Are Podcast Ads Changing Forever? + How to Make Your Own Podcast Directory

In this episode, the crew discusses our holiday plans, new features that were just introduced inside of Buzzsprout, the future of the podcast advertising ecosystem, and how to create a podcast directory as a marketing strategy for your show.

Check out the totally legit bios written using the new host/co-host feature for each of us on the official Buzzcast website.

Links from this episode:

• Add host & co-host information to your Buzzsprout site
• Say goodbye to your favorite podcast promo codes (The Verge Article)
• Travis' new podcast directory: ICOCPodcasts.com

Chapters

• 0:00 Bench warning
• 0:29 Gift-Giving Guide
• 10:21 New Buzzsprout features
• 14:12 The end of promo codes?
• 28:21 Travis made a podcast directory
• 35:23 This or That, Round 2

Transcript

Alban: 0:00

I just want to be clear, you actually think don't hold it that Kevin, do you think drop the episode Travis has dropped the upset I say hold it back.

Kevin: 0:06

Now he said hold to back.

Alban: 0:07

He said at least published to the question.

Kevin: 0:10

I'll read it again. Or should you hold one or more back in case you can't record one week? And so he did choose that option and recommended to and that is a bench warning for team officials. That happens again, you'll be out again

Travis: 0:29

so I don't know if you guys know this, but Christmas is next week. You guys excited? To do some fun things.

Alban: 0:35

These cold Oh, feds are good. Yes, Mom, I am excited for Christmas.

Travis: 0:41

Do you have any surprise gifts wading into the tree? Or do you just buy everything as you think of it? And then be like, Oh, yes, I did buy this for myself.

Kevin: 0:49

Let me get you guys opinion on this. Okay. All right. Like we were at this stage in life where you know, Christmas, especially like between close loved ones, spouses, etc. Like, are you guys at the point where you just say, this is exactly what I want? I want this in this color and this size? Just give me this? Would you give any guidance? Do you give guidance, just saying like I could, I could use a few new shirts. I would like a new golf club? Like, do you give any guidance? Or do you give exact

Alban: 1:15

gift giving is a combination of a few things. It's a combination of getting something that you couldn't buy for yourself, that you don't have the financial means to spend on yourself maybe. And also, the person giving it to you is showing you I understand you I know you. And this is a sign of our friendship that, hey, I know that you enjoy this type of thing. And they find something that you will like,

Kevin: 1:41

Okay, you're speaking this is fact. But this is clearly your opinion. This is

Alban: 1:44

clearly my opinion, which is a fact. This is this is right. I think I've thought about the thing a lot about gift giving last few days in preparation for Christmas. The first piece is very important when you're a kid, the fact that you can't buy anything and your parents are like, that's why Christmas is magical. Because you have no ability to enter the like, the the money society, you have no money. And your parents bestow these gifts on you. And then they're also things you like. So you're like, Whoa, you're blown away. But as you get older, and you have the ability to buy most of the things that you want, at some point, you can actually kind of almost on a whim buy anything that somebody else is going to get you for Christmas, because people aren't going to buy you massive gifts. And now the only thing that I'm really getting is somebody showing you like, Oh, I know you, I'm thinking about you. Here's something I got. So once I hit that point, I'm not giving any guidance. It's like, hey, if I give guidance, then all I'm really doing is giving someone a shopping list for like, hey, go pick up a gift card for me, which is strange to me. I don't know, I really want people to do that.

Kevin: 2:50

So if your wife says to you, hey, my parents want to get you a gift. Is there anything that you want? You would say? Nope, no information, you're not getting any information from me. If they know me at all, if they care about me, then they would figure this out and they would blow me away.

Alban: 3:04

That is the exception to the rule for sure.

Kevin: 3:07

I'm glad you thought so long and deep about this, the father in law

Alban: 3:11

mother in law's situation, they all get the past, you know, the only thing they care about is that I love and treat their daughter well. They're like, okay, whatever about that guy. So they get the past, they can buy me something and I will give them some like hints in the general direction. I'll spend some time thinking about it. But for my own parents, or for like siblings or for spouse or someday when my daughter buys me stuff, like all that I'm like, whatever you come up with is good. Either like the socks are fine, because then when I get where those socks, I'll be like, Oh yeah, there's the socks that Sosa bought me. So I'd rather just be somebody that came up with rather than a, you know, hey, buy me this DVD that I really want. Alright, Travis,

Travis: 3:59

what about you? I agree with Alban. And also the most loving gifts. Anyone could give me as an Amazon gift card. Which seems counterintuitive, but it's it's also like, you know, when you do those white elephant parties, and you get something you're like, this is basically just trash.

Kevin: 4:23

I mean, that is the point of a white elephant gift exchange is that your trash is supposed to be a burden. Like you're supposed to have to deal with this thing though.

Alban: 4:30

Yeah, like, I remember, like the best white elephant gifts I've ever seen were things like a giant propeller for a boat, and stuff like stuff that people are like, what is this? And they're like, yeah, now you have to take this massive propeller home. Like this is a burden. That's what white elephants all about.

Kevin: 4:47

Alright, quick follow up. Let me ask you this. When you open a gift, regardless of whether you love it or hate it, will the person who gave it to you know the difference and

Alban: 4:58

also depends on the gift giver.

Travis: 5:00

No, for me, it's the same response unless I'm just completely overjoyed. Like they did snooping and found my public Amazon book list. And they bought a book and shipped to my house

Kevin: 5:10

off of my book list that I send to everybody.

