expert, Don The Idea Guy joins host Brett Johnson to discuss various aspects of growing a podcast, including ad placement and building trust with your audience.
Don and Brett kick off the episode by diving into the increasing number of ads in podcasts and the changing perception of listeners towards ads. They explore different strategies for ad placement, including the ideal length for podcast ads. It's fascinating to hear how listeners have become more accepting of ads, understanding that they help support their favorite shows.
The discussion takes an interesting turn as Don and Brett discuss the evolution of ads in media, from no ads to subtle recommendations by hosts. They also touch on the frustration with the increasing number of ads in podcasts, particularly those picked up by networks like HubSpot. Don even shares their personal experience of using the Pocket Cast player to skip ads on their favorite podcast.
But it's not all about ads! Don and Brett also delve into the importance of trust, customer service, and acting as if people are watching. They discuss the significance of creating conditions for word-of-mouth marketing and the value of providing excellent customer service. Building trust with your audience is crucial for the success of any podcast.
As the episode wraps up, Don and Brett offer their expertise to help improve existing podcasts. They encourage listeners to reach out and brainstorm ideas for choosing the right customers, improving ad placement, and maximizing the impact of their podcast.
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/vince-mcgill/lemon-slice
License code: 2NRNUIV5VG7FU3K5
MEET DON THE IDEA GUY!
Possessing creative powers beyond those of mere mortals, DON THE IDEA GUY rescues those in need of innovative ideas through his brainstorming sessions, articles, and websites.
DTIG (DEE-tigg) has been featured in Small Business News, interviewed by the New York Times, quoted in Fast Company magazine, and served as the first president of the International Idea Trade Association.
Don is a proud member of the BzzAgent community, and is featured in BzzAgent.com founder Dave Balter’s book “Grapevine: The New Art of Word-of-Mouth Marketing.”
His Innovation Channel on the Duct Tape Marketing Blog has been recognized as a Forbes Favorite.
Don is the author of the book “100-WHATS of CREATIVITY“, one-hundred ‘what if?’ questions to spur your creativity, unmuck your mind, and break through your mental blocks and has written dozens of articles and hundreds of blog postings on the subject of increasing innovation and adding creativity to your personal and professional life.
You are invited to explore additional innovative possibilities by choosing one of your favorite ideas from this (or any) Five Buck Brainstorms and purchasing a more in-depth custom idea generation session from Don The Idea Guy on that (or any other) subject. Visit the Brainstorm page on the Don The Idea Guy website for more details.
Each week, one of The Circle of Experts talks about critical aspects of growing your podcast. We focus on marketing, social media, monetization, website design, and implementation of all of these to help you make the best podcast possible.
Have a question or an idea for one of our episodes? Send us an email at podcasts@circle270media.com.
The Circle of Experts are:
Yasmine Robles from Robles Designs
Tonnisha English-Amamoo of TJE Communications
Brett Johnson, My Podcast Guy, from Circle270Media Podcast Consultants
Copyright 2024 Brett Johnson, My Podcast Guy™
HubSpot Network
https://www.hubspot.com/podcast-network
Pocket Casts
https://www.pocketcasts.com/
SmartLess Podcast
https://smartless.com/
Audible
https://www.audible.com/
Spotify Premium
https://www.spotify.com/premium/
Authors Guild
https://www.authorsguild.org/
Good e-Reader
https://goodereader.com/
Seth Godin
https://www.sethgodin.com/
Transcripts
Welcome to The Circle sessions featuring The Circle of Experts. The Circle of Experts are Yasmine Robles from Robles Designs, Tanisha English Amamoo of TJE Communications and Don the Idea Guy. I'm Brett Johnson from Circle270Media Podcast Consultants. Each week, one of the circle of experts Joins me to talk about some critical aspects of growing your podcast. We'll focus on marketing, social media, monetization, and website design with the idea of implementing all of these together. This week, Don is here with the circle of experts. He possesses creative powers beyond those of mere mortals. Don, the idea guy rescues those in need of innovative ideas through his brainstorming sessions at five Buck Brainstorms. Don, thanks for joining me today.
[:Oh, it's a pleasure to be back. How are you, sir?
[:Doing really good, and I like the lineup of of stories we're gonna be talking about in this episode because It's wide ranging. I I I love it when we can talk on different subjects. Sometimes it's nice to pull a thread through a lot of them, but sometimes it's nice just like, hey. This one's over here. One's over here, and this one's over here.
[:Well, you know, it's towards the end of the year, so I am, I was a little kinder with my selection. I usually try and pick one that we're gonna be on opposite sides of just to stir things up. And I think going through these so far, we've been right in alignment as we as we pregame a little bit.
[:A little bit. A little bit. Yeah. I I agree. And and your first one That that we wanna talk about is this, some research that was done recently, some data showing that, weekly podcast listeners, what they like and what they don't like in regards to the the the right number of ads in the podcast. And you know what? It's amazing that we're actually The listeners are acceptance of the in acceptance of this. There is a time when nobody wanted ads in podcasts.
[:Right. The the right number of ads is none.
[:Exactly. And now and now we're talking upwards of four.
[:So what's your theory on that? Because I definitely have a theory on why. Oh
[:my gosh. You know, I'm not a lover of this. Now it all you know?
[:So what is your theory on why listener perception has changed?
