How to make a podcast successful - Podcasting tips we've learnt from 10 years of podcasting

Paul (00:00.57)
Wasn't frozen hour end, don't worry.

Josefine (00:03.672)
Good.

Paul (00:04.496)
I've just been saying Raza. Three-way chat. Not me interviewing you, so don't play as guests.

Raza (00:16.645)
it.

Paul (00:16.816)
I'll just kick it off but I was thinking getting the energy up. Have you got any exercises Josephine like on stage exercises like

Josefine (00:27.03)
Let's get ready to rumble. Yeah. that would be so nice. Should we skip long introductions? Yeah. No, like skip long introductions. Like not stay too long on who we are and why we're like, I think we should just get right into the conversation.

Paul (00:31.566)
You know, we need help from avidly activates.

Raza (00:34.405)
Thank

Paul (00:38.285)
what about you get your energy

Well, we rolling, so...

Paul (00:53.614)
Yeah, we'll just dive in. Before we do though, why I was late sending the Riverside link, I have my weekly AI hype meeting with Anka. Anka is our AI director. I've just had it. That's why I was late. That's what saying. And basically we're all fucked, thanks to DeepSeek being downloaded and used locally around the world and...

Josefine (01:02.347)
one.

you heard it, okay.

Josefine (01:12.108)
Yeah.

Paul (01:22.233)
the amount of power that's gonna need and water that's gonna need and the dodgy countries will be using it and dictators and whatever, whoever can do what they want with it. So that was the opposite of an AI hype meeting.

Josefine (01:34.892)
It's gonna get hot in here. That's what you're

Raza (01:39.311)
those are down to this.

Paul (01:40.759)
Yeah, who's got the fan?

Raza (01:44.835)
My heater is turning off, I'll just freeze

Josefine (01:46.602)
Okay. I was like, it's me.

Paul (01:47.568)
Jesus Christ, head of content. Yeah, I it was well annoying. Right, so take two, not episode two. We were gonna talk about this episode, podcasts, and we were going to do a test of different mics, different lights. I forgot to go to the office where all the kit is, sorry. I'm in a office. I'm in an office.

Raza (01:49.989)
Sorry. Well, it was on last time as well, you don't play anything.

Josefine (02:12.398)
you

Josefine (02:17.23)
with loads of binders.

Paul (02:19.023)
I'm an office from the 80s. And a printer there in the corner. Anyway, why you so quiet?

Josefine (02:21.655)
Yeah.

Raza (02:22.181)
Thanks.

Raza (02:30.052)
No reason.

Josefine (02:32.205)
You always.

Raza (02:34.649)
This is me at my loudest, talking to all.

Josefine (02:38.39)
This is your peak, you mean? Yeah.

Paul (02:41.441)
I'd like to be some sort of secret camera podcast with Raza and Josephine. Just... Perhaps in a car. Like a long car journey.

Josefine (02:49.1)
It would just be a monologue.

Yeah.

Should we get into it? I think it's like it's put pressure on having high energy now. That's why.

Paul (03:04.759)
Alright, fine. Yeah, Avidly Talks podcast special. We're talking about podcasting as a concept and why B2B businesses should do it. Where to start?

Josefine (03:18.198)
I think we can just start with why it's a good idea to do it. I think many businesses can think it's difficult to count home the ROI and not want to do it. But there are also many successful companies doing podcasts. And it is obviously a case of you have to weigh in if it's worth putting down the effort.

But you don't have to do it, make it a proper invested like ad campaign and have good camera and make a whole thing of it. You can just.

Paul (04:01.135)
I saw, was watching today, I don't know if you'll know it Josie, don't know if you... Well it probably is over in Sweden actually, the overlap rather. The Sky Sports podcast, it goes on TV. So it's... Yeah.

Raza (04:09.667)
Yeah, I'm aware of that.

Josefine (04:14.062)
Okay, anything sport related just doesn't come into my realm of... Yeah.

Paul (04:19.799)
okay fair enough well you know football is big yeah yeah erm there's ex footballers talking it's just a podcast but on TV it's really high production they're in a special kitchen studio thing but i saw the US version it's just soccer i think it's called but they have the same people same top big guests

Josefine (04:24.108)
Do know what football is? Yeah. Not much I know.

Josefine (04:33.966)
and.

Yeah.

Josefine (04:42.883)
Yeah.

Paul (04:48.567)
it's for sky sports and someone else i saw it on youtube where they put it as well.

Josefine (04:56.962)
Really?

Paul (04:59.183)
Yeah.

Josefine (05:01.016)
But was it, guess, too?

Paul (05:01.665)
I find that more interesting than you two, clearly.

Josefine (05:05.806)
Or was it a Google Meet setup? sorry.

Raza (05:05.901)
I know what's the American one. I've not seen the American one, I've seen the UK one. I know in the UK, visually it looks incredible, but then sometimes, I mean they stick the whole episode on Spotify as well to listen to as an episode, but I've not tuned into the US one.

