Mastering Podcasting: Crafting a Podcast to Grow and Engage Your Audience with Tom Webster

Summary

Right About Now with Ryan Alford: Episode Summary

Episode Title: Mastering Podcasting: Crafting a Podcast to Grow and Engage Your Audience with Tom Webster
Release Date: November 5, 2024
Host: Ryan Alford
Guest: Tom Webster, Author of The Audience is Listening: A Little Guide to Building a Big Podcast and Co-founder of Sounds Profitable

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Introduction

In this episode of Right About Now with Ryan Alford, Ryan engages in an insightful conversation with Tom Webster, a seasoned expert in podcasting and co-founder of Sounds Profitable. The discussion delves into the intricacies of building and growing a successful podcast, emphasizing audience engagement, production quality, and effective marketing strategies.

The Evolution and Current State of Podcasting

Tom Webster opens the discussion by reflecting on the podcasting landscape, noting its steady growth over the years. He highlights how podcasting has transitioned from a niche medium to a mainstream platform, with Ryan Alford adding that 37% of Americans aged 18 and above now listen to podcasts weekly.

Notable Quote:

“Podcasting is not on the way down.” — Tom Webster [13:35]

Despite occasional skepticism in media outlets, both hosts affirm that podcasting continues to thrive, offering immense opportunities for monetization and audience expansion.

Understanding and Targeting Your Audience

A central theme of the conversation is the importance of defining and understanding the podcast's target audience. Ryan Alford emphasizes the need to create a detailed listener persona:

Notable Quote:

“Make that a single person. Flesh that person out absolutely. As much as you can and always be talking to that one person. And that's how you make a great show.” — Ryan Alford [00:37]

Tom Webster concurs, sharing personal experiences of initial low listenership and how a focused target audience transformed his podcast's trajectory. They discuss the significance of asking meaningful questions to listeners to gain actionable insights, rather than seeking superficial feedback.

Crafting Compelling Content through Effective Editing

The hosts delve into the critical role of editing in podcast production. Ryan Alford outlines three levels of editing:

1. No Editing: Often justified by claims of authenticity but can detract from the show's quality.
2. Hygiene Editing: Removing coughs, awkward pauses, and other minor distractions.
3. Flow Editing: Restructuring content to enhance narrative coherence and engagement.

Notable Quote:

“A great piece of art is based on what you leave out and not what you throw in.” — Ryan Alford [42:43]

Tom Webster echoes the necessity of editing, likening podcasting to producing a TV or radio show where rehearsal and refinement are paramount to delivering an optimal listener experience.

Roles and Goals of Hosts in a Podcast

The discussion transitions to the dynamics among podcast hosts. Ryan Alford cites the classic radio trope of the "Dick, the Dork, and the Deer," illustrating how diverse host personas can cater to different segments of the audience, enhancing relatability and engagement.

Notable Quote:

“There's somebody up there to represent every personality, every aspect of their audience, to speak for the people who think Charles is a jerk and to speak for the people who love Charles.” — Ryan Alford [30:55]

Tom Webster adds that defining clear roles for each host ensures that every voice on the podcast serves a purpose, contributing to a balanced and engaging narrative.

Effective Marketing Strategies: Embracing Local and Offline Channels

Both hosts advocate for leveraging local and offline marketing tactics to promote podcasts. Ryan Alford suggests that localized marketing, such as placing flyers in relevant venues like sports bars for a sports podcast, can effectively capture the attention of a targeted, captive audience.

Notable Quote:

“Never forget local. Never forget the offline world.” — Ryan Alford [43:01]

Tom Webster shares his own experience with outdoor advertising, underscoring its potential to complement online marketing efforts and build word-of-mouth momentum within communities.

Maximizing Podcast Potential through Quality and Audience Connection

The conversation underscores that the foundation of a successful podcast lies in producing high-quality content that genuinely resonates with the audience. Ryan Alford points out that many podcasters focus excessively on promotion while neglecting the core content quality, which ultimately hinders audience growth and engagement.

Notable Quote:

“You're not entitled to an audience. You don't deserve an audience.” — Ryan Alford [21:12]

Both hosts agree that understanding the audience's needs, preferences, and behaviors is crucial for creating content that not only attracts listeners but also encourages them to become advocates for the podcast.

Conclusion

As the episode wraps up, Ryan Alford and Tom Webster reiterate the importance of continuous learning and adaptation in the podcasting journey. Tom Webster encourages listeners to explore his book, The Audience is Listening, for deeper insights into building and sustaining a successful podcast.