Travis: 5:13

Well, I'm not like advertising it. But if they're like, Yeah, I wonder if Travis has a oh, there's a list of 20 books Travis wants to buy. Let me buy one for him.

Kevin: 5:21

Okay, so Travis has the poker face, you will not know if you give Travis a gift, whether he really loves it or not, you're gonna get same response. What about you? Oh,

Alban: 5:27

and if I'm getting something off of the My wife says, Hey, I need some gift ideas. I will pretend to act surprise, really get the gifts that are off to get the idea list. I don't know, it would have to be a pretty bad gift for me to be like, Oh, this stinks. Because the whole benefit of the gift is that the person thought about me. Maybe if they give something that you're like, wow, I have not been interested in that since middle school. You must not really know me very well. That might be a great experience. But no, yeah, I wouldn't vote. I don't think I really wear it on my face. I probably keep it to myself. Good for you guys. I guarantee Kevin is the other way. Kevin? Is your you said to like your own children. Really? You got me this?

Kevin: 6:11

No, me at all? Did you buy this and then wrap it.

Travis: 6:15

I raised you

Kevin: 6:16

put my name on it. Yeah, I have a hard time hiding it. But we did have a family meeting last week. Because my the, my mom, the grandparent of my children, has informed me of some of the gifts that she's buying for the kids. And my children have inherited this bad trait from me like when you open something, and it's like, this isn't white elephant. This is Christmas morning. It's not supposed to be a burden. Why am I opening this, when they have that experience, they can't hide it well either. And so as become a sore spot, and so we've got to get better at it. We've got to get better at just being thankful for getting a gift regardless of what the gift is.

Travis: 6:52

And we'll say one of the hardest ones to be excited about is when somebody has to guess your clothing size. So they guess Hi.

Alban: 7:01

And I'm also not ever going to wear this now because won't fit right in Kevin's Children's Defense. I do know of one gift that your mom has given your daughter. And it was a hairbrush for herself because your daughter broke your mom's hairbrush at some point. And so the gift she gave your daughter was a hairbrush for herself a replacement hairbrush. I think that is acceptable. This is not a good gift.

Kevin: 7:26

Well, don't tell my mom that

Travis: 7:29

she is she a listener of this podcast,

Kevin: 7:32

you might be I've sent her so many podcasts and she always writes back, I don't like podcasts,

Travis: 7:39

you're probably safe, you're probably safe. So you may be wondering what we're gonna do with this podcast over the holidays, family coming up, we got travel all kinds of stuff, we are going to be taking a one week break from our normal cadence or normal schedule. So rather than an episode coming out in two weeks, the next episode come out in the beginning of January in three weeks. And there was a lot of discussion about how do we do it? Can we schedule it, working through people's holidays? And this is a conundrum that a lot of podcasters face around this time of year like I'm not in my normal routine, my normal rhythm of producing content, should I just batch a bunch of stuff and schedule it? Or just say, Hey, guys, I'm taking a break from life. When I get back to life after the holidays, I'll come back and produce more episodes. Do you guys have any thoughts around this question of what should podcasters do around the holidays?

Alban: 8:32

I mean, my pick is normally to do like a mailbag episode or kind of that like podcast or connection episodes where you're like, hey, send in a question and we'll answer it. And those are kind of evergreen, so you record it a few weeks in advance. And then he just released on the normal day, even if it's Christmas. And wow, that worked out perfectly because everyone gets their content, and you get to take your break. Unfortunately, if you're us and you record this 11 days before Christmas, and then you start looking at calendars and you realize there's like a two hour window for the three of us are all working at the same time. And not on some sort of vacation or family obligation. You don't even have time really to record a mailbag altogether. So it's something you need to prepare a little bit in advance. But that's probably my pick for how to kind of thread the needle between on one side. I want to be there for my listeners, but on the other. I don't want podcast to become a burden.

Kevin: 9:34

Yeah, I think it's a huge opportunity zone because people travel a lot during the holidays. And when you travel, that's a fantastic time to listen to podcast. So I often find myself on the road or traveling somewhere. And I'm trying to find new episodes, and none of my favorite shows are releasing episodes because it's the holidays and they're all on break. So I think it's a massive opportunity. It does require a little bit of planning ahead. I totally agree with Alban like first choice. Try to get something new out there for your listeners. because there's going to be a shortage of good content and there's going to be an abundance of people searching for good content over the holidays. It does require some pre planning. And it's not the end of the world if you can't do it, but I would say if you do miss a week or if you do shift your schedule, at least say something in your you know, the last episode before you miss before you shift, or at least give me a heads up

Alban: 10:22

well, if your holiday tradition includes gift giving Buzzsprout has some gifts for you. We've got two smaller things we've rolled out in the last few days. So Kevin, what are they?

Travis: 10:32

Hold on pause. That was a fantastic transition Alban. That was wonderful. Thanks. We can't always leave Matt, you know, lyrical magic like that. But when it happens, we just got to stop and recognize what a special moment it is.

Kevin: 10:45

That was nice. Yeah, very nice to be Travis good transition Alban. So we have two new updates in Buzzsprout. One is actually really cool. The other one's not as much of an update is it is a bit of a reorg. We have reorganized some navigation.

