Building a 100K Audience in Less Than Two Years with Gong's Jordan Feise

Clay Mosley: Welcome to a brand new season of The Casted Podcast. As you may have heard in our last episode, we're changing things up a bit. With all the love that we've had over the last two seasons where we exclusively talk to our customers about how they're using audio and video content to grow their businesses, we've decided to turn The Casted Podcast into a show that exclusively focuses on our customers. Makes sense, right? We love sharing our customers' unique experiences, and we know we can continue helping this audience by digging deeper with each of them through this medium. I'm Clay Mosley, customer success manager at Casted, the first and only amplified marketing platform for B2B marketers, and I'll be your guide on this episode of The Casted Podcast. For today's episode, we wanted to start off with a bang, or shall I say gong? I'm speaking with senior content marketing manager, Jordan Feise, who needless to say, is making a ton of noise with Gong's very own show, Reveal: the Revenue Intelligence Podcast. The podcast is such a perfect medium for evangelizing something huge, like creating a new revenue intelligence category. This has helped Jordan grow the show to over a hundred thousand total listeners. So if you're ready to hear just how Gong continues to leverage podcasts, how they're combining audio and video content across a bunch of channels, and how they're producing this phenomenal content through the Casted platform, then please keep listening and watching. My name is Clay Mosley and I'm a customer success manager here at Casted. I have the pleasure of working with our customers every day, learning from them, and helping guide them towards an amplified marketing strategy. So today, I want to invite you into a customer conversation with Gong. Please submit your questions to myself and to our guests so that we can answer them at the end of the show. Our guest today is a veteran podcast marketer who has helped take Gong to over a hundred thousand total listens in their show. Wow. Whether you're at home, in the car, or you're back in the office, please help me give a warm welcome to senior content marketing manager at Gong, Jordan Feise.

Jordan Feise: Hello.

Clay Mosley: Welcome, Jordan. So exciting to have you on our first live show today.

Jordan Feise: Yes, thanks so much. I'm honored.

Clay Mosley: Yeah, absolutely. So Casted and Gong partnered at the beginning of the year, and then you joined their team this past spring, but you aren't new to podcasting. Please tell us a little bit about what you did in your previous role and tell us what you're currently doing in your role now.

Jordan Feise: Absolutely. So like I said, my name is Jordan Feise. I joined Gong, May of this year, so I think we're almost five months in. Time is flying. But I've been a B2B SAS marketer for the past seven years, so this is my fourth B2B software company I've been at. And I know Casted enables marketers to harness the power of audio in a lot of different ways, but I'm definitely biased towards podcasting. And my first experience with podcasting started at my previous role, so I was working at a compliance software company and we launched a podcast just earlier this year, actually, where we were interviewing chief compliance officers on all things legal, so monitorships, run- ins with the DOJ and SEC, and really taking something that has a boring topic, and I think, bringing out those stories that actually make it really interesting and often make headlines. So we called that podcast Risky Business, which I was very proud of the name. And then when I started at Gong, Devin Reed, who's the host of Reveal, is my boss, and I think he noticed that I was always talking about podcasting, super interested in it. And so, now, I manage the logistics and growth of Reveal: the Revenue Intelligence Podcast.

Clay Mosley: I love that. Did you see yourself, when you started as a content marketer, fully immersing yourself in podcasts?

Jordan Feise: To be honest, no. I loved the medium as a consumer. I have plenty of podcasts I listen to somewhat religiously, but for some reason, I didn't cross over that like, oh, we should definitely be using this as a medium for business. And I'm so glad that, it was actually my previous boss, pushed me towards this and was like," No, we're doing this and you're going to be the host." And I was like," Are you sure?" But I'm really glad that happened because now, it's a huge part of what I do today.

Clay Mosley: I love it. So tell us a little bit more about your podcasts and what type of audience are you attracting with your show at Gong?

