Best of Season 1: How to Impact Your Brand With B2B Podcasts

Lindsay T.: Hi, I'm Lindsay Tjepkema, CEO and co-founder of Casted, the first and only podcasting platform made specifically for B2B marketers. We just wrapped our first season of the Casted podcast where we explored behind- the- scenes stories of some of your favorite B2B podcast hosts, but before we jump into season two... and let me tell you, it's going to be great. We're going to be talking about how to use great content in sales and marketing. It's going to be fantastic, but before we do that, we're taking a look back at the big takeaways from our first season. We've pulled together this episode about the impact of B2B podcasting, what it impacts not only for the brand, but also for the host. Here are five of our favorite clips pulled from season one, all to help you make the most of your podcast. Takeaway number one: Give people actionable ideas they can actually use. Serve your audience regardless of whether or not they buy what you're selling because it's all about building trust and relationships. Trust that your brand is going to serve people far beyond the sale. Learn more from SalesLoft, Jeremy Donovan. How do you, you, personally, and you, SalesLoft, use the podcast. Once the show is produced, what do you do with it? How do you leverage it?

Jeremey Donovan: I mean, as I said, it's like a give. It's selfish and selfless thing. The selfless part obviously is what the mission of the podcast is, which is to give salespeople and sales leaders actionable ideas that they can use it independent of whether they are customers of ours or not. The selfish thing is to build brand for the company, is... Although we're not self- promotional and I have not heard the intro or theoutro in a while, I recorded whatever it is, 60 to 70 of them and have yet to listen to a single episode. I think I'm just terrified to hear my own voice. But on the branding side, it gives us, I would presume, some degree of brand exposure and as a thought leader because we are, like every company I think that exists out there, there's competition, and the products in any given category are similar enough that so much of the differentiation of why a customer buys one platform versus another platform I think is the belief that the company is going to help you be successful beyond what they sell. We sell a sales engagement platform. You can buy other sales engagement platforms. The key is whether or not our implementation and our customer success people are actually going to, our salespeople are going to come to you with those actionable tips that tell you how you use it because you can use anything a lot of different ways.

Lindsay T.: Takeaway number two: build credibility, establish trust, and stay at the cutting edge. Leverage the conversations you have as a host to keep on learning, listening to the experts in your space and polishing yourself professionally. Learn from Chad Sanderson, the host of the B2B Revenue Executive Experience podcast. You've been really honest about some of the challenges andsome of the unexpected twists and turns. Tell me about some of the successes. For you, you personally as a podcaster, what has hosting a show meant to you?

Chad Sanderson: For me, I mean, personally, it has made me much more comfortable having conversations, not just with the guests, but because of the business I'm in and what I do now. I do do more keynote presentations. I do presentations at events. Actually, the podcast gave me the confidence, quite frankly, to do that. It gave me a voice. It helped me develop my voice. It helped me develop, I don't want to say persona, but the brand. I mean, it becomes part of... People that engage with me or hire me to help them and their organizations, they're not hiring the Harley- Davidson- riding tattooed Jack- drinking guy. They're hiring the professional who's been in sales and marketing for over 20 years who understands, who has a clear vision of how to help these organizations. It's credibility building at its best. It's also helped me, as I said before, be much more authentic and be more comfortable with the fact that, " Hey, while you may not be hiring that Harley- riding tattooed Jack- drinking guy, that is a part of the perspective that I bring that resonates really well with your field." It is the level of authenticity that somebody that comes in a cookie cutter suit and tie you're not going to get if they're reading off the script. There's the confidence as fact of it. There's the brand portion of it. It's also allowed me to expand my own perspective and stay at the cutting edge because of the guests and the topics that we cover, and so by hosting, I have all of these perspectives that I can draw from everybody else, has gone deep on things from email marketing to leadership coaching to whatever it is, and I can draw from that, which helps not only my clients, but it also helps my business as well. For me, it has become... because every six months, I reevaluate what are we doing, what are we investing in, are the marketing investments that we're making paying off, and the podcast has never once been considered to be terminated because it provides not only revenue, not only benefit for the company, but it also provides a great opportunity for me to continually evolve, which is necessary, I believe, tobe successful in the space I'm at.

