Today I am talking to Leslie and she's here with me in the studio here at Red eval HQ and a boy. We're going to talk about our experience so far doing podcasts, because some people listening to this will be thinking about starting a podcast. I guess they're wondering why they should do it.
In terms of motivation, I think it's personal to each person and each business. It's a great way to network. You could start a podcast, of course, to reach new audiences, to strengthen your authority by sharing tips and your experience. And it's a way of maybe repurposing your content. And I think what is great with Digital Marketing From The Coalface is that people actually get to discover their team.
Yeah, that's right. I think it does, doesn't it? It helps. It helps us. Or it's helping us let people hear what we're really about. Okay. We're back with Digital Marketing From The Coalface podcast. And today it's a bit different because I am talking to Leslie.
Hello.
Hello, Leslie. And she's here with me at in the studio here at Red bull HQ in Aboyne. And we're going to talk about our experience so far doing podcasts. Now, Leslie's been doing podcasts, producing podcasts for quite some time and has done all the production work, post-production work and everything on the From the Coalface podcast. So we thought it would be good for Leslie to come in and we could have a chat about what we've learned and past experiences and maybe just give people a heads up. I mean, because we're quite new to it or I'm quite new to producing a podcast. So really, if we can be of any use to anybody listening and help them, if they're thinking of doing it, like wondering why they should do it, etc., then then that makes sense. So bear with us. We'll see where this one goes. And to kick things off, I think, Leslie, you were going to talk a little bit about your previous experience in podcast land.
I think that's interesting to start by saying that, um, I'm like a video professional if I can say that. So, um, like video video is my media is my, my preferred media or medium maybe. And, uh, but it was naturally that I came to podcasting. I'm actually not a big listener of podcasts. There's one I tended to listen when I commuted in France. And that's an interesting thing because that's the moment when I actually took time to pause and listen to interesting topics, feminist topics, uh, for this, this one in particular. But anyway, uh, so I went to podcast naturally because it was about recording and editing. Only the the sound and not the image. And when I started my freelancer company, if I can say that a sole trader business, I was thinking about a fun way to. Meet potential customers. And the way I wanted to do that was to, um, put them forward. And so I would contact them first and suggest that, uh, I was interested in what they were doing because I was targeting people from around my community in France. So, uh, local, I don't know, um.
Business people.
Tea houses or tea houses. Yes. This kind of thing or um, brewers as well. Uh, I've interviewed, interviewed, sorry, brewers in Versailles, which, uh, who sorry, I just started their business and it was so interesting discovering their stories and, and just, um, you know, building relationships, relationships are linked with them. Uh, but then I moved to Scotland, so I didn't actually carry it on after a few episodes, but, um, that's how I experimented with it. And I had a lot of fun. It was called les Petites D'adresse because I wanted to just also propose these, um, people having their business, uh, anchored in a territory to be able to have an audience. And I know that would be people who had stories to share and, um, like people living around there would be very happy to listen to sad stories. Anyway, I hope I'm not rambling too much.
So rambling at all. No.
Um, that's how I came to it and I just realised that it was quite simple and, um, inexpensive to You produce? Yeah. Um, if I had to give you, uh, like a budget for what I, uh, the expense I, I, I made sorry, I just bought, um, one hundred and eighty euros. So that would be a bit.
About one hundred and fifty pounds or something.
Yeah, something like that for, for my mic, which is like, it's fantastic. Um, I can bring it everywhere and um, that I still use it now and then you just, you have open source software available like audacity that I use that with a lot of tutorials available, uh, to, to master it. So it's free. Um, so you can, you can also record directly from your computer, even though the quality might not be as good as you expect, but still, if you have something to say anyway, and someone is here to listen to it, still make sure that you have a good quality recording.
Yeah, yeah, I agree because I, I sometimes listen to podcasts that I'm really interested in, and the sound quality is so poor that I can't. I even, even if it's really good, I mean, I really struggle to keep listening to it. I just abandon because. And it's a real shame because it's not that hard, is it, to get reasonable, good quality, reasonably good quality.
Yeah. As, as long as you're in a quiet environment and, uh, you don't have spikes in your recording that, uh, you don't have too much grain or noises and this kind of thing. Um, if I mean, you don't have to buy a super expensive mic to start. We did. Yes. And it's fantastic. Actually, when I did, yeah, I did it. It's just make my life so easier. But um, but yeah, if, if you want to start, and I mean it for everything that you want to start in life, at first you're going probably to fail, which is fine. Um, but just start trying and yeah. And well and experiment with it. And if you have something to say, maybe just yeah, have a go for it.