Paul (05:22.403)
Yeah, it was just recorded like this. Just on a riverside. It some editing. It had the kind of editing you just did on the last episode, you know where they were talking about something. Well if it was this, maybe you can do this on the edit. It had a clip embedded in or an image. So there was some post-production effort and stuff. But yeah, the actual recording, the two ex-footballers had their airpods in. I think the host had a headset.

Raza (05:27.909)
A little bit.

Josefine (05:52.78)
Wow, a headset.

Paul (05:53.392)
So yeah, and that's like a multi-billion dollar budget at their disposal and they're not choosing to use a big budget. So anyway, like you were saying.

Josefine (05:58.476)
Yeah, I think.

Josefine (06:02.164)
Exactly. Why would you? Yeah, I mean, why would you if you're looking to just spend your money and you need to hid your money somewhere, then sure, go ahead, rent a big studio, have like script writers and do a whole thing of it. Get in actors. I don't know. Just burn your budget. But maybe there isn't any budget at all. But if you're actually doing it to increase your reach, just give value, there's not.

You're not going to necessarily get more reach by having a higher quality production or give more value by having a better camera or have a suit on.

Raza (06:45.327)
sometimes that's not even authentic and that's another thing I know last time or the last time we talked about podcasting we said building that connection with people and how you manage to keep people engaged and two important things are being authentic and being relatable and yeah one side of it is being conversational sharing personal stories but at same time can someone relate to having a £10,000 microphone in front of your face when you're speaking would they care? Probably not.

Paul (06:45.487)
next.

Raza (07:12.357)
probably doesn't make that big of a difference and I feel, again one of the podcasts I watch, one of the things they do when they're joking around is they damage the microphones, like they throw it across or they hit it because they're just laughing that much.

Paul (07:25.305)
Are they doing the handheld mics?

Raza (07:28.099)
No, it's like a little stand in front of you and it just falls to the floor, it just drops. They wouldn't be doing that with insane budgets and high tech equipment and whatnot. I think that still makes it a little bit more relatable and authentic as well, like a little bit more genuine of, you know, we don't need to spend thousands and thousands to get started and keep it running as well.

Paul (07:30.307)
Alright.

Paul (07:50.32)
think what was good there, I don't know if it was just on the front end, but while you were talking about only having low grade equipment, your internet stream froze and I only got every other word. practice in what you preach.

Josefine (08:00.288)
Yeah.

Raza (08:03.717)
Thank

Josefine (08:03.81)
Definitely. I also wonder that got me thinking now, sometimes in my also actually quite, quite a lot, I think once a week in my TikTok feed, I see a new podcast with great equipment, great studio, great, you know, the mic and everything. But I've noticed that I, I'm a bit hesitant to, to trust the podcast. I'm a bit like, okay, yeah, what is this now? Is it?

Paul (08:04.906)
Hahaha

Josefine (08:33.558)
because it feels just like another podcast in the list. Like it's not authentic, like you said, because it could have been any podcast.

Paul (08:45.016)
It's interesting how that's evolved. think the... you look at the LinkedIn carousel videos, the LinkedIn version of TikTok, the ones that they're promoting and pushing to everybody or whether it's by design or because of who's enjoying what, probably a mixture of both, it's creator mode, TikTok mode, isn't it? Not polished ads that have been storyboarded and planned together with elaborate...

scenes and all that. feel like podcasting is at that place from what you're saying then where years ago it was at the sound quality had to be good. People would remember us in our training when we were doing it for clients rather sort of people were put up with a grainy picture but they won't put up with poor audio. But we've got tools like this now we don't need fancy mics we've got something that will equalize the levels for us

knock out background noise. I mean we've noticed haven't we on video calls you can like eat and the software will remove the crunching and yeah the tech's making it a lot more accessible which at the same time has lowered the bar for entry of quality for what people put up with.

Josefine (09:56.077)
Yeah.

Raza (10:06.253)
I think people saw that, I think that's their preference. I think Josephine said, when you see these polished podcasts, you can tell it kind of looks like they've just put so much money behind it. That's when it comes across as salesy to advertising, not raw, authentic, genuine, making some of the, know what, I could do that. Definitely where I started it, it was seeing other podcasts that were similar to ours, like a really basic setup.

Paul (10:31.375)
Tell us your first podcast story rather. So you're heading up our content here at Avidly, I don't think I introduced you. Hi.

You've been podcasting for like over 10 years.

Raza (10:47.653)
over selling me there but yeah yeah I wouldn't go that far. started podcasting probably about 2012-2013 just with two of my friends about combat sports, wrestling all this nerdy stuff that we liked and yeah my first episode was recorded via it wasn't really a I can't it was it would have been something specific to what we're talking about

Josefine (10:49.55)
You're legend!

