GUEST BIO Katherine Wells is the CEO and founder of Serenity, a network that allows aging service providers, older adults and their loved ones to care together. She created the company out of her direct experience of silos in senior care. Katherine's own experience of caring for her aging parents, who were not expecting to need care, inspired her to launch Serenity, which gives providers an easier way to communicate and collaborate with family members in a secure, digital way.
WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT Katherine advises marketing executives and founders to grow or promote their businesses by implementing the product with a small test group of users, getting them set up, having them share it with everyone in their organization, and giving them a quick and easy way to connect with other companies or service providers they are working with. Then, a sales conversation is initiated with those other companies.
Katherine emphasizes the importance of building a viral product when it comes to growing or promoting a business. She suggests focusing on solving one problem in a particular industry or company, measuring the results, and de-risking the experiments. She also encourages entrepreneurs to have big visions, lead in a way that allows others to follow, and to communicate the results of their experiments in order to grow their product.
MORE FROM SERENITY Serenity helps streamline communication in the senior care industry and provides a digital channel for people to communicate with one another. Reach out to Katherine at serenityengage.com, and to attend their event, Collaboration in Aging, to discuss the issues faced by seniors in the industry.
GUEST BIO Graham Sawrey is the CEO of Pixel True, a design agency that works with SaaS companies. Graham has a background in managing companies in various industries such as content marketing, affiliate marketing, design, animation, copywriting, and Web3 software. He got into building businesses because of his interest in the online marketplace and the attractive multiples for investing in online businesses. Graham believes that having a cohesive brand across all assets is crucial for most companies, especially SaaS companies, to grow. Pixel True works with a number of SaaS companies at all stages and has grown in the last year from 13 employees to nearly 100 today.
WHAT WE DISCUSSED Graham discusses the importance of unifying a company's brand identity across all its pages and social media accounts. He mentions that this can help with simplicity and the creation of content faster. However, he mentions that it is difficult to determine specific results because there are many intangibles and variables involved, such as the effort the company puts into promoting its brand, the amount of content produced, and the design elements used. He notes that SaaS companies often have a similar aesthetic and that it can be challenging to stand out in a crowded marketplace. He suggests using brand and visual identity to differentiate from the competition.
Graham explains the steps to building a cohesive brand across a B2B SaaS company's website pages and social media. He suggests the following steps:
Research – this includes going through your competitor's websites and social media to see what you like and don't like. Make detailed notes and try to understand their process. Get insights from others as well.
Create a database of research – having a database of research is invaluable as it can be used to share with a design team or anyone working on the brand.
Execution – focus on what needs to be done based on the time and resources available. He suggests focusing on social media as a starting point.
Graham emphasizes that doing the research is the most crucial step and will lay the foundation for the rest of the work. It's also important to put in the work when it comes to creating a cohesive brand across platforms and websites. He cautions against shortcuts that may result in an inconsistent and confusing user experience. Graham also offers advice on striking a balance between research and execution, and suggests reaching out to Pixel True for help with design services.
MORE FROM PIXEL TRUE Pixel True provides an experienced design team that works with you everyday to create high-quality design assets to help grow your business. Learn more at https://www.pixeltrue.com/
GUEST BIO Eric McHugh is the Chief Growth Officer and co-founder of ShopX, a Web3 eCommerce platform that utilizes ENFTs to create a new revenue channel for eCommerce brands without diluting their brand value. Eric previously worked at Snap as a bankruptcy consultant and helped found a social commerce platform. He was drawn to the world of cryptocurrency and entrepreneurship, which led him to the ShopX team in 2017. They started a side project, CartRev, a social commerce platform that replaced affiliate links and had over 100 brands using it. The team then transitioned back into ShopX, which is now a blockchain-as-a-service platform for e-commerce brands. Eric is excited to be working in the technology space and is proud of the team's efforts in ShopX.
WHAT WE TALKED ABOUT ShopX is a technology platform that provides a new way to sell products using NFTs (non-fungible tokens). A famous dog on Instagram, Husky Jackson, used ShopX's NFT technology to launch a reserve pass before releasing his product. The reserve pass allowed him to get funding for his product in real-time and prove that customers were interested in it. ShopX is also partnering with a TV show for a one-time pass for a one-time product, such as a makeup kit. The use of NFTs makes it more secure and easier to prove ownership, and also allows for future royalty options for the brand. The biggest insight from ShopX is that this technology is in demand, despite people not being familiar with crypto and NFTs.
