Podcast marketing strategies - How to launch and promote your show [Tom Donohue]

Join Andrei and our guest on today’s episode, Tom Donohue, as they will be discussing secrets of product marketing, and Tom's journey with Kitcaster, launching it into the market and growing it as a company. And in parallel, they'll also be looking at podcast marketing, and how you can market your podcast show if you do run or are planning to run a podcast in the near future. 

Tom Donohue, is the co-founder and marketing lead of Secure Digital Asset Group, a revolutionary cryptocurrency exchange processor, as well as the product manager for Kitcaster.

Connect with Tom:

Website: www.kitcaster.com 

Tom on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/thetomdon 

 

Connect with Andrei:

Marketiu: https://marketiu.com / https://marketiu.ro  

Andrei on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreitiu/ 

Marketiu on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/marketiu 

Marketiu on Twitter: https://twitter.com/marketiuagency 

Marketiu on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marketiuagency/ 

Email at hello@marketiu.ro

 

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▶️ Podbean: https://bit.ly/The-Marketing-Innovation-Show-Podbean

▶️ Spotify: https://bit.ly/The-Marketing-Innovation-Show-Spotify

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▶️ Stitcher: https://bit.ly/The-Marketing-Innovation-Show-Stitcher

▶️ Castbox: https://bit.ly/The-Marketing-Innovation-Show-Castbox

Episode transcript:

 

Andrei Tiu  

Hi there! This is Andre and you are on the marketing innovation podcast show. Our special guest today is Tom Donohue and you might already know him from a previous episode on our podcast when we were discussing blockchain and crypto technology. However, today, things are going to be a bit different and very exciting because today we'll be talking about actually the company that Tom has been a core member of, since the beginning. And there is also our main podcast booking partner, Kitcaster, which have been along the journey with us for the past year or so. So we'll be talking about the secrets of product marketing, and Tom's journey with Kitcaster, launching it into the market and growing it as a company. And in parallel, we'll also be looking at podcast marketing, and how you can market your podcast show if you do run or are planning to run a podcast in the near future. So, Tom, it's such a pleasure to reconnect them to have you again on the show. How are you? How's the summer treating you so far?

 

Tom Donohue  

Yeah, it's great to be back on here. Had a great time last time and look forward to talking to some more podcast marketing topics this time. Yes, summer over here in Denver. Everybody thinks it's always cold here. But the other day we hit like 104, we had a couple of 100 degree days. So we're sweating out here. We got the air conditioning turned down to the max.

 

Andrei Tiu  

Summer weather.

 

Tom Donohue  

Yeah.

 

Andrei Tiu  

Super. So let's get started. I think cause I've been thinking about the best way to build the context. And I think even though some of the people might already know you, as you know, the smart tech guy that was part of all these multiple projects in the past, including blockchain and other types of technology, I think this is a great opportunity for us to talk a bit more about you like the product guy, the product marketer, and entrepreneur that in partnership with Ryan and everybody else built, what is today Kitcaster. So if you'd like to share a bit of your journey with the company, and how you guys went about launching it, and where you are with it at the moment?

 

Tom Donohue  

Sure, definitely. For anyone who doesn't know, the way that I've been in contact with Andrei here is through our company Kictcaster that we've got here in Denver. We're a podcast booking agency, and we focus on booking top entrepreneurs, coaches, executives, on very targeted podcasts that can help them to promote their brand to the right types of audiences that they want to reach and network with. So basically what I do at Kitcaster, my entrepreneurship background had helped me to get into this position. And just to be clear, I'm actually not a founder of Kitcaster, but I was hired pretty early on. So you know, within like the first few hires that we have there. And I was brought on to be a product manager for the PGL service that we do, which is it's called the Podcast Guest List. It's an online platform where hosts can go to find suitable guests for their show. And it's pretty simple. It's an invite-only programme right now, Andrei, I know you've used it before, you're actually on there as a guest as well. That's something we like to do with the hosts is get them listed as guests as well as encourages a lot of podcast swaps and things. But basically, it's for hosts to go on, and send an invite to any particular type of guests that they might be looking for, that we might have access to. So it's basically just a networking platform that helps people connect, you know, we have a lot of guests who want to go on podcasts. And we know a lot of hosts who are looking for guests. We just built this platform to make that connection. And yeah, that's how I started working at Kitcaster to work on that. And now I’m also on the back end, like support email and database manager for the company as well while being a Product Manager. It's a lot. I do a lot of podcast stuff all day, every day. So yeah, just being on the podcast as well as another thing, too. It's another job.