Paul (11:08.825)
was your first episode called?

Paul (11:15.065)
Was it like timely? Was it to do with all the action that week or whatever?

Raza (11:17.379)
Yeah, so it would have been what's going on. Yeah, yeah, that's what it was. And I can't remember that far back what was going on that week. But yeah, the setup was super basic. I didn't invest in any microphone at that point. Didn't pay for any software. Sat on my attic stairs, spoke into my phone on a video call and had audacity on my laptop. It worked, did the job. 30, 40 plus episodes and then bought a microphone, the Blue Yeti, which at that time for me was like my biggest investment in anything ever.

Paul (11:46.127)
How much was it?

Raza (11:47.845)
I think I paid about £140 for it at the time. Yeah, back then, know, I did most speed, but I was obviously a broke uni student then, so probably wasn't the smartest thing to buy at the time for a podcast that was so free. Well, there you go, aim high. But yeah, yeah, really basic. And I think that kind of made it more enjoyable in not having to invest in a really expensive camera.

Paul (11:50.423)
nuts. They're still that price.

Paul (12:01.465)
Yeah, but look at you now. You're on Avidly Talks. You've made it.

Josefine (12:05.549)
made it.

Raza (12:17.605)
Obviously now it's different with video but it was just focusing on audio, basic, just three friends chatting and I think that's why I'm more inclined to some of the podcasts I listen to now. Yeah, stick to football, the overlap is high production but some of the other ones that I watch, very low production and it's the value, the humor, the content, so it is what hooks you in. But yeah, lots of learnings from them that we've applied to our own podcasts in digital 22 days and then for clients as well.

Paul (12:45.796)
sound quality, DIY studio is interesting. I've been listening to Mike Skinner's story of the streets audiobook this week and he recorded his, I don't know if he won a murky reprise or it was definitely nominated but his first album he recorded it in his wardrobe at home with a duvet in the wardrobe. Yeah, yeah I'm not

Josefine (13:08.589)
Wow.

Josefine (13:12.078)
Get the soundproofing.

Paul (13:15.727)
You don't need to do that now though. As you were talking, that was 2013 you said.

Raza (13:22.313)
2013 yeah, a long time ago.

Paul (13:24.621)
We did our first podcast inbound after hours. We used your mic and the sound was awful because we were on a budget, Josie, like you said. And, mate, go back to.

Josefine (13:36.354)
How bad was it? You couldn't even listen through it, what?

Paul (13:41.817)
cut to one now in the edit. We'll go back to the old ones, you can insert it.

Josefine (13:48.524)
Yeah, yeah, I'll do it.

Paul (13:51.226)
can only apologise for that because it's... Man, I remember getting feedback. It sounded really good. The value was really interesting. I had to stop listening because the sound was so bad. But we bought acoustic panels for the walls. It didn't help. The office we were in is an old Victorian mill with bare concrete walls. So was like the worst acoustics.

Josefine (14:16.354)
No, like six metres up. The ceiling height is like six metres. It's insane.

Paul (14:21.199)
Yeah, so was a literal echo chamber, yeah. Like a lot of can be. But yeah, also, then we had to buy a load of kit to compensate. So we've got those mics you were talking about, rather, clients, we've podcasted for clients using them, podcast internally, the same mics that they use at the BBC radio studios. But you don't need them now. They're good.

and i think we'll have probably a chat around kit and stuff but you don't need them to get started back to your point josey do you? i guess the other question that makes me think then for us is there's benefit there to just get started because it's low cost but what's what do you get out of that? a lot of content is low cost so why do video podcasts?

Raza (15:12.677)
That's probably the benefits of going hand in hand with social media. Again, I you've been said of when you're I'm going to speak from personal experience, I'm not actively going to like a podcast website or Spotify to look for a podcast. All the ones that I've come across, I've stumbled across by watching a snippet on TikTok or on Twitter, on Instagram. And you can't really get that just by audio. I think it is probably still the visual elements of it. I kind of do hook you in and then you see one.

Infiltration algorithm for you to see another and another and then by that point you do go and subscribe And you know what they look like you can see the visual cues and things like that. So I'd say Video is probably still the way to hook people in it and it's worked with me It's not it's never been the audio that's been like okay. You know what I need to subscribe to this podcast now

Paul (16:03.636)
in that because it started as an audio format didn't it? So what what's hooking you the entertainment the what they say what

Josefine (16:08.236)
Yeah.

Raza (16:11.977)
Entertainment, what they say, how they say it, body language, facial expressions, literally everything and I think that's I think it's easier to see authenticity visually. Yeah, okay, you can probably figure out maybe listen on audio if someone's reading through like a scripted monologue, but visually it's hard to manufacture that, you know, how raw something is.