Notable Quote:

“It's time to get off the bus and get on to the podcast train, because that's where the most trusted advertisers are and the medium is growing.” — Tom Webster [46:30]

Both hosts express their commitment to supporting the podcasting community through resources like Sounds Profitable, ensuring that podcasters have access to the tools and knowledge necessary to thrive in this dynamic medium.

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Further Resources:

• Tom Webster’s Book: The Audience is Listening: A Little Guide to Building a Big Podcast
  Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Audible.
• Sounds Profitable: soundsprofitable.com
  A comprehensive resource and trade organization for the podcasting industry, offering research, newsletters, and industry insights.

Connect with Ryan Alford:

• Website: www.RyanIsRight.com
• Instagram: @rightaboutnowshow | @ryanalford

Connect with Tom Webster:

• Sounds Profitable: soundsprofitable.com

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This summary captures the essence of the episode, highlighting key discussions and providing actionable insights for aspiring and established podcasters alike.

Transcript

[Ryan Alford]

Struggling to grow or start your business.

[Tom Webster]

Or drowning in an ocean of urgency. You're not alone. I'm Matt Reynolds and my brother Chris and I have been in the trenches of entrepreneurship for nearly 40 years combined.

[Ryan Alford]

We've built successful companies from the ground up.

[Tom Webster]

We're sharing our hard earning lessons and practical strategies on the build you'd business podcast. And I'm excited to say that the build your business podcast is the newest addition to the Radcast network. Learn more at Turnkey Coach. Build or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform.

[Ryan Alford]

Whenever you start thinking about a podcast as a project, you have to get really clear on who you're for. And the best advice I can give is make that a single person. Flesh that person out absolutely. As much as you can and always be talking to that one person. And that's how you make a great show. This is right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over one million million downloads a month, taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping next and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now.

[Tom Webster]

What's up, guys? Welcome to right about now. You know, we're getting meta today. We're on a podcast and you know, I promote the category. I love it. Hey, it makes a living for me. So it was with pleasure that you know someone that I look up to, someone you know, that it's funny, I'm sure, because, you know, I'm going to talk about Tom for a second before I introduce him. But like, I'm reading his stuff constantly. And so it's always fascinating when you're, when you feel like you kind of know someone, at least you know their profession and what they're good at and all those things and then you actually get them on the show. So we're talking podcasting about podcasting. But I will say this, there's a lot of great principles in a book that we're going to talk about that he wrote that transcends podcasting. But let's get straight to it. We've got Tom Webster. He's the author of the Audience is Listening A little guide to building a big podcast. And he's a co founder of Sounds Profitable, one of our partners and someone I can't recommend enough. What's up, Tom?

[Ryan Alford]

Brian. It's good to be here. You're in, you're in South Carolina, Is that right? Is that where you are today?

[Tom Webster]

South Carolina?

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah, I'm I'm in downtown Boston. I'm. I'm just steps from the old State House. So it's. And it's gorgeous here today.

[Tom Webster]

Yes, it, it, it is gorgeous here today as well. It's like we've lost the. It's warm, it's like 78, 80 degree. But. But all the humidity is gone.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah.

[Tom Webster]

So us South Carolinians to have the warmth with out, you know, the stickiness is a wonderful thing. So yes, I'm glad. I love Boston as well. I've been to Fenway, done the whole thing and it's a wonderful town. And actually Greenville where we're at, our minor league team is a farm team of the Boston Red Sox and we have the mini Green Monster in Greenville.

[Ryan Alford]

Yep. I just, I just went to a minor league game for the, the Portland Sea Dogs, which are another Boston affiliate and they have another sort of mini Green Monster and it was a. Otherwise that's single a ball. It's a motley collection of mascots that. Including one I like to call Thread Bear. I love, Yes, I love, I love minor league ball.

[Tom Webster]

There's something about it, right?

[Ryan Alford]

Oh yeah. 100. Yeah. They have no shame.

[Tom Webster]

No shame. You never know what you'll see at a minor league baseball game. The pranks, the jokes, everything goes, you know, like you can go south in a hurry, you just don't know what's going to happen.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah, a hundred percent and. But everyone's into it, so it's a good time.

[Tom Webster]

I don't know this to be true, but if I had to guess the sauce sausage racing had to have been like somewhat started in a Meyer league. I would think. I don't know. And then it made its up to the big leagues, but I'm just guessing.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah, I would think so. And I think it was either seal or lobster racing at the Sea Dogs that I, that I was at. So. And they're not particularly aerodynamic creatures. Neither are sausages. So no good fun.

