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The Power of Listening to Your Audience: Lessons from...NESTLE · Your Mic

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  if i had a dollar for every single time that i've seen on the internet on social media or talk with
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  somebody in person who wants to start a podcast and talk about everything and have fascinating
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  conversations i would be a rich man and will probably not run speak podcasting because well
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  i will have made a dollar for every single time that i've seen or heard that and it's not good
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  this is your mic my name is Freddie Cruz founder of speak podcasting you can find us online at speak
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  spk ek podcasting.com and really the art of podcasting is not one size fits all
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  don't just blast your message and expect every single culture every audience every niche to line up
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  and hit the subscribe button on your show because the truth is even titans of industry
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  get humbled by the power of local taste and for that i want to take you to the story of
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  Nestle in japan years ago they tried storming the market with coffee a product that is really
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  just king in the west i love me some brew but in japan it's the land of green tea and they heard
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  crickets their marketing flopped focus groups well they barely raised an eyebrow the product itself
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  was good but the japanese people just did not care they didn't it's kind of like when you tell
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  your your spouse or your significant other that you love them but instead of actually facing
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  your spouse or significant other you're talking to a wall and your spouse or significant other is
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  in the other room they just don't hear them the messaging was off but instead of doubling down
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  Nestle leaned in and listened they ditched the aggressive sales pitch and they launched coffee
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  flavored candies then those legendary kickcat bars suddenly the brand was everywhere university
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  students embraced kick cats as go luck charms thanks to a play on words kitto katsu which means
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  surely win an overnight kit cat became an icon not by brute force but by cultural remix now what does
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  this mean for podcasters now i got a point we're getting there the best show succeed not by shouting
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  but by adapting so if your episodes are not landing if your downloads stall if your audience just
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  isn't pressing subscribe if your retention rates are low maybe it's time to change your flavor
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  you listen to what your audience suggests ask them send a newsletter do an instagram poll a linked
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  in poll reach out talk to people in in person if you do live events where you can be a sort of a
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  merchant or a vendor get that feedback and pivot your strategy in fact what i would recommend
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  is doing an episode saying hey we're going to take the next few weeks off we're going to debrief
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  we are going to change course and we're going to be back with another season and that next season
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  is going to be based on your feedback about what you like and don't like
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  the next season is going to be everything that you do like and nothing about what you think
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  doesn't work for you and that's how you not just build and maintain or regain trust with your
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  audience but that is how you are going to be able to compound that regained trust that's how
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  you're going to get people to share your content whether it's an audio first podcast or if it's
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  a video podcast and i want to give you i want to give you a personal example and this is something
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  that i've talked about before that is when i left corporate america and i was in between jobs i
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  was thinking that i was going to get hired by somebody tried 400 plus times and ended up not
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  getting hired so i hired myself and now we're at speak podcasting but in that time that seven month
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  time span that i thought i was going to get hired by somebody i wanted to maintain my interview
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  because i was trying out for anything and everything related to communications
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  i applied for jobs at local tv affiliates i applied for a paid podcast host position, community
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  affairs some kind of silly like influencer position whatever if it was on camera or behind a
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  mic i wanted to get paid doing that job and i tried and i failed 455 plus times anyways
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  in order to maintain my interview chops because objectively speaking i'm a pretty good
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  interviewer after all i've been arrayed for more than 25 years i decided to have a podcast
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  that was fascinating conversations with interesting people and the people were actually
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  really cool i talked to tova freeman the youngest survivor of Auschwitz
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  out of somebody like me get that as get that lady as a guest
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  maintaining relationships with press people PR people having close PR buddies
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  being able to interview jack car and Evan car michael who's huge on youtube
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  but the show lacked focus it was trying to it was me throwing out content into the universe
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  into into an empty void and let me tell you something from february 2022 to december 2022
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  i had less than a thousand downloads and my retention was trash
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  it was because i just i wanted it because i thought well you know
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  i really need to brush up and maintain my my interview chops
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  and i'll do it by having a podcast and you know what i'm friday kruis from carabee and people
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  were gonna listen to me no that was definitely not the case definitely not the case i learned the
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  very hard way that having a podcast and launching one without having a real plan other than
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  just gonna talk to a bunch of people that i know that i'm interested in it's not really much of a formula
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  so what did i do i went back to the basics hometown he's in texas
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  okay technically richman grader he's an area i pivoted that first podcast oh by the way the
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  title was freddy's huge ask podcast which was supposed to be some kind of clever play on words
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  yon i cringe thinking about that cringe thinking about that
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  so i went back to the basics thinking about my hometown and the city that made me because there
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  would be no friday kruis if not for the people that supported me when i was on the radio back
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  a long time ago and the people that support speak podcasting now i'm like oh i got it
