Monthly Archives: April 2020

The Why and How of B2B Podcasts – a 15 Minute Download

April 29, 2020Episodesadvertising, apple, b2b, blubrry, brand marketing, business, content marketing, dave jackson, descript, E.B. Moss, edison research, gary vee, gimlet, how-to, iHeart, journalism, marketing, media, mossappeal, podcasting, podcasts, serial, squadcast, triton, westwood one, WFHE.B. Moss

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Those tracking the uptake of podcasting, such as Triton, Edison Research and Podtrac, have encouraged advertisers to embrace the medium, especially since it hit critical mass of 100 million+ monthly listeners! But what about brands who want their OWN podcast for B2B purposes?

In 15 minutes I’ll walk you through the WHY and the HOW of creating a B2B podcast for your company. And if you’re still overwhelmed let me know and we’ll handle it all for you! Here’s the scoop and the Episode 5 topline:

Why a B2B podcast?

You have to be everywhere your customer may be, including in their ears, even if you’re speaking to a vendor, an agency or a potential new hire. “Picture a company’s most savvy seller whispering about a value proposition in the prospect’s ear”!
Humanize an executive to drive trust and transparency
Leverage the best platform for explanatory journalism!
Attract employees by painting an audio picture of the company environment, like Xandr did with their Unsponsored Content show, or provide a thought-provoking platform to spotlight divisions or clients, such as the Floor 9 podcast from IPG Media Lab does!

Caveats:

Expectations should be managed: this is a longtail marketing tactic with a limited pool of listeners
Start with the strategy! WHO do you want to have listen? WHY? WHAT with your content me? As Gimlet Managing Director, Matt Lieber, was cited, “What makes for a successful branded podcast are a lot of the things that make for a successful podcast period. If a brand wants to make a commercial that’s 20 minutes long, it will fail.”

The What:

Most B2B podcasts are interview style, except for those companies who may have a high-profile personality at the helm. (Think Gary Vee of Vayner Media!)
What informative content is endemic to your brand’s expertise? (Example: ReWork podcast on productivity, from SaaS platform Basecamp).
Recording a B2B podcast for A+E and The Knot

How will you grow your podcast to help you grow business? (Example: The Wealth Without Wall Street team invites high profile guests , like Pat Flynn, in their work wheelhouse, and appear as guests on other podcasts, too like this episode of Dave Jackson’s School of Podcasting!)

The HOW:

It starts with your microphone! There are lots of suggestions you can easily Google, but here’s a snapshot:
You might have had a studio at your offices…even an editor… but as we #WFH think bedroom! Think closet! Think where can you find sound absorption…Listen to Shelly Palmer’s advice to me and the sound difference in Epi 2 of Insider Interviews. You can record on an editing platform like Squadcast or Descript… then you’ll need to UPLOAD the audio file to a hosting site. If you want to try Blubrry use MOSSAPPEAL as your promo code for a discount, or look at Libsyn, BuzzSprout, Captivate and more.
..MARKET THYSELF! More hints and suggestions are in this 15 minute dump and download, from my experience to you.

And again, I’m here to help. If you’re in the media/marketing world with a senior executive who is guest-worthy please drop me a line or reach out on social media! If you want help creating your own podcast from scratch, happy to exec produce or host! LMK!

E.B.

The Scoop on TV Today from a Data/Research Exec’s POV

April 22, 2020Episodesaddressability, advertising, Altice, b2b, Betsy Rella, business, Charter, CNN, COVID-19, Cuomo, data, E.B. Moss, Ed Rennicker, impressions, insider interviews, interconnect, marketing, measurement, media, media planning, News, NYI, OTT, Rella, research, sales, Spectrum, targeting, television, TV, tv buyingE.B. Moss

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As VP of data and research for NYI – the ad sales interconnect in the country’s biggest DMA, Betsy Rella likes finding the stories in the numbers – the takeaways she extrapolates from surveys and data sets that NYI can use to grow the advertising business. And, at a time when the world, literally, is home and when those numbers say that New Yorkers are consuming more video than ever, that information is key. Since everyone in media/marketing is also playing catch up on their knowledge base and business insights, I asked Rella for a download on trends in consumption and a 101 on how media buys are planned and sold differently these days.