But if you're I mean, I don't know if, if, if, uh, women and guys are different, but, uh, I'm a guy who likes to buy kits. I like to buy stuff, whether it's to for some sporting thing like golf or fishing. And so one of the exciting things for me about podcasting was buying that kit that's on the desk in front of us, buying the little desk and buying the cloudlifter and buying the posh microphones and everything. I loved setting all that up. It was.
Great.
Well, you know, we were fortunate enough to have the money to do it. But you're right, you don't need to spend a lot of money on expensive microphones and things, but.
If.
You're buying kit, it's good fun.
Yeah, exactly. If you can, it's just more enjoyable.
That's right. Definitely. When we touched on earlier, before we started recording about how popular podcasts have become, and it's really it's changing almost by the week, isn't it, as more and more people. I mean, I think do you think lockdown played into it? Because I think during lockdown, a lot of entertainment professionals were suddenly not going to studios. They didn't have the work. And so they started doing podcasts and realised, I mean, I listened to one by a comedian called Geoff Norcott, who's it's a really great podcast. He's on episode one hundred and twelve or something, and he started it during lockdown and he's just kept it going. And it's fab. It's really, really enjoyable. I mean, so I don't know, I think I do think Covid played a big part in that. But I mean, what do we even though they're popular and, and it's a maybe what we might call a noisy marketplace, do you think there's still plenty of room for people to start podcasts?
I would be actually interesting to see in which direction this medium will go because of course, yeah, of course there are like, um, lots and lots of podcasts available out there now, as I told you earlier today we're nearing one million and I'm not even sure it's just English speaking podcast, you know?
Yeah, there are lots I think there's I think it's a lot more than that if you include all podcasts.
So there's a lot, there's a lot of podcasts available out there. But I think there's also, I mean, the format, there's so many formats to discover yet, you know what I mean? Yeah. It's like cinema at the beginning was this thing and then it evolved in so many things, culturally speaking. And then, um, it was because big cinema theaters opened and then Hollywood studio just, uh, just reinvented the way we could mass produce film and this kind of thing. And then now we just mostly watch films at home because it's more convenient and less expensive maybe. Um, podcast. Um, I mean, first we listen to radio show and then, um, recording materials became more available and less expensive, so we were able to use them for our own. We didn't have to be in a professional setting to record something that would be enjoyable to listen to.
That's right.
Yeah. Um, and it's just easier to share as well because before you could only go through the radio channels to actually broadcast what you wanted to say. And now there is the internet. And I think that I think I've looked up, um, like, um, médiamétrie it's a French kind of media that measures like percentages of this or that. And I've, I've looked that up and sixty percent of people actually listen to podcasts on their smartphone. So the fact that smartphones exist also allowed for podcasts to boom and boom, I guess, and Covid happens. And then that's another cultural effect. And, uh, yeah, people actually started recording podcasts at home, be they professional or not professional. They needed to share different things. They needed to I mean, professional needed to reinvent the way they entertained, as you said, because studio workloads, etc., and just non-professional people maybe wanted to connect with other people as well out there. So that would be interesting to have the, uh, you know, the just take a step back at some point because we, we don't have enough distance between when Covid happened and now because we're still in it. But yeah, that would be interesting to see what happens and how the format will evolve and yeah, how we will experiment with them. Yeah. So yeah, to answer your question, sorry, I guess there are still a lot of there's room.
Opportunity.
There's opportunities. You need to find your audience, of course. Um, so that's what we discussed during the meeting actually earlier today. It's the same for video and for everything and for podcast as well. You have to maybe think about a strategy first, or if the strategy comes up after you started your podcast, why not? But, um, you have to keep in mind who you want your podcast to be addressed to, particularly if you want it to be a professional podcast and not personal podcast as well.
I mean, we decided we wanted to create something that was going to be useful to people who were interested in or wanted or even needed to know about digital marketing. You know, like we've, we've touched on subjects like what it costs. We've touched on some of the technical aspects, some of the software that we use, really trying to demystify it. And we did it because that's one side of our business that we really enjoy helping people understand what it is we do, but more importantly, how what we do can help them grow their business. So that was all that motivated us really.
