Latest / Glovisor Podcast / Unlock the Power of Podcasting: How Megan Dougherty Transforms Businesses! One Stone Creative -Ep 66
Transcript
- Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: We're talking about the strategy behind successful business podcasting and how to turn your show into a powerful asset. Welcome to the Glovisor Podcast, where we explore business growth, communication, and personal development through real conversations with people that make an impact. Our guest is a podcast strategist and the founder of One Stone Creative, where she helps businesses use podcasting strategically, not just to create content, but to generate leads, build authority. strengthen relationships and support business growth. She's also deeply involved in researching the business podcasting landscape and has spent years studying what successful shows are doing. And perhaps more importantly, what actually makes podcasting valuable to a business. Glovisor welcomes Megan Dougherty. Megan Dougherty: Joe, thank you so much. It is so wonderful to be here. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: let's begin. Tell us a little bit more about what you do. Megan Dougherty: So as you mentioned, I'm the founder of One Stone Creative, and we're a podcast production agency. And we work with specifically expert entrepreneurs and smaller business owners to develop shows that do real functional work within their businesses. And so that might mean improving their SEO and discoverability, improving their sales processes in different ways, doing their strategic networking for them. There's a lot of different ways we can make a podcast do really, really useful things. and in addition to that, as you so kindly mentioned, we are really interested in Business podcasting in general, what does the industry look like? What changes from year to year? And how can we make sure that as business owners, we're investing our time in podcasting wisely and well? because as as anyone, as you may know and as anyone's listening, it's really easy to spend a lot of time and money on a podcast without necessarily knowing it's doing, you know, any work for your business that you can measure. So that's something that we're consistently trying to solve. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: Can you share with us a little bit more about when you talk about SEO, what does that mean and how do you infuse that into the podcasting world? Megan Dougherty: Yeah, so there's a couple of different kinds of SEO or different ways of looking at SEO when it comes to podcasting. So there's the SEO that you might do to get your podcast discovered. And that's going to be how you title your shows and what the description looks like on Apple and Spotify and these different things and the way kind of you're you're using those systems and those algorithms to be found by people who are looking for podcasts. And then on the other hand, there's using your podcast to generate the content and the ideas that you're going to be using for your more general SEO. And that would mean recording. content on topics that you know people are going to be looking for and then optimizing particularly the written materials that go along with your episodes so that you are more easily found by the search engines and now by the AI platforms as well. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: Now, you've been doing research on different podcasts for many years. what is the one metric that you follow the most? Megan Dougherty: Well, there's there's there's a a lot of metrics that we follow pretty closely. So this is you're referring to the our our annual state of business re podcasting report, which we started in 2020. and so this is gonna be the seventh year now in 2026 that we release it. and some of the things that we've kind of been looking at the entire time that we've been doing this research are things like how long are episodes, how frequently are they being released, and what does the structure of an episode sound like? you know, just to not to kind of prescribe this is the best type of podcast, but really to look at what are the trends and the bench benchmarks and best practices in terms of the shows that are being created. So other things that we look at every year are what does the cover art look like and how is social media being used to by these companies that are hosting these podcasts. there's there's a lot of really rich and interesting information when you take the time to kind of meticulously go through top performing shows. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: Well, I would imagine. Now, does every business need to have a podcast? Megan Dougherty: no, I don't think that every business needs to have a podcast necessarily. I think it comes down to what do you want your business to do or achieve? And can a podcast help you do that more effectively? I mean, there are some people who who they start a podcast and they're like, this is one of the greatest things I've ever done. I'm meeting people, I'm connecting, I'm repurposing this content. It's awesome. Other people start them and they're like, Okay, so this is this is cool. Like I'm I'm I'm enjoying some parts of it and I'm getting some some okay results. But like I do better just doing in person networking. when I go to conf like so it it really comes down to the business owner and the goals and making sure there's a mesh there. And I think, you know, podcasting isn't appropriate for everyone in the same way that like email marketing isn't necessarily appropriate for everyone or, you know, trade shows aren't appropriate for everyone. It's a tool that's meant to do specific things. and sometimes, you know, there are other tools that will do something as well or better for a particular business or business owner. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: Now I want to go back to the personal side. What inspired you to pursue this path? Megan Dougherty: none of this was my fault. So back my background Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: Yeah. Megan Dougherty: was in online marketing education and digital business development. and I was kind of at at a not a crossroads, but kind of I was in between big projects in my career. And a colleague from a company I'd used to work at reached out to me one day out of the blue and she says, Hey, do you want to start a business together? Well and I said, Well, with you, Miss Audver Casino, I would absolutely love to. And her background was in broadcast audio. So we just started putting those two kind of skill sets together, the you know, how the sound engineering and the the storytelling elements of her her previous career and the digital marketing and business growth elements of mine, and we started producing podcasts for business. And that was back in twenty seventeen. So I think we we really found a combination of skill sets that worked really beautifully together. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: offer many different arrays of services, but what is the major service that you you see more customers coming back for you to help them with? Megan Dougherty: Yeah, well the the biggest one, and we have some clients we have some shows that we've been producing for, you know, six, seven years now at this point, which is which is wonderfully gratifying. And I think the people who come back to podcasting again and again are the ones who are really able to get multiple kinds of use out of their show. So the type of of podcaster we see coming back the most, sometimes it's solo podcasters who you know, every week they've got kind of their their their monologue, their thoughts, their take on what's happening in the industry this week. That tends to be a very long-running type of show. And then people who are really getting a lot of value out of the networking of podcasting, where they're using it as a tool to build the relationships that are gonna be useful in other kinds of business. So we find these are the types of shows that go on for the longest, or if they're done in seasons that kind of come back to do season after season after season. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: Now is there a sweet spot in the number of episodes that should be released on a weekly basis? And then how long should those episodes be? Ooh, love it. Megan Dougherty: So I've actually got wonderful hard data on this for you. so mm the vast majority of the most successful podcasts release weekly or more. and that or more has been increasing over the last few years. We're seeing more and more episodes being released. their length is slightly like often it's not always, you know, full 40 minute episodes that are being released multiple times a week. Sometimes it's a longer one and a shorter one or multiple shorter ones. But weekly is pretty much kind of the if you're looking to build traction quickly, that's the number you should if at all possible, be aiming for. That said, for most businesses, any podcast is better than no podcast. And if your workflow or if your bandwidth or your resources mean that you can do this twice a month or even once a month, often that's going to be better than nothing. You just have to moderate your expectations in terms of like how fast you're going to grow or how fast you're going to see the results. And in terms of length, that's a really interesting one because in the the many years we've been doing our research into the the business podcast now, It's been one of the most robust and consistent results over time. And it's between forty-four and forty-six minutes per episode. And I found that really fascinating. The it's it's interesting because it's it's an average of the shows that we look at. And some a lot of the top business podcasts, they're those kind of marathon, three hour, four dudes sitting around a conference table type of shows, right? So they are probably skewing the average a little bit longer. we find in terms of production that thirty to forty-five minute though is really a sweet spot in terms of being able to get into some really rich subject matter, but not letting things drag on too long. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: you mentioned that you you do a lot of the show production, but what does production entail? Megan Dougherty: Yeah, so it the I mean there's you can get so many different kinds of help for your podcast. And when we talk about production, first it comes it starts with kind of designing the show. What should this look like and what's the the what are the bones of an episode that's gonna make it sound like a podcast and be consistent week to week. So it's figuring that out. and then most of our clients record independently on their schedule with the the guests that they have, although sometimes we do have a producer who will who will join them in their virtual room. they then send us the raw audio and video and or video. And production means kind of cleaning it up. Tidying it, getting rid of any mistakes, adding intro and outro elements that make it sound like a podcast, and sometimes more detailed content edits like moving bits around so that things flow really, really nicely. There's lots of different kinds of editing you can do. then producing it in the format that it's going to be distributed in, whether that's audio or video or both. And we also write the show notes and create sharing materials and guest communication materials for our clients as well. because we're again usually working with smaller business owners who don't necessarily have a whole bunch of extra time or a lot of available team members to kind of do all of these other subsidiary tasks that really make a podcast valuable. So we'd try to keep all of those on our desk. so production kind of means the whole from I've just talked to someone, it was a great conversation to amazing it's on Spotify and also has been sent out to our email list. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: if one of our listeners wanted to work with you, what would be the journey if they've never recorded anything ever and now they want to work with you? How soon can they start their podcast episodes? Megan Dougherty: it can be pretty quick. So we find most launches take about four to six weeks. And that kind of goes from figuring out the basic idea, what it's gonna look like, what it's gonna do, most importantly. What are we gonna what's this podcast going to do? and then doing all of the the the branding, learning how to record, doing some trial episodes, getting a trailer out there. It can go a little faster or take a little longer, depending on you know how many times we review the cover art and and make revisions, that kind of thing, but it can be quite speedy. I often recommend for brand new podcasters though, if they've never done any recording, they should be a guest on a couple of shows before they commit to doing their own, just to make sure they can like stand the sound of their own voice and they like the medium. And I often recommend starting with a season rather than committing to producing every Tuesday for the rest of time. you know, you it's a very different type of energy to be like, no, I'm gonna do 12 episodes on this topic and it's gonna be a complete body of work in and of itself. if you discover that, you know, it's not a fit or it doesn't have the outcome you want or you didn't like the process, it's it's not quitting if you finished a season and moved on. But if you do kind of communicate that you're gonna be doing this, you know, for the rest of time and give up after seven episodes, it's not the best look and it doesn't feel very good. So I think new podcasters can really benefit from committing to a short form podcast at first. You can always keep going at the end if you really like it. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: will you be able to share with us a client success story? Megan Dougherty: we've got we've got lots of really interesting inns, but one of my favorites, and this is I think it's a really wonderful and really illustrative story about the power of podcasting. So we work with a lot of lawyers. we didn't kind of set out to be like we're gonna be the produ production company for lawyers, but you you meet some lawyers, you start producing for them, you meet more, and that's how it goes. and you are probably familiar, and everyone listening is probably familiar. Lawyers don't have the most sterling reputation in the industry. Not everyone's really happy when they have to call their lawyer. That's not usually like a great part of someone's day. But we found one show that we started producing. This was a compliance lawyer. and you know, as he's like talking about the work that he does and his team does and his colleagues do in businesses, and he's so positive and optimistic about the help that he's trying to give and the positive benefits he's having on the companies that he works for. He noticed that after doing this for a little while, people who were calling him were excited. They weren't upset, they weren't mad they had to be calling the compliance guy. They're like, hey. I heard about how you did this cool thing for this company and saved them a bunch of like legal hassle. Can you do that for us? And it really changed the tone of how he was talking to people and how he was being perceived by the people he was communicating with. And that it's hard to put a number, you know, exactly like what's the what's the like financial outcome of that, but that the way that the day becomes better when people are happy to talk to you because they've got that knowing, liking and trusting that they otherwise wouldn't have had. I think that's it's a hard to measure, but I think. very profound difference that a podcast can make for someone. And just when I when I heard this story, I felt I felt, boy, we're really doing something that matters here, aren't we? Where we're really helping people connect with their audiences in a way that they haven't before. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: Yeah, I think your energy carries over into these episodes. That's what I'm thinking. Megan Dougherty: Thank you. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: now what happens once these episodes have been fully produced and they go back onto their their socials? How how do they move it or move it forward? Is there another level to your business where you can help them market it? Megan Dougherty: Yes, and I think that's really important. So the type of shows that we produce, they're they're not usually aimed or designed to become top 100 podcasts. They're not aiming to become super famous podcasters. These are people who have businesses. They've got law firms and they've got accounting practices and they're coaches and they've got a consultancy. What really, really matters, the podcast only matters in the context of improving those businesses. so once we produce episodes and we get them out there, yes, we want them to be good and valuable for the listening public. That's very important. But what's even more important is how business owners are able to use those specific episodes within other areas of their business. So sometimes we'll produce episodes that make really great case studies that can be used in a sales process. So for example, let's say a a new a potential lead came to my website and they wanted to book a call with me. It's okay, great, they sign up to to book a discovery call. Before that call, maybe I'm gonna take a look at what industry they're in and send them a couple of episodes where people in similar industries that I've talked to and had on my show. Well, they're gonna get to hear my voice, they're gonna get to hear the way I talk, get a sense of how I do business and what I believe. And that means that when we do get on the the call, they already feel like they know me a little bit. And they're gonna be much more warmer and receptive because they've already had a chance to be like, okay, I do dig this. Or on the other hand, actually this is not for me. I'm just gonna cancel and save everybody's time. So that's that's kind of one example of how a podcast episode can be kind of surgically deployed within different areas of the business. And you can do that all over the place. That's on the kind of the sales enablement end, we'd call it. And you can also, I find, you know, podcasts can be very ephemeral. You it goes into your Spotify feed or Apple Podcast playlist. It's there for a minute and then it's gone because it's replaced by something else really quickly. But if you invest a little extra time and energy in getting really well optimized show notes, and you know, you you actually do the interlinking on your website and make it real part of the web of content that you're creating, that can have really long-term effects on how visible you are to search engines and to people looking for information. and even the LLMs that are now guiding people to different sources. So the the the the kind of the the short version of all of that is yes, there's lots of ways to make these really, really valuable, but they all take some diligent ongoing work on a consistent basis. It's not it's not a set it and forget it type of thing. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: Absolutely. Because everything's ever changing and you Megan Dougherty: Exactly. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: and someone has to k keep up with all of this. And sometimes having someone inside in your own office to sit there and and figure this out is just not as effective as it is to probably work with a professional that this is all they do. Now Megan, if if listeners remember only one thing from today's conversation, what do you hope that message is? Megan Dougherty: I hope that it's you remember that a podcast is not really a podcast for a business owner. A podcast is a tool that you can design to do specific things within your own business. And it doesn't have to follow any particular rules and it doesn't have to look any particular way. You're the boss of it and you can make it do what you want. so I think I'd like everyone to leave with the freedom to be like, I would like a podcast that does this, even though it's not what all the other podcasts sound like, because that's valuable to me and to my business, and go ahead and do it with full permission. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: Good advice. where can our audience connect with you and learn more about your work and continue this conversation. Megan Dougherty: Yeah, I think the the best place to kind of get all of our information and all of our resources is at onstonecreative.net. That's O-N-E-stonecreative.net. There you'll find you'll find my podcast, you'll find information about our services and links to book a call with me if you'd like to chat directly and to LinkedIn, where is that is the only social media platform I currently use. So if you wanna hang out, let's do it there. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: Megan, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate your time and the value you've shared. Megan Dougherty: so it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Joe Abreu - GLOVISOR: You're welcome. Thanks everyone for listening. If this episode inspired you, make sure you share it with someone who needs it. And don't forget to follow the Glovisor Podcast for more conversations that make an impact. Till the next time.