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  kruis through htx and thus a little bit more success
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  and my retiring off of kruis through htx by no means not even close but got more listeners
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  the episodes were getting shared so just like kickcat it was born from listening adapting
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  and giving an audience exactly what they needed what they wanted sometimes before they even
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  knew it themselves now your podcast should do the same now what i want you to do because this
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  is a beauty of podcasting i want you to to not be afraid to experiment localize your topics
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  your guests your vibe change it up maybe if your retention rates are garbage do shorter episodes
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  if your episodes are 40 minutes well why don't you try doing something between 15 and 20
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  or if you feel like that's not enough time then do 20 to 25 minutes
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  last study i read and i cannot remember where but they do say that most podcast listeners prefer
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  their episodes when they listen to be between 18 and 22 minutes on average so
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  do with that information what you will
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  if you have a long episode make it shorter maybe maybe hear me out you need longer episodes
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  because what you're doing right now is 10 minutes and and your audience isn't really getting
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  enough of you bump them up to 20 minutes bump them up to 30 maybe and this is one that i love talking
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  with hosts about is that a listener will listen for the host not the guest now in this particular
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  particular podcast while in all of them i do i do mainly interviews because i like to bring in
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  people that no more about certain certain things than me i don't pretend by any stretch of the
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  imagination to know everything about podcasting because i don't so i like to bring in people who are
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  within the business side of it maybe they got a product they got something that were that my
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  company is a client of example will be pod SEO or riverside.fm but people like to hear the host
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  they listen for the host and here's why and this goes back to something that i remember having
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  a conversation with a programmer about during my radio days and that was you don't want to have
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  all of your breaks have listeners on them yes listener interaction people love to hear
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  themselves etc etc etc but a listener will listen to your show because they want to hear your
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  voice they want to build that relationship with you they want to know i can trust you and if every
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  single break is you know hey where are you calling from well or hey you're calling over 10 or
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  hey what song do you want to hear or hey where are you working if every break break is something like
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  that it starts to become too predictable people are not really getting a sense of your personality
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  and again they just want to listen to the host so if you have a show that is interview focused
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  break it up let's say you have a weekly show do two cellos and two interviews give it a shot for
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  the course of two to three months i would say three because that's a solid quarter in what you
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  have actual data that you can look at okay try that experiment experiment with your links experiment
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  with the format you don't have to be one thing all the time and that is something that really
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  noise the crap out of me is because there are people who who are on the corporate or on the
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  business side of what i do and they're telling new hosts that you have to be this one thing if
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  you're going to be this one thing if you're just going to be talking about parenting teenagers
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  as a middle age mom then you have to be that and you can only do solo episodes and every single
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  one of them has to be 20 minutes and i say bull crap bull lonely change it up it's okay to do
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  different things i'll give you another example of how it is really helped one client to
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  grow their audience and that is the rose
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  now Dorothy and her marketing team are fantastic at this they're so open to new ideas and
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  new styles of podcasting of releasing episodes one of the ways is that they do 31 straight episodes
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  breast cancer what is month which as you know is in october is it 31 straight interviews that are
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  between 25 and 35 minutes absolutely not a great deal of them are however what we do as a company
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  is go out to their signature events and we record actuality so it would be like hey my name is
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  and i'm a supporter of the rose because dot dot dot and so we take between a minute and a half
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  and sometimes three sometimes longer four or five minutes where we take actuality audio and it'll
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  have like ambient noise in the background which is gasp another thing that audio snobs will
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  frown upon but no it adds depth and adds layer this oh all in all yes it does sound different
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  yes there is noise in the background but you don't you don't miss the context or the content
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  of the recording and so there will be mashed up actualities and that is a single episode
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  or there'll be a short solo episode with just Dorothy talking by herself
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  and that is what we mean when we say don't be afraid to experiment
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  and by localizing topics i mean come on getting out into your community going to live events
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  and taking the portable recorder and talking with people talking with supporters and yes there's
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  going to be background noise make sure it's not actual music because then you are facing copyright
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  issues if you put those episodes out and there's i don't know lady gaga or Justin Bieber or whoever
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  playing in the background you don't you don't want that okay you definitely don't want loud music
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  probably not want to go to a festival with a loud rock band also you want to be able to hear
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  yourself my point is don't be afraid to go out into the community and record live so if you
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  have hit a wall remember your next breakthrough is the one that's hiding behind a new twist a new
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  segment of fresh flavor and don't force it fit it to your audience and watch it transform into
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  something magical from afterthought to obsession if you found this episode useful
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  consider sharing this if you found this episode useful at all if you have a podcast host or
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  an aspiring podcast host in your circle please consider sharing with them thanks so much for listening