Mhm. So there's this thing we talked about that you could start a podcast, of course, to reach new audiences. Uh, you know, people listening to podcasts, but not maybe watching videos on social media or videos at all, or a reading blog posts. And it's a way of maybe repurposing your content. Like if Alex writes a blog post and you want to record a podcast out of it or the other way around, that's what he's currently doing. It's a great way to just have more possibility of content available. Also, it's really important to stress that, um, some people are visually impaired and it's just super. I mean, you have on blog, I mean, on the internet, the possibility to have an eye reading blog post as well. But I think it's important to have as much types of medium media available because, um, just people just access the way they like it or the way they need to access content is different.
The, you know, spoken word is their main use of media. It's the thing that they use the most for obvious reasons. Um, so I think we're really getting into the motives or our motives were to share our enjoyment of what it is that we do. And do you think that, I mean, can you do a successful podcast if you're purely motivated by trying to sell to somebody or trying to create something that's commercial, that's got commercial value, you know, through sponsorship or something? I mean, there are different motivations, but what what do you think is a, is a, what do you think's got the most chance of success when it comes to motivation? Because some people listening to this will be thinking about starting a podcast, and I guess they're wondering why they should do it. We kind of didn't think too much about why we should do it. We all, a lot of us enjoy listening to podcasts. And we wanted to share, you know, as I've said, our enjoyment of what it is we do to try and demystify experiment. Yeah. That's right. It's and, and you're right, it might some people listening to the podcast might think, yeah, I kind of kind of like the way these guys talk. I might get in touch with them because we're interested in working with them. Perhaps that might happen. But if it doesn't, it's no tragedy.
Well, I think what is great with Digital Marketing From The Coalface as I told you earlier, it allows you to help people solve problems. It allows you to strengthen your authority by sharing tips and your experience. But I think that's something we didn't talk about is it allows people to connect to the character that you are and you are a character, you know what I mean? But in a positive way.
In a positive.
Way. Yeah.
She added on quickly.
But, um, and I think it's very important, particularly in this business, I guess, uh, the customer that read evolution has, um, they're here because the team does a great job, but they also have a feeling a relationship with you. And, and it's just listening to someone speaking the way they would speak to you. Maybe, uh, discuss a topic that interests you is, is really a plus. And I think people actually get to discover their team.
Yeah. That's right. I think it does, doesn't it? It helps, it helps us. Or it's helping us let people see or listen, hear what we're really about, what makes us tick. Because, you know, behind every business there are people, people often talk, um, in the business to business world. And we are primarily a business to business agency. Um, they often talk about marketing to businesses, but you know, you're not really, you're marketing to people just like you are in business to consumer, aren't you? I mean, behind every corporation, every business, there are just people living their lives and trying to live their best life. And I think it is nice to be able to let people hear. I mean, they might listen to some of these podcasts and think, oh, I wouldn't like to work with those guys. You know, he sounds common. That man, he's got he's got a Northern English accent. He sounds common. I don't want to work with him, but.
You know, it means you avoid each other. A lot of unnecessary trouble. Better than before, then. Uh, but yeah, I totally get what you mean. And, um, and the fact that you also work with people who actually built their company.
Yeah.
That's right. So yeah, it's important to know them. And to further answer your question in terms of motivation, I guess. Um, I think it's personal to each person and each business. Um, but I believe that of course as a business, you would always want to sell something that would be, but I mean that Digital Marketing From The Coalface is also that it's just that you do it in a very subtle way. And for me, you really I mean, it's not an ad, but what you can do is it's, it's a great way to network, for example, with the guests that you had, um, so far and that you will, you will welcome here. Um, and, uh, the fact that you can, uh, cross, uh, produce podcast maybe at some point if there's another, um, digital marketing company doing maybe something entirely different that could discuss with you about certain topics.
Well, on that subject, I mean, we are if there are anybody who works in another digital marketing agency and they'd like to come on to the From the Coalface podcast and talk about some aspects of digital marketing, um, including plugging their agency. Uh, then please get in touch because we really want that to happen. We don't want this just to be what red evolution think about the world. I mean, as you've said, we've had some guests on already and we've got more guests planned. Um, but yeah, we'd love to have people from other digital marketing agencies on come on the podcast. Definitely.
And, um, also I would like to come back to, uh, the, maybe the motivations for, I mean, at the beginning of, uh, digital marketing from the coalface. And that might not be a motivation that was there at first, but I guess you realised that it was also a way here discussing with your colleague or with guests in a way you wouldn't have in any other setting that it feeds you.
Yes.