Jordan Feise: Yeah, so Reveal is all about evangelizing our category, which is revenue intelligence, which is why it's in the name, and it's for senior revenue leaders. So we have mostly sales, some other go- to marketing function, so CS and marketing, and it's mostly for the manager plus crowd, but we definitely have some ICs that listen as well. And we interview senior go- to marketing leaders and we really go deep on one topic per episode. I guess, a couple segments that are worth noting... I'm so sorry. My dog is playing with a squeaky toy. Okay, so I was saying, there's two different segments that I think are really interesting about Reveal. So one, we always have a data breakout section, which if you know anything about Gong, we're all about data, and Gong Labs is one of the pillars of our content marketing strategy. And I mean, I'd really challenge anyone to find a piece of Gong content that doesn't have data in it. I think that's one of our north stars when it comes to content production. So we have this data breakout section, so every time we pause, switch to that and share a stat that we think our audience should know. And the second one is a micro action, so this is all about highlighting and learning that they can put into action today, where I feel like sometimes you're listening to... whether it's a podcast or you're reading an ebook, watching a TV show, and you're like," This is great, but it's a little too high level. How am I going to translate this into my day- to- day?" And so, we always pause and call something out so that there's never a question of how that's going to happen. And yeah, like you mentioned, we recently hit a 100K listeners and we have our hundredth episode launching next week.

Clay Mosley: That's awesome, congrats. You're making data fun. I love it. So what made Gong want to start a podcast in the first place?

Jordan Feise: Yeah, so I actually wasn't around, so this predates me, but I asked Devin and Sheena a little bit and picked their brains on how this started. So the podcast has been around about two years now, so we put out an episode every Monday, which is why we just hit a hundred episodes. So I think there was a couple of reasons. So they launched the podcast at the same time as our category, as revenue intelligence, and so it was really meant to educate the market on what is revenue intelligence, because it was a new/ emerging category, so really, I think, a tool to spread top of funnel awareness. We don't talk about Gong that much. Obviously, if a guest brings it up, great, if they so happen to be a customer, but it's definitely not about us or our product, it is about, I think, data- driven revenue leaders and telling their stories.

Clay Mosley: I love that. Yes, a lot of brands don't talk about or promote their product or solution, their software, in a podcast. So really, what kind of message can you get across with the podcast if you're not actually promoting your product?

Jordan Feise: Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of benefits. I think it's an opportunity to not only build relationships with the top minds in the industries, but also just show where the industry is going and highlight how people are implementing, and I think it's just changing, right? These are the top leaders in the space and this is how they're tackling this problem. When we actually launched the podcast, I thought they did something really smart, which was, they had a revenue intelligence summit and they took speakers from that summit and they set up a little... I think it was glass or plexiglass, something like the podcasting cube that people will have. And as speakers were coming off stage, they pulled them in there and they recorded the first three episodes onsite there. And so, it was the co- founder of Seismic and then previous leaders from HubSpot and Netflix, and so they were able to get these amazing names on immediately, which I think is huge, right, because that sets the bar for the type of guests that you're going to have on going forward.

Clay Mosley: That's awesome. So that gets to my next question about guests. A lot of podcasts struggle to find guest. How do you find such great experts and thought leaders to actually come on your show?

Jordan Feise: Yeah, so for the podcast specifically, there's a couple methods that I like to lean on. So we're always going after, go- to- market executives from today's best companies, and one of the best ways we actually tap into that is enabling our either customer success team or inaudible team or AEs to reach out to customers and prospects. So this can actually be a really big, I guess, enablement push where I draft outreach copy and really, I think, educate my own internal team on what the benefit would be to them, whether it's in the customer journey or along the buyer's journey. I really see it as an opportunity for them to connect with their prospect or customer about something other than just Gong, right? Especially in the buyer's journey, I feel like that's really nice. And obviously, it's a nice ego boost as well, to say," Hey, we think you're so smart. We want to have you on our podcast," so I think the flattery is nice as well. So yeah, I have a ton of enablement materials and I go to the sales team meetings quarterly, just to remind them like," This is what we can be doing, these are past guests that we've had on that maybe converted to be a customer or renewed," or telling those stories so that they feel motivated to help, because I mean, they interface with amazing people all day long and I'm just like," Great, you are a great resource to, yeah, just help us get those people on the podcast."

Clay Mosley: That's awesome. So it's a company effort. You're getting sales, your CSM is involved with sourcing guests. One thing I love about Gong is just how active all of your colleagues, the employees of Gong, are on social media, promoting content, sharing upcoming events, sharing podcast stuff. Is that something that is organic, or it doesn't come natural, just part of the culture at Gong?