[Tom Webster]

Exactly. It starts, you just. It's all like, you know, like what do they about train wrecks? You know, like it's sort of built in like that, you know they're gonna fall and you're just waiting for which one gets their, I don't know, their bun ahead of their feet.

[Ryan Alford]

I. Yeah. The alternative is to actually watch the game and frankly sometimes that's not very good. So.

[Tom Webster]

No. Yeah, that's sort of my qualm with baseball in general. It's like they haven't quite sped up the game enough. They're trying But I digress, Tom. You know, I'm gonna. I'm gonna say something, and I don't think you joked, you know, before we got started saying, you know, the old guy or whatever. I don't, but I almost. Can I call you, like, the Godfather of audio?

[Ryan Alford]

No, there's sinister overtones to that. More like podcasting's uncle or something.

[Tom Webster]

There you go. No, yeah, Friendly uncle.

[Ryan Alford]

Friendly uncle, yeah.

[Tom Webster]

How long you been in audio?

[Ryan Alford]

I have been in audio for 30 years and started my career, you know, I've always been a media researcher, so I started my career in radio and TV and more sort of traditional broadcast media. And then about 19 years ago, I started doing a little bit of work in podcasting. Not that there were any clients for that kind of work, but we just, you know, added it into our annual surveys and things like that, and. And I've been plugging away at it ever since. You know, I love it. I love the storytelling aspects. I love spoken word audio, period. So, you know, it's. It's really been a wonderful career over the last, you know, certainly 19th of those 30 years, trying to make podcasting as big as I think it can be.

[Tom Webster]

Yeah, it's. It's, you know, being in media, like, my whole career. I remember 2008 in, like, you started hearing, like, I would hear about it. It was out there as a concept, which does seem like a long time ago now that I think about what I was doing in 2008, I was in Manhattan. And then even in, like, 11, 12, 13, there's still. There's been this undertone of the industry. So it's not new, but it's seemingly taken a long time to sort of hit the mainstream radar.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah. And I think a lot of people, especially in the first 10 years or so, they may have heard the term, but they weren't really sure what it was or they didn't think it was something they wanted or whatever. And I think things really changed in a couple of ways when Cereal came out. And to me, Serial had two different kinds of water cooler moments. Right. I mean, you always talk about. I used to do research on the Howard Stern show, and we always talked about water cooler moments. Like, if you're in the office with somebody and for your younger listeners, offices were a place that people used to go to to work for a company. You would. You'd bump into a coworker at the water cooler, and you would talk about what Howard said that day or something like that. And then I think, you know, cereal gave us Two such moments. Right. One, people would talk about it and maybe introduce somebody to the concept of podcasting, period. And that was, that was a lot of people's entry to it. But the other kind of water cooler moment was when someone in the office, you know, would be talking to somebody about, hey, have you checked out this podcast Serial? And then the other person said, yes. Right. And that is not something that we had really had in podcasting. Uh, so, you know, I, I think I, you know, Serial was not fully responsible for the, the sort of renaissance and recent growth of podcasting, but it certainly was a catalyst in the, in the marketing and advertising world.

[Tom Webster]

Yeah. And another thing that came to mind, I was thinking about us having this conversation today and knowing some of the topics we get into the smartphone, you know, like the proliferation of the smartphone and everything that it can do and the functionality and all the apps and, you know, right at your fingertips had. Is had to have. And that's not new either, but I do think it certainly helped. Right?

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah. And we've had this sort of interesting lab doing research into other countries. Right. For years, you know, I used to work on audio survey called the Infinite Dial, which has actually been in production since 1998. I worked on it for about 18 years. And we, besides the sort of main Infinite dial, we also did one in Canada. Right. And Canada for years lagged behind the US By a fair amount. And the reason for it was very related to what you're talking about. It was how draconian the broadband and cellular, you know, cellular broadband charges were in Canada. They were usurious. That's a good one for you. And when, when the telecom companies were sort of forced to change and adapt to, you know, having more all you can eat plans or at least, you know, reasonably priced podcast consumption went just skyrocketed in one year because people no longer had to worry about where is this, you know, who's paying for all this data.

[Tom Webster]

Yeah, exactly. The. That's where a lot of my teeth were cut in the marketing careers, working on everything from can you hear me now? On Verizon to the Apple's first iPhone launch, and was right in the middle of all that. And you know, the biggest angst, you know, at the time, it's 2007, 8, 9, 10, was even in the U.S. like, okay, you got these phones, but the data costs and all that. And you didn't have the proliferation of WI fi everywhere, like ubiquitously like it is now, almost. So it was always like, yeah, all this horsepower. But the data Became used. And then the US caught up with the unlimited plans and all that stuff and the bandwidth expanded, you know, not to even talk about what's videos done. The amount of gigabytes that are passed out.