Alban: 10:57

Alright, let's start with like, the Sox level gift in Buzzsprout. So

Kevin: 11:03

yeah, okay, we can start there. That is the podcast settings menu has been reorganized. So now some things that used to be on like second or third level now are now live up in the top right corner, you can click Settings, and you get a drop down. And there's a whole bunch of stuff in there. And this is in the spirit of just trying to move stuff that you don't use every day, into a place where it's, you know, not in your way every day. And so it's not a huge update. But we do hope it continues to make Buzzsprout easier to use, bringing more of the things that you use frequently, making them more apparent, and the things you use less frequently, a little bit less apparent. Now also, this goes into number two, if you click into your podcast info, you'll see that that sub nav has changed. And now we've got a general section Advanced section in the new section called podcast hosts. It's called hosts and CO hosts. And this is a new place where you can add information about you as the host of your podcast. And if you have co hosts, you can add them in as well. You can give them a name and description about them, you can use formatting, and then you can drop in an image like a headshot. This shows up a couple different places. One for any podcast app that uses the new podcast namespace tag, it's called the person tag, any podcast apps that use that, it will display that information right inside the podcast app. And if you use the bus, the website that you get with your Buzzsprout account, it also shows there as well. So when you go to your Buzzsprout website, you'll have a list of your episodes. And if you've added host or co host information, there's a link next to it now called hosts, you can click on that and people can read about the people who are on the show.

Alban: 12:37

Yeah, I think this is a cool, little update. You've got a lot of apps like pod chaser that are doing this really good work of finding all of the people on podcasts and charting, to try to link them all together so that if you listen to someone on one show, you could find out where else they are. This is a way for podcasters to say, hey, here's on the show. Here's the host, here's the co host. And now that's distributed in the RSS feed. So any app including pod chaser would be able to say hey, I actually can tell you a little bit about the co host trust we have this for Buzzcast yet,

Travis: 13:12

I don't think so because this was we kind of launched this in the the waning hours of the night. So I'm not sure if it's so new that we don't even have it for Buzzcast. Let me see. Let me check. We do not. We do not have host or co host but by the time this episode goes live like

Alban: 13:26

somebody else will got it. Yeah, I do, sir. Who's on this show? Who else would put it in there? Kevin and I did not go write a bio for ourselves and go at it. I did go add a fake bio for myself and my co host for one of our dummy accounts, but I did not do it for our show.

Travis: 13:45

Well, if you are the kind of person that likes to be surprised with gifts, don't give me any guidance on what to put in your bio. If you want some influence and what is publicly available on the internet said about you then I will take submissions.

Alban: 14:00

Sounds good. All right. I will write my own bio.

Kevin: 14:02

I don't want to give you any guidance but and then I will tell you how disappointed I am

Travis: 14:08

classic dead move

Alban: 14:12

well, some things you can put in your podcast bio are links to some your favorite products, your promo codes, your affiliate links, but it looks like those might be going away what's happening with that tropes.

Travis: 14:24

So Alban is talking about this new article in The Verge that actually Carmen put together. She is the writer at hotpot, which is a newsletter that covers a lot of industry stuff and current events and things that are shifting in the industry. And it's talking about well, the title basically says it Say goodbye to your favorite podcast, promo codes, promo codes help to build an industry now big brands are moving in. And it's really just an article looking at the landscape of the podcast industry as a whole. And as the industry grows as some of these larger shows start getting acquired for really eye popping numbers. A lot more attention to gets brought in by some of the bigger advertisers out there. So rather than Casper mattress and be undies, we're talking about Unilever, and Capital One and GEICO and bigger brands like that, that aren't necessarily as concerned with direct response results of measuring, we spent$10,000 on this ad campaign, we want to make $20,000, they just want you the next time you go to Walmart to buy Crest toothpaste.

Kevin: 15:27

So let me say this, I think that you know, the difference between direct response and Brand Lift campaigns, they both want an ROI on their campaign, it's just at the scale of which they're operating, there is a difference. And so if somebody is doing a $5,000 ad spend, that's more easily trackable, and traditionally, in the media is that people with that type of budget have been purchasing making ad buys in, it only makes sense for them to be able to justify that budget by being able to track it and spend more. So direct mail has been the old one that's been around for a long time, it sent postcards to your house, they'd all have codes on them, or they'd be able to identify you by address, or somehow they'd be able to link that back to the actual, you know, 50 cents that caused us to print this postcard and the 30 cents in postage, we got 80 cents in this deal, are we going to get more of this back. And that's translated to the internet and ad buys and everything else. Then there's this whole other stratosphere of advertising, which is we're Coca Cola, and we are operating on such a global scale with these massive ad buys that it doesn't make sense for us to try to track the individual ROI like on a per customer basis, we track it on market basis, and on countries and in different channels. So like how is our TV spend going, how is our magazine spend going and they're spending hundreds of 1000s millions of dollars, it's very different, and how they track it, how they look at it, how they allocate funds in this way. And I think what the verge article is saying is some of that money, that huge money with different metrics that these people are interested in tracking is coming into podcasting. And that's having a big effect on the space, the idea that you'll be able to work individually with podcast hosts, get them to read your copy and get different takes and snow, say it this way, or say it this way, or let's test this, you know, copy versus copy, that's going away, because Coca Cola doesn't have the bandwidth or interest in doing that. They just want to do a million dollar ad spend, they want to pre produce their ads, they want to buy up a whole bunch of inventory. And then they want to see if overall they get a general lift, more coke purchase more brand recognition, whatever their specs are for their campaign, as a result of that spend, not individual

