A lot of businesses don't realize that, like blogs, podcasts are not just a personal content medium but can also be used by businesses. To explain the various benefits of podcasting for businesses, I am joined by Robert Loewenthal, Founder and CEO of Whooshkaa, Australia's leading podcast hosting solution who have been successfully expanding globally as we speak.
Robert will help enlighten you on:
- How some companies are using targeted podcasts as part of their outbound sales and marketing.
- What is a branded podcast?
- How can podcasts help bridge the communication gap during covid?
Episodes mentioned in the show:
179: The What, Why, and How of Podcasting
175: Why I am Investing Time in Being Interviewed on 100 Different Podcasts
Key Highlights
[02:52] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Robert Loewenthal
[05:11] Who is Robert and Whooshkaa?
[06:45] How Robert Come Up with the Name Whooshka
[11:49] Using Podcast As Part of Outbound Sales and Marketing
[15:52] How Podcasting Work Traditionally
[17:16] Private Podcast
[20:07] Is It Easier to Create Audio Content Than Video Content?
[22:09] What Are Branded Podcasts?
[23:44] An Example of Creative Storytelling from A Brand
[24:54] Ways of Leveraging Podcast
[26:38] Podcast AS A Tool of Bridging Communication Gap
[27:30] Why Internal Communication Strategy Is Important
[31:00] The Supply and Demand of Podcasting
[32:48] Additional Podcast Statistics
[34:21] Connect with Rob and Whooshkaa
[35:13] Final Thoughts
Notable Quotes
Guest Links
Learn More:
A lot of businesses don't realize that, like blogs, podcasts are not just a personal content medium but can also be used by businesses. To explain the various benefits of podcasting for businesses, I am joined by Robert Loewenthal, Founder and CEO of Whooshkaa, Australia's leading podcast hosting solution who have been successfully expanding globally as we speak.
Robert will help enlighten you on:
- How some companies are using targeted podcasts as part of their outbound sales and marketing.
- What is a branded podcast?
- How can podcasts help bridge the communication gap during covid?
Episodes mentioned in the show:
179: The What, Why, and How of Podcasting
175: Why I am Investing Time in Being Interviewed on 100 Different Podcasts
Key Highlights
[02:52] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Robert Loewenthal
[05:11] Who is Robert and Whooshkaa?
[06:45] How Robert Come Up with the Name Whooshka
[11:49] Using Podcast As Part of Outbound Sales and Marketing
[15:52] How Podcasting Work Traditionally
[17:16] Private Podcast
[20:07] Is It Easier to Create Audio Content Than Video Content?
[22:09] What Are Branded Podcasts?
[23:44] An Example of Creative Storytelling from A Brand
[24:54] Ways of Leveraging Podcast
[26:38] Podcast AS A Tool of Bridging Communication Gap
[27:30] Why Internal Communication Strategy Is Important
[31:00] The Supply and Demand of Podcasting
[32:48] Additional Podcast Statistics
[34:21] Connect with Rob and Whooshkaa
[35:13] Final Thoughts
Notable Quotes
Guest Links
Learn More:
Hey, yeah, you're listening to this podcast. But did you know that a lot of companies are starting to use targeted podcasts as part of their outbound sales and marketing efforts, and that more and more companies, not people, but companies are launching branded podcasts. And if you ever thought about how podcasts just might be the key to help bridge this communication gap that we all have during COVID-19? Well, if you've thought about any of those, or even if you haven't, fasten your seat belts for another informative episode of The maximize your social influence podcast. Welcome to the maximize your social influence podcast with Neal Schaffer, where I help marketers, entrepreneurs and business owners grow their businesses using innovative marketing techniques, leveraging the concept of digital influence throughout digital and social media. Hey everybody, Neal Schaffer here. Welcome to episode number 188. Y'all Baba, oh man, and Chinese, everything ending with eight especially when it's 88 is such a good lucky number. I have high hopes for this episode. But regardless, today, we are going to be talking about podcasting. Now podcasting is something that I have talked about only in two other episodes, beginning with episode number 175. Why I am investing time and being interviewed on 100 different podcasts. By the way I am currently at in let me just give you the latest number to give you the update. Here we go. I'm currently at 98 published podcasts has two left to go. And I'll be at 100. And also episode number 179. The what, why and how of podcasting. You see, in digital marketing. If you want to yield influence as a person or as a business, you need to publish content. And there are four main types of content, right? You got your blog, you got your video, you got your image, and you got your audio, which is podcasting. That's why it is really a critical part of your infrastructure if you want to yield more influence, and in fact, many companies and many people have been very successful using podcasting as their main form of yielding influence, whether they have their own podcast or whether they appear and show up on other people's podcasts as I did on being interviewed on those 100 different podcasts. You also have to remember that of all these different content