072 - Tess Neudeck: What Podcasters Should Know
Since the onset of the pandemic in the U.S., data from Acast has shown that podcasts aren’t just for your commute to work. In this episode, Tess Neudeck, Marketing Marketing, Americas for Acast, and Emily Binder talk finding guests for your show, the future of podcasting, and how to monetize your podcast.
Since the onset of the pandemic in the U.S., data from Acast has shown that podcasts aren’t just for your commute to work. In this episode, Tess Neudeck, Marketing Marketing, Americas for Acast, and Emily Binder talk all things podcasting:
How to turn networking into guests for your show
The future of podcasting
How to monetize your podcast
According to My Podcast Reviews, there are 1,200,000 podcasts and over 31 million podcast episodes as of June 2020. If you want to be successful in the podcasting, then this is one episode you won’t want to miss.
Watch the video:
Tess Neudeck:
Tess Neudeck currently serves as Manager of Marketing, Americas for Acast. She's responsible for shaping Acast’s marketing strategy across its 10,000+ podcasts, its advertiser business, and all of the products and services the company creates for podcasters, advertisers, and listeners.
Tess began her career on the agency side, spending more than eight years at Mediavest (now Spark Foundry) performing print and digital media planning/buying for a wide array of clients across almost every industry. Before Acast, she oversaw marketing at Urban Daddy and managed sales marketing for legendary brands like Sports Illustrated and Fortune.
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Topics:
01:20: Meet Tess Neudeck.
02:30: The state of podcasting during the pandemic.
“Acast is the world's largest global podcast marketplace that provides premium hosting, distribution and monetization. Acast’s app and web service provides on-demand audio content enhanced by additional interactive media and links.” - Acast LinkedIn
“We’ve seen more than a 10% increase in listens since the pandemic started, and we are just noticing that commuting is clearly not the only place that people are listening and they’re replacing that with listening in other places and forms.” - Tess Neudeck
03:45: People are constantly listening to podcasts and utilizing smart speakers to do so. It’s a common misconception that people only listen to podcasts during their commute to work.
04:50: Smart speakers and podcasting. How can you optimize your podcast for smart speakers?
“Podcasting is such a natural — I would say the number one most natural form of content for smart speakers with it being hands-free, germ-free, convenient audio that’s voice first.” - Emily Binder
06:30: The future of monetizing podcasts (sponsorship, donations, ads, and more).
“It’s not necessarily how we operate at Acast to make anything fully exclusive; we were founded upon the ideas of truly the democratization of audio and making amazing, premium content available to everybody regardless of where you listen. So, we’re platform agnostic. Our shows are available wherever you get your podcasts.” - Tess Neudeck
Acast Open is simple, smart podcast hosting and monetization for all creators. Get a $25 Amazon Gift Card when you sign up for a year of hosting on Acast Open.
08:20: Paying for quality: Acast’s new supporter feature allows for donations/listener compensation to the creator. Acast wholeheartedly believes that creators should be compensated for their work and creativity in the audio media space.
10:30: Shake up your platform! What works for one podcaster in one genre of podcasting might not work for you. Don’t be afraid to step outside of the box and experiment.
11:10: The democratization of the media and podcasting: anyone can do it with the right tools and resources, but there has to be a plan in place. You have to put time, thought, and energy into preparing for your podcast for success.
Live podcast streaming has become increasingly popular throughout the pandemic. Photo by Kate Oseen on Unsplash
“What is your point of view? What do you have to say that’s unique?... Batch up those episodes so that you can churn them out on a weekly or bi-weekly basis so that your audience can come to expect that content from you because once they’re there, once they’re ready to listen, you need to be able to give them that content.” - Tess Neudeck
16:20: Know your niche. Podcasting is evolving into so much more than traditional genres. Here are some podcasts that Tess recommends:
21:20: What’s missing from podcasting right now, and could live streaming be a part of the next generation of podcasting?
Check out last week’s episode where we spoke with John Andrews and WallStreetBooyah about his live streaming financial news show on Twitch.
Want expert help with your podcast or voice marketing strategy?
Tess Neudeck - Acast Marketing Manager for the Americas
Connect with Tess Neudeck:
Instagram: @tessypie
Twitter: @tessypie
Tess’ Blog: peachestoapples.com
Connect with Acast:
Twitter: @acast
Instagram: @acastforthestories
INSTA - FOLLOW @BEETLEMOMENT:
070 - John Andrews: Retail Just Advanced Five Years - Marketing Post-COVID
John Andrews, CEO of Photofy, a community content creation platform, and Emily talk about all things Marketing Post-COVID in this week's episode. This episode has it all: social media advertising, the future of retail, and amazon to eCommerce. See what these two think the future holds for marketing and which tactics have been most successful in the last several months.