Alban: 17:29

ROI. Yeah, and to make this like really clear. I mean, remember, Apple for a long time has been say, We've got to get rid of all this app tracking. Facebook is really the very best at helping people do this direct response, you know, you see the ad, then you go and you purchase the item. And Apple's pushed back on that quite a bit because of a privacy angle. And they've always kind of hinted at, like, Hey, we're doing okay, if we're one of the best companies in the world, and we're the best at marketing in the world. Well, you go watch a football game. And during the three for iPhone ads, you go pull up a YouTube thing, you're getting an iPhone ad you put anything, there are Apple ads constantly. And they're never say like, it's there's no like use promo code, Apple iPhone 12x Plus, or something like to get, you know, 10% off, Apple doesn't need to track Oh, this individual ad on the Superbowl got us money. They just know, when we put another$10 million into advertisement on football, all of a sudden, we see people who have a high affinity for football start buying iPhones a little bit more. So it's just a totally different game. And with that has become as come kind of like a maturing of the podcast space. But that maturing, it has a lot of negative stuff that's come with it. So things that are actually in this article, rates have gone up a ton. So there's lots of these smaller companies that are saying we're kind of getting priced out, you know, prices went from maybe $20, CPM up to $60. There's increased number of ads, there was somebody who's talking about you know, we used to be the only person who's advertising on this podcast, maybe two. And now there's, you know, maybe five an episode. So even though you're paying way more, you're now kind of stuck in this block with a ton of other people. Yeah,

Kevin: 19:25

I think that the ad tolerance metric is always so interesting, because advertisers will always say that your audience has a much higher ad tolerance than you think as the producer of this show, or this. And there's been tons of studies that prove this out and advertisers and show producers always go back and forth about this stuff. But as podcasters as like creators of the craft, and then the same people who traditionally you know, for smaller indie shows or going out and finding advertisers. We've always been super sensitive to the idea of like, well, I've got a 30 minute show. How many ads can I really put in here? Well, advertisers come from totally from perspective, they're interested in how many ads kind of do I need to pump in before I'm going to get the return that I'm interested in? Whether it be brand recognition or direct response or whatever else, but they're measuring tolerance, like not? Does this make the show better? Or worse? They're trying to figure out how many can I pump in before they stop listening?

Alban: 20:16

How little content do I have to put around these ads that you keep listening?

Travis: 20:21

Yeah, it's like when you click a quiz off of Facebook, and it takes to a page where it's like, there's so many banner ads, and things flashing at you that you can't even find the content that you clicked for. Yeah. Which Disney Princess am I? Yeah, it's so when you're trying to figure out which Disney Princess you are. And not only is it not all on one page, you have to like click Next 20 times to see all the options. And each time it refreshes new banner ads.

Kevin: 20:44

Travis, you've experienced this way one time. Yeah, so it's just coming at it from totally different respect this idea of ad tolerance. And figuring out how many ads we can put in shows for people to continue listening or not tuning out is totally from the perspective of the advertisers. And I get their science around it. And there's dollars and maybe these are problems that indie podcasters would like to have, like it's a good problem to have, right? You have people who are willing to give you more money and and all you have to do is give up, you know, put more ads in your show. But at the same time, I think the point you're making Alban is that this article is talking about this is changing, like the market, around podcasts

Travis: 21:19

well in the money isn't necessarily flowing 3x down to the podcaster that a lot of these shifts are happening as podcasts are getting acquired by companies that have a wide inventory of shows. And they're trying to basically deliver ad inventory. And so maybe the CPM goes up 3x. But if in the contract, the podcast host because they were bought out, gets 33% of the ad by then it's actually still 20 CPM for the podcast host compared to what they negotiated on their own. So it's also trying to figure out who is making more money as the industry shifts? And is that going to the podcasters, the creators, or is that now going to these middlemen companies that are managing all this ad spend,

Alban: 22:01

I mean, it makes sense. This is all coming back down to the podcaster. All the examples that are being given here, Joe Rogan color daddy Smartlist 99, Pei, a bunch of other shows, have all been bought for 10s of millions of dollars, right? And if your Spotify or Sirius XM and you buy a show for that amount of money is because you know, hey, let's now connect to them with our existing ad sellers, the people who actually know what's the max amount of ads we can put in there, who already have these existing relationships with coke and Unilever and GEICO and all sorts of insurance companies. They're the ones who know how to squeeze all the advertising money out. And so for anybody like me undies, has kind of come along for the ride with the promo codes, they're starting to find out, Oh, we got into podcasting, because that was a space that we could operate in. And we could make sure we got our ROI. But the amount of people who are buying Coke is much, much greater than the number of people buying me undies specialized underwear. And so it's a very different game. And I think we're just seeing that podcasting is changing in a way that's probably healthy for the industry to be more sustainable. But it's also a big detriment for the people who are the craftspeople making these shows, and to the detriment for obviously, US listeners who now have to start skipping ahead a little more aggressively. It's different than when I used to actually listen to some podcast ads, because they were just as good as the content of the show, because it was hilarious. And now I find myself on a lot of my favorite shows, like, you know, you just keep hitting Forward, forward forward, because you know, once there's one app, there's probably three or four,

Travis: 23:45

well, it's really just commoditizing podcasts, right? So instead of, Hey, these are the six or seven podcasts that really speak well to our audience in this great overlap. All these podcasts, their listeners are basically the same. We're just buying downloads, they don't necessarily need to be targeted, though, if you can attribute some demographics and things like that. We're big fans. And so it's really not taking into account the creative elements of it, right, which is, you know, as a as a podcaster. If this is the space you want to get into then not only do you just continue to, to need to differentiate yourself, and show why advertising on your podcast would be better, better than another podcast, but then also continuing to initiate with smaller brands and doing these, you know, you don't have to be the podcast network to get a sponsorship.