mediums, podcasting is the one that is more well, accepting of interviews, right, so of all these content formats, I'd say that podcasting is almost the most networking friendly, medium, the easiest medium to allow you to develop relationships. In fact, today's special guest Robert loewenthal is actually someone that I met by being a guest on someone else's podcast down in Australia. And he goes, Hey, you should really check out Robert loewenthal what his company wish calm is doing. Now, when I say wish ca you're thinking what the heck type of company is this? Wish CA is the leading provider a podcast hosting in Australia. In other words, they're like the libsyn or the buzzsprout. For those of you that use a well for those of you podcasters out there, they are the really the default market leading company in Australia. They're doing more with companies here in North America. And Robert is just a wow, a treasure trove of information and educational resource. And he is going to enlighten you a lot about not only leveraging podcasting for yourself, but more importantly, if you are a corporation, and we're seeing more and more companies, especially as we head into the new year, I think you're gonna see more and more companies launch their own type of branded podcast. I have not yet moved over to wish calm but who knows that might happen in the near future. So if you're new to podcasting, you'll probably want to check out their platform. And Robert is the guy who you could just reach out to and ask questions to about podcasting, assuming you become a customer which Scott so I think you're really gonna enjoy meeting him virtually through this podcast. And learning more about this amazing sales and marketing medium that is podcasting. So without further ado, here's my interview with Robert Lowenthal of wiska. Hey, everybody, join me in welcoming my special guest today all the way from down under Mr. Rob loewenthal of wiscombe. Ron, how's it going today? Good, Neil, how are you doing? Awesome. I know that we're approaching winter, you're approaching spring and summer so we're literally on opposite ends of the earth. But I got to start by asking you. In the United States, we've heard of things like libsyn and buzzsprout. Obviously these are people that are only involved in podcasting. I honestly had never heard of one QA until I was introduced by our fellow podcasting friend Adam Frazier. And since then i've i've seen which got a lot of places. So, Rob, tell me a little bit about yourself and about which guy?
Robert Loewenthal:Oh, thank you very much. Well, look, I, you know, in an old life, I used to run a radio network in Australia. And when I was there, I just felt that the technology was lacking. When it came to podcasts. I used to ask the digital manager how we were performing, and he would answer me in terabytes. And I thought, that's not an adequate answer in this digital age that we live in. So I left that business in 2015, or 14, and I started building whisker. And whisker is a technology platform that hosts podcasts, and distributes them and does a whole lot of other things. And I really initially just wanted to solve that simple problem, which was helping podcasters. And we've been, we're a bit guilty of sort of sticking to our home soil, we've done a lot, we've been very strong in Australia, and the southern hemisphere and across Asia. But we've never done too much in the US. And now our focus is really, really much on the US in Northern America and in Canada, as well. So that's why hopefully, you're starting to hear more and more about us.
Neal Schaffer:Brilliant. Now for those of you listening, hopefully, you heard my previous episode on sort of the how, what and why of podcasting where I talked about, you take an audio file, and you basically upload it to a podcast host company. So wiska. I currently use buzzsprout. And Rob is trying to get me over to wiscon. Maybe that'll happen soon. But that is that that is where wiscon sits and sort of the whole ecosystem. So can you tell me I got two questions specifically about Mischka. Number one, the name and I'm sure you get asked this a lot. And hopefully it's a great story. But number two, before we get into our topic today, just how, you know, how do you differentiate which got from all the other companies that are out there doing this?
Robert Loewenthal:Yeah, certainly will the names when you start a business, you can spend a lot of time thinking about the name and not the product. And I did exactly just that. But one of my friends who was an early investor in the business, he's a tragic punter, like he's always backing the horses. And every weekend, he tells me the same story, he was losing his money, he got to the last race, he backed the winner. It was an outsider, and then flew up the home straight and I went bushka and a beat the favorite. And so and that's a word we use in Australia, sometimes when the underdog beats the favorite. So I said to him, Look, I just want to be like your fictitious horse. And I want to be go whoosh, go and beat the favorite in this race. So that's how the name came about. And I, I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, because I'm up forever spelling it and pronouncing it and trying to tell people what it's about. But at least there's a bit of a story that goes with the name.