"What was a slow-burning retail apocalypse for many retailers just turned into a full-fledged firestorm. Shopping will be forever changed post-crisis, and while the dislocation of people and capital will be painful, both will be reallocated to more efficient models." - John Andrews
John and Emily talk about marketing and retail during and post-COVID-19. This episode has it all: social media advertising, the future of shopping, ecommerce, Amazon, and which brands will survive.
Video:
Guest: John Andrews, CEO of Photofy, a community content creation platform, is a media disruptor. Leveraging over twenty years of experience in consumer packaged goods marketing coupled with eight years of social media knowledge to build new media formats in the shopper marketing space. He helped build one of the first ‘people as media’ platforms at Walmart called Elevenmoms, founded Collective Bias (Acquired by Inmar in 2016), and teaches as an adjunct professor at NC State University.
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Topics:
02:30: Curbside is the winner of COVID: How retail has advanced during the pandemic.
04:40: Consumers are drawn to products and services that help them enjoy more “productive time” (e.g. riding in an Uber instead of driving).
06:00: Walmart was ahead of the game with their curbside shopping and pick-up process. They have been doing this for years.
07:00: HEB, a regional grocer in Texas, was beating out larger grocery chains during the peak of the pandemic because larger chains couldn’t keep up with demand and the need for new curbside services. HEB was stated to have begun preparations for curbside pick-up as early as 2005.
A pair of Nike shoes that John, a self-proclaimed sneakerhead, bought off Instagram.
11:25: Nike is one of the few companies that is managing a transition into digital retail very well, and it’s all about the difference between the use of push marketing and first-party data.
“Nike is using its direct understanding of its data to perfectly market to me what it knows I am interested in.” - John Andrews
16:30: Marketing advantage through data and the Nike app
19:35: Two recent global studies from Kantar and Edelman reveal that advertising and social media in particular are at new all-time lows for consumer trust. Just 17% of people trust news from social media.
“Public favorability towards advertising was 25% in December of 2018, but in 1992 that figure was 48%.” -Edelman Trust Barometer
21:00: Media companies are built on advertising, and they have had to be creative about their ad-driven tactics. Instagram does a good job of curating content for unique users but can bombard users with ads based on their interests.
24:40: What is an email address worth in five years? Will email marketing become a thing of the past?
30:00: What platforms are the best for targeted marketing? How do sound and voice play into this?
“There is an advertising opportunity in [the voice assistant’s recommendations] because everything is predictive.” - Emily Binder on the future of advertising
John’s recs: Podcasts, book, & WallStreetBooyah Twitch channel:
Podcast: Joe Rogan Experience: #1470 Elon Musk
Podcast: Social Geek Radio with Jack Monson, CRO at Social Joey
Twitch: WallStreetBooyah
Check out Episode 71 - VIDEO podcast with WallStreetBooyah and John!
Book: Ichigo Ichie, the Japanese philosophy of living in the moment and putting randomness into your life: (recommended by Scott Monty)
Ichi-go ichi-e (Japanese: 一期一会, lit. “one time, one meeting”) [it͡ɕi.ɡo it͡ɕi.e] is a Japanese four-character idiom (yojijukugo) that describes a cultural concept of treasuring the unrepeatable nature of a moment. Ichigo Ichie is the idea of living in the here and the now and embracing each day as it could be our last.
John Andrews is CEO of Photofy, a branded content creation platform
Connect with John:
insta - Follow @beetlemoment:
057 - Sonic Branding: The Sound of Your Brand - Audrey Arbeeny
Sonic branding definition: the art and the science that surrounds the strategic development and deployment of a consistent authentic sound experience of a brand.
“Sonic branding is critical right now because customer experience is paramount. People want to feel emotionally connected to their brands. And they have so many places where they can now hear the brand... when that starts sound disconnected, you are creating a poor experience of the brand.”
Guest: Audrey Arbeeny, Founder, CEO and Executive Producer of Audiobrain, a globally recognized leader in sonic branding.
Listen in your favorite podcast app:
What is sonic branding?
Sonic branding is the art and the science that surrounds the strategic development and deployment of a consistent authentic sound experience of a brand. It includes sonic logos, audio marks, podcast introduction music, video music, app sounds, on-hold music, executive walk-on music, and more. A brand’s sonic DNA informs all other aspects of sonic branding.
Topics:
What is sonic branding? Why does it matter?