Jordan Feise: It's such a good question, and I think one a lot of people have. I know, looking from the outside in before I joined, I was like,"What is going on here? This is insane," in the best way. I thought it was so impressive. Now that I kind of know how the magic works, it is so, I think, culturally ingrained in Gong, just to want to be proud and want to share. And it's just, I think, become a cultural norm that that's what you do, and it's by no means required, but I just think it's... Everyone does it, and so that's just the standard behavior. With that, our social team does do a lot to enable these sort of moments. So whether it's Gong hit a milestone or we got listed on whatever we want to celebrate and get out in the market, there is a lot of enablement materials that goes behind that, and letting the team know at company all- hands and sending calendar invites to post, so a lot of backend work, but I think the cultural side of it is probably the biggest factor.

Clay Mosley: Yeah, that's awesome. I mean, it's super contagious. Love to see that in a company. So as you plan to record each podcast each week, how do you determine topics for your content or for your podcast?

Jordan Feise: Yeah, I think there's a couple ways. One, I think we're always tying it to whatever our quarterly theme is. So our marketing leaders, every quarter, say," This is the overarching theme," and that's super helpful for us, I think, to make sure that... because as the marketing team grows, that we're not sending different messages and that everything's rolling up under one umbrella theme. And these are usually pretty broad so that we can create a variety of pieces, but it usually ties in with whatever product releases we have going out, as well as time, like what's going on in the world or what's going on in the industry and the market. So I think that's definitely one factor we're always taking into consideration. The other is, I think, industry trends, and for me, not to plug Gong, but we're able to listen to the customer's voice in an unfiltered way. And I had not used Gong before joining Gong, and that's huge, for me to be able to just jump into calls, hear how our prospects and hear how the marketing is talking about these issues, or being tagged by senior leaders, hey, this is something I keep hearing coming up and I can listen to it exactly how they're talking about it or whatever the problem or issue, pain point that they're having is. So I'd say that's a huge source of content inspiration as well. And then the third is whatever the guest is an expert on. Obviously, that plays a big role too, but there's definitely some matchmaking, I think, that goes on, on the backend.

Clay Mosley: No, that totally makes sense. And I'm going to echo your love for Gong. We are also Gong users and have had some great success with it. So with all this in mind, what are some of the most effective channels for your content marketing?

Jordan Feise: Yes, so I think email is probably the biggest for us. I was super impressed with the email program they have here, but I will say it's very different from other B2B email programs than I've seen in the past. And even when I was learning to write our email content, it was a little bit of a learning curve because I think most B2B email programs are very much like, you have your header, you have your HTML template, you have your CTA, and that's fine. That's the traditional way and what I was used to, and Gong is like, very short sentences, all double- spaced, it's from Devin, very, I think, outcome- driven. And I joked with Devin that I was like," I feel like I'm writing haikus. Am I a poet? What is happening right now," because it was just so different from what I was used to, you know what I mean, like the bullet points, and you get the picture. So yeah, email is a huge channel for us and that's obviously great because it's owned. The other, which you alluded to, is LinkedIn organic. I'm saying a 100K a lot, but we're about to hit a 100K followers on LinkedIn, so we're preparing some special promotions for that, but that is a huge channel. And we hear from prospects that can help keep them warm throughout the buying cycle. We hear that that's how prospects found us in the first place. And I think even on the hiring side, we've heard, and candidates, that's how they found us as well. So I think going beyond just either prospects or customers, we're also helping the candidate experience with that, and that is a huge channel for us, and there's, yeah, so much content that goes into that, so that's super exciting. I think the third and final channel that I would highlight is events. So we have owned events that I think are super impressive. We do a lot of other partnerships with events and sponsoring events as well, but the ones we own, which are# celebrate, which is our quarterly conference that we've been doing digitally the past year since the pandemic, and then also, our webinars perform amazing. So yeah, I think those are the top three channels that I would highlight.

Clay Mosley: I love it. Now, I know that you recently got your show on YouTube. What is some advice that you would give a podcasts, a company thinking about creating a YouTube channel?