Neal Schaffer:It's awesome. Well, and for those of you who can't see this, where we have the video camera on I can see the logo of wish God the two O's, it looks like a headphone, so it actually makes it a lot easier to remember to spell it with two O's.
Robert Loewenthal:Exactly. That's the lens of being in Look, when we went to register the name, I realized there was a hairdressing salon in the west of Sydney with the name pushkar already registered with one eye. And I was like, that's the correct spelling. And I just didn't have time to kind of go through this process again and pull my hair out. And I was like, let's just chuck another eye on this thing and get it off. Get the shop on the road. There you go. That's a great story. Yeah, yeah. And so like, how do we differentiate our business? You know, what we think a little bit differently to the rest of the podcast hosts? Like, I've always thought that companies have video strategies, and they have email strategies, but that they have to them to most businesses and audio strategies, should I buy am or FM radio ads? You know, they don't think about what am I doing with podcasts? What am I doing with Google Home, Amazon Alexa? How am I using audio as part of that strategy to engage customers to engage staff. And it's as though audio has been left out of this toolkit. And we know you're a podcaster, we're in the business, we know how deeply engaging this medium is. But why has it sort of been left out. So our ambition is to help businesses around the world find their audio strategy by using our technology. And I think that's a little bit different. When we talk to some of our competitors. They say we host and store files, and we help you distribute them. And that's it, you know, we'll give you some analytics. Whereas we're all about kind of consolidating all the different tech that's out there, and letting you use bushka to have an audio strategy. So that goes from, you know, we've got transcription built into our technology. We've got video built in there. If you want to publish video on Amazon Alexa, we've got a text to speech. If you want to convert your company blog to a podcast, we've got all these other tools, even a recording feature, so you don't need to go to squad cast, you can do it inside of Oscar. So so we don't we still think the whole process around podcasting is difficult and complex. And you've got to log into six different pieces of software, just to get a piece of content out there. And that to me just seems unacceptable. And I think if you're a company, you need a low friction strategy. You don't want to be you've never produced any content in your life. You should be able to log into this one piece of software and follow the wizard and the 10 steps. Then you get the content out there. And that's, that's certainly our ambition and what we're achieving now. And that's really moved into the world of private podcasting. So when we opened that up for businesses, that meant that they could have a lot of companies said to us, we don't want to share our secret recipe with the competitors and do a public podcast. But we do you want to do it as a targeted audio approach. When we announced private podcasting, the gates really opened, and that changed our direction as a business. And it's, it's got us focusing more on enterprise clients as well. That's great.
Neal Schaffer:And I like how you're trying to piece together all these different, you know, pieces that exist in the ecosystem, really put them under one place, all making it easier for the end user, because yes, it is, it is very complex. And a lot of people just don't know how to get started, don't understand the different pieces, how they all work together. And if you can have that wizard that guides people through every step, I think that's excellent. So hopefully, after this podcast, you'll get you'll get some people wanting to hit you up for a free trial, what have you. And we'll make sure we put the show links to wiska in the show notes, but and I wouldn't get
Robert Loewenthal:podcasts what I'm trying to lower into my world.
Neal Schaffer:So with that in mind, and I want to get to that topic of podcasts for enterprises, I think my audience is still a little bit further behind that. So what I really want to talk to you today is your view on podcasting as a form of marketing, right, of using podcasting, to expand your reach and to learn land new customers. So I suppose the first area to start with, you mentioned that you know, of companies, I'm assuming their workshop customers that are using targeted podcasts as part of their outbound sales and marketing. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Robert Loewenthal:Yeah, certainly, this is a really interesting development that we've observed. And we're, we're optimistic about it, because we think it's just a new way to use audio altogether. You'd be familiar with products like loom, and where people are sort of social video where you're getting your content and your message out to prospective customers, or for all sorts of reasons. And now with private podcast, we're seeing companies go into a place like let's say, LinkedIn, find 1000 leads, use another piece of software to get the email addresses for those different leads, you know, you might be in the mining industry. And you've just found 1000 people who are potential customers in mining. And then you go and email a link to 1000 people with a podcast that you've made, but you're emailing them privately, and you get them to see if they subscribe to your content and engage with it. So out of that 1000 emails that go out, maybe you get 20 people who subscribe to your content, which is probably about mining or about something that's of interest to them. So when they subscribe to that content, because you've invited them privately, you can see if they have listened or not. That's powerful now, because, first of all, you've got a one on one relationship with a potential prospect. And you're positioning yourself as a subject matter expert, and they're listening to you. And they're saying, well, they walk away from that podcast, saying that these guys know what they're talking about in my industry, let me find out a bit more. Because you can see that engagement level at an individual level means you can follow them up and put them into your sales funnel, and go through the normal process as you would as a marketer. that's, to me a real exciting use case for podcasts. And one of the challenges with podcasting in the previously was that you put your RSS feed into Apple podcasts using your host, you might get a million listeners, and you don't know the name of one of them, unless they subscribe to your email newsletter, or something like that on your website. by inviting podcasters listeners privately, you know who they are. And you know if they've listened or not, because you have that data already. So that's a powerful use to try and drive leads and conversions and get people into your sales and marketing funnel.