[Ryan Alford]

I remember this, this might have been 2000. I spent about 10 years working in Dubai. Actually I had a client in Dubai for about 10 years and I went there one year. This might have been, this might have been around 2008, 2009. And I had. It was before the iPhone came out. So I think that's probably right. And I had this Nokia and you know, poor went out for Nokia. Man, those are great phones. And it was sort of a smart ish phone. I could get email on it and stuff like that. And I had not, I went to Dubai and I had not turned off roaming and all of that stuff. And I got back to a twelve hundred dollar phone bill and I think all I had done was send a few emails. And so I learned my lesson about the joys of how we have it here now.

[Tom Webster]

Yes, I knew where that story was going. Oh yeah, yeah, exactly. A big cell phone bill. What's, what's your view? You know, as we're building. Talking with Tom Webster, author of the Audience is Listening. Tom, as we're sort of building to talk specifically about the book what's your. What's the state of. The state here of podcasting? You know, maybe that question maybe even through the lens of, you know, you've been tracking these things with the studies you guys are doing at sounds profitable and all that, but maybe give the audience kind of a lay of the land of the industry.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah. So, you know, this year the majority of Americans have listened to a podcast at least monthly. And it's the first time we've really been able to say that, although we've been flirting with it for a couple of years. So it's a, it's a fully mainstream activity. Right. It's about 37% of Americans, 18 plus listen weekly. So, you know, it's as much a part of American media and mainstream media consumption as anything else. So the audience has always grown. The audience every year has grown. You know, it's never shot up like a rocket ship. It hasn't done that kind of hockey stick growth that online video did and YouTube initially did, but it plugs along. And the industry itself had a bit of a down year last year. But any ad supported media did last year. It was a rough year for ad supported media and there was a lot of. Right. Sizing is, I believe the term. That is unfortunate.

[Tom Webster]

Yeah.

[Ryan Alford]

And, but, but that's really turned around. Sales are good right now. You know, certainly the top shows continue to sell out. And, you know, there's enormous opportunity, even without growing a single audience member, to continue to monetize the incredibly long, long, long tail of podcasting, which is 99% of it, or there's still some friction, I think, in monetizing that. But industry right now, healthy, growing. We continue to grow partners. That sounds profitable. We really function as the trade organization for the industry. And there's, you know, increased interest in multiple, multiple layers, I think.

[Tom Webster]

Yeah. And just for the audience, I'm going to ask, like some pointed. Not self serving, Tom. It's not meant to be self serving.

[Ryan Alford]

It's okay if they are. I know.

[Tom Webster]

I mean, I run a podcast.

[Ryan Alford]

It's your show, right?

[Tom Webster]

It's my show. And you run a network. Damn it. Just bear with me. We. Podcasting is not on the way down. True or false?

[Ryan Alford]

Podcasting is not on the way down.

[Tom Webster]

Podcasting is not on the way down. Is that true or false?

[Ryan Alford]

That is true, yes. Podcasting is not on the way down.

[Tom Webster]

That is true, yes. Because this is. These are the things that I, I don't know, that I hear them. People don't like. But it's sort of the whispers maybe a little bit. Podcasting is plateaued a little, you know, or it's, it's, it's got nowhere to go but down, you know, like that's, that's the whispers I think I hear.

[Ryan Alford]

Occasionally that really bugs me. And I acknowledge that because I, I hear it all the time. And you know, where I often see it is in articles, online articles from different public online publications that seem to delight in any bad news related to podcasting and so that they can write about them in their own increasingly failing digital media. Right. And that's the thing, like, you know, anytime I read one of these articles and I won't even name the. I'm like, well, how are you doing? Because I know we are growing and I don't know, there's always been a weird sort of skepticism about podcasting just because of how it started, I think in a lot of ways, I mean, it started as another version of pirate radio, so, you know, a group of malcontents doing little shows about all kinds of stuff, I guess. And maybe it developed that kind of a reputation, but that's not the case now. It's, you know, it's a fully mainstream activity. It is growing. It is one of the, you Know, one of the two fastest growing advertising supported industries, that's for sure. So. And there's so much more potential. I know. You know, branded podcasts is something that you're involved with. You know, those are huge and getting bigger and, and we're being able to count them better. We have a project to do that. So. Yeah, I mean, you know, is there a cap on podcasting? Sure, there's a cap on everything, but we're not there yet.