[:I because it's just been there a long time and and we're podcast listeners are accepting of it. I think podcast listeners are becoming a smarter and understanding that if they want their favorite podcast to remain in existence, the podcast host has explained enough that's, like, To keep this going, I have to accept ads. There is a cost measure in doing podcasting, and this is the one way that I have found that's gonna be efficient for me to make money and to keep this Podcast going. I think they've heard that enough over the past couple of years that it's starting to make sense to them. I think that might be it.
[:I'll give you a a maybe a little bit on that. I think in general, nobody wants to listen to ads.
[:No. No.
[:And What happened is they had all these podcasts out there with no ads in them, and they loved it. And then it went from No ads to maybe a recommendation by the host, which doesn't feel like an ad, which is a smart way to do it. Yeah. And then It was just egregiously abused, and there were ten ads in a ten minute show. And people went, oh my god. This is horrible. And then they get sent a A survey on how many ads is acceptable, like, well, as long as it's not ten. Like, I'll I'll take two. I'll I'll take two ads. I'll take three ads.
[:Yeah.
[:But they're they're getting bad and and the more it's a reality that marketers ruin everything. So as soon as you get marketing people and advertising people involved in any sort of media, let's shove some more ads in there. And as you see a rise in These popular solo and individual podcasts that are being picked up by networks. You're a great example, HubSpot Network. HubSpot's a great brand. Their HubSpot network shoves ads. Like, you got a pre roll, and then you got three ads back to back in the middle of it, and then you got a Post role that, you know, nobody's gonna listen to unless you can't get to the skip button in time while you're listening in the car. But it's bad. It's painful. One of my favorite podcasts is join the hub cat HubSpot Podcast Network. And I hate I hate the ads now. It used to be they would do one ad promoting somebody who literally supported the show one to one. Yeah. And I would listen to it or at least I wouldn't skip it. I'd just let it play. I'd drown it out. I you know, you add, blindness like everybody. But Now I just I skip it. There's there's a setting in my podcast player, Pocket Cast, I think, that I can tell yeah. Pocket cast player, where I can tell it to start a show a certain number of seconds in, And they have a thirty second ad at the this is a different show. I think it's Daily Brew or something. Mhmm. They've got a thirty second ad right at the beginning of every episode. I just Tell it to start thirty seconds in, and I miss it entirely. So the the listeners are gonna find a way around it.
[:And I and I think to your point of saying, hey. I'm okay with ten minutes. As long as they do ten minutes because they know they can hit their skip button, they can make the skip button skip thirty seconds at a time. You you can The most players, you can control it. So you know if it's a five or a three minutes, commercial set, you hit the thing five times, and you're almost through it. I I think that's why a piece of it is more accepting of it as well. So but you know what? There's a yin and a yang to all of this. So, therefore, I think that's why ads have become better. I I I I'm hearing better ads, especially on The higher end quality shows. Like, let's let's put it like smart list. Smart list has a lot of ads in it.
[:They have a lot of ads.
[:But they're not bad. They're done very well. They're smart. They're educational to a certain degree.
[:How many good ads can you stand to listen to in a row? Because they run another show that runs all their ads in a row.
[:Right.
[:Why do you run all your ads in a row?
[:Right. By the same cohost as well.
[:I Sometimes they'll sometimes they'll switch. I did Yeah. It's a great show. I listen to that show all the time too. And sometimes they will shake up The host. You've got three hosts. Mhmm. You've got three ads. They should definitely have
[:Yes.
[:A rotation of the host, not all three done by One of the guys. Right.
[:And and I don't and
[:we're all skipping. How do you know which ad you're on?
[:Right. And you don't know where the money flow is, like, who is actually being paid to do the spot And who wants to do the spot or the advertiser saying, I want this one of the cohost to do my ad, well, then you may have three ads Together.
[:Yeah. But still, why not? Oh,
[:man. I know.
[:And that's a good example of a podcast to use too because it's a longer podcast. So they're all their episodes are at least an hour. Yeah. So you could easily put one ad in there after their intro because their intro is always fun.
[:Mhmm.
[:They do their back and forth, their banter. Do the right before you introduce the guest. You gave the clues. I think I knew who it is. Alright. We're gonna reveal it right after this. And play one ad.
[:Yeah.
[:Play one ad.
[:Yes.
[:And then you've got the normal break where they have in the middle of show, do one more ad. Mhmm. Or even if you felt the need, play Two of the ads there, but stop playing three there. Yeah. It's pain Yeah. Yeah. Every time even though I love those guys and think they're brilliant, How many times are you gonna subject me to an ad?
[:Right.
[:So I I think the whole beginning, I won't called a pre roll. Don't do a pre roll because I'll use my app to skip you, but do a cool intro. You know the great example I give for this? James Bond movies. When you watch a James Bond movie, there's an opening sequence that is a little movie within a movie. It's a cool intro. James is on an adventure, and then he makes his getaway and ends up on a parachuting off of a mountain and lands on the back of a yacht with a beautiful Bond girl. And then they go into the theme, then it's the theme song.
[:Yeah.
[:Do that with your show. Start out with a great hook. Get into the show. Do a little feature. Then give me an ad.
[:Mhmm. Yeah.
[:Then give me some show. Then give me another ad. That'd be fun.
[:Well, and Smartless kind of does that. If you think about it, the banter is its own life.
[:It is.
[:It it truly is.
[:That's why I'm using this as the example.