Always wanted a solid definition of “Impression-Based Buying”? You got it.

How that differs from “Holistic Media Planning”? Done. We also talked about the very definition of TV today, how media companies need to assess all the ways and places people are consuming video (and whatever they call TV), the rise of CTV (“connected TV”) and why Cuomo Prime Time is consistently topping the ratings along with all kinds of news programs.

It’s actually a little beyond a “101”, so get the “201” on today’s shifts in media buying and planning from a data and research exec who has worked at ABC, Lifetime, MTV, Weather Channel, Ispos and TiVo! Listen to the full podcast, and please subscribe wherever you love to listen (And speaking of RATINGS – a bunch of stars for Insider Interviews with E.B. Moss on Apple would be appreciated!)

Key takeaways:

On TV: “You could be watching on your TV set, you could be watching on your phone, you could be watching on your computer, you could be watching on your iPad. And Nielsen classifies different types of households: a home that is a cable home or an over the air home or a broadband only home. But people are still buying TV sets. So, in some ways it’s still TV, but there’s more content is available, whether it’s through ad-supported cable networks or paid channels.

On Impression-based Buying: “With the dawn of new technologies, phones, tablets and so on, and the ability for consumers to engage with content on all these platforms, the game has changed as has the need for advertisers to flight campaigns across these multiple platforms. Because, of course, if you can’t measure it, you can’t sell it! If you look at Nielsen data, overall time spent with video is relatively flat over the last two years. But what’s changed is how people are viewing: we see a decline in live plus time shifted TV, but an increase in viewing on connected devices, smart phones and tablets. So, this begs the question, how do you measure all the viewing across these many platforms so you can report back to the client in a more unified way? Using impressions unifies linear and digital, and also eliminates any ratings discrepancies from using different universes.”

On TV Consumption as we #StayHome: “Usage levels have surged across multiple day parts and it’s not just adults — we’re seeing growth in teens and 18 to 34s as well. Ratings are up, of course, for news networks across the board, not only in early morning, but all dayparts, even overnight. as we’re seeing people staying up later than they were before. We’re seeing live TV up. DVR playback up. And streaming in New York is up 44%. That’s a pretty big number and was measured just a few weeks ago.”

On the Need for and Challenge of Holistic Media Planning: “Right now you get TV in one place, digital in another place. Ideally you would have one platform where everything’s feeding into it in terms of your TV piece, your digital piece, your OTT piece, your set top box, video on demand piece. Part of it involves legacy thinking and workflows that have existed for decades, and quite honestly, the systems themselves. It all needs to feed into one platform so you’re not operating on a siloed basis.”

On Advertising and Brand Marketing Now: “Consumers say they want brands to share information on how they’re supporting their staff and customers during this time. Others are saying they want the ads to provide a sense of continuity and normalcy. Some people are looking for upbeat ads. So, while advertising has been impacted for sure, it’s not going away. And based on studies over the past many years that say, even in downtimes, you still want to stay top of mind.”

The Scoop On Growing Brand and Work Relationships…Even From Home

April 8, 2020Episodesbranding, business, collaboration, COVID-19, E.B. Moss, Erica Keswin, humanity, insider interviews, Keswin, Lyft, marketing, mossappeal, Notch, remote work, tech stack, Warby Parker, WFHE.B. Moss

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Ironically, at a time when we cannot physically touch, adding a human touch is more essential than ever — especially at work, even while we WFH. I turned to Erica Keswin, a “workplace strategist,” bestselling author and advisor to major companies aiming to improve performance by improving relationships.

There are plenty of tech stack suggestions for working from home, but once the software or the scanners are set up, how do we tackle the human side of remote work now and pivot in how we communicate?