In this conversation, Eric is discussing the importance of being authentic and incorporating personal values into one's personal brand and content. He shares how he incorporates things such as his interests in discipline, spiritual pursuits, and pop culture references into his communication with others. He mentions how he sends playful emails referencing TV shows like Parks and Rec and incorporates the phrase “please and thank you” due to his love for the show. Eric believes in having a team that is on the same page, energetically aligned and with the same values, and this attracts the right people to work together.
Eric discusses his product launch and the strategy for connecting with potential clients and investors. He mentions that the approach depends on the content and that some people prefer to engage with the content at their own pace. Eric also mentions the importance of being authentic but having a thick skin as some people may not like it.
MORE FROM SHOPX ShopX unlocks the power of Web3 for brand loyalty and growth. Learn more at https://shopx.co/
GUEST BIO Franck Juvin-Acker is an expert in enhancing sensory experiences for brands to create a deeper connection with consumers. With a background in the sports and tech industries, having worked for renowned companies such as Salomon, Nixon, and Adidas, as well as collaborating with Star Wars and Google, Franck has a wealth of experience in creating innovative solutions. Currently, Franck heads the digital health portfolio for Enovis, a leading player in the Medtech industry. Under his leadership, the company's latest launch was awarded the prestigious ACE award, being recognized as one of the most cutting-edge innovations for patient recovery.
INTERVIEW TAKEAWAYS In our conversation, Franck talks about his background in the sport equipment industry and how it led him into the marketing and business world. He emphasizes the importance of having a human touch and understanding the users in order to create successful products or services. He also touches upon the idea of open-mindedness and immersing oneself in the users' lives. He argues that a common mistake startups make is not doing enough research on the market and talking to people. When it comes to integrating this type of direct communication into a marketing department, Franck suggests making it part of the regular routine and having a collaborative process.
Franck mentions that it is important to focus on the “voice of the customer.” He advises that for startups, the process can start by testing the product with relatives or people connected to the company, and for established companies, testing with a select group of ideal customers. He mentions that giving control and shares to brand ambassadors such as surgeons can give validity to the product and help with legitimacy and attracting more users. The importance of distributing samples and getting feedback from actual people is highlighted.
Franck advises marketing executives and founders to focus on the needs of the average person in their marketing campaigns. He highlights that regular people face difficulties in their recovery process as they do not receive the same level of care as professional athletes. He also mentions the frustration that patients feel as they feel alone in their recovery process, due to long wait times and limited time with their surgeon. Franck suggests that a digital app like Motion IQ can help bridge the gap, by bringing the surgeon into the home to support the patient in their recovery. He also mentions the importance of understanding the end-user and the care team in a B2B context.
He also suggests that marketers focus on making the lives of their customers and end users easier. He suggests using observation and market research to inform the design of products and marketing campaigns. This can involve getting feedback from customers and using it to improve the product and marketing strategies. Franck also mentions the importance of paying attention to nonverbal cues and feedback, as people may not always express their thoughts or opinions outright. He suggests using empathy and understanding to connect with customers and to adjust strategies based on their needs and feedback.
MORE FROM ENOVIS As a leading medical technology company, Enovis is focused on developing clinically differentiated solutions that generate better patient outcomes and transform workflows. Learn more at https://enovis.com/
Jonathan Zacks is on a mission to decimate no-show appointments. After running an appointment-based business for a decade, he co-founded GoReminders, which increases business revenue and cuts wasted staff time with automated appointment reminders and online booking. Jonathan runs Growth & Marketing for GoReminders and loves helping small businesses with automation and communication.
MAIN INSIGHT
Do less research and more “doing”. Test and iterate quickly to improve marketing campaigns.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Trust your gut. Have confidence.
Shift your mindset from “doing” to “trying”.
Try the project out, making sure it's within a risk range you're comfortable with.