Sonic identity is the strategic and creative alignment of this experience
Where is a brand heard? Everywhere from podcasts, commercials, videos, to IVR, call centers, jingles, transactions, mobile apps, kitchen appliances, cars and more
Consistent sonic branding elevates the brand, including its visuals
Audiobrain case study a heart health device: Counterpace (a state of the art sensor that syncs your heartbeat and footsteps)
McDonald's self serve kiosk sounds - an Audiobrain client
Emily's story - the in-depth process through which Audiobrain created her custom sonic branding for the podcast, Flash Briefing, and Emily's keynotes and speaking events (executive walk-on, room warming etc.)
Audiobrain created the sonic branding for McDonald’s self serve kiosks
052 - Brian Roemmele - Amazon’s Hardware Announcements: Keys to the Castle - Pt. 1
Echo Buds, Echo Frames, Echo Loop, and more new products take Alexa to new fields: what does it mean? Brian Roemmele is known as the Oracle of Voice for a reason. Over decades he has predicted so many things that came true. The brilliance of these new products like Echo Loop is about getting Amazon into the castle without fighting for spaces that are already occupied, like the wrist or the pocket.
1-click listen anywhere:
Skip to Part 2 with Brian Roemmele: The Key to Successful Branding - Voice and Beyond Alexa
About Our Guest:
Brian Roemmele is the recognized world authority on how voice AI will impact computing and commerce. Over arc of his career, Brian has built and run payments and tech businesses, worked in media, including the promotion of top musicians, and explored a variety of other subjects along the way. He has been published in Forbes, Huffington Post, Newsweek, Slate, Business Insider, Daily Mail, Inc, Gizmodo, Medium, and is an exclusive Quora top writer. He hosts Around the Coin (earliest crypto currency podcast), Breaking Banks Radio and more, discussing everything from Bitcoin to Voice Commerce.
Brian created the Multiplex app and Multiplex Magazine, a way to stay on top of everything important in technology, payments and just about anything else. He has taken the stage at Money 20/20, ETA Transact and many private events as a speaker on the future of Voice Commerce.
Companies don’t patent things just because.
A big theme of this episode is getting out of the weeds of the technical features and instead looking at better ways to get work done. Think big picture. We are looking at the beginnings of new use cases in brand new paradigms.
When you paradigm shift, the canvas is blank, and that’s where we are with voice.
This is Part 1 - tune back in next week to hear more! We cover branding and marketing foundations based on personas and archetypes, which will determine success tomorrow. 1-click subscribe free in your favorite podcast app now so you don’t miss it.
The idea of the app is already gone.
From Brian’s Quora article about Amazon’s Fall 2019 release and preview of products (9/25/2019):
If Echo and Alexa devices from Amazon along with the Skills ecosystem were a stand-alone company in 2019, using typical startup multiples, Echo, Inc would be worth about $500 billion dollars. This is an astounding achievement and there shows no sign that the acceleration is slowing.
Amazon Owns The Far-Field Voice First Market, Now They Are Comping For The Near-Field
Today was a next generation Amazon Alexa-themed event with Echo devices for every possible use case but most specially the near-field. I have surfaced ~32 primary Voice First modalities. Amazon is now in three:
1. Near-field - on the body
2. Mid-field - small environment
3. Far-field - open room
Timestamps by topic:
04:00 Amazon’s patents telegraph the future
04:50 Amazon did not dominate in smartphone, obviously (Fire Phone failed - and at the time in 2014, people overlooked the first generation Amazon Echo)
05:50 Smartphone is an old modality
06:10 iPhone is the iconic smartphone
06:30 What is the strategy to get into the castle? Content and shopping, largest merchant on planet
07:10 “Amazon is a retailer, not a technology company” - this is why Amazon created the voice first experience first
Brian Roemmele - @BrianRoemmele
07:35 Amazon does not pretend to be a tech company, they’re a company that produces technology
07:50 Amazon doesn’t have mindshare yet, and that is key
07:55 What happens with content and mindshare? How does content creation play in?
08:30 Amazon is not going after the smartphone or smart watch (not after the wrist or the pocket
09:10 Products that define new categories must be loved and hated
09:30 “Talk to the hand” back in vernacular with Echo Loop
10:30 Tech companies don’t consider anthropological and sociological impact of products
11:10 We ask “Can we?” too often and don’t ask “Should we?” enough
11:45 Brian’s thesis: Hyper Local
11:55 Echo Loop (a ring) is not always on - it has a button to engage Alexa. It draws you into the Alexa ecosystem without taking away from Apple AirPods - and that is brilliant.