Neal Schaffer:So for those that are listening, and you might be a little bit confused, as well as I'm a little bit confused. But getting email addresses from LinkedIn searches is something that there are a number we call them data scraping tools. I use a tool called Phantom buster, which I recommend I'll put a link in the show notes as well. Very inexpensive ways to get collections of data, right. And it's all based on public information. Then there are other services I use a service called voila Norbert. They're called email pending services. So they'll and sometimes the Phantom busters and data scraping tools will include the ability for additional money, you know, x cents per email address, to find what they think is the probable email address for that contact. So now Rob, what you're saying is companies are sending a cold email so these people are not opted in. They're using an email tool. Well, I guess they could use an email marketing tool, but these are cold emails. They're not opted in so they could report spam, what have you and they are sending them a unique link to a Private podcast. So I was saying that you're creating 1000 different links in or 1000 different RSS feeds in wiscombe. And then since which guy is able to see all that? If certain people if you know, Neil's podcasts, you know 001 Neil's pockets 002. That way you can see which of these feeds was listened to and engage with. And then we can match that back to the email subscriber. And I assume that this is unique to your technology, because you have this support a private podcast. So is my under I'm going to take a step. Is that understanding correct? I'm going
Robert Loewenthal:to take these podcasts later and use it as a testimonial. In an educational video, because you've nailed it right. Right there. I mean, there are different like the software that you mentioned, there's other leaders, the HubSpot, there's inter cell or there's a whole bunch of different ones and the ones that you mentioned really good, but absolutely right. So the way traditionally podcasting works was that you have one RSS feed, and that goes out to the world. Instead of saying RSS, let's just say URL. And that goes out and everyone listens to that one feed, what we're doing is generating a unique feed for every different listener. So therefore, you can see if someone's listened to that content or not, and we have unlimited unique feeds. So you might want to send out a million. That's a million different feeds that go out. And then you can run a report to see who listened. If they don't listen, they get an automated reminder email. It's not spammy because they've got to opt in or they've got to hit say, yeah, I'm interested in this content. So they hit subscribe, when they hit subscribe on that email that opens their podcast player, and they hit subscribe to that piece of content in Apple podcasts or whatever app that they like, or on their desktop. So they've opted in to actually listen to the content. If they don't respond, and they don't listen, well, then they they just sort of disappear. There's no engagement there. But out of that I yeah, yeah. No, I
Neal Schaffer:was gonna say they're often on the podcast side, the email side we mounts on robbers go, yeah, yeah, but but so I guess there's a there's a good thing about it, that the bad is that they're now not opting into your Apple podcast feed for your main show. So the listener stat. So this is really good for that really for prospecting. Once you get people in your circle, you would expect that we just subscribe on Apple podcasts. And therefore those numbers go into the algorithms what have you, right?
Robert Loewenthal:Yeah. What you can do though, is you can set this subscribing in by that unique RSS feed. If they become permanent listeners, you can redirect them to your permanent feed your main feed, to say they're gone. But you would really want to keep them as unique listeners, because then you get the individual data, you once they you'd redirect them to the main feed, then you lose that now that the advantage of having a lot of subscribers to your main feed, it means that in a place like Apple podcasts or Spotify, wherever you listen, you go higher up on the rankings, and you're more likely to find be found out in search that and so on. So I do understand that. And that's why this is more private podcasts. Very, very solid when it comes to internal comms. So staff to employees, but also in the area of prospecting, and not suggesting so much that it's your full on podcast that they get, but might be just a snippet of news or content that's very relevant to them in their industry, then they subscribe to it. And then you will follow them up with an email and saying, Hey, would you like a demonstration of what we do? Let's get in touch.