You know, it feeds your work. And, um, and I don't have any other word than say that it's the meiotic by Aristotle, if I'm not mistaken. Sorry about that. If someone knows more about it than me. But actually speaking about something that you were thinking of, but articulating it allows you to, uh, give birth to new ideas, new collaborations, and these kind of things. So actually, speech is just important. Mhm. Um, and you might just think about something for so long, but not speaking, it will not allow you to actively work on that. And I think, do you think that's for you?
That's something that yeah, for me, it's been I mean, I've predominantly either interviewed people or from outside read evolution. I think we've had three or four guests on now, but predominantly it's Alex and I or Julie and I, or sometimes Julie and Alex and me. Um, and now it's you and me and this conversation that we're having now to record this podcast might not be a conversation we would have had if we weren't recording a podcast. So this is like me getting to see what makes you tick. And certainly I've got to understand much more what makes Alex tick and Julie sharing her, um, her back, her, her story, uh, you know, because she's from a marketing background. Julie's a chartered marketing has been in marketing for a long time and it's been fascinating. I've found myself recording podcasts and I always enjoy it, but also learning and, and I guess if you can get that, then the people listening are maybe going to buy in more because I'm not just on a podcast talking to people like a robot and telling them all about digital marketing, they're listening to, to people have a conversation and humans like that, don't we? I mean, you won't remember partly because you're too young, but but also because you're from France, but you won't remember, um, a talk show host in this country, Michael Parkinson, who's, who's still around, but he doesn't do his talk show anymore. And he interviewed all the greats, Frank Sinatra, um, he, he, he interviewed Muhammad Ali. Um, the list, the list goes on and on. He was a Saturday night talk show host, hugely popular. And people enjoy listening to other people interview and have conversations, not because their life is boring or anything, but it's just nice to get a window on somebody else's life.
Exactly.
And yeah, I mean, I think with the podcast, you get to going back to something you said earlier, you get to see what makes people tick and you listen to their story, or you turn it off if you're not interested. But that is a really positive thing. I think in a business context, I do. I really think that.
Mhm. Yeah, definitely. You're definitely aiming at sharing something. You're going to to talk about what you can offer. You're going to talk about your, um, your history, the history of your business. And it's going to just give your listeners more trust and confidence in your brand. And, but it's also, it will also bring you something. Yeah. Um, and.
Is it possible to get too self-indulgent? I mean, have you ever listened to a podcast? And it's just like, oh, this is just, oh.
But there's a risk. Uh, that doesn't mean that, um, I mean, you can't please everyone and there will always be listeners or viewers in the case of videos or and I mean, who any audience member that don't like what you do and you don't, I mean, you have to be careful, of course, because, uh, being too much self-indulgent, um, I mean, is going to be like a bit heavy on the long run, I guess, for people to listen to. Uh, but, uh, I mean.
How do you decide what to talk about? I mean, for us, it's been easy because we, we find the subject digital marketing fascinating. And that's what our business is built around. Um, I guess there may be some businesses who might think that there isn't enough to talk about to do a podcast. Um, I guess that might be possible that they might do? I don't know, four or five episodes and then start. We've got a huge long list of podcasts that we want to do, and that's. And we keep adding to that list. Is it is it possible that you could run out of ideas really quickly? And, you know, because I believe a lot of podcasts do fail. They start with a with a big bang and a fanfare. And then for four or five podcasts in and then suddenly it's three months before. I mean, and this is very like we spoke earlier about blogs and things and content marketing website content. It's very much the same with websites. People start a blog, there's a post a week for the first few weeks, then it's once a month, then it's once every six months. Then it's, oh my goodness, we haven't put a post up for six months. Yeah. So because I've got a note here in my kind of things to talk about and keep going, you know, you've got to just keep going. I mean we're not having any issues keeping going. And I can hear people going, no, we get that Dave. Yeah. We're kind of bored. But, um, I suppose it's possible that you need to be careful. You don't want to paint yourself into a corner. If you're thinking as you as a business owner, you're thinking, yeah, we'll do our own podcast. You've got to make it broad. We've called ours Digital Marketing From The Coalface, but already we've expanded that out to really talk about how to grow a business using digital marketing and talking about aspects of growing a business that are not necessarily digital marketing, like sales and business development and so on.
There's so many things to say about what you just said. Um, so I guess the first we can go back to what we said at the very beginning of this podcast is that if you have something to say, you can start a podcast and see where it leads you. And maybe the fact that you are doing something, recording something, uh, will just, you know, keep things rolling and you will maybe change entirely the name of your podcast or the topic of your podcast at some point, but if you realise that you have nothing to say, then maybe podcast is not the right aim medium.