[:Yeah.
[:Because then they they have their banter. What'd you do last week? They make fun of everybody. Exactly. Then they start giving the clues to who their guest is gonna be. Mhmm. And right before they do the reveal, they should run an ad. We're gonna re we'll be right back.
[:Exactly. Even though everybody knows who it is because it's in the title of the episode.
[:Still funny. It's still funny.
[:It's still funny. They do a really good job of it because you're playing right along with it. I I think How's
[:the other two guys
[:don't know who it is? They don't. Exactly. At least you the assumption. I don't think they do. They they do. They certainly play it well.
[:Because they love each other on that because they'll they'll throw out some false clues to try and get
[:the
[:person to bite onto another name. Yeah.
[:Yeah.
[:Yeah.
[:Yeah. So but I think, Yeah. Well, I you know, I think the research went even deeper in regards to what ads are acceptable. Well so the question was please indicate how interested you would be in hearing a certain type of ad, and and the one that, shows up really well in that You do hear often is ads that communicate features, benefits, or products or services. Well, again, that fits the medium. So, Basically, you you would be interested in it if it's about middle of the five questions asked. And what they do here, it's happening. So That's a good thing. And and, as well as, you know, podcasts that are funny and are entertaining. If you keep those three mixtures together, funny, Interesting and features and benefits, you may have a a good ad, and maybe it doesn't have to be sixty seconds long. I know there are no Rules and regulations and and that sort of thing, but doesn't ad have to be sixty? Because in a podcast, sixty feels like ninety.
[:Well, the marketers the marketers haven't got Haven't gotten on to this yet, but the perfect length of a podcast ad is forty seconds.
[:I think it is too. I think it might.
[:Or forty five seconds because when I hear the ad, I skip, it's gonna skip ahead thirty seconds by default, and then you've got me hooked For five to ten more seconds, where give me give me the hook, give me the hook and give me the call to action In that five to ten seconds, because I'm not gonna skip again, because then I gotta back up and find where it left off. So the perfect length of a podcast ad is forty to forty five seconds. Right? Rate in forty four to forty five seconds. Because that's just the way it is. And you use the opposite Advertising copy strategy that you use for YouTube pre roll ads. Because in a YouTube pre roll ad, You wanna get your message and your call to action across in the first three to five seconds Right. Before the skip button comes on. Yeah. So if you can get me a great call to action, And, who's the save you can save insurance in fifteen minutes? GEICO.
[:Oh, GEICO.
[:GEICO does the best YouTube ads. Mhmm. Because some they're so good, you might even watch the whole ad, but you get everything you need that you get the joke, you get the payoff, you get the call to action in the first five seconds. In a podcast ad, you wanna reverse that. You wanna have that information in the last five seconds because everybody's gonna skip. And if they don't, then great. You have a have a good ad and then end with a great call to action. But in my opinion, that's the podcast advertising strategy more people
[:to be using. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I agree. I agree. So, again, it comes down to preference. You gotta stay in contact with your audience and kinda look at the look at the analytics. Are people dropping off? Are you getting feedback about too many you know, the ads are bad, if they're, you know, too long? And, yeah, there there are a lot of nuances to it. I personally think there's much easier ways to make money on a podcast. We've talked about numerous ideas on how to to make money.
[:Right. Well, they're talking about size. I mean, if you've got the size where you can get those big national ads and you're gonna take advantage of the the listener, the download, and the impressions you get, Good for you that you built an audience that big. You you mentioned the type of ads that are popular and the the services and that kind of thing. I still think those are the ads that are at scale because all the big ones, you know, all the the accounting software and the SaaS products, and Those are the same ads on every podcast. It doesn't matter which podcast you're listening to.
[:Yeah. Yeah. But
[:if I'm listening to a writer's podcast, Coming off of NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month, I was listening to a writer's podcast, and it's not a huge podcast. It's a good podcast. I think it is a popular podcast. I don't think they're getting the numbers that you would need for a big national advertiser. So they're doing ads that I think should be would be even more popular if podcasts were to do this, and this is the in context ads. So when I'm listening to their podcast, I will hear an ad about a writing tool, you know, writing software, or I'll hear an ad about a book That's from an independent author. So if I'm listening to that podcast, I'm an independent writer an author myself or I'm interested in writing, That kind of stuff is in context with context with my interests rather than just saying, oh, a services ad would be of interest. Hell no. When I'm listening to If I when I'm listening to, oh, god. We were just talking about it with the three hosts.
[:Oh, smart list.
[:If I'm listening to the smart list, I wanna hear ads for the different projects those three idiots are involved in. Like, I wanna hear a movie preview For the next movie that they're in, or I wanna hear the TV show that they're gonna be in, or, I wanna hear stuff in context. The next comedy club tour they're gonna be That kind of stuff fits in context of stolen ad.
[:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And I am judging some podcasts for, I I can't name the entity because I I'm in a cease and desist right now because of the the the judging is going on, but It opens my it offers the opportunity for me to listen to podcasts I would never listen to in the in in I chose where I was given the business category. And there's one podcast. I can't think of the name, but it's, legal marketing for, lawyers. So all they talk about is very niche Marketing advice and such, and I'm hearing ads that are very specific to lawyers. That's awesome. The market and and so and but you know what? They don't fit the entertaining. They don't fit the funny. They fit the benefits I'm
[:sorry. Stuff.