Test and measure. Look for noticeable results within relatively short timeframes (e.g. testing whether a new website headline unambiguously led to more conversions within 1-2 weeks rather than waiting for months)
MORE FROM GoReminders
GoReminders is an easy-to-use software for automated reminders, text messages, confirmations, and online scheduling, that saves you time and makes you money. Learn more at https://www.goreminders.com/
Michael’s mission to connect health-concerned consumers to nurses in their own communities is based on personal experience he and his wife had when their daughter was born with a congenital heart defect. “Texting with our friend Kim, who happened to be a pediatric nurse practitioner, helped us get through the scary and confusing healthcare system. I want everyone to have access to these same caring and compassionate professionals in our communities”.
Michael previously co-founded two venture-backed companies as Co-founder and Head of Product at the health and fitness-tracking platform RunKeeper and Co-founder and CEO of the AI-powered local restaurant ordering platform Chef Nightly. Michael also served as Head of Product at the venture-backed startup Mobee, a retail app that rewards consumers by providing feedback to local retailers.
MAIN INSIGHT
Don't sell products — sell solutions. Present your product as a solution to customers' pain points.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Get people from your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) on a call. Make sure you understand your ICP.
Bring various members of your team to the call, and understand the different motivations of different team members.
Ask questions about the prospective customer's current solution.
Make sure everyone on the call, conducting the interview is happy and has their questions answered live.
Walk through the concerns the user has – why do they think there's a better solution?
MORE FROM NURSE 1-1 Nurse 1-1 allows healthcare providers to offer nurse chat support and receive data-driven insights to improve adherence at any step of the patient journey. Find them at nurse-1-1.com
Ben Dooley is the founder of Untabit, a cutting-edge content creation platform that automates the research process for marketers and sales teams. With over a decade of experience in the industry, Ben has a proven track record of success, having sold over $100 million worth of software throughout his career. He is deeply passionate about bridging the gap between sales and marketing, and is committed to helping businesses streamline their content creation process to achieve maximum impact and success.
MAIN INSIGHT Get deep when getting feedback from users, in order to improve your product and marketing copy.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Have a 30 minute session with prospective users
Do a 5 minute training session with the user, then have the user run through the product themself, on a recorded Zoom call
Share these insights with your team to hone customer personas and develop marketing copy that uses your target customers' language
MORE FROM UNTABIT
Untabit is a content creation platform that automates the content research process. Learn more at untabit.com
As someone who values privacy and social responsibility, I understand that cold outreach may not be the most ideal marketing channel for everyone. While it can be effective in certain situations, it can also be intrusive and potentially disruptive, and it puts the personal information of decision makers at risk.
However, I also recognize that cold outreach is a commonly used tactic, and it can be an effective way for startups to reach B2B decision makers.
That being said, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to get the attention of B2B decision makers through cold outreach and other marketing channels such as SEO and organic social.
Therefore, if you’re looking for alternative ways to connect with decision makers in B2B companies, one option to consider is podcasting.
After reading this article, you’ll learn:
The common tactics that startups use to reach B2B decision makers, and why they can be ineffective.
Why podcasting is a more targeted and responsible approach to reaching B2B decision makers.
How to use podcasting to effectively connect with B2B decision makers
What Most Startups do to Reach B2B Decision Makers and Why They’re Ineffective
If you’re like most startups, you might have tried reaching B2B decision makers through cold outreach, organic social and SEO, with no success.
Here is a brief overview of these channels and why this is the case.
Cold Outreach
Cold outreach is the most recommended way of reaching B2B decision makers.
To do this effectively, most companies hire dozens of SDRs and BDRs for cold calling and cold pitching.
And despite the time and resources spent on them, it rarely produces the desired result.
The screenshot below is proof.
As you can see, this co-founder says he has only responded to two out of over 5000 sales emails he has received in the last few years.
This means that if your email lands in his inbox, there’s only a 0.04% chance of him responding to it.
This shows why the cold emails you send to B2B decision makers haven’t led to the results you desire.
Here are some reasons for this:
Decision makers are often busy. The last thing they want to do is read an unsolicited email.
They’re the target of other B2B sellers. This means there’s a high possibility that they get tons of similar emails in their inbox. This further reduces the chances of yours being seen.
Cold emails have a bad rep. This is not a factor of whether you can write the best cold email or not. They’re tagged as self-serving; hence, the thought of them sets people’s hormones raging. Yet, there’s almost nothing you can do about it.