Maybe you're in the wrong business.
Or you're in the wrong business. Uh, definitely. But, um, I really think that it's a matter of also like a character, for example, with my podcast, um, there was no way at all that I no way at all that I wanted to speak about myself and my, my journey as a freelancer, even though I could have, you know, but I wanted to put forward people who inspire me. And even though it was also with the desire to connect with them and maybe just start business with them, um, it was just more natural for me. And so for me, it was endless. Yeah. I could have had, um, contacted a lot of different persons and, and listen to their stories and getting inspired and these kind of things. Um, But there's always a way. What I want to aim for with what I'm saying is that, um, maybe just change the format of your podcast. If you run out of resources to tell about yourself or your business, maybe let your customer speak. Yeah. Or, um, I don't know. Um, I really, it's worth thinking about because I don't have any other ideas right now, but I'm pretty sure I mean, invite other guests. Um, um, yes, do this crossover with other podcasts, try to draw inspiration from other people as well. But it's just that maybe it's time to stop focusing on yourself so much.
Yeah. So maybe it's worth spending a bit of time on the strategy, um, behind your podcast. What are you trying to achieve with it? And if you do a good job on that, then you will probably start the podcast, uh, giving it a title, giving it a general subject, a genre, if you like, that isn't going to be limiting. So if you're in a, in a, in a line of work where talking purely about the products that you produce or the services that you provide might, it's very rarely the case, but might be limiting. Then you need to start the podcast with a broader remit. Perhaps that might be the way forward.
Yeah. When I think about, um, the podcast we, we worked on as an experiment, experimentation, um, and, um, the person focused on the early history of their business and, um, uh, what they were working on, uh, according to the different, uh, you know, decades and this kind of thing. If this person ran out of, um, ideas regarding their business, they could maybe just focus on what, um, just fascinate them in the history. I'm talking about cars, the history of cars, for example, or, uh, you know, uh, they're also attending events and races and this kind of thing. And they could also share this aspect of their work and not only try to promote their services at all costs, because it's still promoting in the end, because you're talking about what you do. And I think that, you know, having a peek at behind the curtains and, uh, what are what, what do the human behind the, the business do and see how passionate they are? Um, it can be also very, very interesting to explore. And what I want to say as well is that if you want to change the format of your podcast, um, I mean, it's living matter, you know, it's normal to, for, for it to change and you don't have to be stuck on the fact that it has to look like this and it has to stay like this forever, etc.. Because I mean, creativity is is just a free thing. You can't harness it. And, um, and you might end up with something entirely different from the idea you had at the beginning. But in the end, if you find your audience.
Yeah. Yeah. So it's a kind of organic thing, isn't it? I mean, don't worry too much about where it's going. Give it some thought, have a general direction, but be prepared to go with the flow. Yeah. Bend a little bit. Listen to what people are telling you. And I mean, you can look at the stats for example, and you can see, well, we thought this would be really popular and nobody's downloaded it. Nobody's listened to it. Whereas this one where we had the guest on and everybody's listened to it and really liked that. So maybe that gives you the clue.
You have also to be attentive to the reaction that you get from what you do and not only be focused on, on, um, you know, the, sometimes you have to force yourself to maybe do a podcast episode on a topic that maybe is not very interesting to you, but you feel that you have an audience for that.
And, you know, the nice thing about podcasts, just to that point is the last but one podcast was about digital marketing costs. And I decided that I would do that myself because we'd had a go at it, and we weren't that happy when Alex and I discussed it, and we were going to have another go at it, and I thought, I'll try to do it myself. That podcast lasted fifteen minutes, and the nice thing about the format is it's not like a TV show or a radio show where we have to produce a thirty minute programme, and it's rigid. Talk about the.
Subject.
I mean, today we didn't really know where this was going to go, and we might have decided fifteen minutes in we were looking at each other thinking nothing else to say. And that's fine. That's that's that's perfectly fine. Um, so I think the, the beauty of the format is exactly what you say. Go with it, see where it goes. If it's not working, change it a little bit. Don't worry about how long it is. Get other people on. And if you think about the questions that your customers ask you, then it's you've almost got a limitless supply of ideas because there's always something else. No matter how long you've been in business, a customer will come along and ask a question that you haven't been asked before. Well, there's a subject right there. We say the same to people who are struggling, um, to think about what to write, um, with their, with their blogs and, you know, their website content or case studies, but blogs mainly, you know, listen to your customers and answer the questions that they're asking you.