13:20 Future of the voice assistant that you talk to like a significant other
13:30 Done thumb clawing at screen - that is the future
13:50 Echo Frames and Echo Loop are early versions of the ubiquitous voice future
14:20 Near field computing, mid-field, and far-field (open room) - Amazon’s secret weapon over the castle wall was to get in the home (with Echo in 2014) - which became the fastest adopted consumer technology in history
15:10 The tech leap happened organically with consumers from kitchen to living room - Amazon is doing the same strategy again to get people to adopt this in the near field
15:50 People mocked the iPad (menstrual pad?) and look what happened - these products have to be hated or mocked
16:30 iPhone was laughed at because it didn’t have a keyboard. What is past is prologue. We always see the future through the glasses of right now and the past - always view the future through the rearview mirror:
16:40 We defined the new in the words of the old, e.g.: the horseless carriage, flameless candle, talking pictures.
17:50 Most voice first experts have nothing to do with the technology world, which irritates folks in tech
18:45 Computing is not what it was for the last sixty years, and it will not continue to be what is has been the last twenty - think about this for typing and interacting
18:55 Technology gets bigger and bigger until it disappears (e.g. you don’t talk about your carburetor, you just buy a car that works or Jobs saying RAM doesn’t matter, you will only care what the computer does or accomplishes)
21:35 There are no killer applications for voice. “Apps?” That’s 2D. (Check out our interview with Dave Isbitski, Chief Evangelist of Alexa, where we concluded the same thing)
21:55 So what are people really looking for with voice?
22:30 "The idea of the app is already gone.” - Brian
23:40 The intimate relationship that technology can and will spawn is the killer app. We can’t see that world clearly yet
24:50 We’re not battling on the grounds defined by prior technologies
25:10 We’ve only seen 4 of the 175 modalities that voice first works in
25:50 Amazon’s brilliance is great utility to an existing ecosystem (Alexa)
Echo Buds (pre-order Echo Buds for $129.99 <— this link helps support the show!)
25:00 Amazon doesn’t expect Echo Buds to replace Apple AirPods
27:20 Echo Buds isolate noise and incorporate multiple VAs like Google and Siri
27:30 AirPods are a cultural phenomenon about fashion as much as sound- that is why they won’t be easily replaced by Echo Buds
28:05 Brand signaling with AirPods, or whatever product comes next- that is human
28:30 Loop and Frames are wise moves
29:10 AOL move to open AOL Mail to internet mail is similar to Buds move to open to other VAs
29:40 Amazon subsidies for Buds and Amazon Music. Music is a commodity - supplier does not matter.
30:10 When you stream music, that streaming service makes almost nothing (e.g. Apple, Google, Spotify) - loss leader. The strategy is about attention, narrative, communication with the customer.
30:50 See: Prime. Brilliant. Long term relationship.
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049 - The Killer Voice App - Dave Isbitski, Chief Evangelist Alexa - Pt. 2 of 2
Dave Isbitski, Chief Evangelist, Alexa at Amazon
Guest: Dave Isbitski, Chief Evangelist, Amazon Alexa. We discussed Alexa Flash Briefing and the future of AI and how it will teach us about ourselves. The killer app is the connection. Part 2 of 2. (Listen to Part 1.)
We also answered a top question among marketers: how do you overcome discoverability challenges with early voice to get your Alexa skill found?
Friendly reminder: please mute your Alexa device before listening.
SHOW NOTES:
1:05 Flash Briefing - a consistent way to engage your customers. Beats a silly CEO email no one opens. This is a better company update.
2:00 "I want to engage and connect on a human level”
Cross modalities to drive engagements
2:45 Teri Fisher - Voice First Health Podcast: using SEO to share and promote all his Flash Briefings (Alexa in Canada, the top briefing in Canada). Put all the briefings onto a blog. This is how to harness Flash Briefing across modalities and web as well as helping your SEO.
3:20 You offer customers value. You must give. Pippa.io is a good tool to get your briefings embedded into your site with a simple widget which is also search-friendly (thanks for sponsoring our show, Pippa!) Here’s how it looks for the Voice Marketing Flash Briefing:
Get a $25 Amazon Gift Card when you sign up for Pippa to host your podcast or Flash Briefing!
4:00 What do you see coming down the pike as far as interaction within Flash Briefing? How do we move from passive to interactive, if we do at all - in voice experiences?
4:30 Dave: I’m a product person. I love consumer devices. I feel strongly that you want someone to get a new idea or understand how something will work, it must be a physical product. That was Echo. People want devices that work with Alexa. That customer sentiment has evolved - the future will be similar.
7:50 Alexa Conversations
8:00 The future of voice
8:20 We as humans don't think in terms of TASKS but in terms of scenarios, ideas, and things we want to get done (re:MARS example)
9:35 Burn your current ideas down. AI will help. Existentialism.
11:00 There is no killer voice app. The killer thing is the relationship and context with AI. Like a long friendship - it’s not any one aspect that makes it meaningful, it’s the entire relationship.