Lindsay T.: Yeah, no. Yeah, that's how it is. It's not something you can always point to directly, at least not yet, but it's something that you can feel. You can feel the impact.

Chad Sanderson: Yeah, and it's funny because when we started... so I have two other business partners. They're, how do I say, more experienced inaudible, and so when I told them, when I came on board, and I said, " Hey," this all came together, and Isaid, " I think I want to dothe podcast," both of them were like, " First, what the hell is a podcast, and second, why? Why would you want to do... like I don't get it." They literally didn't understand, but to their credit, both were like, " You know what? Hey, if youwant to try it, if you believe this will help you build the book, build the business, then go for it." Now, fast forward two years, one of them I'm not even sure listens.

Lindsay T.: Let's just be honest.

Chad Sanderson: crosstalk, which is fine, but one of them has just turned around and said, " Youknow what? I was wrong." It's been amazing because now it's not only about generating business or providing valuable contentto people that maybe we don't have a relationship with. This podcast, the podcast that we do, we leverage it with clients. We leverage it as reinforcement to help them provide specific and targeted value to the clients that we have as we go through the change management process with them. He's now using it in the workshops that he teaches or forwarding specific episodes that that tackle a current topic to somebody he wants to develop a relationship with or keep them informed. It's become a very impressive tool in the arsenal of our business, and it's converted some people who didn't know what a podcast was to now going, " You know what? This is great content," because it's not just about the audio. We also do graphics, and we also do the blog posts, and it's not a transcript, that we actually generates content, so there's a whole great many different touch points, and the value to be able to do it, yes, it takes a lot of time, it takes a lot of effort, it takes a lot of focus, but the output and the impact is 5X easily.

Lindsay T.: Take away number three: Use your podcast to highlight the authentic personality and people behind your brand. There's so much power and authenticity. Use your podcast to build trust with your audience, and humanize your brand. Your podcast may very well be your brand's first impression. Use it intentionally. Listen to what Tom Webster of Edison Research had to say about that. All of that said, we talked a little bit at the beginning about marketers. You and I are both marketers. What have you seen and how does this all come together specifically on the brand side? What can you tell us about that?

Tom Webster: Yeah, I mean, I think podcasting is a tough space for brands. I'm going tobe honest. I think the best branded content I've heard, again, has not really been about, it's not been about a product or a service or even the company per se. It's been about a problem that the audience shares and an entertaining look at that problem. By the way, it happens to be brought to you by company A or company B, and there's a fair body of research, not for podcasting, but for other forms of sponsored content that we know that that works. We're starting to do... We've done a lot of brand lift studies at Edison for companies that are producing branded podcasts and branded content and things like that, and so we're starting to get a sense of what really works and what doesn't. What we see that works the best is an entertaining show, an entertaining show about some slice of life that this audience shares and perhaps shares with the company that's putting on the podcast and the attitude that gets changed. You think about a commercial, just sort of a spot advertisement, what is the behavior they're looking for? They're looking for you to take an action. They're looking for you to try a product. That's not necessarily what branded podcasts are good at, but what they are good at is changing how you think about the companyand the people who work at that company. Some of the work that we have done on branded shows, I mean, that's exactly what we're measuring. We're measuring do you feel like this company actually cares about this particular issue and how that changes before and after exposure to the podcast, and it's working. It's working because, A, it's working because there are credible, trustworthy hosts, I think, that have a lot to do with it, but also, I mean, the content is relevant, the content is entertaining, and it's content that you would listen to whether it was sponsored by that company or not, but the fact that it is brought to you by that company in some kind of native unobtrusive way actually changes people's opinions, not about a product, but about the people who work for that company. They must be good people to have brought me this great show. That's sort of a baseline behavior shift or an attitudinal shift that could lead to a behavior shift. That's where I think the real power lies when it's done right.

Lindsay T.: I could not agree more. That is so huge. I think, again, with any content, with any marketing content, you tow the line. You have to be careful and youhave to be cognizant of why am I doing this, what value am I adding, how am I serving my audience, but again, even more so when you literally are speaking to them human to human, voice to ear. If you can serve them with content that is entertaining, relevant, truly helpful, bringing value in some way, shining a light into the personality of your brand and your company culture, that is either trust building or... I don't know if it's trust breaking, but it definitely can easily put a bad taste in someone's mouth, so you've got to be really cognizant of how am I presenting myself, what kind of impression am I giving about my company based on this content that I'm delivering to my audience and how I'm delivering it.