[:Exactly. Yeah. It's perfect for that, and I bet they're making good money on it Because how many legal marketing podcasts are there?
[:Maybe a a
[:a a handful. I don't know.
[:The response rate has to be great.
[:Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. As well as, you know, whether it's Their downloads are big or not. They're they know exactly who their audience is.
[:Well, it's, you know, as a friend of ours has said, before, You don't need five million impressions if you can get five of the right ones. Right. Because a lot of people are buying five million impressions because they're gonna get five Conversions. Mhmm. But if you have the right ad to a small audience and it's the right ad, you might get five conversions with five listeners.
[:Right.
[:I mean, if you're a lawyer listening to that lawyer how to market as a lawyer podcast Mhmm. And you hear an ad for a social media tool that's so easy, a lawyer can use it, It's gonna get your attention. It might make you chuckle. You might check it out.
[:Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Moving on to Spotify premium. The their subscribers in the, US can now enjoy fifteen hours of free audiobook content each month with best selling titles Making up seventy percent of the catalog. That's really interesting. So you you're a big audiobook listener. What do you think about this?
[:I think this is great. Great news, great evolution of what they were trying to do. As some folks might know, Spotify rolled out Audio books for sale on their platform and kinda ran into a ran into trouble with, The, the mobile payment systems through Apple and, and Android because they it's such a big cut of the payment when you when you make a payment On on the apps that they had this workaround where you had to go to Spotify on your desktop or mobile browser, Buy the piece in there, buy the book you wanted in there, and then you had to go back to the app and listen inside the app because they did not wanna share that revenue. And I get why they didn't want to. It's a it's a huge amount of money that they're taking. I think it's, they're actually being sued. I think they lost a lawsuit in England or Europe someplace Yeah.
[:I think so.
[:Without that, that very issue, for a web app game developer. But For Spotify to realize they had those pains and they knew it was bad and the the agreements in the on the mobile platforms were such that they couldn't even say We're doing this because of this problem. They they weren't allowed. They weren't even allowed to say, like, click here to go to our portal to buy it. It it was so bad. So when They're having those pains, and people are like, wow. I'm I'm not sure I would. There was certainly no price benefit. The the titles are very expensive. They're you're full full retail. And this came out of left field where they went, alright, well, if you're a paid premium user already, no matter which, which, which level you're you're paying at Mhmm. You get free audiobooks. And Fifteen hours is a long time in an audiobook. That's like three books.
[:That's true.
[:Those most are five hours.
[:Yeah. Mhmm.
[:So, And what great opportunity to sample a couple of books. And it's not every book in their, catalog is available. Only certain ones are available for streaming. And they've done a really good job of breaking down the audiobook into nice bite sized chapters where it may only be 05:10, or fifteen minutes. So it makes it easy to listen to almost like a track on a on a album you might be listening to on Spotify. Relatively easy to jump in and out, a little bit harder if you stop listening in the middle of a chapter, but it's strong. I've been listening to it for a few weeks now. I do enjoy it. I still mostly use Spotify for music. It never caught on with me as a podcast platform, but audiobooks, I could see this working especially if you give it to me as a benefit As a paying user, I've been a longtime Audible member. I was a member of audio Audible before Amazon bought it. The integration here between Spotify Music and Spotify Audio is stronger than Amazons. Amazon books and music is still separate from Amazon Audible books because every time I wanna click to buy an Audible book, it opens up Audible Audible's platform, even though I use my Amazon login. But I've built up such a library, but I've got such a bookshelf there of all the books. I don't think Spotify is gonna Convince me to be a hundred percent convert, but making it available for fifteen hours a month certainly got me to test it out. Right.
[:It certainly has the opportunity to bring new ear earballs, let's put it, to to Spotify, which can benefit podcasters. But at the same time, if they're listening to an audio, we only have x amount of hours to do what we want to do for entertainment Per day. So you could argue, I guess, that, hey, if you're a book listener, your audiobook listener, you're an audiobook listener, whatever platform you are. But if they're on Spotify already listening to a podcast, which is audio storytelling, it it can be. At least Spotify is somewhat training the listener now to think of them more than just music. I I I don't know. It it it'll be interesting to see, where this goes because I still think I still see the research showing that if you listen to podcast on Spotify, you're really only listening to One or two.
[:Oh, really?
[:Because because Spotify in your mind is a music platform. I
[:I have that data. Yeah.
[:So the podcasters I work with, when they have them on Spotify, it's really great analytics. I'm telling you, it's it's strong stuff that you can really, really see inside who's listening to you. But it's still, you know, second compared to Apple By a margin. By a large margin. So I don't know whether that creeps up things or not. I, you know, obviously, we can't rely on One platform or a multitude of platforms. You're gonna be everywhere if you're a podcaster. Same thing if you're a, you know, an audiobook. You gotta be as In in any places possible. Audiobook, creators and and and authors are probably loving this. It's another touch point.
[:Well, I it's gonna depend on the data Spotify ends up sharing about
[:Yeah.