 

Andrei Tiu  

To complete to the full circle. 

 

Tom Donohue  

Yeah, definitely.

 

Andrei Tiu  

Cool. So what's your feeling about the market? I mean, essentially, this is a platform to connect guests with hosts and essentially build up this online community, in a way. It's also a bit of a SAS in a way that people can use it themselves. Obviously, with your support to, you know, make sure that the bookings happen and everything is going smoothly. And you guys are doing a great job at it. 

 

Tom Donohue  

Thank you. 

 

Andrei Tiu  

No worries, nothing to thank you for. Thank you. So how do you see the market evolve over the last maybe two years since you started to prepare this for the market?

 

Tom Donohue  

I would say probably the most the biggest thing that has changed about the podcast market is the shift away from Apple Podcast to more spread out platforms, you know, we got like Spotify, Podchaser, Buzzsprout. Like there's an endless amount of podcasting platforms now, and the listenership is so spread out that one thing that has been hard for us is actually tracking engaging listenership for in terms of impressions, how many downloads is the show gets? Because originally with podcasting, like Apple Podcasts was the one and only like, if you go and see how many reviews or ratings a show has on Apple Podcasts, you can get a really good idea about the type of listenership, how much reach a specific client is going to get by going on a certain show. But these days, and especially within the past, you know, six months, we've seen such a huge expansion out to these different platforms, more indie platforms that are popping up for certain types of podcasts or certain types of demographics. Listenership is just spreading out so much between them that it's actually become harder to gauge the exact metrics that any certain show might have. So that's a challenge that we're facing right now. And we're kind of figuring out new ways to figure those things out. It's best that the host just tells you the numbers that they see. But it's kind of hard to ask that of a host. And we respect any show, smaller or large, and we think that there's benefit in going on any sort of show. Because as long as there's a great conversation being had, we see the best marketing tool that you get from podcasting as the opportunity for you to repurpose that content and use it in different places. So yeah, I would say the biggest change is just that spread out that jump away from Apple Podcasts onto these newer, more indie platforms.

 

Andrei Tiu  

And regarding your strategy in terms of going to market, and launching the PGL, which you are managing at the moment. How are things in that area? And the reason why or the purpose of the question would be, I know for a fact, there are a couple of people that are tuned in to our podcasts, most likely today as well. And they are preparing the launch of, well, everybody in their space, but the launch of platforms or marketplaces. So I think there will be a really nice benefit to them to hear about your story from way back when maybe the platform wasn't yet live, and why you chose it to be invite-only, how you got on to building the initial community around it? And also, maybe what's your plan for the future? Like, do you want to keep it like this forever? Do you have certain metrics or things that you are looking to achieve before going into the next phase? Does Kitcaster got to be the sort of product, And yeah, business launch? And growth strategy, from your perspective?

 