Neal Schaffer:So let me just ask you one more question about this private podcast, from a sales outreach perspective, is this content that's been set specifically chosen, you know, the few episodes that are most relevant to this industry, it's sort of like I assume it's a subset of the major podcast, and or perhaps publication of a few new snippets of content, a few new pieces of news is that sort of the
Robert Loewenthal:original content, so they're making it for the purpose of this prospecting, as opposed to it's my regular weekly or monthly podcast, it's just for that purpose. And quite often, it's like the sales enablement teams. So we work with a lot of big tech companies, including in the in the US and northern hemisphere. And they are they have teams called sales enablement. And it's their job to make sure that the sales team is well trained. And while they were using private podcast to communicate internally with the sales people that like we should actually use these for prospecting as well. Let's put some of this content into the use of our targets or even our existing customers. And it's, it goes back to like, everyone thinks podcasting is about entertainment and persuasion, and being the big speaker and all that sort of stuff. And they've forgotten that. podcast can also be just a purely a means for communication. It doesn't have to be, you don't have to be Joe Rogan. Like every time you step behind the microphone, sometimes you've just got a purpose, and you need to communicate with someone. And we know that when people don't have to stop what they're doing, and look down at a screen and read or watch a video. They can go about their lives and listen to content. And I think that's that's a powerful thing.
Neal Schaffer:Then that was my next question comparing that to, you mentioned some of those video tools. bondora is you know, I mean, there's a number of them out there. So you have clients that are that find the video to be a little bit too, too. eruptive and they prefer the audio approach or and I'm assuming the video approach also will get you you know, similar metrics. But also I suppose it's probably easier to create the audio content and video content where you got to worry about the lighting and the cameras with the audio, it's a little bit more straightforward, isn't it?
Robert Loewenthal:You know, like with the audio, you jump into the dashboard, you hit record, you record the content, and then you publish it, and it's out there and the 1000 is in no time. But we don't say that this this doesn't they all do video as well, like, there's this idea that podcasting doesn't need to compete with other forms of media, it actually complements them. It's like what I've been saying that, why does no one have an audio strategy, if you're if you're in absolute goal is engagement, either your listeners, your public listeners, or internal staff members, whoever they are. Having an audio strategy can only grow that it can't reduce your engagement level, save your video, you've got 100 staff and 50 people watch the video, if you take that video and publish it as an audio file as a podcast, which means you have now given people the opportunity to listen and go for a walk the dog and listen to the CEO message or whatever it is, then you get another 10 people. So now you've got 60 people who have heard that message or watch that message, you've just driven up engagement, you know, another another 10 or so percent. So that if your goal is to increase engagement, you need to be an audio.
Neal Schaffer:Gotcha. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I have some people that have applied to be on this podcast or you know, to become a guest blogger and ask for links to showcase their expertise. I've had a few people just send me YouTube links. And I've never opened them up. It's I don't have time to disrupt my workflow. If it's a blog, if it's text, I can just briefly see it and get a good feel right. I don't have time to watch a 20 minute video to understand your expertise. So it's if it was audio, I mean, I've been you know, since I got those video links. I've listened to tons of podcasts. So point well taken about the different types of engagement there. So yeah, so so that's really, really interesting. And once again, this is something I have never heard of. That's a really interesting growth hacking tool. I think it deserves more attention. Hopefully some of you will reach out to rob after this episode, but I wanted to keep moving forward. Uh, you mentioned the importance in terms of expanding your reach and any new customers of a branded podcast. So I am assuming when you say branded podcast, we talk about branded content. So content that that that comes from the company talks about the company talks about the brand, is this the same notion of more and more companies more and more enterprises coming out with their own podcasts like they have their own blog or their own YouTube channel?
Robert Loewenthal:It is. It's not so much though, company getting out there and making it a big advertorial and talking about their products because most company CEOs think that everyone's really interested in hearing about their latest model car, and really no one. No one cares. The trick with good branded content is actually just telling a great story, and making sure the listeners know that you're associated with it, so that they walk away thinking, that's a forward thinking brand. We like that company. We like the brand and we want to be associated with them as media consumers. In Australia, we've also got a content arm called bushka Studios, and we've built content for Facebook and audible and we did one for Mercedes with Henry Rollins, and he was driving in one of their youth so you'd seen a drive we call utility vehicles Utes I think you'd call them pick up out. I used to
Neal Schaffer:trade in your since you're from us, I don't know if you've heard of a band called the birthday party, Nick Cave's original band I me but I used to trade the birthday party bootleg tapes with Henry Rollins, who was then singer of black flags. I grew up in Southern California at a donut shop in Hermosa Beach California anyway that's I mean, I could not I don't even know if you remember me if I saw him but the think of him in a Mercedes Benz SUV that's pretty amazing.