[:Conversion. So if I'm a If I'm an author and I have an audiobook and I learn that Spotify's playing it for free, How do I get paid for that? You know, first of all, how do I get paid? Amazon has figured it out on the Kindle because they have the Kindle Unlimited and the authors get paid Based on how far a reader progresses into the book. So is Audible's Audiobook royalties similar to that, how much the book they listen to is how much an author gets. You know, I I wonder how that works. And then if I find out as an author that doing the sample there equates to a a purchase, Like, oh, yeah. I find that one out of every fifty freemium users, freemium listeners end up actually buying the book. Okay. Well, now I'll promote it. Yeah. Absolutely. Listen to it for free on Spotify. And now I'm sending people to Spotify to listen to it. Yeah.
[:Well, I would argue that Spotify has already opened the door that Podcasters put their content up there for free and get no money back.
[:Yeah. No. Are the author's not gonna do that? Not not most authors. Most authors They do that.
[:But they are already. Correct?
[:They you know, in Spotify?
[:On Spotify, you're not paying for that book, correct, When you listen to it
[:I'm a premium user, so I'm paying for access to the platform. I'm curious if I listen to a song on Spotify, the artist is paid, musician is the band. So if I'm listening to an audiobook, my expectation is the author is getting something. If I read a free book on on Kindle and a free book on Kindle Unlimited, I'm a subscriber to Kindle Unlimited, so part of my payment, and I know from other authors who have books on unlimited, They get paid on a sliding scale of how many pages get read in the book. So my my theory is Spotify has to be working under The same operation, or we'd be hearing a lot more headlines about authors complaining that they're not paid for their free books that are available on Spotify.
[:And that's true. I've not heard that. I've that that's what comes to mind. Are they? Because of well, I I don't know. Yeah. Exactly. I I and and maybe that just hasn't come to a head yet. They've now they've started this when? Back in November, was it, that they started the It's
[:been a
[:couple months. Couple of months? Okay. I I
[:I I mean, the books have been on there for longer.
[:Okay.
[:But the free availability of the books has been much less. Yeah.
[:Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting how podcasters have just taken it everywhere they are. They never get paid for their content. And they but again, they think that's true.
[:Well Like, who? Like, who's not getting paid?
[:Anybody that has their podcast on Spotify that's on Spotify. Podcaster. Right. That's not a Spotify or a YouTube
[:percent sure. Yeah. You
[:know, they get they get screwed in the end. They'll again, we don't have a collective lawyer It's It's
[:It's It's like a blogger. It a podcast is an audio blog. Exactly. And bloggers aren't getting paid where that could shown either unless you put it behind a paywall. Yeah. And you could do the exact same thing with your podcast. You could put that behind a paywall.
[:You can.
[:If you're out there to build an audience and convert them to buy some other services that you're doing, if you're using it as a sales call, That's the idea. But these authors, you know, the Stephen Kings and and George r Artens, they have an audience. You gotta pay them.
[:Right. And they're represented well. And I guess that's my point that we don't really have great representation in this world yet. I've I've not I don't know anything. I don't I don't have any He leaves to read. We're not unionized, quote, unquote, to to make this work. But, again, it comes back to that, okay, if you do wanna monetize what you're creating here, You gotta go a different direction, and and podcasting is never was never designed as an advertising medium anyway. It it it's it's it's very Existence of of anonymity makes it a poor advertising medium. You know, any analytics that you get with your podcast, you don't know who's Who's listening? For the most part, you don't know how long they've listened to unless they listen to a specific Player like Apple or they use, the player embed code that's given to you on your hosting platform, then you can judge that, but that's That's not holistic. Everything is anonymized.
[:Yeah. But that's that's the entire advertising industry. That was how the advertising industry was built. Yeah. You know, original radio broadcasters couldn't tell you anything about their audience. They could barely tell you anything about it now. TV, they can tell you anything about it. Newspapers, they need to tell you anything So I don't I don't know. I think that podcasting is built for advertising.
[:Oh, really? Okay. Okay. Yeah.
[:If you're gonna get paid for it, there's different strategies. Right? So Well are you building it? What do you want out of it is the first thing you should ask before you start any project.
[:Correct. And and and what I'm meaning is true marketing, know who is listening and and that sort of thing. Obviously, that's valuable information, but you're right. Radio stations don't really know other than research they do. To see
[:Or the fake or the fake stats. They
[:The fake stats. Yeah. Or You you you put put qualitative in any fashion that you want to make it make it look good. Oh, for all we play those games, you know, both you and I have. You you never show something that you you don't look good in.
[:Yeah. So I mean and and look at the resurgence of programmatic now.
[:Yeah.
[:Because of the because of the problem with, the third party data Mhmm. A lot of things programmatic. Now, they can still give you general terms about how many People are listening. But in the early days of newspapers and radio and TV, they can that was all made up. That was estimates of a guess. I didn't know any of that. Yeah. It's gotten better, But the same thing with the podcast. I mean, at least you can point to a podcast or your blog and say, I got x amount of people That were That came to it. Mhmm.
[:And if
[:you can survey your audience, you can find out some general information about, hey, you're listening to my podcast. What kind of books do you read? Oh, well, Eighty percent of the people who replied to my survey like mystery books.
[:Mhmm.
[:So that's great. You brought up an excellent example of wondered about the data Spotify was getting about its listeners being able to pair the type of music, one of their members listen to with the types of books they listen to. I thought that was kind of
[:Yeah, I would be intrigued to know, Okay, if you're a mystery listener, what type of music do you like? Yeah. What's the DNA in that? I overall, I think that would be Really interesting.
[:It really I wanna see that on next year's Spotify wrapped report. Like Yeah. You listen to the Beastie Boys and You love, the flowers in the attics novel. Like, I want this bizarre disparity.