Tom Donohue  

Definitely, okay. So it's a couple of things. Definitely the PGL, I would say, for anybody going to start like a new platform or something like this, one of the best things that we had done is just simply, to the extent that you can, just give it away, like, let people use it for free. The free trial loss aversion model is, is huge in these types of subscription services. In a sense that: Hey, take this for free, try it for a while, and then also that just encourages users. And we get people on the platform actually using it so that when somebody hops on, it's like: Oh, there are people on here. I would say always, to the extent that you can, just to start off, give it away, get people using it in that way you start to figure out what is working with your platform, what's not working, where you can improve and just mainly what the people want. And then, as you start getting that feedback and refining the platform, you can go and start charging people and initially we did give away a lot of the placement spots as gifts to good guests that we know are good on the podcast, you know, maybe they were our clients on the agency side. And we gave them the spots on the PGL, just so that we had guests on there for when host Come on, and they want to invite somebody. And then eventually you start to understand what is good about your platform, and then you can start charging people. We started to, we phase out the gifts, people, you know, saying: Hey, either your free trial is over, or thank you so much for having on the platform. If you want to stay on, we'll give you this discounted rate or something like that. Ultimately, your goal is to have all paid users on your platform, right? But it never hurts to say, you know, if you have 10 really solid guests that a lot of hosts like to invite, it's always up to you to keep certain people on or do things that will improve your platform, just in any way possible, really. One of the things that we're really focusing on now is marketing, through LinkedIn, and just networking through our already existing podcasts and connections to try to get more hosts onto the platform. Because we've been pretty successful getting new clients and guests onto the platform who want to be on shows. But now one of the problems that we're facing and addressing right now through our marketing efforts is getting more hosts to be aware of the platform and know that they could come on here and use it for free. So just like some background, for your listeners, the way that the platform works, is that people who want to go on podcast pay a subscription to be listed on the platform, and it's actually free to hosts. So, you know, Andrei, you've used it to invite guests, it's completely free for a host to invite a guest. And we just make that connection and make the recording happen. But for the guests, since they're getting all the content, and the use of the interviews and stuff. That's where we decided to monetize this platform.

 

Andrei Tiu  

Okay, and what did you or what was the reasoning behind having it invite-only in phase one?

 

Tom Donohue  

The invite-only thing, we kind of wanted to just start out with people who we knew we're gonna get good use out of it. So we didn't want to have a bunch of random hosts that we didn't know coming on, and sending invites to guests and then flaking out on interviews, and then vice versa. We didn't want to have a bunch of random guests coming on. And then booking interviews with these hosts who are really excited to use the platform and then not showing up. So that was kind of the idea. Make it invite-only at first with people who we know are going to use it properly and hosts that we know are going to send invites, and also come through with the interviews and provide good content. And in that way, we just believe that, if we kept all of the kind of BS of people missing interviews, and all these problems out of the way would help us to figure out what was working and what wasn't working at the platform, a little bit easier, a little bit faster.

 

Andrei Tiu  

And then you start with VC funding, or I mean, was it a VC funded basis and beginning or you had to kind of like bootstrap it and grow it as you launched?

 

Tom Donohue  

The PGL was kind of an after, an afterthought, Kitcaster started as a booking agency where we have dedicated agents who pitch clients to specific shows. So the company's kind of split into like, we have the PGL, and we have the booking agency, the booking agency came first. And through, you know, revenue generated by the booking agency, we were able to, our founder, Ryan, just built the platform and use his network to fill it up with those initial spots. And then I came on, and I kind of took it over and tried to expand it. So I guess you could say is bootstrapped but really just funded by revenue of the booking agency,

 

Andrei Tiu  

Sort of like a second business pillar or a second brand or product of the same?

 

Tom Donohue  

Yeah, yeah. And in turn that the booking agency was bootstrapped by our founders, Ryan and Brandy.

 

Andrei Tiu  

Okay. What do you feel is different between Kitcaster and PGL? And other SaaS companies out there. Because I'd like these sorts of differences to be very clear as we advance through the conversation.

 

Tom Donohue  

We're seeing a tonne of similar PGL type services coming up. Guest lists that hosts can use to invite so we've got a lot of competition popping up in that room. And also, at the same time, there's a tonne of competition in the booking agency sense. But one thing that Kitcaster has been really proud of, and like we take is one of our morals: we actually care. We always hear for all our clients all the time, it's like: Hey, you guys are the most pleasurable to work with, and I think for the price point that we're set at, we provide so much value to our clients that are not only cheap but is just really full and gives them exactly what they need out of their experience. For a price that's typically lower than other services that are providing a little bit less than a little bit less attention to detail. At least that's what we've heard, from feedback from our clients. So we really just try to get to know the client as best as we can and do a really good job communicating and booking them on the shows that are going to help them the most. Rather than just throwing them on any given show to complete their contract or whatever. We really tried to give the clients the most out of what they're paying for.

 

Andrei Tiu  

So focusing a lot on this client - customer service end of the business.