Even if you get into the 0.04% range, it can be further reduced by their readiness to purchase. Such that, when they become ready they forget that they once got an offer from you.
Organic Social
LinkedIn and Twitter are great places to find B2B decision makers. While seeing their posts and comments on your feed makes them seem easily accessible, it isn’t usually the case.
Here are some reasons:
For LinkedIn, most decision makers don’t accept connection requests. You can only follow them. This reduces the chances of your post showing up on their feed or building a personal connection with them in the DM.
Even when you connect with them, your chances of building a relationship are slim. Like emails, they most likely have several people trying to sell to them.
SEO
Investing in SEO is another option to explore when trying to reach B2B decision makers. That said, the downsides make it a strategy you should think twice about before going all in with it.
These include:
SEO takes time and it’s uncertain. A quick Google search shows that it takes about 2- 6 months for a page to rank on Google.
This is a long time to wait if you’re a startup that wants to keep its revenue engine rolling.
What’s worse is that the time frame is mere speculation. Ranking on Google is determined by several factors that you have no control over. This is not the level of uncertainty to hinge your business on.
SEO is expensive. To increase your chances of getting results from SEO you need to invest lots of money. The best SaaS SEO agencies charge around $5,000 monthly.
While this is similar to what it costs to hire a B2B Podcast agency, there’s a higher chance of reaching B2B decision makers faster with the latter.
As you can see, you shouldn’t depend solely on cold outreach, organic social, and SEO if your goal is to reach B2B decision makers.
Let’s dive into why podcasting is a viable alternative and why you should consider it.
Why it Makes Sense to Reach B2B Decision Makers Through Podcasts
If you’re like most startups, you might have tried reaching B2B decision makers through cold outreach, organic social, and SEO, with limited success.
While these marketing channels can be effective in some cases, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to get the attention of B2B decision makers through them.
As someone who values privacy and social responsibility, I understand the drawbacks of using cold outreach as a marketing channel. Not only is it intrusive and potentially disruptive, it also puts the personal information of decision makers at risk.
That’s why I prefer to use alternative methods, such as inviting potential customers to be interviewed on my company’s podcast. Podcast interviews offer a more targeted and personal approach to reaching B2B decision makers, and have a higher response rate than cold emails. This allows me to build relationships with potential customers and better understand their needs and challenges, while also preserving their privacy.
In addition, inviting potential customers to be interviewed on my company’s podcast allows me to use other networking methods, such as social media direct messaging, more effectively. By establishing a relationship through a podcast interview, I can reach out to potential customers through social media while preserving their privacy and avoiding the negative reputation of cold outreach.
Overall, inviting potential customers to be interviewed on my company’s podcast is a more targeted, personalized, and responsible approach to reaching B2B decision makers, and allows me to build relationships and better understand the needs of my target audience.
A recent HubSpot report shows that marketers are not backing down from investing in Podcasts.
What does this mean?
Podcasting most likely has a direct impact on the bottom line.
The interview-based nature of most podcasts make it most desirable for reaching B2B decision makers, as it fosters value sharing and relationship building.
Here are other benefits of investing in podcasts as a B2B SaaS startup:
1. Higher Chance of Conversion
According to the Elderman B2B thought leadership report, 61% of decision makers believe that a company’s thought leadership is the most effective way to demonstrate value.
This shows how much decision makers appreciate thought leadership content. The direct and original nature of podcasts makes them the best form of content for showcasing thought leadership.
So, if you can show up consistently with this type of content, there’s a higher chance of influencing their buying decision.
2. Decision Making Doesn’t Feel Like a Transaction
Lots of times, demos are a sales death sentence. Asking a decision maker to request a demo at their first contact with your brand is outright salesy and can turn them off.
So, rather than sending an email and asking them to book a sales call or request for a demo, invite them as guests on your podcast and pitch the benefits to them.
This will most likely pique their interest and increase your chances of getting a yes because it’s a win-win situation.
This is because they get to showcase their knowledge and possibly talk about their brand. In turn, you’ll grow a deeper relationship that can lead to an organic demo request or signup.
3. Most Original and Impactful Type of Thought Leadership Content
Thought leadership content can come in the form of social, SEO, and podcast content.
However, podcasts are the most original form of them all. This is because, most times, SEO thought leadership content involves a middleman—the writer.