Jordan Feise: Do it. This is actually something that Devin and I were talking about right when I hired. We were like," Okay, this makes sense as a first project to get started." So we had some archived video content that we knew we could get up, and then now, going forward, whenever we record, we're telling the guests," Be camera ready. We do want to get this up on YouTube." And Riverside is the platform we record in, and so from there, we can export that straight to YouTube. But I think it's great for SEO so you can optimize not only for the topic, but also for the guest's name if they're a big name and people are searching for them, or the company as well. Sometimes I'll include all three. It depends what I think people are going to be searching for, but I think it's really nice to come up for SEO. And then probably the most interesting part of our YouTube strategy is that we're using it as a promotional channel and a distribution channel, which is fun from the metrics side of things. But I'll explain what I mean by that. So promotionally, we're actually leveraging YouTube shorts, so the vertical content, and we take a clip from the episode that's launching that Monday, probably 30 to 60 seconds, and turn it into essentially a teaser for the episode. Here's a little insight. Don't you want to hear more? Go listen to the full episode. And because that format works across TikTok and Instagram Reels, we put it all three places, and that is essentially just impressions for us, right, getting extra eyeballs to come to the podcast. And then we actually post the full episode as a traditional YouTube video and that counts towards our total views and listens because that's just another way for them to consume the episode.

Clay Mosley: I love it. TikTok, that's a new one. That's a new channel that I think probably more people will be getting into, but Gong is breaking into that. That's pretty cool. So now, I want to talk about the Casted platform a little bit. When I trained you months ago, I want to hear, what were the first couple things that you initially loved about Casted, and now that you have some experience in the platform, what are the things that you're enjoying today?

Jordan Feise: Yeah, so I love this question. There is a couple things that jump out. So one, the transcripts and key takeaways are so helpful. I know for me personally, I was just working on writing a script for our hundredth episode and we were doing the top 10 takeaways, right, from the past a hundred episodes. It's a lot of content to sort through, and these key takeaways saved my life, I would still be doing them right now if it wasn't for the key takeaways, because it just allowed me to find the top- performing... Well, I guess the metrics allowed me to find the top- performing episodes. And then the key takeaways allowed me to jump in and see, okay, what was the best nugget, right, from that whole 30 minutes, and then how can we talk about that? So that was huge. And then I know the transcripts as well, sometimes I'll listen to an episode and then I'm going back and I'm just like," I know there was something brilliant that they said," and I kind of know how they said it, but if I had to listen to the whole episode, right, it would just take way too long. So I guess from just a search functionality, the transcripts are really nice, and I've heard from our audience as well that... I think it sets nice expectations, right, where they can just go through and see like, one, this is what we're going to be talking about, you see the title, but here's a little bit more granularly, the things that we dive into, and then look, if you're interested in one of these topics, you don't have time to listen to the full episode, feel free to self- serve and self- navigate and just listen to that. So I love that as well. From a, I think account- based strategy, I love that you can see what accounts are interacting with the podcast content, huge for us upmarket where we're tracking tier one and tier two accounts and can see if they're consuming, if they are, what they're consuming, so that's great for us as well.

Clay Mosley: Yeah, through that Marketo integration, right?

Jordan Feise: Exactly.

Clay Mosley: Awesome. Love it. Yeah, so we've been talking about podcasting a lot today. Tell us a little bit more about some of the other content that Gong has put up into Casted.

Jordan Feise: Mm- hmm(affirmative). Yeah, so we host all of our conference content there as well, so# celebrate, the event I mentioned earlier, so that's the post- show experience where you can go listen to all of the different sessions that happened. We also have Gong Labs Live, which is... It was our LinkedIn live series we've done, actually, a couple times, but I know the most recent season is up there. So just a great way for us to get live content that we do on more of an on- demand basis, same with webinars. That's where we host all of our on- demand webinars. And I think the benefit is, it just gives a single home or hub to each of these channels and programs, and definitely allows us to easily understand metrics post- event as well.

Clay Mosley: Awesome. I love that. Well, I have one more question for you, but before that, this is a great opportunity for you to submit your questions for Jordan and I to answer. But Jordan, my last question for you is, what tips do you have for fellow content marketers who are out there, struggling to create new and compelling content?

Jordan Feise: I love this question and I think that's something all content marketers struggle with at one point in time or another. And the two tips I would have are, one, listen to your audience as much as you can, just ingrain yourself within that audience, whether it's reading books that your audience is listening to, or if you have Gong, listening in on calls, or it could be... Social listening is super powerful as well. So whether it's your own channels or if there's other communities that you can be a part of, I think just, yeah, you need to be able to have your finger on the pulse of what's happening, so whatever channels you can find to do that, and the more, probably the better. And the second thing I would say is just consume content. I think sometimes when you're a content marketer, you're so used to producing, but sometimes you don't consume as much, and I think that's where a lot of inspiration comes from. I know I get a ton of inspiration from just different industries, even way outside of B2B, right, and looking at B2C companies, and seeing what they're doing, and see how would that translate into maybe something interesting that we could do? Allen Gannett wrote a book, The Creativity Curve, and he had a set in there that was like, the best content producers are actually consumers as well, and that always stuck with me. And I think, yeah, it just makes a lot of sense that that's where you can go for inspiration if you're in a rut.