Yeah. And when actually doing a podcast, engage your audience and just as you, as you did in the last episode, um, just ask questions and ask people can also, they are actually going to forward you the link. There are tools available where people can record from their computer, uh, questions and then send it to you via email. So you have.
Yeah. On from the coalface. There's a voicemail option so they can click the little microphone. They can send us. They can ask a question. And then we could include that soundbite in, in the podcast as well. Or if they wanted to remain anonymous, we can just discuss the question that they've asked, as we did in the, uh, in the costs one.
Yeah. But if you engage your audience and just ask for them, because sometimes you just don't realise that this topic, uh, someone needs an answer about it. You don't even think about it either because it's natural for you and you know it. And there's no silly question or, uh, it's just something you never wondered. But actually that's interesting to, uh, focus on because, um, actually you might not have the answer yourself. So you are going to do a bit of research and maybe you're going to ask specialist guests or even other, um, audience member to give their input about it. So I think, yeah, if you're really stuck, it's really that you really have nothing to say and you're not interested in what other people can bring you because there's I mean, yes, it's limitless.
That takes me on to something which which is really interesting. Um, in my opinion. Anyway, um, and that's when you record podcasts or videos for that matter. Um, if you're not acting, if it's not like a sure. Um, you know, if it's, if it's for real, like these are, you are kind of giving people, um, a window on your thoughts, the way you view the world. And some people are nervous about that, aren't they? They're nervous of giving away too much. Um, and I can understand why people might be a bit stilted when they come to record these podcasts. So you need to be prepared for hopefully positive feedback. But maybe sometimes you're going to say some stuff and people are going to take exception to it and they're going to be they're going to come and challenge you. Um, and you just like with businesses in social media, if somebody comes on social media and challenges you, it's better to engage with them than pretend that they're not there and hope they go away, isn't it? So there is that element, I think, which is again, something I enjoy, but I can understand why others wouldn't enjoy it of kind of sort of exposing something about yourself that maybe you hadn't intended to. Almost.
Yes. And that's very interesting. Um, that resonates on a personal level for me because I was afraid for so long to put myself out there, for example, with my business and, you know, and put myself forward and, and post maybe photos of me working in this kind of thing. Because maybe that's not the way I, I like to advertise for myself, but actually it was because I needed to grow on this aspect. And it's very important to know that, um, it takes courage to to decide to get out there and be visible and available. Uh, maybe one format would be preferable over another, but, um, I forgot what I.
Approach one of our long time customers, um, um, David O'Brien and he's, he's such an interesting guy, fascinating guy to talk to. I've met him once I went over to Dublin and caught up with him. He's based in Ireland and he's a journalist and he's a great communicator. And I approached him just a couple of days ago and I said, David, I'd like to get you on the show. I hope he's listening to this. And his reaction was, I was really surprised. He was like, oh my goodness. You know, like, I find that prospect terrifying and, and nobody will be interested in what I've got to say. And, and I was really taken aback. I thought he would be. Oh, yeah, I'd love to. I'd love to do that. Yeah, yeah. Get me on, get me on. I think we will get him on because he's, he's been on a really interesting digital journey, and I'd love him to come on and share some of his story with people, because I think they'd find it really interesting. But that really surprised me. Um, whereas most people that we've approached about coming on, uh, have been, you know, a really in, in instant. Yeah, yeah, I'd love to, I'd love to do that sort of thing, you know? So yeah, it is interesting. It's very interesting what motivates people to open themselves up, or maybe the fear that people have of, of opening themselves up.
Mhm, mhm. I'm pretty convinced that convinced sorry, that, um, everyone would love to share their stories. Um, not saying that everyone, I mean, I'm not talking about vanity at all. It's just that you, you like to share your stories because also you receive at the same time because you have feedback, particularly in the discussion, but some people are just more shy or it's just terrifying to have a mic like that pointed at you. And or hearing your voice is something that is very difficult for most people. But yeah. Interesting. Regarding his profile. Yes. I wouldn't expect that from him.
No that's right. Yeah. Um, and like I say, I think he'll be a great guest if we persuade him to. Come on. Mhm. Okay. Um, just some of the, the, the more mundane stuff, if you like. I mean, ah, the tech stack that we've got for recording. So right now we've got, um, a couple of Shure microphones going into an SSL two desk through a cloudlifter into the back of an iMac. And we're using, um, GarageBand to record this, which is if you buy a Mac, you get GarageBand free. I know that you prefer when you do the Mixdowns and things to use audacity, I think, don't you, which is an open.