The writer collects the information and edits/formats it for grammar and/or SEO purposes. While there’s nothing wrong with this, I believe it takes away from the originality of the message.
Podcasts, on the contrary, skip the middleman step and give the thought leader the opportunity to pass the message in its rawest form.
Also, social content comes in bits and pieces. This makes it less impactful than long-form content like podcasts.
This, therefore, makes podcasts the most original and impactful medium for delivering thought leadership content.
4. Easy to Predict the Outcome of Your Outreach
Podcasts are more predictable. This is unlike SEO where you publish your content, wait for it to rank, and start praying that your target audience finds it valuable enough to make a decision.
Or social content where the reach is determined by an algorithm.
If you successfully invite a decision maker in your ICP to your show, there’s a higher chance of converting him/her to a customer.
5. Build Rapport with Your Target Audience Faster
As opposed to other ways of reaching B2B decision makers, podcasts make it possible to grow an instant connection between you and the listener. Here are the reasons why this is possible:
No matter how engaging written words are, they can never sound as authentic as spoken words.
SEO content puts you in a fix between pleasing a robot and a human. But with podcasts, your audience alone is top of mind.
The way you sound conveys a message about your personality to the audience, and if it resonates with them, they’ll grow a likeness for you that can extend to your brand.
6. Most Convenient Form of Content Consumption for Decision Makers
The busy schedule of decision makers makes podcasts most convenient for them. Unlike written content where they have to dedicate some time and give full attention, they can juggle listening to podcasts with other tasks like driving.
This also makes it possible for them to listen to the podcast from start to finish and most likely take your call to action.
7. Easier to Build Authority
Most blog content pieces are ghostwritten. But for podcasts, ghostwriting is impossible.
Your listeners are certain that whoever is talking about the subject matter is the expert.
When your team and guests consistently show a high level of expertise, listeners begin to view your brand as an authority.
And once that happens, they’ll trust you more and be willing to take action.
How to Reach Decision Makers With Podcasts: Forward Launch’s Interview-based Content System
At Forward Launch, we developed a 6-step framework for building ROI-driven podcasts for B2B startups.
Here is what they entail, plus a brief explanation of how we approach each one.
Step 1: Identify potential customers that would be highly beneficial for your company to target
This is an important step because it sets the groundwork for the type of content you will create and the types of guests you will invite to your show.
Step 2: Invite ideal customers to discuss topics related to their roles and industry
We pitch the unique benefits that your podcast offers to them and what you’d like them to share during the interview. We use our extensive network of contacts to make sure we get the best guests for your podcast.
Step 3: Interview target customers in a recorded format
This helps you to show credibility and authority in your niche, which will help you stand out in the competitive market.
Step 4: Build a relationship with your guests
If someone appears on your podcast, it gives you an opportunity to know more about them.
Our team shows you how to foster relationships in a very natural way, which could bring them into your sales cycle. You can as well use the content as an outreach tool to reach more people like them.
Step 5: Publish the interview content
We take care of editing, mixing, mastering, and other post-production processes to ensure that your podcast is of the highest quality.
We also handle the launch, hosting, and distribution of your podcast to your streaming channels.
Step 6: Repurpose the interview content into multiple formats
After launching the podcast, we help you repurpose and distribute it into different formats such as blog posts, social media posts, and video highlights.
This ensures that it reaches more people, increases visibility, and creates an aura of authority about your brand.
The Days of Struggling to Reach B2B Decision Makers are Over
I’m not asking you to ditch other ways of reaching B2B decision makers to focus solely on podcasts.
But, as you may have experienced, the results derived from these channels are low, slow, and unpredictable.
Podcasts, however, have shown to be the most promising. And if you don’t know, you only need to create a podcast once, and with a solid structure and template in place, inviting decision makers and getting them to close a sales cycle will be easy-peasy.
Sounds great but seems like too much work?
I get it!
Setting up an ROI-driven podcast can be overwhelming, and that’s why at Forward Launch, we take on all the hassle and use our highly-specialized process to create and present you with a fully-formed podcast in 3 weeks. So, if you need help setting up a podcast designed to attract B2B decision makers from day one, or you want to optimize your existing podcast to attract decision-makers, click this link to schedule a discovery session.