Josefine (16:32.322)
Definitely. Yeah, think it's... Yeah, and that comes down to the quality of the conversation. So the quality of the production doesn't have to be good, but the quality of the conversation actually has to be good. Because if you'd be, I mean, listening to something very scripted, you'd have to be in school or, you know, being forced or tortured to try to actually take it.

Paul (16:55.002)
I'll you what I do like, and this isn't what we do for B2B companies or what I'd advise they do. There are podcasts that are scripted and they're like a radio quality production aren't they? That's a different thing, we're not on about that are we? Or at least I'm not picturing that, you don't mean for businesses to do that, no.

Josefine (17:13.036)
No, no, definitely. No, exactly. Exactly. No, exactly. And I mean, scripting something doesn't, I mean, you can still get a good quality conversation from that. You can be a good writer. I guess what we're saying is you can have all the budget in the world, all the, you know, the biggest, best equipment in the world and best script in the world or topic. But if you're not authentic, it's not going to cut through and...

humans can actually sense that, even from a screen.

Paul (17:45.123)
yeah so what should you put across then? you've been authentic and the quality has to be good but what are you trying to put across if you're a business?

Josefine (17:56.162)
I think it comes down again to relationship building. think podcasting is a way to build relationships and connect with people. You invite someone into a conversation and they get to know the person that they're listening to feels like it. And I think V2B sales has to be human and authentic and relationship building. It's not, still people buying things from people.

Raza (18:22.917)
and then buying them from people. That's the thing, isn't it? think Josephine's right there. Authenticity, reliability, I'd say. Use conversational tones. That's probably gonna hit home the most with people, know, real, natural. I think that's when, you start scripting things, you can't then dive into a different natural topic, which makes sense because you've already scripted the entire thing you're gonna be speaking about. Share personal stories, whether that's...

vulnerability, real life experiences, I think that makes you a lot more relatable with people, a lot more memorable, show your personality, not everything has to be humour, humour resonates with me, but whatever your thing is that makes you, you, it'll showcase your passion, the quirks that make you stand out, I think these things are what people resonate with.

Paul (19:07.415)
I'd push people to use humour regardless. To be honest, I think.

Josefine (19:12.512)
even if they're naturally bad comedians.

Paul (19:16.867)
i mean that could be even funnier to be fair but every company though has got someone who's funny and perhaps you can pair them with someone who can play the straight guy play the host is that the comedic term you're the one from the drama background josey straight the straight person and in a comedy duo is always a no okay never mind and but and you know i mean rather

Josefine (19:19.414)
That's true, that's true.

Josefine (19:26.019)
Yeah.

Josefine (19:38.006)
Never heard it. I don't know what you're on about.

Raza (19:45.177)
I what mean, but I've never heard those terms.

Paul (19:48.975)
I'm sure I might have the wrong term. But there's someone who sets up the gag, and then there's the one who gets to be the funny one.

Josefine (19:54.83)
Oh yeah, that's the... yeah yeah yeah. Well it's like when you have a band before the band. Is that what you're talking about? No?

Paul (20:03.117)
No... What, the warmer pact? No, no, I mean like, in a sketch show or a sitcom, in Friends, Monica is usually the straight one who doesn't do something daft or...

Josefine (20:06.211)
Yeah.

Josefine (20:17.71)
Oh, you mean there's a different, yeah, a bunch of character types just to get a good mix and there's like a best practice for that. Okay, yeah. Get what you mean.

Paul (20:26.831)
Yeah, yeah, So like, there'll be someone in your business who can bring the humour to the table, if it's financial, if it's in the health industry and pharmaceuticals, if it's banking, if it's boring manufacturing products of widgets to go on a machine or whatever. You can still find some value that's got humour and entertainment and connect with your prospective buyers. But you'd...

Josefine (20:55.372)
Yeah, I think also important to add is that that can come from a place of passion as well. I'm randomly thinking of Kyle Jepsen. He's so passionate about what he does and he's a bit humorous. He just happens to be because he loves what he does and he's really into it. he's not necessarily a comedian.

Paul (21:20.665)
that passion is engaging isn't it? there's podcasts come to mind where I don't know it's they get a guest on it's a podcast you follow and they've got various types of guests but they bring someone on who's got this niche thing but listening to somebody talk about something niche I find that super interesting

Josefine (21:43.426)
Yeah, yeah, it's like, do know that movie Soul is a Pixar movie, isn't it?

Paul (21:50.543)
I've not seen it, I've seen it on the...scroller.