 

Tom Donohue  

Yeah, it's a really personal thing for the agency side, especially when you have a booking agent who's dedicated to a certain client you really get to know the client, and you really get to know the things that they want to talk about on an interview, and there, the inner workings of their business and what they're trying to promote. You take that experience, and you go, and you find shows that are going to help them in the best way possible. And I think that they care that our agents put in are something that puts a step above a lot of these other booking agencies

 

Andrei Tiu  

Agree and approve. And in terms of the actual marketing of the business. I know, you guys, I'm sure this gets you a lot of word of mouth, in terms of referrals and your current partners referring and bringing people back into the business. But in terms of the communications channels, apart from LinkedIn, you mentioned now, what are some channels that have particularly performed well, for you as a platform, and as a business, maybe this year, in 2021?

 

Tom Donohue  

For sure, as you said, we do get a lot of referrals from previous clients and stuff. And those are usually, really good, because, we have our sales funnel, where referrals come in or lead come in, and they go through the sales process. And I'd say other client referrals are some of the most successful in terms of closing deals for us. But then, I would say, almost the entirety of our lead generation, and then ultimately, sales fulfilment, has gone through LinkedIn, especially in 2020. Just LinkedIn outreach, and then also, we use a couple specific LinkedIn lead generation software's for automation, that have helped us to network with the right kinds of people that we're looking for - funded startup founders, CEOs, executives, coaches. LinkedIn has been huge for us. And outside of that, I would say, the two other main things that we're using are Google AdWords, to drive traffic to the website, and then also Facebook marketing as well, though both Instagram and the Facebook platform. But now, in 2021, we've started to branch out a little bit more into more creative and specified content. You know, for podcasting, just to promote, our motto that we use is "Celebrate good conversation." And we've been trying to promote that through fun content and material that we spread around through Facebook, Instagram. Great visuals for people to see and enjoy. And, again, we book people on podcasts and interviews, to spread their businesses. We've also been booking each other on podcasts. And so we book the founders, Brandy and Ryan, and then we have a couple of other agents who go on the podcast as well to talk about us, just like what we're doing right now. We sell it, but we also partake in it as well. It's in our eyes, one of the best ways to promote especially to promote a podcast agency is through podcasting. So, yeah. 

 

Andrei Tiu  

Walking the walk. 

 

Tom Donohue  

Definitely. Oh, and there's one other thing for our agency that we just started in 2021. We started sponsoring podcasts as well. So you know how shows we'll do like a midroll or like a pre-roll, a read or a recorded thing to say: Hey, we are an affiliate with this, with Kitcaster podcast agency, that's where we get our guests and things like that. So we started a sponsorship programme to also try to put some money back in the host pocket. So it's a programme that works by compensating hosts for the number of leads they can bring us through their show. And also, if there was a deal to be closed through a host, they would also get a portion of that as a payout in the affiliate programme. That's something we just started, it's fairly new, but we have really high hopes for that, and it's been going really well, so far.

 

Andrei Tiu  

I think it's an approach that should work because you kind of keep it in the family. It's also around,  kind of the same community, mainly if you want to build onto the podcast hosts. Then I think a lot of the podcast hosts are also podcast listeners. So I think that can work very nicely for you. Let me know how it plays out. I'd be really curious, but I'm sure you'll see some nice results from it.

 

Tom Donohue  

For sure, yeah, we gotta get The Marketing Innovation Podcast Show on there. So you can become an affiliate with us. Yes, it's really exciting. We have a lot of hosts who were really hyped to get started and as with many podcast hosts, a lot of times, you want to spread information and have good conversations stuff, but being able to monetize your show is a great goal to have as well. So, we wanted to help hosts figure out how they can do that. Yeah, after all, I'll send you the link, and you can check it out. And let me know. 

 

Andrei Tiu  

We'll discuss online. Oh, sorry, offline. Yeah, sure thing. So you touched on something that I think would be really interesting to develop. And that was using podcasting as an effective content marketing tool. Pushing the sort of audio channel was something that we wanted to do from our second year on the market. So in 2017, we started to write a lot about it, and sort of this voice channel was also developing with Amazon, at the time. We had our own app developed by one of our very close friends at the moment and pushed out in America. And that did so well, like way better than we expected in terms of user engagement and everything we have, we had an Alexa skill for marketing news, we might actually relaunch that because, at the time, it really surpassed our expectations. But podcasting is I mean, then it was pretty big, right now is gigantic. And it's something that in a way easily accessible from a marketer's point of view because there are more and more podcasts, more diversified. And as you mentioned, Tom, it's also a great way to produce your own content from thought leaders, positions or perspectives. So from your insights, and from your experience, both with the company, but also with the guys that go on podcasts and the guys that booked them. How do you see podcasts and content marketing going together?

