How We Built the Strategy for Our New Flagship Podcast

You did not suppose we would launch a podcast network and not using a new HubSpot present, did you?

We’re excited to announce our new flagship podcast, The Shake Up, that includes comic Alexis Gay and Venture Capitalist Brianne Kimmel. It’s produced by Senior Producer, Matthew Brown and dropped at you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. 

The Shake Up affords enterprise leaders unfiltered insights into firms that dared to be completely different. Alexis and Brianne discuss with enterprise leaders from disruptive firms like Square, Daily Harvest, and Nerdwallet about their investments and go-to-market methods.

Sounds fairly cool, proper? Well, now we’ll inform you how we did it, together with:

1. Our planning course of
2. Building the format of the present
3. The construction of a profitable podcast staff

Let’s dive in.

How Can We Be Better and Different?

Once we all know our enterprise goal, viewers, and finances we got down to put collectively a present idea that may resonate with our viewers and assist us hit our objectives.

To try this, we wanted to know what our viewers is listening to at the moment.

According to Chartable, there are over 8,334 branded podcasts on Apple Podcasts.

While we could not audit all of them (we’re solely human), we did wish to perceive the techniques utilized by the prime podcasts in the enterprise class. So, we did an audit.

We evaluated 20 high-performing enterprise podcasts and gained 5 insights.

• Male Voices: 87% of the hosts had been male.
• News & Commentary: 18 out of 20 podcasts supplied commentary on business information.
• Broadcast Communications: Very few reveals used viewers engagement techniques to attach the viewers with the hosts.
• Business & Academic: The tone of the reveals was lackluster and plenty of used jargon.

This audit gave us the context to outline our technique.

How would our present be higher and completely different?

• Diverse Voices: A dedication to various voices throughout hosts and visitors.
• Research & Stories: Focusing editorially on related tales with added depth.
• Audience Engagement: Featuring our hosts and implementing techniques to interact the viewers on social media.
• Business & Entertainment: We do not should be boring and retro to speak enterprise.

These turned our editorial tips for the remainder of the present.

Deciding on the Show Format

Next, we set our present format.

There are just a few frequent podcast codecs which have the skill to develop an viewers.

• Interview: A present kind that brings on an skilled visitor for a Q&A.
• Chat Cast: A co-hosted format the place hosts present commentary and criticism on a wide range of matters.
• Debate: A co-hosted format the place hosts take one aspect of the argument. Debating the info, figures, and opinions on a given matter.
• Narrative: A journalistic-style podcast that features analysis, scripts, and a robust storyline.

After exploring numerous codecs, we went with a hybrid format — Chat Cast + Interview.

Bringing collectively the power of a chat solid with the experience of an interview.

Sample Episode matter: Why Is Every Company Suddenly A Media Company
Segment 1: The Context	In the opening phase, our co-hosts will present context and discuss by some enjoyable info and stats about the episode matter Ex.) HubSpot acquired The Hustle
Segment 2: The Debate / Discuss	In this phase, we’ll give our hosts a sequence of questions on the matter and questions we’re that includes for some off-the-cuff opinions on each. Ex.) Should extra SaaS firms observe go well with? What occurs to media firms if all firms are media firms?
Segment 3: The Interview	In this phase, we’ll carry on the enterprise chief of the firm/matter we’re discussing to get the actual story behind the resolution and the different selections which have made them profitable. Ex.) Kipp Bodnar about the Hustle Acquisition

Finally, we had to determine how we had been going to make this factor.  

Your Podcast Team

To construct a high-quality podcast, it is advisable to put money into a staff.