Alban: 24:33

Well, the reason that this happens is because the people that are interested in buying we all are good friends with Glenda geek who does the horse Radio Network. Glenn works with people who are selling horse supplies, like that's only going to work on his shows. So that's a match made in heaven. But if you're Coca Cola, your target market is like anybody between the ages of five and 90 Five, the entire time they want you drinking Coke 24/7. So they have this unlimited market, it's 100% of the market is what they're shooting for, you know, any beverage consumed should be something we created. And so they don't have to differentiate and target the audience. They just say all of them. Are there people listening to this? Are there people watching this show? Do they drink beverages? Yes, yeah, hydrating. Let's get let's get him on the hydration game.

Kevin: 25:28

I think this is good for independent podcasters. The chance of an independent podcast or signing a deal with Coke or Unilever or something else, relatively low, always has been probably always will be. But there are a lot of people who've been podcasting, a lot of companies have been podcasts have been advertising the podcasting space for quite a while, as they get squeezed out. They are still interested in podcasting, like the fact that podcasting advertising and sponsorship is effective, that's not changing, what's changing is their access to the top tier shows, which means they're going to continue to look down market, which I think is great for the independent podcasters. So it's something that we've been thinking about, like how can independent podcasters monetize it's something that's always on our mind. And I think there's more opportunity, as bigger players come in and start to squeeze out the top shows than the people who were advertising, those top shows are gonna start looking down market. And it's just a matter of getting a technology in place that makes it efficient for them. So I'm super excited, I think the more money that flows into the ecosystem, the better, as long as we can keep the ecosystem open. And it doesn't just get walled and like locked into these walled gardens. The idea that Coca Cola Unilever is going to come in and throw a bunch of money in the space. That's fantastic. If it happens in the open podcast ecosystem. It's not fantastic if that only happens on Spotify. But they have to reconcile that, right? Like, if you listen to a podcast, and Spotify, and it's chock full of ads, and then you listen to that same podcast somewhere else, and it doesn't have any ads. I'm not gonna listen on Spotify anymore. And so they've got to figure that out. And a little bit of how they're figuring out is with exclusive shows. And I just don't know how scalable is like, we're have to see how that plays out. Like is the Joe Rogan deal Gonna, gonna renew is the color daddy stuff gonna renew his. But you can already see some big players in the industry going a different direction, which is like Amazon bought art 19. And then they bought smartlace. And they said, No, it's not going to be exclusive. You can listen to it a week early on Amazon. But after that, you can listen to it anywhere. And they're going to figure out a way to get those ads and sponsorship deals in, regardless of where you listen. So I think it's super interesting. And I think it's, it could be good, like not tomorrow, maybe not next week. But in the future moving forward. I think this could actually be really good for independent podcasters.

Travis: 27:27

Well, I think it just speaks to the staying power of this medium. It seems like every three months or so there's this new thing that's supposed to kill podcasting, whether it's you know, Mark Cuban's fireside app or clubhouse or whatever. And over and over again, we're just seeing that more and more podcasting is becoming a mainstream medium. It's not just for tech nerds anymore, like lots of people listen to podcast for a number of different reasons. All these apps that are starting getting the space, whether it's Spotify, or even potentially YouTube, starting to introduce podcast content to different demographics, all the trajectory, all the momentum is moving into podcasting, it's here to stay. And so if you are podcasting, now, five years from now, if you're still doing it, you're going to be very well positioned, potentially, to be able to continue to make things that you love and serve more people, and have more options for what you want to do with your show.

Alban: 28:21

As all the podcast directories are focusing more and more on exclusive content, there is a new podcast directory, which I believe has not signed any deals. But it's still very interesting to the show. Travis, tell us about this new podcast directory found.

Travis: 28:35

Yes. So this new the new podcast one that I one that I made. So that's one you're talking about.

Alban: 28:41

Is there any exclusive content on the Travis Albritton? Podcast Directory?

Travis: 28:45

No, there is not. So I'll give, I'll give a little bit of background. So I had nine days off over Thanksgiving, and about three days into that my brain just kept spinning, because I just have a hard time turning off work brain, especially when like to do podcasting for a living. And so I'd always had this idea of like, well, you know, we talked about podcast networks, as a way of potentially growing your show and getting more listeners because you're, you're now connecting with other audiences. What if instead of trying to get a bunch of people to agree to do something together, I just curated a bunch of shows that are around a similar topic to one of the shows that I create, and then just use that as a platform to then grow my own show. So that's why I decided to do I decided to launch a very specific niche Podcast Directory, just to see what would happen. So what's the niche you're hinting at? It's a very specific denomination within Christianity. It's international Churches of Christ. So ICSE podcasts.com is the name of the directory if you want to check it out. But I just wanted to curate, like all these shows from this particular group. And even if you're not a Christian, you can still look at this and maybe get some ideas for different directories you can do. But the idea was to again, create a website with a curated list of shows that share common topics as a way to effectively cross promote And then get featured in websites. So that was the big marketing play was not only are these shows going to be super excited, they're getting free publicity. But now I can start sharing links to this curated list with editorials and existing websites that already have traffic for the people that I'd be interested in this podcast content. And then because I built a website, I get to feature my podcasts most prominently on the website. And so you know, if you paint a bigger website, you get to, you know, be a little self serving with it. So that was kind of like the big picture, nuts and bolts details, I did pay an actual website developer to create the website, I spent about three hours on Wix and said, if this is going to be any good, I should just pay a pro to do it. And so the total investment to make the website was a little over $2,000. But I wanted it to be an actually really great website, because then people would actually want to use it. If it's very clear that somebody just did this in two hours using a premade template, then the chances of it actually having longevity would be slim. So it was a $2,000 investment to build it. Now, how did I actually get the content on there, I use listen notes. So listen notes. On every single show, you can copy an embed player for that show, and put it on a website. And so it'll show you the latest 10 episodes for any podcast, and then a link to go and listen to the full collection over on Listen notes. But I also embedded custom links to the different directories like Apple podcasts and Spotify and Google podcasts for each show. So the pages actually stand on their own, you can go you can check out different podcasts, you can listen to a few episodes. And then there are direct links to subscribe to those shows in podcast apps and directories. So I wanted to make the website as functional as possible, as valuable as possible for the podcast that are getting included. And also to be extremely valuable for other editorials and websites and blogs and newsletters and things like that, then want to use this as a reference point to be able to then tell other people about new contents coming out or new shows that are releasing or things like that. So I was really just trying to make a little town square for podcast content in this particular denomination. And then, because I own it, I can then control how things are featured and things like that.