Clay Mosley: All right, let's get into some of these questions that we have here. I'm going to start here. You just talked about social listening, so what exactly is social listening?

Jordan Feise: I think there's plenty of tools that you can use to enable this. I know there's tools that you can use to post content, but a lot of those have a social listening aspect as well. I'm thinking Hootsuite, SmartSocial, those kind of tools. But really, a way to understand, of the topics you or your organization cares about, what is being said, so whether that's following certain hashtags or certain conversations, certain key words, certain influencers, and just really understanding what is being talked about within your space, I think that's super powerful. I think sometimes it's easy to just get focused on, again, always producing and putting things out there, not taking time to, like, okay, pause, let's actually see what other people are creating, what are other people saying? So to me, that's how I've always thought about social listening.

Clay Mosley: Awesome. I love that. All right, so for this next question, let's see here, what's the number one piece of advice you'd give someone just starting out with podcasting?

Jordan Feise: It's going to be similar to my YouTube advice, which is, just start. I think you learn so much as you go, and I know sometimes, starting a new medium can be a little intimidating, there's a lot of unknowns, but I think just start and you'll figure it out along the way. The other piece of advice I would have is, really think about the segments that you want to have because I think that's the backbone or structure of your podcast, if you have a strong kind of like, okay, this is what we're going to do for every intro, this is going to be either the first question we ask or the last question we ask, or these are going to be the segments we always have in every episode, I think it makes it more of a fill in the blank template for you. Every time you're producing an episode, it's not back to square one like, what are we going to talk about? What are we going to do? So I think having just a really strong structure to your podcast really helps, and I think it's a nicer listening experience for your audience as well. They know what to expect. And I think the third thing I would say is, there's a lot of different touchpoints that go into creating a podcast. So I know Asana is my best friend and every episode has a checklist of 20 or 30 things that need to happen, so just get ready to be really organized. But yeah, good luck.

Clay Mosley: Awesome. That's great. So this next question says, Jordan, I'm curious to know how much time you think you're able to save with quick access to takeaways as you're searching through content for the hundredth episode.

Jordan Feise: So I mean, that alternative method I think would have just been listening to every episode, right? So 10 episodes, 30 minutes each, five hours, right, plus almost more, I would say, because you're pausing and then going back and forth, and you need to sometimes compare like, did I like this clip or this one? So I don't know. I would say, yeah, I don't know, six, six- plus hours, to be honest. And this made it so easy. I mean, each one took two or three minutes because I knew like, okay, this was the topic, and I just had to go find the perfect clip that aligned with that. So I can't do the quick math on that, but if you can, that was a lot of time saved.

Clay Mosley: I love it. All right, this is going to be our last question of the day and this is coming from Travis. So Travis asks, Jordan, what's your favorite podcast to listen to for pleasure?

Jordan Feise: I love this question. I think the one that I enjoy the most is Scott Galloway's podcast, The Professor G, Prof G Show. If you're not familiar with Scott Galloway, he is a NYU Stern professor and all- around thought leader, serial entrepreneur, even though I hate that term, and I just love his perspective. I follow his newsletter and listen to his podcast, and he really talks about trends in business, and his tone is just so, I think personal and relatable. I learn a ton from him, so that's one of my favorites.

Clay Mosley: Awesome. I got to check that out. And if you haven't checked out Gong's podcast, please do so. Jordan, thank you so much for being a part of our first live show today.

Jordan Feise: Thanks. This was amazing. Thanks for having me.

Clay Mosley: Absolutely. And thank you to all who joined us today. If we didn't get to your question, we are going to answer that in the next coming days. You can expect the recording to be sent out by the end of the week. Yeah, we look forward to seeing you all again. Thank you.

Jordan Feise: Thanks, Clay.

Clay Mosley: That's our show. Thank you so much for listening. To learn more about Gong and the strategy that Jordan laid out today, make sure that you visit their website at gong. io, and check out their podcast too, Reveal: the Revenue Intelligence Podcast. To learn more about Casted and how we can help you, visit our website at casted. us and be sure to subscribe to our newsletter to get the latest on all things amplified marketing, B2B podcasting, and more.