Robert Loewenthal:with China, because they who drives like you know, if you drive a truck, you don't drive a Mercedes truck, you drive some sort of like in your in your part of the world. Maybe it's shave or dolla, like tough, you know, you gotta be Yeah. And now we're like, how can we get these people to try so he's this guy with tattoos and all these war stories. So he Yeah, he drives around the Australian outback, interviewing people like surfer, Mick fanning, and all these guys talking about tough conversations. And it was really good content, like he was talking about everything was tough, tough, tough, tough, because they wanted people to know that Mercedes could also be tough, but they didn't say our Mercedes is a tough car to drive. It was just at the end that was brought to you by Mercedes, you know, go buy a car, whatever. But the whole piece of content was really deeply engaging. And it was them trying to say we can be tough as well.
Neal Schaffer:Very smart, and obviously leveraging an influencer to do the talking for them. Right. And not even directly related to them. He may not even own a Mercedes. But this notion of sort of a branded content series, that that is, is you know, there's their storytelling going on. And by the way, you know, we're tough as well, so that's really brilliant.
Robert Loewenthal:Yeah, yeah, it worked like they loved in there. They got a lot of listeners, a lot of people who would never drive a Mercedes car. kind of walked away thinking, we did a lot of surveys after the content went live. And we were like, yeah, we think that that's really interesting. I didn't know first of all brand, they didn't know that there was such a car. And then second of all, they their view was that they'd be open to considering one and that they they changed their mind a little bit about Mercedes they thought it was for, you know, old people who live in affluent suburbs, and don't work very hard. So they change their mind about it.
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, I've seen they've been very very successful on Instagram as well reaching out to a younger audience. They're they're really innovative company in terms of their marketing so so that's a great example. I don't know how many companies can replicate that that takes creativity storytelling, I'm just thinking of, you know, the famous brand storytelling books that we have out in the market that are just, you know, tell it's, it's still pretty much about the company in the product, and how it helps people what have you, it's not taken to the level of almost like a separate TV show, you know, let's have car okay in the back of the Mercedes with, you know, a famous movie star every day or, you know, something that's very, very different. But that's a very, very cool way of leveraging podcast for sure. So one other thing that you mentioned that you thought was important for today was we've talked about the way that audio can complement everything, you using audio for your marketing outreach, using it for storytelling to lure a new audience in, you also told me that because of COVID, we have this communication gap and that podcast have a unique way of bridging that communication gap that we have right now. Can you go in a little bit more detail about that?
Robert Loewenthal:Yes, certainly, I think that when we talk about audio, there's two things that stand out. One is the engagement levels are through the roof. And we all know that because we listen to podcasts. And we think, if you like you're sitting in the room with the host of that show that you love, and you feel like you're talking to them, and they're talking to you so engagements really high. But the other forgotten, advantage of audio is it's mobility. You know, we can now the idea of stop. So if you drive a forklift at work, or you're working on mine, or you drive a truck or whatever, it's very hard to read the company blog, or watch the video from the CEO when you're driving that forklift. In fact, it's very dangerous. But audio once again, use it as a as a strategy to complement those other messages and get your message out there. And now that we're all at home, you've got to have a pretty smart internal comms strategy if you're running a business you've got to try and engage your staff level and make sure they're they're consuming all your content and staying up to date and it might be for training and development. It could be for anything so you've got to give them something that they can at least put in they can put put this content in their ears and walk around the block with the dog and listen to that CEO message or they can sit in front of the screen and watch it and I know I prefer to go for the walk Yeah, so it's it's another tool in your kit bag to try and get to staff or customers you know or or just your your general fans in this Coronavirus pandemic. And it's just highlighted more now companies are looking for solutions. So it's not that this wasn't always a good idea. It's just now that companies are saying, how do we get to pay how we talk to people? And they're doing all the right things, but they're just forgetting this this medium of audio?