[:Oh, big time. Exactly. And then go off on, like, how in the world does this Tal was like, hey. We all have our feminine side. You know? I mean, whatever the case may yeah.
[:You listen to Black Flag and other punk rock artists and enjoyed forty hours of Nicholas Sparks novels.
[:Right. Right. Right. I I it would be so fascinating, so fascinating to to to see that. And you know it's in the works. It's gotta be because they love cross pollinating. It's all there. Why wouldn't you connect some dots? Connect some dots.
[:I will love seeing my friends post their wrapped
[:Yeah.
[:With Well,
[:and then you start to see these authors do Rock stadium tours because they know that,
[:Your opening act is gonna be a reading. Exactly. Oh my gosh.
[:It's so fun.
[:Or you could have bands open for the author tours. The author's going around the bookstores, you're gonna have something They're Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if you heard me clicking away on my keyboard over the audio or not, but I did look up about authors getting paid for their audio books on Spotify.
[:Okay.
[:And the response was, according to the authors according to authors guild dot org, Spotify Spotify negotiates different deals with each publisher, of course, and authors are paid based on either the percentage, the percentage of a book. We try again. Different deals with publishers and authors, and they're paid based on either percentage of a book a user listens to Or how many hours they listen to a book. So according to authors guild dot org, the payment's triggered when a user listens to about ten to twenty percent of the book. However, some authors, will generally only get paid if person listens to their entire book. That has a lot to do with the audio services or the author's deal with the publishers. According to good e reader dot com, authors claim They're being deprived of their claim to royalty for the fifteen hours of audiobook listing that users are entitled to each month. So maybe there's a top fifteen hours that are part of the free paid. I don't know. I I would imagine that that's going to change, Because authors need to get paid. That's using their content.
[:Yes.
[:They get paid by writing the book and selling the book. Mhmm. And if you're not gonna pay them, then the authors Ought to have that that option to opt out Right. Just like the bands on Spotify do, and then the artists on Spotify do for the music.
[:Right. Right. And and and, you know, you bringing that scenario a couple of scenarios up. How will this evolve on Spotify premium? Yeah. So the fifteen you know, you obviously, this is probably a lead in to try to get as many ears onto Spotify premium. Then, you know, the The free fifteen hours probably is not as a sustainable work
[:Oh, I think it should. I mean, well, the others I
[:don't know. I I I The
[:others, keep in mind, not all the titles are available in the in your free fifteen hours.
[:True. True.
[:So I found something interesting. One of the authors I like is John Acuff. He writes a lot of business stuff. He wrote a book called Start. He wrote a book called Finish. And I I like his stuff. Well, I already own his print books And sometimes the ebook, but I had not purchased the audiobook. So I wanted to see he's got a book on Goal setting. I think it's all you need is a goal or something. I'll feel bad if I got his title wrong, but he's got a book, a new book out on goal setting for the new year. So I was gonna go in and listen to that, and Looking at the other titles that are available from him, and some of his books are available, but not all of his books are available. So what a great way to sample an artist Mhmm. Sample an author, and then go back and listen and pay for the privilege of listening to something else. And I'm kinda surprised that some artists, music musicians aren't set up the same way. Like, you can listen to Taylor Swift's greatest hits, but if you wanna listen to all of her music, you have to buy the album. Mhmm.
[:Yeah. Did you see a rhyme or reason in regard, to what books were available or not? Were they
[:Nah. Because it was interesting. One of them, I was surprised that a relatively new release, I think it was the goal setting book
[:k.
[:Was available even though it was a new release. But He has a book called Start and Finish. There's a book called Start and another book called Finish. Mhmm. And I think Start was available, but Finish wasn't. So it was interesting that this older book was, the newer book was, but the book in the middle was not. But I I think that's following a similar theory to when Amazon Kindle has specials on books. So there's a series of books by an author that you like, And you get an email from Amazon saying, oh, book five in the series is on sale for a dollar ninety nine. Okay. Well, book one through four are still full price. So are you gonna buy the middle of the series for the discount and not start with the first book?
[:Right.
[:That's a that's a weird Thing for me.
[:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Well, time will tell. I I think it makes sense for them to be in this space. It it just It just depends on how they cultivate it over time.
[:I think they're off to a great start, though. I'm encouraged by making that available to to already Paying users.
[:Yeah. So I saw this, posted by Seth Godin, who we both love. It was on LinkedIn, and and it's, Eight max eight marketing maxims that pretty much are truisms that You should follow religiously, I guess you could say that or they just they always seem to be the truth that they they they they they come to fruition. And I thought it would be a nice way to end our year talking about them in regards to how you market yourself, your podcast, your business, because, most of these things do hold, with what however you look at at at what you're trying to market. Let me put it that way.
[:No matter the category. I mean, this is just Real life, you can apply these or change a word here and there and apply it to anything you got going on with your life, whether it's marketing, whether it's Podcast programming, building an audience on any platform, or just your life. So Seth always has great stuff. When you shared this article, it it Seemed a a great way to end the year on on
[:on on it. Yeah.
[:Yeah. Why don't you roll down all eight of them, and let's go back and chop them up?