Zooming in on Workplace Strategies with Erica Keswin and E.B. Moss

As a deeper dive to her recent webinar with The Female Quotient on some of the tenets of her last book, Bring Your Human to Work, Keswin shared more suggestions that companies can bank on. While her advice spans all industries, frankly everything a brand marketer does in today’s COVID-19 environment has to be run through the lens of humanity.

The following time codes are points in the podcast of particular interest:

(2:30) “The definition of being human means honoring relationships — with colleagues, your boss, the people that work for you, your customers.”
(4:30) The impact of technology on our relationships – good and bad: “When ‘left to our own devices’ we’re not connecting”.
(7:55) Why bringing your human to work helps employee attraction and customer retention
(8:30) Why communicating a brand’s values has to “get off the walls and into the halls”; in other words, from a framed set of platitudes to a select set of three or four values that are reflected by all it does and guideposts for marketing decisions.
(10:05) The imperative of speaking in a human voice across all mediums of communication and why defaulting to the technological end of the spectrum are not best practices during socially distanced times.
(12:00) How to start: tap all employees — and even companies — to gauge if values are resonating
(15:20) Why even with the ability to connect these days through Zooms or Teams, it’s still best practices to “mind your meetings” and not be beholden to “business as usual” for the sake of having a meeting.
(16:30) A refresher on the “three Ps”: purpose, presence and protocols.
(18:25) Finally, Keswin, who will detail this is a forthcoming book, explains why a company needs to have rituals – like a “corporate habit” with a higher level of meaning — which employees can count on.

The Scoop from Shelly Palmer on WFH Tech and Keeping Connected

April 1, 2020Episodesb2b, business, CNN, collaboration, coronavirus, COVID-19, E.B. Moss, Google Suite, insider interviews, LinkedIn, marketing, PGX, podcasting, podcasts, Ross Martin, shelly palmer, tech, tech stack, voice, westwood one, WFH, zoomE.B. Moss

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One of the smarter ideas I’ve had recently was to invite the even smarter Shelly Palmer to guest on this episode of the Insider Interviews podcast. I had an ulterior motive: I’d been challenged by my work-from-home (WFH) tech set up and he is the go-to guy for keeping us all on point.

Palmer, of CNN, CNBC, Fox 5 NY contributor fame, advises companies on their “digital transformation” and was also a LinkedIn Top Voice in Technology. And I needed help. Our conversation went from scientific explanations to fun anecdotes about his own podcast on the Westwood One network, Think About This with Shelly Palmer and Ross Martin, to the topic of his most recent interactive online chat, hosted on his new tech-focused social network, PGX: what a post-Corona Virus society might look like. Palmer is not shy about airing strong opinions without much prompting.

You’ll hear thoughts, recommendations and advice on:

On Choosing One Tech Tool Over Another: (“In some cases, it’s just personal preference. In others it has to do technologically with where you are and what you’re trying to do.” He uses Zoom for meet-ups with 150 or so attendees and Webinar Jam for one-to-many.)

On Adapting to Technology: (“People have been accepting of technical glitches that they never would have before… like when smartphones [drove] vertical video. It’s been fascinating to see how fast people are willing to adopt bad lighting, camera angles, and bad hair. It’s fantastic because the most important thing is that we figure out how to be social animals in a time when COVID-19 is forcing us to be less social.”

On Using A Personal Tech Stack More Personally: (“If you’re working for a bigger corporation, they’ll likely dictate the VPN and office suite you’re going to use. [A good choice] for small collaborative companies is Google Suite and have Slack running to interact with clients without having to send email. But a lot of clients are using Microsoft Teams. But when you’re working totally by yourself right now, the most important thing you can do, I think, is send an email or a text message to everybody you know in the world — and find out how they’re doing.”)

On AI (replacing for journalists?!), and “Truthiness” in media, and if we will continue to Zoom like crazy?: That you’ll have to listen to the podcast for. Bonus: you’ll learn which recording platform I picked too.

And visit shellypalmer.com for his very robust list of resources for your own WFH tech set up. Whether or not it involves a podcast.