Josefine (21:51.872)
Okay, haven't seen it anyways. It's a children's movie. Let's just call it what it is. But they, they're basically talking about passion. And when you have so that your there's like an avatar or your soul just floats above your head. Basically, when you're doing something that you're really, really keen in doing and I that you love and I think that's I think humans can detect that in other humans like it's just a vibration sort of

Paul (22:19.343)
So hopefully that removes any barrier of it having to be too polished and I think also takes us into how to get started then on podcasts which if you just be natural and show that character and show your human side people will connect with it and once just last bit on sort of framing it I think that gives you the right expectation of what this podcast is. Josie you mentioned it don't be too salesy and that's what made me think of saying it's not about selling.

and you talked about the ROI being, it's not, I do 100 podcast shows and I earn three clients. It doesn't work as linear as that. It's that one time at an event where you meet someone, they already feel like they know you, or when somebody comes to work for your company, they've checked out the podcast and they know what your sales team is like that they're joining, et cetera, et cetera. These are, I don't know, sort of intangibles that make it worth it.

worth doing but something more tangible is how much content you can get from it. You're putting your experts in front of a camera without any effort from them, picking their brains, getting them to say stuff that shows you're an expert and you've got it there on camera for free. Whereas if you say to someone right we're going to film you explaining this product, that's going to be boring content.

Josefine (23:22.926)
Mmm.

Josefine (23:41.57)
Yeah, very boring. And I think that just...

Josefine (23:49.622)
that's a really good takeaway from it. But, yeah.

Paul (23:51.523)
talked it to sleep.

Paul (23:55.44)
How? Move on to how. Raza, you told us about talking into your phone and you sort of, you you deliver this service for clients. How can people literally get started with podcasts? So be specific.

Raza (24:10.481)
Um, first thing I'd say start small. Um, no need to change spare bedrooms into expensive studios or anything just yet. I'd say even before you look at equipment, I'd say have a clear plan, build a strategy. What is it you want to talk about rather than investing in even small things and then making a plan? So what is the strategy? Um,

Josefine (24:10.732)
actionable.

Paul (24:32.653)
How do you know if podcasting is for you then? How do know you're ready to like go and buy Riverside or set up a Spotify account?

Raza (24:40.101)
That's it before investing in any of that. There are a lot of free tools out there anyway that give you enough storage and whatnot to start. I think that passion point that Josephine said before, rather than that not just showing passion when you're on camera or you're on the episode, I think that passion has to translate into actually making the podcast work. You know, for me, that meant 16.

listeners or viewers on the first episode but that passion was there like okay let's try and get more and more yeah we didn't it wasn't anything groundbreaking but that passion was there to keep going and and it worked i'd say whether you're ready or not is you have to try it that's and then tweak things as you go along i don't think that you're ever going to get a definitive yes or no like yes we're not ready for it or no we're not so again it would start with an actual strategy i think something we discussed previously is

A lot of people think they have a plan but what they really have is one good episode and that's It's a topic not something you can actually scale up. So I'd say think along those lines first of all have you got something they can actually scale up from there? What kind of topics you can talk about? This for average is great because you're not boxed into just talking about one thing in terms of marketing or what not. can talk about absolutely anything. Same with things like football and pop culture. You're not boxed into one thing. You can branch out into absolutely everything. So that's one thing with clients is when they say they have

an idea for a podcast, they don't have an idea for an actual podcast, they have an idea for an episode and that probably tells you you're not ready, you just want to film one thing and then what would you do for episode 2, what would you do for episode 3?

Josefine (26:06.99)
you

Paul (26:13.689)
How you challenge, how do you get through that challenge?

Raza (26:17.886)
of what's on

Paul (26:19.117)
What do do? Do you broaden that out into a theme or?

Raza (26:22.211)
I'd say theme, you probably look at what competitors are doing, what others are engaging with, what's doing well on social, what is the client's product or service, how can you actually make that engaging, because the last thing you want is just sitting on the podcast and just talking about your product for 30 episodes, so that's pretty pointless. I think you would have to obviously work with a client of what the goals are from it, what they're trying to achieve, getting them to understand as well that ROI isn't going to be all in and all of what we are trying to do.

but yeah it's just about helping them change that one episode idea into something that can last for a long time.

Paul (27:02.063)
and it's a chart isn't it, think framing it, what I'm picturing there is some trade show, trade floor at a conference of what do you talk to your potential customers about because you don't just stand there and go we've got a product that has this kind of feature and this feature and this feature and this feature, no you talk about things, is it you're struggling with, what are the, you know what, are you finding things, what's going on in our world, you talk about those things and that's podcast content isn't it?

Raza (27:13.614)
And yeah.

Raza (27:32.613)
Sure, think sometimes when clients might have ideas it's actually like a four part webinar than an actual podcast. So think it's kind of just deciphering do they actually have an idea or do they need our help in creating something from the ground up.

Josefine (27:40.738)
Thank

Paul (27:51.449)
when it comes to creating where can people, do people need to get started?