 

Tom Donohue  

One thing that we always kind of think about, and one thing that really struck me when I started working here was like, we have these big tech CEOs and executives, as our clients, who are really very well thought out and like elaborate speakers who can say just the greatest things about their own company. But then again, these people are so busy that like: How hard would it be for you know, Amazon to get there? How hard would it be for Amazon to get Jeff Bezos to sit down for an hour and talk about Amazon for content marketing? It's probably pretty hard because that dude's doing so much stuff all the time. What we try to do is just schedule into these executives, you know, busy work weeks, and an hour here an hour there. And then in turn, what you get is an hour of your CEO or your founder talking about your company and through good hosts and everything, you can get these really great conversations that come out and we created a content marketing studio for our clients, as well, to help show them  - and we also do media training and things like that - to help show them how they can take the content and repurpose it. We turned it into blog posts, we turn it into little videos, screengrabs, audio grabs, quotes, all of those types of things. And you can take a 45-minute podcast interview and turn it into upwards of 25 pieces of marketing material that you can use for weeks on it. That's something we just started doing, with the content marking studio. And I believe what you said, you guys do something similar. This is just something that we offer to our clients, say they had an interview. Say somebody was on The Marketing Innovation Show and they felt that it went really well. And they wanted to get a little bit more out of that. They can commission us to create the entire suite of marketing material for that. We think that that's just, you know, the best thing to get out of these podcasts, interviews are all that extra marketing material that you can use. You're sharing it on socials, you're sharing it on, through email blasts, you're sharing it everywhere that you can, and really just dragging out and spreading that content that you get that might not be so easy to get from your founder or your CEO. These podcasts interviews are helping to provide those marketing teams with the core content that they need to create this material.

 

Andrei Tiu  

And in terms of the promotion of these podcasts and the marketing materials. First off, just to emphasise this aspect of creating content for the podcast that you record. For everybody out here that doesn't do that but they do go on podcasts, or they have their own podcast, guys, this is like the content marketing 101 strategy you should follow. And if you don't have resources, reach out to Tom here and see how these guys can help you if you are already maybe part of the Kitcaster family. But that is going to be even easier. Tom, we'll leave in the description your email address as well so people can reach out. This is something very important since you put in the resources and eventually even commissioned somebody to do this for you as a thought leader, getting your company or your marketing manager on board to develop more content around this one-piece is definitely something that you should do in order to increase your return on investment. And we actually do this with the podcast as well. And Tom everybody that's been on our show received a core marketing package, let's say. So that kind of helps us as a podcast in terms of promoting it, but also them, as the thought leader or podcast guest to communicate this position to their audience. And here we are going into our second topic, which is good ways of promoting podcasts. And here, I would like to speak less, and let you Tom talk a bit more about the really constant and direct contact that you have with podcasts hosts. What are some of the best ways and strategies that you found worked well for them in promoting their shows growing their listenership and eventually being able to monetize their podcasts because they were getting so much reach? 

 