Ram is a serial entrepreneur and expert in technology, marketing and sales with nearly 30 years of experience. He founded Bento to revolutionize the dental insurance system and provide affordable oral care for all Americans. He has also successfully built and sold multiple startups, including Cimaron, CHiL Semiconductor, and Sanovi. Ram has held senior positions at companies such as AMCC, IR, and AT&T Bell Labs. He is regarded as one of Boston's best entrepreneurs and engineers.
MAIN INSIGHT
Partner with associations that your ideal customers are members of in order to leverage the association's access to your ideal customers and the credibility that comes from being an official partner.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Identify which associations have influence over your customers
Evaluate what the association's current marketing strategies are — do they promote products and services to their members?
Approach the highest executive you can find within the association (e.g. the director or board chair) and demo your product
Manage the relationship – establish what the monthly or quarterly communication strategy will be with their members. (Don't assume the association will do this for you.)
MORE FROM BENTO
Bento can provide dental benefits for your employees that are more affordable for you and more frictionless for them to use. Contact Bento at bento.net
When I started Forward Launch Digital, I had no intention of offering podcast creation and marketing services. Initially, all I wanted to do was to help SaaS businesses handle the strategy side of their content marketing engine.
So, I would develop their content strategy in an excel sheet and provide extra guidance on the type of content to create, where, and when to publish.
But most of my clients weren’t satisfied and wanted more. Rather than handling the strategy part, they wanted a holistic approach to content marketing.
That means handling everything from content strategy, content creation, content distribution, and measurement.
Since this was a full stretch beyond my initial offering, I had to decide:
Is a content marketing agency the next leap for me?
I deliberated heavily for months and decided to look at what’s lacking in the industry rather than becoming another “me-too” content marketing agency with no unique value proposition.
And that led me to uncover some of the core areas B2B SaaS companies were struggling with and some gaps that I could fill:
Here are some of the key gaps that I identified.
Gap 1: B2B SaaS Startups Want Guaranteed Meetings with Key Decision Makers
It’s challenging to connect with key decision makers in most companies. Connect requests or DMs on LinkedIn rarely work. While cold emails hardly generate responses.
B2B SaaS companies are yet to crack the code regarding networking with decision makers. This leads to a longer sales cycle and contract breakdowns.
Gap 2: SaaS Startups Struggle to Create Expert-level Content
How many B2B decision makers book demo calls after reading a blog post? Not many. When done well, thought leadership content could drive signups for B2B SaaS companies.
But most so-called “thought-leadership content” ranking on the first page of Google doesn’t meet the expectation of readers.
And that’s enforced by Edelman, which reported in 2021 that 71% of decision makers claimed that less than half of the thought leadership content they read offered valuable insights.
While Google has waged a war on low-quality content with the helpful content update, we still cross paths with more poor-quality content than high-quality ones.
Why is that so?
The reason is simple.
It’s difficult and expensive to create expert-level content. Not only that, finding expert writers who have industry expertise and can speak to your target niche is hard.
An excellent example of such a mismatch could happen if a company like Hotjar decided to outsource its content creation to freelance writers.
For context, Hotjar is a web analytics tool that provides visual insights into how readers interact with the pages on your website. Hotjar’s users are expert content marketers. They have advanced questions about heatmaps and how to uncover optimization opportunities.
Therefore, it would be a disaster for them to hire writers who have no content marketing experience nor understand how heatmaps work.
Unfortunately, this is the path most B2B SaaS companies take.
The result…
They create regurgitated content pieces that fail to offer readers any unique insight.
Gap 3: B2B Companies Want to Shorten their Sales Cycle
According to Hubspot, it takes an average of 84 days for customers to go from leads to closed deals. Unfortunately, most businesses aren’t willing to wait for that long anymore.
The pressure is on sales teams to double down on outreach efforts as they attempt to shorten the sales cycle.
While the marketing team is continuously creating content to generate traffic that leads to conversions.
With these discoveries, it didn’t make sense to go ahead with building another content marketing agency. Hence, I had to think of an alternative content format that could help B2B SaaS startups close all 3 gaps:
Book guaranteed meetings
Create expert-level content
Shorten sales cycle
From my analysis, an interview-based podcast was the only option that provided these three-fold benefits. So, I decided to pivot into an interview-based B2B SaaS Podcast Agency.