Kevin: 32:18

That's fantastic, very ambitious. How's it working as a marketing effort to grow your podcast,

Alban: 32:23

so it's not working?

Travis: 32:26

It's been two weeks, Alban, it's been two weeks. It's been featured in a couple Facebook groups and on a web site. And so so far, in December, it's gotten 16 158 Total website visits, which if you're in digital marketing, web visit means diddly squat unless they take the action that you want. It's like a banner ad impressions. It's like, well, if they loaded the page, and your banner ad was at the bottom that counts. And so of those website visits, 148 people went to go visit the webpage that had the podcast I'm promoting. So a little less than 10% went from the homepage to the first podcast listed, which is mine. Nice. So then I wanted to correlate Okay, how many of those people that came to the website actually turned into listeners. And so I looked at the Buzzsprout stats, because they show you both listed notes in website plays. So far, I've had 188 website downloads that I can attribute to this page. If I look at the episode that was published, the day after the website launched. And this is a new podcast as well. 38 website downloads, which accounted for 16% of the total downloads for that episode. And then the next episode that came out, which was last week, has 46 web downloads, which accounts for 25%. So the number two source after Apple podcasts is now this website for new episodes as they're coming out. So, you know, for a show that just started in August, September. And you know, now 25% 20 to 25% of the downloads are coming from this website, the name of the game is always is this going to be still a relevant place for people to listen to shows a year from now. But at least initially, it seems like it could become something that would be a great tool to aim at whatever podcast I want to promote.

Kevin: 34:22

Right and you're tracking very narrow. So like you're trying to equate actual web plays or, or something that is 100% clear in your mind that they came from this website and they listened to something we all know like the big hope here is that people then load up this podcast and one of their podcast app players and follow it or subscribe to it. So there's could be a lot of bleed over. And we would hope that overall the podcast would just grow faster now as a result of this marketing effort than it would have without it. And so yeah, I'd like to check back in a couple of weeks or I don't know maybe the end of January whenever you feel like there's enough time pass and see how it's going. But that's a really interesting strategy and not one that we he'd heard a lot of people taking the time and effort to actually build out a place for people to find other podcasts in your niche. It's super interesting, the idea of always promoting your show. And the attack that you took was, hey, I'm going to promote all the shows in the same niche for anybody's interested in podcasts like this because you're confident enough in your content to be able to stand out. And so yeah, great job. September 24 episode, Travis introduced a new game show for Buzzcast called this or that. And if you guys recall, I knows a little while ago, but if you recall, I played against Alban and Travis was the game show host. And since I won that episode, I thought that maybe I could bring the game back. And I could be the host this time. And I could ask you guys questions,

Alban: 35:45

and I'll get this. So earlier, you were complaining that you lost and now you got to be it. But now we're on the air again. Oh, it's back to Kevin was the winner.

Kevin: 35:54

If you go back and listen to episode which is probably worth doing,

Alban: 35:57

probably,

Kevin: 35:59

you'll clearly hear that I was the winner. On the show. You were the winner. What she did is he called for a recount on social media. He put some post up on our Facebook group or something and asked for a recount and the people who are on it's just like scummy internet sites like Facebook or something. Okay,

Alban: 36:15

this is a totally organic like the I didn't post that the people rose up. They didn't make it.

Kevin: 36:22

There was like seven or eight votes, and they voted for Alban, including myself. I'm not gonna argue with the people. That's what you want. That's what you can get. So anyway, there's a long way of saying, I think it's time to bring this or that back. Just so you know, before you say whether you're in or out, I've already written all the questions like it's gonna happen

Travis: 36:39

today. So we can either capitulate and say I deferred, Alban wins automatically, or I can step up to the plate and say, Bring it on. Yeah, bring

Kevin: 36:46

it on. Yeah. So just let's do it.

Travis: 36:48

Let's go for it. I want to I want to

Kevin: 36:50

jump in. I don't remember all the rules of the game. I just remember there's there's questions and somebody asked questions. So I've written some questions. I'm going to ask them, I guess you guys can like raise your hand since I can see you. I'll call on you. And then I'm going to award points at the end. Somebody you know, winner get something. I like this plan.

Alban: 37:07

This sounds great.

Travis: 37:08

It sounds well thought through.

Kevin: 37:11

Alright, here we go. game show music. And we are playing this or that. Okay, first question. You're launching a new weekly podcast in January. You have the trailer recorded. you've uploaded it to Buzzsprout. And it's listed in all the directories. You have one or two episodes ready to go. And you should have episodes three and four completed before your launch date. Should you release all the episodes on the launch date? Or should you hold one or more back in case you can't record Web? Alban?