Source software which I played.
With in the past. Um, and then if we've got remote guests who are not in the studio with us, then we use a tool called Zencaster, which is we found you quite happy with it from the tech side. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, it's quite nice.
Yeah. It's not expensive. And what it does, it's a little bit like Zoom, except it will record everybody on a separate track, which lets Leslie do her magic. And once that sounds been imported into the software.
Exactly. And you can see them as well.
Yeah, you can, you can, you can record the video if you want to. We don't record the video. We just record the sound at the moment. Um, but that's, that's kind of about it. Or the only other thing is we looked around for somewhere to host our podcast and chose libsyn, which has been around for a long time. The reason I chose it is I looked at one of my favorite podcasts. Um, it's the, I think it's called the Digital Marketing podcast by the guys at Target Internet. I'm a huge fan of that podcast. It's really good. So we looked at it and I just looked at what they were using and they were using libsyn because I hadn't when I'd done the, you know, top ten podcast host and it wasn't even listed anywhere. I thought, well, I wonder what those guys are using because their podcasts are really nicely produced. So we use libsyn again, which isn't expensive, and that's where we put them all. But I think really that's about it. There was no massive investment other than we decided to buy some decent kit.
Yeah, you have to just, I guess, streamline as much as possible the production of your podcast. Um, actually we actually didn't talk about that, but as we discussed earlier, yeah. Um, one third of podcast production should be dedicated to promoting the podcast. Yes. To find your audience. So it has, there's so many different platforms available, uh, out there where you podcast episodes should be including Google Podcasts, even though that might not be the preferred platform, uh, by listeners, but it's just a tool that references everything. And so it's just allows you to be just found. Yeah. Uh, so libsyn allows to just streamline and you just post an episode, uh, you, you enter the description and the titles and the visuals. And there are many other things that you should do as well that I don't know about, but you just schedule it and then it's out there on so many platforms and it's just easier. It is this way, but you just have to be organised.
Yeah. That's right. I mean, that stuff was a mystery to us. And a week later it felt like we'd been doing it forever. Yeah. It really wasn't complicated at all.
Hey, doing without that, it would be just so tedious because you would have to manually upload on different platforms your podcast episode, and it wouldn't be as optimised as it would if you went through libsyn, for example.
There are other tools that do the same.
Yeah.
Of course. But yeah, we certainly chose that one and we've been very pleased with it.
So that's worth looking into it. And it's maybe not the thing that interests you most in the podcast production side. That's why maybe it's interesting to go through an agency which has these tips and tricks.
Was that an advert that sounded like an advert?
Maybe. Maybe I.
Was. Yeah. One of the reasons we've done this is we we definitely wanted, as we always do, to experiment with on our own dollar. So we've gone through the whole process of creating this podcast and learning about what we should and shouldn't do and everything else. And yeah, we've done it in parts so that we can provide a service to our customers who want also to do a podcast. And we are about to start another podcast for a customer. Um, so, you know, I think, you know, full disclosure, that's probably one of the reasons that we've, that we've done this. Um, but I think that's the right thing to do, you know, not to kind of get a client to pay you to figure it all out. We've figured it all out on our own dollar, I think. And I, and now I feel really confident about offering it as a service to some of our customers, all of our customers.
Part of the job is making the life of the customers easier. And also, uh, Digital Marketing From The Coalface as it exists now would be entirely different if you were doing it on your own without Alex or me editing, or me doing it alone. Without you guys, I wouldn't be able to just plan about all these interesting topics. I'm learning a lot actually, while editing the podcast, so it's a teamwork as well. And if you want to be as rich as possible, I guess having as many brains and hands on it as possible.
Yeah, yeah. That's because obviously for us, my only input has been to do the recordings, which I then hand off to you and you work your magic with them and put the music on and all the rest of it. Um, Diana has done all of the design work and she produces like the episode specific tiles for when we have guests on and things like that. Um, all of this stuff. If I decided I'm going to do it myself, I mean, yeah, we'd be on episode two maybe now instead of episode eighteen, you know? So yeah, it definitely getting that machine, you know, Well oiled, or rather, using that well-oiled machine to do all of the stuff that's required to produce what we think, anyway is a pretty polished podcast. Yeah, I know that some of the feedback I've had, um, I was talking to somebody, somebody and they were saying like, you know, the way that you've gone about this, the way you've done this is great. I've looked at other stuff and, you know, and it really isn't that great compared to what you guys have done because we've, we just want to do it properly, you know, because it is, it is although we've done it on from the coalface dot com, we've kept it as a separate thing to read evolution. I mean, it's got our brand all over it. I mean, it is it's very much our thing. So you know, we want it to be as good as we can make it.