Tom Donohue  

There are tonnes of ways that hosts can go and promote their episodes. And I'm always hopping on calls to help people understand these types of things and stuff. When you think about it, the easiest way that anyone could think of is just to put a little bit of money behind an episode to promote it. Which not always is something that's available to do, but when you can, it really does help. For example, we know of a couple of shows that from the outside looking in, their Apple Podcast maybe they don't have a tonne of ratings or reviews, but the show could be reaching 10s of 1000s of people and get driving great results for their guests and their clients and things like that. That's simply because of the money that they put behind their shows to promote each episode whether it's through Facebook, Google, through podcast marketing like with Buzzsprout or other podcast platforms that can help you promote certain episodes. We've seen shows just have a tonne of success in that way. And whether it's, we call shows that some shows will request you to pay for an interview, to pay to be on the show, we call and pay to play shows. Say you were doing that like a pay to play situation and rather than slamming that money in your pocket, you use it to promote the episode. That's a great way to kind of drive a little bit of monetization into your episode as well, in terms of interviewing a guest, it's a pay to play, and then you're also promoting it to get a larger reach. Then ultimately, you can grow your show that way. That's one thing that we suggest is to really put money behind the show. But then also another thing that we suggest as well, is to interview guests like. There's really nothing else to it rather than that. If you're bringing on guests with big followings, or important people, it's in turn, just going to drive listenership. And when you bring, for example, say you interviewed a big CEO with 100,000 followers, and they share that to their network. You could, you could be certain that at least a couple 1000 new people are gonna hear your show, and you can be certain that a couple of them are going to like your show too and listen to it moving forward, rather than just the CEO that they follow whenever they are on it. We suggest just even if it's a minimal ad budget behind the show, that could really do great numbers. And then also interviewing great like qualified guests who have good followings, doing things like podcast swaps with other hosts where say, like you, for example, Andrei would go on to another marketing podcast, they would interview you, and then you would take that host and interview them on your show. So then you're swapping audiences, and the same type of people who would listen to that show likely would be interested in your show as well. Those are kind of the three main things, we suggest: podcast swaps with other hosts, interviewing awesome guests. And then just putting a small but manageable ad budget behind promoting maybe not every episode, but if you have a really good episode that you feel really strongly about, you could promote that. 

 

Andrei Tiu  

Super. And also here, I would just like to put out a thought. But I think this really delivers, again, to what you said now and to what we were discussing about content marketing. I think for everybody here, really, that has to show and produce content in this way. Apart from promoting just the podcast, remember that you probably also have a business and you can combine the two. And then looking at just, apart from really pushing the reach of your podcast, think about the other benefits that having a podcast can bring to your business. Because for example, through repurposing the content and maybe you have it in an audio or video form. But YouTube also has an SEO element to it. So if you do optimise your video well before uploading it, and there are a couple of tools that were free if you want to make a start, but you don't really have a budget to invest into YouTube, SEO or YouTube advertising, as in ads, then just doing some core optimization in terms of SEO can really help your videos reach more people and more relevant people. Also, you can transition the content that is audio or video into written content. And then you have new content for, first of all, for the podcast description, because it's really important from a quality standpoint to have shows that are multimedia, and that has a good description and everything else links. But for your business website, maybe as well. So apart from just putting the link to the episode on your podcast or on your website, you can also produce blog posts, and you can help your guests maybe, if you are a host, produce meaningful content on their website if they don't have the resource of the basis of the content that you produce together on the show. Then optimising that content from an SEO point of view, again, can be a very good opportunity to create new quality content and drive SEO results to your website or your business or your guests business. So maybe Tom, this might be something that you guys, I guess are doing as well through the content hub as well.

 

Tom Donohue  

Yeah, you said it right there yourself that I forgot to mention that in terms of the host side, but the same thing that we say to clients, like repurpose your content. Use it in as many ways as you can. And drag one episode out and spread it onto a bunch of different platforms, not just your Apple podcasts or Spotify, but get it onto YouTube, start recording video, start making Instagram posts from the video that you have or audio grabs a really great quote that came out of your show from a great guest, share that around everywhere that you can and it's going to help and it's going to make people want to listen to your episode really. So yeah, you said it yourself. And SEO is also extremely important. A way for you to get in front of more eyes for free without having to put an ad budget behind it. Just it takes a little bit of time at work to optimise that SEO stuff, but ultimately, sometimes that can drive better results, than Google Ads budget or anything like that.

 

Andrei Tiu  

And also, it's more sustainable from a time point of view, like once you get it, it's probably going to be recurring.

 

Tom Donohue  

Yeah, you can add it once you get it set up.

 

Andrei Tiu  

And now sort of like a more general question, but I think it's been on the minds of more podcasters, including myself. And you might have more data on this. But sort of like a closing question. What are your thoughts on podcasts or actually streaming platforms? So Spotify has been focusing a lot on podcasts over the last year or so. As you mentioned, a lot of new players have come into the market in terms of streaming. I don't know, how you feel about Spotify, for example, in comparison to Apple podcasts, and then what other rising stars have you identified in the streaming world?