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. And I think when we were first introduced, had our first call it was in the very early days of Coronavirus. It wasn't to this extent but you already said that you had a lot of traction in that market including companies here in United States and I think it makes so much sense because you know, look at it from the flip side if you want to become an influencer there's only four different content mediums, right? There's, you know, from a digital perspective, you have photo, you have video, you have text, you have audio, and for internal communications companies really focus on maybe the text, email, blog post, and or that video, where the audio especially if you're a CEO who listens to podcasts, it's just you know, once you plug it into a wish God just you know, hit the record button every week for a few minutes. You're now in tune with your your employees or and or your customers. And similar to how, you know, I don't know how many of you listen to how many podcasts but you know, a few minutes I need to put my contact lenses in for I take my daughter to school, I'm listening to a podcast and then when I'm changing my clothes, I'm listening it's little five or 10 minute snippets, I'll still listen to podcasts. It's just not going to happen with the video. And not even with the blog posts and of course when I'm driving. So once you once you realize the audio just makes a lot of sense. And if you're a CEO or you're a business owner listening to this thinking well my customers don't listen to podcasts or my and well you lead from the top if you begin to do it and say, You know I'm going to be sending out weekly messages Please listen in. And you could facilitate a web page. I mean, they don't have to record via podcasts. I'm sure whisk also has a web page interface where people can go to a URL and hit play. It's I think from a delivery delivery mechanism. It really is in for listening Listen, these are the easiest ways to communicate today would you agree?
Robert Loewenthal:Oh, for sure. Like we're so sick of watching the CEO with the tide and uptight and he's sweating and tired and angry, delivering some message. It's like, just let me listen, I don't even want to look at the guy anymore. So I think that's a, that's a real thing now and look up if CEOs or business owners think that no one's listening to this medium, they're wrong, because over 30% of the population, at least in the United States, in Australia, are listening to podcast for about six or seven hours a week. You know, that's, that's a real number. That's a medium that is not this kind of new kid on the block. He's nice, or is it not? So it's it's a, it's a medium where a lot of your customers are hanging out, a lot of your staff are hanging out, and you need to be there, too.
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, well said Well said. So I think that probably a lot of people listening, it got their head spinning. Hopefully, they're thinking of things in a new way, I have found just podcasting to be a very, very easy way to communicate to market, I want to share it with you all. This is stats, I'm not sure I don't think I shared this, I wanted to share more stats, and that the who, what, why, and when a podcast and I'll put that episode in the show notes as well. But because of this supply demand, just from a pure marketing perspective, the supply and demand of podcasting is just so skewed. Now, I'd be interested to hear which guys similar numbers, this comes from buzzsprout. So they basically analyzed the download data of all the podcasters that use their platform. And they said that if you in the last 30 days got 98 downloads, you would be in the top 50% of podcasts, which to me, is an incredible number. Because trying to get into the top 50% of blog traffic, try to get into the top 50% of YouTube channels, that's going to take a long time. But I think if you already have an audience, which most businesses should, and you began to produce a podcast, and you promoted it to your community, I think very, very quickly now it's because of the supply and demand, there's just not enough supply to keep up with the demand. I think very easily, you can move yourself into what they consider the top 50%. And I also want to remind you that the top 10% is 982 downloads, if you were to do a weekly episode, that's 250 downloads per might take a little bit of time, but I know it's achievable. And I just asked a lot of small businesses out there. How many, you know, whenever you publish a new blog post, how many hits does it get over the course of a month, in the first month? Are you getting 250 hits for every single blog post you publish within a month? And I don't think a lot of companies are you know, so when you think of it that way, I think it really is a great opportunity. I know that this data is going to change as more and more people you know, and companies start podcasting. But I do think it is a great opportunity. Rob, do you have any other, you know, maybe your own internal data, any other thoughts to add to that
Robert Loewenthal:very similar to that those numbers actually. So if you're getting more than 1000, you're like top, you're one of the top sort of five within 5% of all podcasters. So we've got about 9000 podcasts as he used Oscar and that very consistent with those numbers. But don't write off for someone with 100 listens, if you're a surgeon, and you do a podcast about brain surgery, and you've got 100 listeners, I guarantee you they're probably surgeons themselves. And that's a powerful little audience and relationship you have there. And as a podcaster, your listeners don't know how many other listeners there are. So then judge you by your performance on some sort of a chart. They just like you because they love the content. And if you've got people showing up every week or month for your content, you're successful.
