Editorial Podcast Sales Tips

Speaker: Colin Pope, EIC-Austin Business Journal

Colin Pope: Hi, I'm Colin Pope, editor of the Austin Business Journal. We launched the Texas Business Minds statewide podcast series about four years ago. Quite frankly because it was something that was sellable. And, we've got a good long time advertiser, Texas Mutual Insurance company, who, is just a big supporter of the of the program. So it's paid for and on the editorial side we find it, you know, in line with our, desire and obligation really to connect people to other people, not just to cover businesses but cover the people who run them. So, it's a neat program to be able to do that.

Colin Pope: I'd say we've had a fair response to the Texas Business Minds podcast, which by the way is produced by Austin, San Antonio, Houston and Dallas Business Journals once a week. We rotate and do a podcast which yields a weekly podcast, but for each market, we basically only do it once a month. And, you know, our choices, what guides our choices for featured executives, you know, we're really looking for people that kind of transcend geography, You know, or at least are well known enough for, you know, that statewide audience that we're looking for. so if we've go the CEO of a restaurant that has locations in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio definite winner, because people know that brand and they would kind of consider that local. You know, we've had podcasts in the past where a, you know, the subject is, for instance, focused on growing South San Antonio's economy, which is, you know, has proven to be a little bit too, too granular, too focused, geographically speaking to amass, a wide audience So, really looking for somebody who, everybody in Texas would, you know, kind of maybe either know or care to read about or, or, you know, listen to and, and read about too in the online features that we do. And, we try in terms of who hosts it, we really try to look at this as something that we can just, keep within our current wheelhouse. So, you know, our reporters are busy enough, they're talking to enough big wigs inherently through the course of their day to day, day to day work. So, you know, I've told them rather than shift gears and say, OK, I gotta stop what, you know, my regular duties and I've got to find somebody for the Texas Business Mind Podcast. We'll look at the, we'll survey the land and, you know, one of the reporters will tell me, or one of the editors, hey, I've got an interview with so, and so, for a cover story that I'm working on and I want to just may as well record the interview with this big wig and knock it out as a Texas business mind. So we're able to kill two birds with one stone, often, and, uh, and aside from that, so we might get a breaking news story even, you know, well, before the podcast publishes and then we've got the podcast, that is online and then in addition to that, we've got the, the print edition that's got a, a print edition in an online that's got a Q and A version and a truncated version of the podcast, a link to the podcast, of course, but if people aren't in the podcast mood or they don't do that, they can still go ahead and read the Q and As online and in print. And so, you know, doing it pretty efficiently, I think, how has the audience responded? I think, you know, pretty, pretty well over all, you know, they say that it is the most listened to business podcast in all of Texas, which, you know, that, that sounds nice. But I don't really know what that means and who our big competition is. And I will say that we tend to count in the first, you know, 24, 48, 72 hours of a podcast release, we tend to count the audience by the hundreds. Whereas, you know, most of our stories, we will count the audience by the thousands during that same time period. So not as big of an audience. You know, if we were doing it only alone and I was having a reporter shift gears to do this, I'd probably say not worth, you know, the squeeze that we're putting into it. But because these reporters are already talking to these bigwigs about something and then, you know, doing, rolling this into their day to day work. You know, it, it basically takes, you know, the, the host, maybe an extra extra hour, hour and a half, maybe when it's all said and done to produce what's needed for the podcast. on top of whatever they wanted to talk about, to, with that person.

Colin Pope: I would say, have somebody who can take ownership of it. you know, especially if it's statewide. but, you know, what we have discovered is that if everybody owns it, nobody owns it. And so, it's been nice over the not nice but, you know, kind of Austin has stepped up because it was sold in the Austin market, the statewide podcast that we do. Austin has stepped up to, you know, kind of more than the other markets to make sure that the deadlines are being met and people have people, you know, others lined up. And, and I've actually, you know, kind of coached some of the other markets about, hey, I don't really think that this last podcast, you know, hit the mark or, hey, this last podcast, you know, we got 2000, you know, clicks on it. You know, the, the story version of it when it came out, which usually translates to maybe 2000 clicks, might translate to 150 podcast listens. you know, people will kind of digest the Q and A and, and, and that's it. But you know, having somebody own it and minding the deadlines making sure that stuff is getting done.

Colin Pope: And also, you know, just like everything aim high, you know, don't, I'd go for, you know, obviously the, the CEO chairman, top dogs at these companies and, you know, the, the obviously, I think the bigger you can get the, you know, the, the better the the podcast will perform. So I would just shoot for the stars when it comes to trying to choose guests.

Eileen Barber: Hi, I'm Eileen Barber in the Austin Texas market. And I work with Texas Mutual Insurance and, with the Texas Business Minds Podcast and this has been a product that's been going on for five years now.

Eileen Barber: As I mentioned, this is a podcast that's been active. Now, we're in our fifth year. It was sold by my predecessor, so I can't take credit for it. But I've renewed it now for four years and the client loves the product. It's a killer branding opportunity. Lots of good thought leadership as well as business intelligence and they love what it does for all of the Texas markets and really educating CEOs and C-Suite on how to be better leaders.

Eileen Barber: What I love about Texas Business Minds podcast is it's an editorial driven product. So all of the different editors in chief handle the questioning, they do a lot of research on the client on the company. So they come in well armed with really, really good interviews. I just listened to one yesterday and it really, really educates our audience on how like what frustrations CEOs face. Like what are the roadblocks? What are the challenges and how they've overcome them? So it's great content for anybody trying to do better in their career. And it's a great opportunity for Texas business owners to learn how to become a better leader and to become a better force for, for good in the region as well.

Eileen Barber: If you have a client interested in looking at doing a podcast series. Number one, definitely get Megan Bailey and her team involved. There's a lot of moving parts and there's a, there's a pretty long runway to get this launched. But you want to have everybody on board. This is it for us. It's an editorially driven podcast. So editorial has to be on board, they have to know what to do. We've also shifted and pivoted some of the advertising we're doing and what we're doing now is actually helping. there's a real regular cadence with our print and our digital promotion and it's, it's literally the podcast is growing by the week right now five years in. The other thing I'd also recommend is make sure that you're setting the expectation correct for your client, that it is more of a thought leadership and branding play and then everybody is going to know what to expect out of this. It's a great opportunity for companies that really want to educate the audience more. And they also have a, I love that the, the CEO from Texas business minds. The Texas Mutual is CEO is on every single podcast. So there's some familiarity in the market of who he is and kind of they, they change up the messaging quite often. So they, it stays really pertinent for what's happening for their market and for their business.