 

Tom Donohue  

I think that one of the biggest changes we're seeing is the change from podcast downloads as a metric to more podcast streams. Because when Apple podcast was the sole, one of the main pod, well it is still obviously the main, but when it was almost the sole podcasting platform, the biggest metric that people were looking forward to promoting on podcasts and hosts were promoting is the number of downloads that they're getting. And now that's not even really a thing anymore. It's more about the streams. As this listenership is coming off of the Apple Podcast, I think we're gonna see a shift more terms, the same way that like music streaming is measured, how many streams does the song get? How many downloads, so it's a song, it was never really a metric, it's streams and listenership purchases. But with podcasts, I think we're gonna see the same thing. We're already shifting away from downloads as a metric. We don't really even discuss downloads as a metric with our clients anymore. We're starting to go into more about how many streams as a show have, or like ratings and reviews usually help, which platform do you choose, to use ratings and reviews from? It's been hard. So we think that ultimately, in aggregate will probably present itself pretty soon here, it's something that the industry is kind of need, and I think we'll definitely see that soon. In terms of other platforms that have been big that we've been hearing about and seeing pop up. Let me just see, I think I have a list here. But definitely, Buzzsprout is a huge one. Anchor FM is one that is also been pretty big for us. Lipson is another platform, Spotify has been getting much bigger into podcasts. Podchaser is another big one. There's just so many out there. Stitcher Radio. So just look at my list here. But then also Google podcasts hopped into it as well. Obviously, Google has to have a part in everything. A lot of posts are posting on Soundcloud these days as well.

 

Andrei Tiu  

Do you have any data on SoundCloud? We haven't been really active there. And I don't have a lot of first-hand data on the platform. Do you know how it does it in comparison with other platforms?

 

Tom Donohue  

We rarely see it as a place where it's like the podcasts sole platform. Sometimes we see people just uploading to SoundCloud because it's easy to let people download your episodes through SoundCloud. So maybe people are doing it as sort of a metric. Also another thing about SoundCloud, like say you're just starting out and you know, you're looking for a platform that you can use, like for free, SoundCloud is good for that as well. Because you can post episodes, for free, I think up to a certain extent, like, you can't post 10 episodes a day, but you might be able to post like, two to three episodes a month for free on SoundCloud. Which could be great to give somebody their start. And the bigger ones that we're seeing being used a lot are more of like the aggregate platforms like Buzzsprout, which is actually it's like a publishing platform where you could publish through Buzzsprout and it gets put onto all of the other platforms like Apple podcast, Spotify, all the big main ones. Those types of services are getting really popular now. Because it just makes things easier for the hosts and they also help with episode promotion and things like that. They give you easy ways to maybe put a little bit of a budget behind something and to get your episode to listen to. There's a tonne popping up out there. But yeah, those ones that I had mentioned before are kind of the main ones that we've been seeing through our experience. Throughout our agency, we probably touch on 1000 different podcasts every day, with all of our agents and staff. And, that's those are the main popular ones that we're seeing come up. 

 

Andrei Tiu  

Great stuff. Yeah, we use Podbean, which has been pretty good since we moved to it. So yeah.

 

Tom Donohue  

That's another one that I got on here, too.

 

Andrei Tiu  

Super. Well, Tom, this was a really, really nice conversation. Really glad that we had the chance to catch up and discuss podcasting this time. Yeah, let's do more of this.

 

Tom Donohue  

Yeah. It's great. Thanks for having me on again. And glad that you were down to talk about Kitcaster time and get into the podcast marketing realm.

 

Andrei Tiu  

Yes, yes, yes. So for the guys here wanting to find out more about Kitcaster and podcasting, maybe you already have a podcast, you want to find out what other opportunities there are for you out there. We'd have the links to Tom and also to Kitcaster in the description of this episode. As always, feel free to reach out to any of us or to me, and then I'll communicate with Tom if there's anything that you feel we could do more for you or if you have specific questions that you'd like us to try answering in a future episode. But until next time, Tom, again, it a real pleasure to meet again and to have the chance to discuss. Thank you for your time and insights and secrets and everything. Guys, thank you for tuning in. Hope you have an awesome summer and looking forward to staying in touch. speaks in. 

 

Tom Donohue  

Thanks, Andrei.