Neal Schaffer:Indeed, well said and you know, just as a reminder, and I'm not here to evangelize podcasting. But if you've been listening to this, you've we have had your attention for 30 minutes, you've probably heard wiska mentioned several times, you still may not know how to spell that. Well, you know, we'll put in the show notes. But it is this type of attention getting that is unparalleled. You know that that Instagram posts that you spend a day creating, it's gone. The YouTube video after three, five minutes people are tuning out podcasting really is special because of that. Now, I also don't want to take advantage of that, which is why Usually, I usually have interviews, you know, at the 30 minute mark, I myself, it's hard for me to stick through an hour, but I find that most of my audience will give 20 to 30 minutes. So that's other things that you should be considering when concerning podcasting. So Rob, I'm sure a lot of people are going to have a lot of questions about everything you talked about. Tell us where they can find out more about wiscon.
Robert Loewenthal:Yeah, we have a website, obviously wish god.com I'm Robert wiska. I answer every email that's ever been sent to me. And I'm still very hands on as a CEO of my business. We have about 20 or so staff, but I still answer every piece of correspondence and I'm still doing product demos every day. Because, you know, I think as a founder or as a CEO, you've got to be thick and deep in the weeds when it comes to product and marketing. So you've got to keep showing up every day every day and doing it so you can get in touch with me directly.
Neal Schaffer:Well, there you go. That's straight from the CEOs mouth. So please give rob a call. You're the first first podcast company that's ever been on this podcast. So hopefully you have a monopoly for my listeners. That was really awesome. Thank you so much. Any other last thoughts you want to give? I think we covered a lot of the benefits really, and a lot of the unique ways which you brought up, which I had never heard of in which podcasting can be used. Anything else that my audience you know about.
Robert Loewenthal:To me, it's just like, think about, you've got it, you've got an email strategy and a video strategy, think about what is your audio strategy, you look at the advancements in things like Alexa and Google Home, and you know that the world's moving into the world of voice, you can create content, make your content work harder, you know, if you've got video content converted to audio, and publish that as a podcast, if you've got written content converted to audio use text to speech, you might get one extra listener or consumer. But guess what, you just drove up engagement. It doesn't hurt to make your content work harder, and have an audio strategy. There are two recommendations. Obviously, they're very self serving. But we see clients all the time customers podcast is doing this successfully. And it's not just a fad. This is a definite trend that will continue for the next 1020 years.
Neal Schaffer:If you're trying to figure out your 2021, marketing strategy and budget, here you go. Perfect timing. Thank you so much, Rob. Thanks, Neil. All right. I hope you enjoyed that interview. Like I said, podcasting is one of those main mediums of content that Well, I'd say your website comes first. But once you feel like you have your library of content on your website, that's where you want to look to expand, and maybe just maybe podcast, he may be right for you, or for your business. I want to thank you all for listening. For all the subscriptions and all the ratings, they really do make a difference. I want to give a shout out. I'm looking at the podcast chart ratings. And I see we're coming in and out of a lot of countries. But we're some of the in the top 100 countries like Italy, Bongiorno and New Zealand, say hi to all my Kiwi friends, even some countries in Africa, like Ghana and Nigeria, I want to thank you so much for being a listener. Hopefully next time I podcast I'll be able to mention your country. But hey, thanks again for being along this journey with me. If you didn't know, if you were go to my website and look at the very bottom, I have a number of educational resources that you can download for free. I have some free ebooks, my most popular free ebook is probably my maximizing LinkedIn for business. Also have a free preview to my new book on influencer marketing the age of influence. So just go to Neal Schaffer calm, go to the very bottom, and the link is in the show notes, which is the description if you're on a podcast app, and you can freely access those downloads. I mentioned that because I'm already working on two new resources that I hope to release in the very near future in the near future. So keep your eyes on that. I also just wanted to say that I do offer fractional cmo or outsourced cmo type of marketing consulting services for companies with a minimum retainer contract of three months, one hour a week, I still do have a few very limited openings. So hey, if you need some extra help with your marketing, if you're too busy working with a lot of outsourced entities, or maybe you just want to have a restart on your strategy for 2021. And you want to bring in an expert to help you out. We'll help is on the way. Neil is here. I've been watching a lot of Better Call Saul. So it's like Better Call Saul better call me Oh, that's not the way it works, obviously. But we'd love to help you out, especially if you are a podcast listener and you hear all this information. But how do you apply it to your own company? That's where a helping hand like myself can really help. And if not, I hope that you find that helping hand to really help you capitalize on the opportunities that are still out there for any company in any industry going into 2021 So hey, thanks again for listening. Wherever you are in the world, make it a great virtual social day. Bye bye everybody and SEO nada