Alban: 37:39

Alright, is a tough answer. For a long time, people did recommend dropping a bunch of episodes all at once to boost your numbers and hopefully get people to subscribe and listen to a lot and then get into Apple new and noteworthy. But I think the more important thing is to get the cadence right. And that is to have a consistent weekly episode. And life gets in the way pretty quickly. So hold one back so that you know that you can hit your launch date and hit the subsequent launch weeks in a row without missing one.

Kevin: 38:13

Okay, wait, I just want to make sure I understand your answer. And I forgot to throw out a rule. Okay. So your answer, first of all, is you should hold one or more back. Right? I heard that. Now here's the rule, your answer has to be 30 seconds or less. And anytime you go over 30 seconds. I'll start deducting points.

Travis: 38:30

All right. I'll keep that in mind.

Alban: 38:31

I love this. That's a great rule. That's a great rule.

Kevin: 38:34

You're fine, because you were right at 30. So no points.

Travis: 38:36

All right. Album, that was a great answer, except it was completely wrong. So my answer to that is that yes, it is true that you don't want to just put a bunch of episodes out at the very beginning and then have nothing left. And it is also true that Apple is no longer counting total downloads in its calculations, its algorithm for new and noteworthy. But you also want to give people something to to chew on to listen to. And so rather than just posting one episode on the first day that you launch posts to especially because for the question, you have three and four, almost ready to go. So you don't have to worry about missing a week, because you're gonna have more content, but you want to get people more than one thing to listen to. So if there's a couple topics you're wanting to discuss, they can choose the one that makes sense for them. Yeah, that's

Alban: 39:18

over 30 sites.

Kevin: 39:21

Yeah, and you know, I think you both gave similar answers. I think Travis's was actually a little bit more eloquently spoken, so I would normally give the point to him, but he was over by about five or six seconds. I've got to deduct those points and first points going to go to Alban but I want to be encouraging to Travis, you actually did have a best so

Travis: 39:38

strategically, it would make sense to not just poopoo on Alban for the first five seconds of the answer,

Kevin: 39:43

you know how much I value being. So that's part of the game. I just

Alban: 39:47

want to be clear, you actually think don't hold it back. Kevin, do you think drop the episode Travis has dropped the upset? I say hold it back. No. He

Kevin: 39:53

said hold to back. He said at least published to the question. I'll read it again. Or should you hold one or More back in case you can't record one week. And so he did choose that option and recommended to, and that is a bench warning for team officials. That happens again, you'll be out again. Here we go question two, your episodes normally run 30 minutes, but you had a great interview. And even after aggressive editing, you still have 60 minutes of great content. Should you publish one really long episode, or split it into two episodes?

Travis: 40:25

Maybe the correct answer is, do whatever you want, because it's your show. And in podcasting, there are no rules. Two principles to keep in mind. You can totally do 60 minutes. And if it's a great interview, people will listen to it even if they've listened to it multiple settings. But if you want to buy yourself a week, and have some more flexibility, maybe batch for the future, you can 100% split it in the middle somewhere where it makes sense to the flow of the conversation and make it into two episodes.

Kevin: 40:51

Alright, I didn't hear this or that answer. I'm just gonna let you know that ahead of time. I heard kind of you can do whatever you want, which is the answer that is Judge dotser Alban, do you have an answer? Yeah,

Alban: 41:01

I have an answer. The correct answer is keep it as one episode. Yeah, your episodes are often 30 minutes, but this is a 60 minute episode. And if people want to listen to 31st 30 minutes they can people can also listen to it in multiple settings. No reason to artificially cut it in half and split it into two different weeks.

Kevin: 41:20

All right, I'll do it again. Travis. I really liked your answer. But it is this or that? You got me on that technicality in the last game. Now it's coming back to bite you and I'm getting you on this technicality and this game. Point to hell.

Travis: 41:33

All right. How many questions are there? I just want to know if I'm still in the running. Are there five questions you're

Kevin: 41:38

still in the running? There's five questions. Okay, standard this or that rules? Five course. I'm sorry

Alban: 41:42

to feel a lot like Tom Brady right now. Kevin's a Bucs fan. Tom Brady often gets the calls. And you seem like yeah, he's got some good answers, but he's pretty good at playing but he also gets all the calls. So Right. I feel good about these last few questions.

Travis: 41:56

I battery setting you up for a Matt Ryan style Super Bowl choke. Like,

Alban: 42:01

last time we are on here. So that might be what's happening. You have to sweep the

Kevin: 42:06

last three to win Travis, here we go. You have a rough interview with a pretty influential person in your space. The main concern you have is that your audience will find the episode very boring. Do you publish the episode as planned? Or ditch the episode and discuss options with the person you interviewed?

Alban: 42:23

Ding ding ding, that is Alban digging in you ditch the episode and you discuss plans. This actually reminds me a lot of what you should do at Christmas. If you get a gift that you don't like. Tell your kids this. This is not a good gift. That's the Kevin Finn way. So I think be honest, be brutally honest. Tell them I don't think this is great. And try to figure out a way to put out a great episode.

Kevin: 42:48

Okay, good answer. And under 30 seconds, Travis,

Travis: 42:51

once again Alban a great answer, except that it's completely wrong. Because the whole point you got this great guest is so you could share the fact that you have this awesome guest with your audience and use it to increase the authority of your podcast because now you got this big name. So what you do is you take a five minute answer that was actually good. And you build an episode around it as commentary instead of featuring the whole interview. Oh,

Kevin: 43:12

man, those were both real that again, was not in the question. No, he

Alban: 43:17

said publish as planned. publish his plan. He said a different episode.