To offer an excellent service to my clients, I had to research more about the nuances of the industry, and here was what I found:
My Discovery: Why B2B SaaS Startups Struggle with Podcasting
Podcast creation remains a viable revenue source for B2B SaaS startups, yet, only a few companies are utilizing it to its fullest.
After interviewing several SaaS founders, here are some of the reasons why podcasting isn’t their favorite content marketing channel:
1. Time-consuming and labor-intensive
Launching a Podcast is similar to starting a blog. It involves a lot of moving parts such as:
Podcast channel design: To customize the podcast to suit your branding, you’ll create the cover art, professional image, and webpage mockup.
Scheduling setup: To add guests seamlessly to your calendar, you must create a scheduling system.
Copywriting assets: You need voice overs, episode intros and outros, podcast trailers, and ad copy to promote each episode
And lots more.
Putting all of this together will take months if you decide to create them in-house.
2. Inconsistency: Starts but doesn’t record enough episodes to keep going
Launching a Podcast is easy but keeping it going is hard.
According to Podcast Industry Insights, only 39.73% of Podcasts on Apple Podcasts have 10+ episodes.
This shows that most companies that launch podcasts, don’t ever record up to 10 episodes, before calling it quits.
This happens because most marketing teams launch podcasts without a clear goal, while others cease production once they struggle to attract listeners.
3. Failure to attract the right guests
Your Podcast is as good as the guests you interview. If your goal is to drive revenue from podcasting, having the right guests helps you add qualified prospects to your sales pipeline, which increases your chances of conversion.
SaaS companies often miss the mark in terms of attracting the right prospects. As a result, they fill their podcast pipeline with guests who have zero buying intent.
4. Podcasting effort doesn’t drive revenue growth
If done right, you can go from a podcast guest to a closed deal in a few hours or days. Yet, most B2B brands find it difficult to see the impact of podcasting on their revenue.
These and many more are some of the reasons B2B SaaS startups fail to successfully launch a podcast or abandon it midway, even if they actually get started.
Our Process for Creating ROI-driven Podcasts for B2B SaaS Startups
Podcast creation is a time-consuming task. So, we developed a holistic approach to it.
That way, we take the stress of creation off your shoulders.
All you need to do is show up and interview the guests.
Here’s the 8-step process that we use to make this possible:
Step 1: Strategy call
Every Podcast creation process starts with understanding the ICP. Our initial strategy call helps us know your target audience and pain points. We also brainstorm content and branding ideas to ensure that your podcast is appealing to listeners.
Step 2: Define show concept
We dive deep into the why behind the podcast and its unique identity. At this stage, we help you to nail down the show name, episode length and publishing cadence.
Step 3: Create show collaterals
This is where the real work begins. The goal here is to set up and launch your podcast. This includes developing the key components like cover art, music selection, and hosting account setup.
Step 4: Copywriting
We generate a benefit-driven copy that highlights the value proposition of your podcast and differentiates it from competitors.
This includes creating the show description, intro copy, outro copy, Ad copy, and the introduction episode.
Step 5: Scheduling setup
We will also help you set up a scheduling system on Calendly that adds meetings to your calendar whenever guests make a booking. We’ll also draft the questions that the guests will answer before scheduling an interview with you.
Step 6: Reminders and follow-up
We set up an email follow-up system that sends reminders plus meeting briefs to inform the guests of key talking points, so they are prepared for the interview.
Step 7: Interview Scripts
We generate scripts to help you come up with insightful questions before, during, and after the interview. That way, you’ll engage the guest and never run out of questions to ask them.
Step 8: Distribute Podcast Content
Every podcast is as good as the listens it gets. Our distribution strategy includes repurposing podcast content into SEO blog posts, and sharing it as a newsletter to your audience.
Let’s Help You Create an Interview-based Podcast for Your B2B SaaS Startup
As you can see, creating podcasts is a tedious and time-consuming task. However, with the right strategy and processes in place, you can reduce the sales cycle of your B2B startup and generate leads from them in no time.
If you want to launch an ROI-driven podcast, we’d love to help you.
My agency offers a 6-step process that simplifies the podcast creation process and drives remarkable growth for B2B SaaS startups. If you’d like to work with us, click here to book a free discovery call, and I’ll get in touch with more details.