There are numerous issues that must occur in the making of a present. We have damaged down these obligations into eight core roles, however there are sometimes groups of rather more, and there are additionally groups of a lot much less who’re doing 3-4 jobs every:

1. Executive Producer — The showrunner. Head of operations, creates a imaginative and prescient for the total present, leads pre-production by post-production, and manages the employees and logistics.
2. Senior Producer — Establishes content material and narrative arc for every episode, writes and edits the scripts, coaches the host, manages the manufacturing calendar, analysis, prep; in addition to produce interviews, tape edits, and does preliminary sound design.
3. Producer — Booking, analysis, interview prep, transcriptions, edits tape, creates outlines, and works on scripts.
4. Editor — Oversees the growth of story concepts and offers essential suggestions on story frameworks and scripts.
5. Host — Storyteller who shapes the present by their editorial selections and character. They put together for interviews and write / edit scripts.
6. Managing Producer —New podcast growth and builds administration processes/paths crucial for a profitable program.
7. Engineer —The first and remaining cease in the manufacturing course of. Creates the soundscape for the present by modifying and mastering audio to create a seamless listening expertise.
8. Editorial Director — Shapes the imaginative and prescient and leads all planning and execution for podcasts. Drives the artistic conception from ideation to execution. Collaborates with firm leaders on distribution.

This record doesn’t embrace the of us concerned exterior of podcast creation, together with the artistic staff concerned with making promotional belongings, the person accountable for the communication plan of the present, and extra.

Another layer of issue right here is the resolution of whether or not to construct a staff in-house or search for a podcast manufacturing company that may fill these roles for you.

Resourcing was one in all the greatest challenges in the creation of The Shake Up. We’ll allow you to behind the scenes on a few of our selections:

1. Internal or exterior expertise for hosts: A number will make or break a podcast. Simple as that. They can both draw an viewers in or push them away. We had a really particular imaginative and prescient for the hosts of our present and for that cause, we selected to steer an exterior search for expertise. We selected Alexis and Brianne due to their mixture of dynamism and expertise, amongst different issues.
2. Hire a sound engineer or herald an company: Engineers excellent the sound of your present. Because of the high quality of sound we wished for this present, we determined to usher in an company due to the heavy experience of their staff and the sources they’ve for the job.

We had been additionally fortunate sufficient to have a Senior Producer, Matthew Brown, on employees, who has gained awards for earlier reveals like The Growth Show.

So when you’re trying to put money into a staff to create podcasts, use this record as a place to begin to realize an understanding of the completely different shifting components, and punctiliously contemplate the resolution of hiring for these roles, or bringing in some exterior assist.

But the record is simply a place to begin, and if there’s something that we are able to advocate about podcast creation, it is the quote from Lao Tzu, “There is no greater danger than underestimating your opponent.” And your opponent, on this case, is the quantity of labor concerned in making a present.

Invest in the sources to do it proper, and perceive that it takes a village.

What Are You Waiting For?

Podcasts aren’t a brand new medium, however they’re having a second.

• Spotify has heavily invested in the podcast portion of their platform, hanging unique offers with podcasts like The Joe Rogan Experience, and designing a complete rehaul of the podcast UI.
• Statista predicts the business can have a CAGR of 17%, reaching 164 million listeners in the US by 2023.
• Apple, to not be outdone, is having a bet on podcast subscriptions.

Will podcast advertising and marketing develop into as customary as content material advertising and marketing? Will having a podcast develop into as ubiquitous as having a weblog?

Time will inform, but it surely’s clear that that is the “wave” that many podcasters predicted.

At HubSpot, we’ve chosen to speculate closely in media going ahead, and podcasts are a big a part of that technique. The HubSpot Podcast Network and The Shake Up are the first components of that.

If, after studying this, you select to put money into building one, here’s a guidelines you need to observe:

1. Define your viewers and their downside.
2. Decide if a podcast is an efficient medium to offer an answer to that downside.
3. Audit the podcasts in your goal area, determine how one can be higher and completely different.
4. Propose the theme and format of your present.
5. Build a podcast staff: host, producer, sound engineer.
6. You’re off to the races.

We are extremely happy with the laborious work that went into launching The Shake Up. Listen to it right here in your favourite podcast platform.