Kevin: 43:21

He added some stuff on there. And you know what? We have done that before on Buzzcast. We definitely had some rough interviews, and we've put stuff around them and it's come out to be a really great episode. So I'm going to give Travis that point.

Alban: 43:33

Especially since Travis was the one who edited we had like a what two hour interview that ended up becoming a six minute segment on Buzzcast. All right,

Kevin: 43:43

it's two to one Alban leading the charge right now. Question four, and the longest question of the game. Hope you're ready. Pay attention, you and your co host are parting ways on good terms. So far, the plan is for the both of you to continue podcasting. But working together has become difficult because of conflicting schedules and vision. One of you will keep the existing podcast and one of you will start a new podcast. You both prefer to keep the existing podcast even though it makes no money and has a small audience. How do you resolve this conflict? Do you flip a coin? And the winner takes all with no money exchanged? Or do you each bid auction style to see who's willing to pay more to the other person for full ownership?

Alban: 44:23

Ding, ding ding I was in if you and your co host are trying to figure out who gets it. The economist says let them bid against each other. Both people see some value in the show, but that value will not be equal. So let's maximize everybody what they take away and you bid and the person who bids more pays the other person and they get to keep that RSS feed.

Kevin: 44:44

Okay, good answer under 30 seconds and Alban goes with fair market value. Travis, what do you say? I'm gonna

Travis: 44:49

say, friendships cannot be measured in fair market value that you have with this person to create an epic show. And while you're really sad that now The future has to look different because of scheduling conflicts. You still want to be friends with this person and you want to value the exchange has taken place to this point. So instead you say, Listen, we've been partners to this point 5050 split. You can now be free to start a new show and I'll continue building on what we've created this point. What does

Alban: 45:16

it mean when you say 5050? Split? Like you just have an equal chance of getting the thing?

Kevin: 45:21

Well, the this or that is the coin flip. Yeah, winner take all with no money exchanged or bid auction style,

Alban: 45:27

right? And I feel like Travis just said split it 5050 Which is not an answer.

Kevin: 45:31

Travis, can you want clarify?

Alban: 45:33

This is

Kevin: 45:35

my Miss asking for clarification before my ruling.

Travis: 45:37

To be totally honest, we've been talking about this for a length of time longer than I remember the words of the actual question. So I'm gonna play with full integrity. It

Kevin: 45:48

was a long question and I warned you I'm sorry Travis point has to go to Alban

Travis: 45:53

I will gift the point to Alban because I value our friendship more than who wins a game of the super nice twin

Alban: 46:00

I am willing to spend $20 To get this point correct.

Kevin: 46:04

And, and you know what else though? In the sake of fairness, Alban has three correct answers. Travis has one and there's only five questions. So you would think Alban has this locked up, but surprise twist. The last question is worth five. Oh.

Alban: 46:18

Thanks, Drew Carey.

Kevin: 46:19

Travis is still very much in this. Don't tune out. Stick around. You have to hear this. And here we go. Last question. Your favorite podcast has gone exclusive to Spotify? Do you continue to listen in the Spotify app or say goodbye and find a new favorite show?

Alban: 46:36

I mean, the obvious answer because Kevin is the one asking this and I'm pretty sure you at one point mentioned that you were banning listening to Joe Rogan in your house. It's you abandon the show you have to leave it when it goes exclusive.

Kevin: 46:51

Alright Travis, what say you?

Travis: 46:53

You really like this show. You want to support this podcast or you want to root for them with their wins and be a part of the listening audience that gets them to the point where they can be calm and exclusive Spotify show so you don't abandon them right when they finally get recognized for all the work that they're doing. You support them by downloading a Spotify app, auto downloading the episodes and then listening whenever you feel like listening in on a poorly designed podcast player.

Kevin: 47:16

Travis great try great stride where you went off track is that you would not be abandoning them they have abandoned. Okay. And so if you had gotten that point, right, you would have realized that the obvious answer is that you have to find a new favorite podcast show and Spotify journey. Congratulations Alban. On your win on this episode of this or

Travis: 47:35

that? Well, we hope you enjoyed that episode of Buzzcast filled with all kinds of epic transitions from our very own Alban Brooke, Victor, have round two of the three that's and we will look forward to seeing you guys in the new year. Thanks for listening and keep podcasting.

Alban: 48:07

Everybody's thanks for sticking around to the end of the episode. This is Alban here dropping in some dynamic content to tell you about some updates to our dynamic content features. We're continuing to move forward with all the tools allowing you to trop ads and announcements into all of your episodes, so that you can record something once and automatically have it added to the beginning or end of all of your episodes, the new updates that we've made to dynamic content. Number one, if you have an announcement that's maybe only applicable for a short period, and you replace it with something else, will now that announcement stays in something we're calling our dynamic content library. The library is a list of all of the different announcements or advertisements, or just little pieces that you've dropped into your episodes over time so that you can reapply them whenever you would like. The second piece is that now those are tracked for how many times they've been played. So if you have an ad read, and you want to report back to your sponsor, and tell them how many times it's been downloaded. Well now you know, because that content may be spread across 30 different podcast episodes. You want to be able to count the stats for all of those for the entire time that it was out in the world. Reach out to us on Twitter, let us know how you were using dynamic content and the new dynamic content library. We'll see you in a couple weeks. Bye