Raza (27:58.339)
laptop or phone software wise audacity is free I'm sure that's still around to this day. don't... the audition audition was common I think when I started podcasting towards the end of it audition is what we used so obviously we quote unquote graduated from audacity audition again pretty easy to use once you're familiar with it things like this riverside I think people even without technical capabilities can use it great for remote interviews as well

Paul (28:03.631)
i'm gonna get good from and from complete for all of the cities that it's been swallowed up

Raza (28:27.845)
Adobe podcast I think it's in beta right now for most features but they have some things you can use right now that looks like it could be a really good tool if keep pumping investment into that. Equipment wise first off probably depends on your laptop I'm not using a microphone right now I guess Paul will tell me afterwards if the audio was fine or not but yeah there's the Blue Yeti probably the most common microphone entry-level microphone I'd say.

Paul (28:56.304)
And it looks like a podcast mic. It looks cool.

Raza (28:58.231)
yeah to be fair the company has a lot of podcast mics but i'd say that's probably the best entry level one and you probably don't need to break the bank even more than that i'd say that would do the job. Rode have good ones, Podmic is really good for them, the Shure MV7 that's really good microphone

Paul (29:18.253)
What are you two using now because I can't see your mics?

Raza (29:22.207)
my macbook not my phone yeah

Paul (29:23.735)
Alright, the laptop mic.

Josefine (29:23.788)
Yeah, the built-in, yeah. That's just what it is. Just on that note, yeah, no, I thought of it just now that I think that your audience will grow with your equipment. You can start really basic and then as your audience is growing, then you can invest in something more advanced.

Paul (29:27.203)
Wow. This is what I was... Go on, go on.

Raza (29:47.011)
I I think that's when you probably are setting yourself up for failure, but you will get a disheartened when I just spent £5,000 and I got three listeners on episode one. I'm going to give up now. Do you think so?

Josefine (29:52.398)
Mm.

Josefine (29:57.582)
Which, yeah.

Paul (29:57.966)
I think that's worth a mention. This thing as a concept builds. It's like inbound blogging when that used to work. We're not, when we're doing business podcasts, we're not Joe Rogan or The Overlap. People are not out there going, Acme widgets podcast just dropped. That's not happening.

Josefine (30:05.174)
Yeah.

Josefine (30:13.144)
Yeah.

Paul (30:21.987)
You need to strategize how to share it with your audience, to repurpose it into social posts, how to repurpose it to TikTok videos, how to repurpose it into newsletter content, how to send it to your customers. And these things build, because people also will add it to their list.

Josefine (30:38.933)
Paul you're frozen.

Paul (30:41.135)
Have we gone?

Josefine (30:42.764)
Is he gone?

Raza (30:43.845)
for the

Josefine (30:49.154)
Yeah, he must have been disconnected. You're back. Paul, sorry you were cut off. Your internet broke, I think.

Paul (30:58.978)
It broke just at... You'll have to just edit that bit I guess. These things scale, don't they? They build. The audience builds over time.

Josefine (31:03.564)
Yay. That's your summary.

Paul (31:11.491)
Yeah, so be patient.

Raza (31:11.557)
That's the thing, when look at these podcasts, yeah, the overlap got a million subscribers very soon, and that's because Gary Neville's had a 20 plus year playing career, Roy Keane's had a 20 plus year playing career, Joe Rogan was already a big name in the mixed martial arts industry and what not. Of course they're going to get a good foot in the door earlier on. We don't have that luxury of being that well known across the world to get all these thousand subscribers. We have to...

work up from it and have realistic expectations as well as the worst thing you can do and something we'd advise clients all the time is please don't compare yourselves to the biggest podcasts in the world because you don't understand the machine behind them it's very different to what we're

Josefine (31:55.756)
Yeah, those are two different things. Having a podcast as your business and making a podcast as a part of your marketing strategy. That's a tiny piece of a full circle.

Paul (32:06.925)
You're the one actually pushing the buttons and getting the spoke off the wheel of podcast content, Josie. So give us some advice on sort of, you've got a 30 minute episode, say, and we do 30 minutes because that's the average commute time. It gives you enough time to dive into topics. But you can do micro episodes at like 10 minutes more frequently. You can do deep dives for like an hour. Whatever format you end up doing.

it's important you repurpose it and offer snippets. How do you do that Josie? What's some like starter advice on that?

Josefine (32:46.19)
I think a good advice is just firstly, you should probably think about what you enjoy. Like what are some snippets that you you catch yourself going, hold on, that was interesting. And then pick those out. But obviously long-term, you should be aware of your own biases. mean, if I'm really naturally keen to hear about frogs or I don't know, like just some really niche thing that maybe not a big audience would enjoy or find intriguing, then.

I would probably notice that the snippets wouldn't get that big of a reach, maybe not good engagement, but...

Paul (33:22.669)
you talked about this in a play meeting this morning didn't you? the China spot the themes of what makes stuff get reshared more or watched more sometimes it's the guests sometimes it's big big exciting captions on it's keeping an eye on what's what the audience is reacting to I guess

Josefine (33:34.475)
yeah.

Yeah.

