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.
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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
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034 - Unilever’s Voice Marketing Play on Spotify - Branding without ROI is OK
Not every marketing activity needs directly measurable ROI. Most branding tactics have never had clear ROI. But they're still important - foundational even.
We’ve become obsessed with measurement. But measurement can become unproductive, especially when it’s imperfect, like so much in digital today. Think about the 100+ year history of advertising from one of the world’s most recognizable brands: Coca-Cola, with slogans and ads dating back to 1886. Little to no tracking for most of its time.
Many Fortune 100 companies spend millions on television advertising. It’s not measurable. It’s a dying medium. Nielsen ratings are and always have been a joke. Companies still buy media. They don’t have one-to-one tracking on conversions (impressions of network TV ads translating to sales). Billboards are the same. These methods of advertising are still effective, and majorly lucrative for media companies. I’m not saying buy more TV. But don’t get so obsessed with tracking that you miss out on an opportunity for branding - especially on a cool new medium that isn’t crowded.
It’s 2019 and we still do terrestrial radio ads. There is no reliable data on the results. I mention all this because if we look at a voice ad like the Unilever one on Spotify, I don’t want anyone to bemoan the fact that it won’t translate to trackable sales. It isn’t meant to.
Not every voice effort will be perfectly trackable early on. Your digital marketing result today are polluted by major bot traffic as it is. However, technology seems to get challenged on tracking because it’s assumed that digital should be perfectly trackable. It just isn’t, for so many reasons.
Early voice-enabled ads like Unilever’s AXE ad on Spotify hint at the wide open space for a new, frictionless way to access sponsored content or helpful information from a brand. Great targeting, context, timing, and intent are key to making the experience worthwhile instead of a nuisance. This is a good start from Unilever. Even if all that happens is a listener plays the AXE playlist. If anything, it’s an experiment worth running regardless of measurability of resulting sales. So much advertising is already difficult to measure. At least this is progressive.
Spotify’s feature, which debuts today, will only work if the person listening has their microphone enabled, the company says. A listener saying “Play now” when prompted by a specific AXE audio commercial from Unilever will cause the streaming service to play a curated playlist from the brand (which come with commercials). Afterward, the mic is turned off, Spotify says. -AdAge, 5/2/2019, "Spotify debuts voice-enabled audio ads with Unilever"
Pandora and NPR have experimented with voice-enabled ads before.
Stats and citations:
The Association of National Advertisers reports that only a quarter of all digital ad spend reaches real people. (entrepreneur.com, July 2018)
According to another study done by Imperva Incapsula, bot-driven ad fraud costs businesses $7 billion dollars annually. (entrepreneur.com, July 2018)
I mentioned that “65%” of traffic is from bots. Now I can’t find the source where I read this stat. However, Incapsula reports 61%. Other sources say anywhere from 20-50% or more.
The point: this is a huge margin for error in interpreting the success of a digital marketing campaign judged by clicks or traffic. Perfect measurement is but a dream today.