Tom Webster: Yeah, no doubt.

Lindsay T.: Takeaway number four: Learn from your podcast. How can you improve yourself, your brand, your business through the shows you're creating? Ask smart questions. Let people answer them. Seek to learn from the knowledge they share, and serve others with it. Hear what our friend Jay Baer had to say about that. For the show/ for your guests, what has it done for Convince& Convert? Whathas the show meant to your business and to your brand?

Jay Baer: It's hard to say definitively what the show has done for Convince& Convert and the company partially because of the anonymized nature of podcast listeners, but there is no question that Convince& Convert is very much associated with Social Pros and vice versa, and it is almost inconceivable that a client of ours wouldn't listen to the show at this point. It's almost hand in glove. It also allows us and me in particular to get insights on how other companies are doing enterprise social media, and then think about, " Huh, that's interesting that they're doing that. Maybe we should explore that for our clients." It's almost a conversational sounding board for advanced social media strategies, which is the work that we do for companies. It's almost like a living focus group one week at a time, and so the learning element for me and for our team is something that I definitely don't discount.

Lindsay T.: Not thinking of Convince& Convert, but for you personally, what have been some of the highlights, whether it's something you just really enjoy or something that you've gotten out of podcasting.

Jay Baer: It's one of my favorite things to do because very rarely do I get to just have a conversation with somebody where there's not some kind of agenda or outcome or structure or circumstance. The way Adam and I treat the show is" let's just ask smart questions and let people answer them." It's a real pleasure. I've gotten to know so many incredible leaders in the social media space who have been on the show, some whom have become clients, most of whom have not, but it's a real joy to get to meet some of those folks. Sometimes people come back on the show after years and years and years, and you can refresh the story. I'll tell you this. I've written six books. I do 60- some keynote speeches a year. I've written thousands and thousands of blog posts. The thing that I get the most comments on, the thing that people come up to me and say, " Hey, I love it," is the podcast more than everything else because there is no replacement for the intimacy of talking into somebody's head for 45 minutes a week. There just isn't. The Social Pros listeners are by far the group that's much more likely to actually come up to me at an event and say, " I listen to the show. I love the show. I love this guest," and that is incredibly rewarding and continues to be.

Lindsay T.: Takeaway number five: Let the podcast change you. Stepping behind the mic is a big decision. It's different from blogging in that it's much more intimate and amplified. It allows you to share your personality and expertise, and it helps people to get to know you as a human, not just as an inanimate object behind the words on a page. See how Sam Jacobs, a Revenue Collective, was forever changed when he became the host of The Sales Hacker Podcast.

Sam Jacobs: Listen, the one thing I should make abundantly and an eminently clear, and I'm so grateful to Max for the opportunity, the podcast is actually one of the things that basically changed my life. Evenjust 31, 000 downloads, which, again, for some people it's a lot, but for most famous peopleor the best podcasters, it's really just a drop in the bucket, but what it did was it gave me a global reach in a way that I really didn't have otherwise in a very authentic way because it was my voice. I started talking about Revenue Collective on the podcast, and thank God. When I talked about my band when I was a college DJ, I got fired from the college radio station in UVA, but when I talk about Revenue Collective on The Sales Hacker Podcast, Max lets me do it, so it's kind of free advertising, and that's the thing where Revenue Collective was just a community in New York only. We're in almost every city in the world now, including Indianapolis. That came from the podcast because the first person that reached the... Our second biggest chapter is London. The way that that got started the founder of the London chapter, Tom Glason, reached out to me after he heard me talk about Revenue Collective on The Sales Hacker Podcast. The podcast itself is this massive distribution channel and the only real marketing that we do for the business that I run on a daily basis, which is still tiny but growing. In terms of how has podcasting helped me, I mean, it's created a very unique, authentic, and really interesting marketing vehicle and distribution channel for my voice related to my company, which has been a key part of helping us grow over the last 12 months.

Lindsay T.: That's it for today's show. Thank you so much to today's guest, and to learn more about them and see Casted in action with clips of today's show and related content, visit casted. us. Thanks so much for listening.