[:Yeah. So number one, trust is worth more than attention. Number two, helping people get to where they seek to go is more effective than hustling people to persuade them to go where you're going. That's a lot to think about. Well, that's a nice one to break down. We will. Number three, choose your customers. Choose your future. Four, tell ten people if they don't tell the others, make a better product. That hits so home run for podcasters. Five, creating the conditions for the word to spread is the job of the marketer. Six, customer service is free. Seven, Quote, you'll pay a lot, but you'll get more than you paid for, unquote, is a useful motto. And number eight, act like people are watching. They are. I love these.
[:I love these. Yeah.
[:So number one, trust is worth more than attention.
[:Yeah. I mean, look, before we dive
[:Oh, sorry.
[:Let's start with anybody who may or may not be Seth Godin fans. Yeah. Seth rarely shares anything that is one hundred percent original. But he puts excellent spins on things that are already out there. So if you heard Brett read those eight and went, Nah, I heard I heard that before. That's not for me. He's just taking and putting another spin on it. And just because you heard it somewhere else doesn't make it any less true. So so don't Don't take the attitude of, oh, I already knew that or I already heard that before. Ask yourself, as my friend Jeffrey Gitomer says, Ask yourself, how good are you at it? So Mhmm. Keep that in mind while you're reading through it. Not I know I already know that. Ask of how good you are at it.
[:Mhmm. Exactly. Exactly.
[:Yeah. You're you're number one. I'm sorry. Talk to everybody. Trust is is worth more than attention. Yeah? Yeah. You get anybody's attention if nobody trusts you.
[:Exactly. Talk about a spinning gerbil wheel that you're just continually Running to try to get people's attention, but that trust slows it down, and all of a sudden you're you're you're friends for life with trust. You are friends for life with trust.
[:Think about every ad for a car dealer you've ever seen. They're really good at getting people's attention. They shout louder than anybody. They buy more ads than anybody. But how many of them do you look at and go, Oh, I totally trust that guy. Yes. Exactly. I'm gonna send my grandma to him to buy her car.
[:Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Two, helping people to get where they seek to go is more effective than hustling people to persuade them to go where you're going. Yeah.
[:Yeah. I actually just read an article that it it talked about this concept in different words, and it was, Basically, every company out there has come up with their buyer persona and their new focus on quality, And they're gonna keep pitching you on their program their internal programs, trying to get consumers to buy a car based on Their twelve point inspection checklist when why don't you help the person buy a car that works at a good price? Not to dwell on car dealers as much, but just the first example that came to mind, help the help your audience, help your customers get what they need.
[:Understand that
[:just going, we need to sell more of package c.
[:Right. Understand their pain point and address it and fix it.
[:Solve the problems. Solve the problems.
[:Yeah. Number three, choose your customers. Choose your future. Yeah. Understand who you're marketing to, who understand the content that you're creating. Who's that? Who's the listener? Who's the reader?
[:Who's the listener? Who's the leader? Yeah. Who's the reader? Who's the buyer? Alright. If you choose your wrong customer, You're not gonna get what you want out of the project.
[:Mhmm. Alright.
[:If you're choosing an audience that has no interest in the content you're producing, They're not gonna listen to you.
[:Right. Right. And that leads into number four, tell ten people if they don't tell the others, make a better product.
[:Yeah. I I show record another episode. Yeah.
[:You know, it really doesn't get much simpler than that. If if you think about it, you break it down. If If those ten people you cannot activate those ten people to tell other people about what you just told them you're doing or creating or selling, Change it.
[:Or, you know, you jump back to three, which did you choose the wrong customer? Yeah. Did you choose the wrong listener?
[:Right. Right. Exactly. Number, five. Creating the conditions for the word to spread is the job of the marketer.
[:I'll give you my take on this because I'm actually using you as my example.
[:Okay.
[:So you have assembled this circle of experts Yeah. That you do this podcast for. And you're obviously driving the bus on this Project. You're scheduling the recording sessions. You're producing them. You're publishing them. But every time you send an episode out, You email the team. You email the circle and say, hey, here are the links to the episode. Mhmm. Here are the graphics you can use in your post. Here's a cut and paste social post. Here's the link. Here's the page to send them to. You're creating the conditions for us to help spread the word about it. So, if you're the host of a podcast, if you're producing a podcast, and you want those ten people in the tip before this to go out and tell other people, How easy are you making it for them to tell other people? Do you have a good domain name that people can remember to share? Do you have a one Click button that they can press to share this in their social media. You're enabling them. Make it easy for them to tell a Make it easy for them to share a podcast. I I mentioned my podcast player, PocketCast. When I'm listening to an episode, Brett, I'm sure, has gotten some referrals, And I'm listening to something. I can click on a button inside that player, and I can either send him a link to the entire episode Mhmm. A link to The podcast itself, or I can send him a link to the exact moment in the podcast that I'm listening to, the time stamp spot. That is creating ideal conditions for me as a user to share that with other people that I think would be interested in it. So that's what I get out of that map.
[:That's a much better explanation of it. Yeah. It it I personally, number five was the hardest to get my head wrapped around, but you explained that very, Very well. That that because there's that it's mixture of a lot of words there. There's, like, marketer conditions, word spread. That
[:sort of thing. If I no. I love it. Take on it. I'm Jared, let hey, Audis. Yeah. Send us an email. Go go to go to the website and send us an email. Leave a comment in a in a post. Let us know how How it affects you? How would you put that maximum into effect?
[:Exactly.