Josefine (33:41.142)
Yeah, because that's going to differ because we're dealing with human content, like the epitome of it, because it's humans. And they're as unique as every human being is, as cliche as that sounds. But that's true.

Paul (33:56.272)
I don't know you've been on playing with it yourself hands on but this Riverside tool that we use has this magic clip functionality which zones in on like the most interesting bits based on changing your inflection in your voice or I don't know how it works.

Josefine (34:18.412)
Yeah, I think it's that actually, like the... How much the voice changes and pauses and... Yeah.

Paul (34:26.861)
you guide it don't you? like find me clips about X

Josefine (34:29.1)
You can.

Josefine (34:33.137)
Thanks, my friend.

Raza (34:33.401)
the log of when you're talking about me how easy it is to start when we had an in-house videographer when I was doing it by myself you'd have to physically sit through every episode and listen to it two or three times and spend a lot of time doing that to find out okay what is that snippet now you have software I didn't know that now you have software that does this for you I think that helps with consistency as well that's a big one of helping you save time and start thinking about the next one start thinking about promotion of this rather than

Josefine (34:51.33)
Yeah.

Raza (35:03.351)
I've done it now I need to spend a week editing it when actually software now can actually help you do the bulk of that.

Josefine (35:11.16)
Yeah, it's very time saving.

Paul (35:13.935)
Does this cause more work for you, what I'm doing here?

Josefine (35:17.314)
What are you doing?

Paul (35:18.447)
I'm just like turning the brand stuff off and on to try and show rather. Or is it just my end then as host?

Raza (35:22.393)
I can't

Josefine (35:25.004)
No, you can see it now on pause, like on the right end. Yeah, top, yeah.

Raza (35:27.523)
not again,

Paul (35:30.575)
can do stuff like this on the fly if you really wanted.

Raza (35:33.124)
Unsee.

Josefine (35:36.018)
wow.

Raza (35:38.927)
Like, don't need to drag in a designer, an animator, a videographer to do things like this.

Raza (35:48.965)
Another big one that people starting podcasting don't think about is the hosting platforms. That's always a big one. Buzzsprout, probably one of the biggest. Anchor, I'd say probably the most famous now. That makes it, or in general, it's easier than ever to get on Spotify. That's the number one place people want to be now. Back in the day you had to... Yeah, so I'm guessing it helps with, know, RSS for you to get onto Spotify. Yeah. Back in the day it was having to apply.

Paul (36:08.611)
That's why we use Riverside.

Raza (36:17.765)
get onto Spotify and they were very very very selective of what could end up there. Now you can just go in and submit your podcast pretty easily. So yeah think the tools are there, the tools are there for everybody.

Josefine (36:20.654)
Yeah.

Paul (36:27.161)
Say what?

so that's putting the time into it I one... well let's end on this because it's more fun actually. What should people not do? And I think I was just going to say don't...

Josefine (36:38.733)
Yeah.

Paul (36:43.608)
start with just one episode up your sleeve. Get some, get some, get a few in the bag ready to go because it's easy to fall out of the habit of doing this. Anythings when you're recording what should people not do?

Josefine (37:01.166)
I think it ties into what Rosa's made a point about staying consistent, but that goes not only with staying consistent with your posting, but also your branding. I think many podcasts think like, oh yeah, the reason why I don't have so many listeners is the branding. So I change it up or I try this and change new thumbnails. But especially for snippets and things like that to be recognized in socials, it takes three times before your brain can...

recognize something. So the second time you see it you're not even gonna know if you've seen it before it's the third time so yeah stay consistent with your branding as well.

Paul (37:32.078)
Yeah.

Raza (37:41.157)
I'd dawn in for perfection. I'd keep it as natural as possible. If that means you have tech issues on the episode, you have it. And the worst thing you can do is try to manufacture something people can see right through.

Paul (37:59.408)
I feel like I could, maybe because I'm passionate about it, but I feel like I could carry on going on to at this stage do this, at this stage do that. You can go right down into this of sort of episode name instruction and why that matters and the SEO of podcast search and we probably will and probably should. But we've hit our self-imposed timeline at the moment so we'll leave it there and perhaps dive into some of those things another time even if it's a mini episode which...

You too won't watch Bluey but we've been enjoying the Bluey mini episodes at our house. What podcast would you recommend people go and check out just to finish on?

Josefine (38:29.963)
Yeah.

Raza (38:39.397)
Everyone has their own tests. I don't want to be judged by one.

Paul (38:40.846)
Yeah, I mean it can be anything. That's the beauty of it. And we didn't talk about that sort of your podcast here is going in the mix alongside a true crime podcast. It's trying to help people by but be conscious that actually they could just turn you off and listen to a comedy podcast. So.

Raza (38:49.103)
Yeah.