Yeah.
Um, one of the things, I mean, I think you're recording this on your camera aren't you? So we're going to have like, I think this whole podcast will be on video if we, if we wanted to. So, uh, whether we just use bits of it or whether we use the whole thing, who knows? But, um, we're certainly putting it onto YouTube as well as the syndication through the libsyn platform. And we've done that because we know that people often use YouTube for podcasts. You know, it doesn't have to be video kind of thing.
Yeah.
Actually, um, yeah, I've, I've got this input from people working with podcast producers like platform such as OSHA and this kind of thing. And, um, they say that it's important to just have a visibility on YouTube because sometimes people won't be listening to podcasts on podcast platforms, but they will be using YouTube for many, many things, including tutorials and sometimes very poorly made video. Anyway, um, if you do, if you don't have a video recording of your podcast, but you put even a background image or a visualiser, but something detailed, hopefully ideally subtitles, but it's very difficult to subtitle an hour long episode podcast. I mean, you.
Can use a tool. We've used a tool called rev dot com for doing transcripts and, and for doing titles for videos and things in the past. But yeah, I mean, it would add to the cost of it. It's around about a couple of dollars a minute, I think, to get the thing done.
And also, by the way, maybe then Castor don't do that. But there are platforms out there that generate automatically videos for YouTube. Yeah. Not necessarily video of yourself, but maybe a visualiser.
Like, sure.
The voice visualiser that I use rather than just spend time on After Effects, it's just will be less looking like your brand. But you know, I think it's still important to be visible as much as possible. So if you can be on YouTube, even though you have, I don't know, twenty views there.
Mhm. Yeah. I was just thinking about that because one of the last things I was going to bring up was you can do all this work, and it's possible to be quite disheartened as it is with any sort of content production that you do for the business, whether it's blog posts or podcasts. And although our listener downloads, I'm really pleased with how that's going. We're well into the hundreds and that's great. Um, that can be a bit disheartening, isn't it? You put a lot of work in and then you go and look at the stats and you think, oh well, you know, four people have listened to it. And that my view is kind of don't worry about that too much. Otherwise you could quite quickly decide to stop doing it because all of this content that we're producing, this podcast, I mean, all things being equal, these podcasts that we're recording now will remain relevant for quite a long time and will be around for a long time. If as long as we keep paying for the hosting for them. So yep, just like we get enquiries now, um, via the website via our website. And people found the website because of a piece of content we wrote maybe five or six years ago. Then this stuff should be ultimately the gift that keeps on giving. It's helping to raise our profile and, and find new audiences, find new potential customers.
It's like anything else that you discussed with Alex so far in digital marketing and marketing in general. Um. Um, it's just a long term, um thing and project to undertake. You're not going to rate right away because there's so many podcasts out there. You have to build your community. Uh, if you don't have an existing community that would be interested in your podcast and maybe the community you have on social media wouldn't be interested in a podcast, for example. Uh, so there's this, uh, so you have to just carry on, have a strategy, uh, strategy about how, what kind of topics and you, you want to talk about what, um, the regularity also of the releasing of your episodes and also a strategy about the promotion and just analyse the, the statistics, uh, in parallel. Parallel, sorry of, uh, actually, uh, thinking about new, uh, topics as well. So it's, yeah, it's just, it's, it's work just like anything else. And you just have to be faithful and keep going. But you also have to deliver something qualitative for people to actually carry.
Of course you do. That's right.
Of course.
Absolutely.
So, yeah.
Okay. That's it. I, uh, I think this has maybe come to a natural conclusion. Yeah.
Yes.
I think we've talked about it. There'll be other, um, conversations that we'll have as our education around both creating and learning about what works with podcasting, um, develops. Um, and we'll, you know, we'll do more podcasts, I imagine, but have you pretty much covered today, everything you hope to cover?
I think so adding more things would just, yeah, add more noise to the, I mean, it's, um, I think we covered something that is very consistent and yeah, we can stop that here. Good.
So until next time. Yeah. A bientot.
Voir.