[:The next one I think is awesome. I love this one. Customer service is free. Yeah. Here's here's the here are a couple other truisms to go with the with that maxim. Bad customer service is free, Good customer service is free. There's an awful lot of people out there handing out bad customer service because it's free. Yeah.
[:And
[:they forget that good customer service is free too.
[:Mhmm. Exactly. Exactly.
[:There I'm a huge fan of, Bart Rescue. And The guy goes in to rescue these bars that are doing poorly. In every single episode, I've watched five seasons so far. Every single episode, he walks into the bar, and it's disgusting they didn't clean the kitchen they didn't clean the bar it's it's gross and you hear them tell the sob story about how they're so deep in debt Times have been hard, and you can't get people to work. And he goes, yeah, man, I'm I'm with you. That yeah. My sympathy. But Cleaning your kitchen doesn't cost you anything. Why is it a mess? You don't have any business. You don't have any customers keeping you busy. Why isn't your kitchen clean?
[:Right.
[:And you're like, how are you gonna argue against that?
[:Get it. You'd go.
[:Customer service is free. It doesn't matter if you have one customer or a thousand customers, Treat them right. And if you're not treating them right, there's nothing anybody can do to help you.
[:Right. Exactly. Number seven, you'll pay a lot, but you'll get more than you paid for Is a useful motto that I have to write and put on my computer screen everywhere I look because because
[:because your prices are too high? No. That's that's We get We get We get too high.
[:Yeah. We get beaten up all the time. Exactly. Yeah. And it's like No.
[:It's cost too much. No. I can get it cheaper someplace else.
[:Then go. Go do it. I just No.
[:No. A better response though is you we are asking you to invest. Yeah. It tells us you're serious about you. It puts a value on my time as an expert. I can only work with so many clients. Mhmm. I need to know you're in it too. Yes, I am asking you to pay more because you can get you can get everything cheaper everywhere else. You can go to a ninety nine cent store and still find it for free on the curb someplace. You you can always get it something free.
[:Mhmm.
[:Yes. I'm asking you to pay a little more, but you're gonna get more than what you paid for. And that's the that last part I think is missing from a lot of people's response to the this cost too much. You cost too much. You're too expensive line.
[:Yes. I I think you're right. It balances that whole saying out, and you're meeting them where they are saying, yeah. I agree. Yes.
[:But but You do charge a lot.
[:You're right. But we get results, and you're gonna and you get more of them what the what you pay for. Exactly. And finally, eight, act like people are watching. They are. They are. I I think That is extremely important, especially if you're starting to take your now that we're opening up even more and more, to be able to be in front of people, networking, just just re representing yourself as a business, as a podcast, or whatever you're doing, get used to that. You you are Who you are and you represent what you do, the trust. All the the previous seven the previous seven come into play for number eight.
[:Well, I think the act like people are watching is a a bigger statement. I mean, think about social media and YouTube, and Everybody's got a video camera in their pocket, and if you're misbehaving out in public, somebody's recording you. Oh,
[:they got you.
[:But if you don't think they are, You're crazy. Mhmm. I because I know all of our listeners have watched the video somebody sent them about that woman in the Chipotle that threw her burrito in somebody's face about the parents who are yanking their kids in the in the stores The people are cutting people off in traffic, taking people's parking spaces or shouting them down. They are watching, so behave yourself.
[:Yeah. Exactly.
[:And at this time of season, Santa's watching
[:too. Exactly. Exactly. Well, great. You know what? If if a listener wants To get a hold of you, Don, to, you know, really flush out. Let's let's let's say that they wanna talk more about these eight Maxims from Seth with you because I think we really did a a good job of talking about them, but but at the same time, how can we utilize them for our business to, you know, brainstorm with what you do? How can they get ahold of you?
[:Well, they, the best place to reach me is at don the idea guy dot com, and that's a really great idea. If you If you are interested in talking about, any one of these, I'd say you could do a focused brainstorm on, like, How do you how do we choose the best customer to choose our best future? Yeah. Schedule a brainstorm on, dontheideaguy dot com. We'll meet online over a cup of coffee and get you some solid ideas on how to get the right customers For the results that you wanna have for your business. So visit me at don the idea guy dot com, and I'm on all the socials too.
[:Right. Yeah. If you wanna talk about podcasting and what it can do for your business in the next twelve months, give me a holler, whether you're b to b or b to c. We create a content marketing strategy that's gonna work for you. We're gonna include a lot of those maxims things that Seth just talked about as well too. It it it's it's universal, with everything you do, and I think it's important to to look at that what with what you do with any content creation. So you can contact, Circle two seventy Media at circle two seventy media dot com. Got a calendar there to book some time. Let's talk. Let's get you going, or let's take a look at what you're already creating And you wanna do better with it. There's just pieces to it or just something's not clicking with the podcast. Let's do a review of it. That that that that's a great way to start. It's not necessarily throwing out the baby with the bathwater. It could be just tweaking some things that are just not quite clicking with the podcast. And let's take a you know, get a second pair of ears or Three pair of ears will get Don involved through reviewing your you know?
[:Yeah. And and Brett has Brett's right. It's b to b, b to c. Brett has all the letters. Brett has Brett has all the best letters, b to b, b to c, d to c.
[:Yep. Exactly.
[:P, x, y, z.
[:He has Exactly. Exactly. And, with that note, until next time. We'll talk to you then, Don.
Bye