Raza (38:59.781)
From my side there's a few and I think they all do different things very well. The rest is football, it's a good one. Alan Shearer, Carolinica, Michael Richer, just three mates on constantly on a video call. Really funny. And that just shows you don't have to invest in big setups and studios and try and get calendars aligned to be there in person. Tastewords, I know again they're on a break right now. Such a super simple concept of talking about...

one person prefers this food, one person prefers another, let's get our community on social media to vote on our arguments. I think that's a really good example of getting your community involved and that's how you get hooked in. Another one, the basement yard. think what, again, two silly guys in the US who just talk absolute nonsense throughout every single episode, but what you'll notice there is they're very good at leveraging social media.

huge on TikTok just with their clips. I think a lot of that audience has then translated into actually subscribing to their podcast like I have. So there's a lot you can learn from those three. Ignore the fact that they're the big names now and they're comedians and they've got legendary football careers. I just think they do the basics of podcasting really, really well.

Paul (40:15.791)
There's that strategy in action though. You said, Joe, the end goal is different from us. Our version of subscribers eventually is trying to turn them into coming to the website or when they're ready to purchase from whatever our business does, we're front of mind. And what podcast are you enjoying, Josie?

Josefine (40:35.374)
I just now when I thought of like, hmm, what podcast do I actually listen to and what do I enjoy? I realized they all have the same, they have a common theme or three of them. What? As a podcast, no. No, but they all have the same, not structure, but they have, they have a really good, I know exactly what I'm getting.

Paul (40:43.449)
Just you singing. Just you singing. Yeah.

Josefine (40:57.154)
They have good production, exact same format every single time. And the first one is Mel Robbins podcast is about personal development. And she begins her podcast episodes with, Hey, it's your friend Mel. And that exactly like that is just the hook. Yeah. And then there's a Swedish marketing podcast, which I've basically structured this whole, well, Averagey Talks podcast, but just a snippet, which

Paul (41:13.091)
You're in the zone.

Josefine (41:24.286)
you know, a teaser for the episode, then the intro, and then the episode, which again, I think it just really gets you in the zone. The third one is Ken Coleman show, which is an American one. It's more like a radio. It is actually a radio show, I think, from the beginning, but they upload episodes. It's a radio show, but they make episodes off the radios, like the radio shows.

Paul (41:52.245)
i got you

Josefine (41:53.302)
Yeah, yeah. So they snippet that out, they make like a 40 minute episode of a topic that they cover in the radio show. But again, it's the same like structure of it. Intro, the sounds and that they stay consistent with it. And the branding is consistent. There's a difference with, I mean, you can tweak things, but when you go completely do a rebrand, it's something else. yeah.

Raza (42:18.501)
I believe I've had the talk to make your top three.

Josefine (42:21.582)
no, that's so bad. That's so bad. That's my top... That's a specialist and that's number one. Yeah.

Raza (42:25.187)
for that yet more.

Raza (42:30.245)
Nice save, nice save. What about you Paul, what are you listening to?

Paul (42:34.448)
Probably it's a bit It's definitely not working. But my favorite one at the moment is a sub the Under the cost is a football podcast get X footballs and it's okay. It's very funny, but they're quite long and I Find myself listening instead to what they do called the Friday Club, which is just off-topic from their football podcast and it's just like an underlying sort of

agony and stuff for blokes it's blokes pub humor basically it's just friday club after work having a pint and people sending funny stories from that trip they went on or I mean this scenario what should I do and some of it is a bit sort of juvenile but then there's a nice underlying hike actually jokes aside now what you should really do is go and talk to your dad you've not spoke to him for six months like

so there is a nice underlying element to it but it's a of a guilty pleasure because it's not most sophisticated or cool thing to listen to and then it just reminds me of like being in the dressing room at Cricket to be honest it's very that kind of humor and then the other one I was just having a look just one I'd like to recommend is Do This Not That which shock horror J.S.Weddlesome but I'm recommending it because of the format it's regular

Josefine (43:42.05)
No, I think we all love those.

Josefine (43:49.582)
Hmm.

Paul (44:03.287)
It's 10 to 12 minutes, it's got that same format every time, a bit of what's been going on. It's like a newsletter, but it's delivered in a podcast format. And I think that's something you can explore if you're short of time, commit more frequently and do a nugget of what's going on in your world, especially in the B2B dryer industry. Keep up to date with what's relevant to your customers. Yeah, nice one.

Josefine (44:09.788)
Mm. Mm.

Raza (44:30.201)
I like it.

Paul (44:31.565)
Let's dig into some of those other bits. Perhaps we even do it in a LinkedIn live session or something, but we can look at sort of how to practically do it and get hands on, but share your podcasts as well. Thanks for joining me as a Josie. a pleasure.

Raza (44:45.701)
No problem, that's what I've been doing.

Josefine (44:47.992)
Thanks for having us.

Paul (44:50.036)
like subscribe and all that stuff not on the script with me i forgot sorry

Josefine (44:53.644)
Yeah, please if you enjoy this episode. okay, bye.