[Tom Webster]

Yep. And you know, I think what it is, Tom, the barrier to entry is so low for the most part for podcasting that I think. And like you said, there wasn't this hockey stick, there was this slow burn in of podcasting. So people have heard about it, sort of been underneath. So it's not new. It's not this innovative term of. Because it's been building for so long combined with the low barrier of entry, I think it makes people go, oh yeah, oh you. Are you starting a podcast? Like, you know, like. Because they just. I think they. It's somewhat of that. No one that's doing better than you will ever, you know, put you down for anything. But like you see someone starting a podcast, it's like the, the lowest hanging fruit of judging them or something. I. I don't know. It's a few other human, human variables there will be that would probably not research focused. But these are just punches, Tom. Punches.

[Ryan Alford]

But it is easy will accept them. Yeah, we'll accept them. Yeah. I don't know. And it's. The podcast industry has always been, I think victim of that in some ways. And there's always skeptics. You know, anytime you work within an agency or a brand team, there's always a skeptic and you know, and they'll complain about, well, how do you measure, you know, how do you measure the success of the ad? You know, we're used to getting, you know, a census of what got clicked on in Facebook and things like that. I'm like, yeah, but you're, you're buying radio and TV also. Like, have you looked into how those are measured? Not real good.

[Tom Webster]

Yeah.

[Ryan Alford]

Or now metrics are pretty awesome. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Outdoor, like not great. So how you measure word of mouth metrics.

[Tom Webster]

Do you believe word of mouth works? How are you measuring it? You know?

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tom Webster]

Sort of an affiliate code. But like we all know and there's a big, I don't know, push. I think there's a swell finally starting to come back of realization that marketing and what I'm here is called like zero click marketing, which is not chasing the click, just getting back to doing great work that moves the needle and creates top of mind awareness. And that's where I think there's this beautiful correlation. Diving into the book. Ultimately the audience is listening, you know, so you had to make a great product because you have someone listening. Talk to me in the audience, Tom, you know, inspiration for the book, key principles, etc. About the audience is listening.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah. So this will, I think, warm the cockles of your marketing heart. Hopefully I don't get shadow banned for that on Apple. I don't know. Absolutely. But I'm often asked when I go to conferences and events and I'm talking to individual podcasters and individual creators, they all ask me the same question, some version of the same question, how do I grow my audience? And the advice that they're getting from people in the space is not great. It's very focused on sort of, you know, advertising and promotion of an already good show, you know, and how can you get it on social media, get it advertised, get cross promotion, all that stuff, Amplification. Yeah, those are tactics. But ultimately I listen to the show and it's not good, you know, and the question to me isn't, how do I grow my podcast? It's why did it stop growing? Because that's when people come to you and they're like, how do I grow my podcast? I'm like, let me guess, it stopped growing or it's plateaued or it's declined. Right. So those are the questions, the hard questions. And those don't have anything to do with, you know, feed drops and things like that. They have to do with the fact that you're not making a show that people who listen to it are recommending to other people. And ultimately it's about the quality of the show. And the quality of the show really depends on how much you know and embrace who you're for. Right. Whenever you, whenever you start thinking about a podcast as a project, you have to get really clear on who you're for. And the best, the best advice I think I can, I can give is make that a single person. Flesh that person out. Absolutely. As much as you can give them a name, a suit of clothes, a job, you know, pick a car for them, whatever, and always be talking to that one person. And that's how you make a great show. But you have to get really clear on who that person is.

[Tom Webster]

It's really easy. Not easy, but back to the kind of like where you started, the tactic stuff. You Know, it's. I talked to someone the other day that was. We were making this analogy with marketing and. And saying, like, if. If I can sing really good, you want to amplify it. You want to hear. You want other people to hear it. Louder, more people. But, man, if you sing, like, are you turning the amplifier on? Hell no. And so we don't need to amplify something that's not working, but it's. I think it's hard to look in the mirror for some podcast people and to sort of those, Those are the hard questions, the heart, everything we're talking about, the hard exercise. And hard might not even be the right word. It's just the right thing to do, but requires a different level of thinking and planning. And I think that's where people maybe get off the rails is don't. You can't just create the show for you.

[Ryan Alford]

You know, that's the thing. Like, you, you are entitled to make the show you want, make your art. I would never crush your dreams. But you. You're not entitled to an audience. You don't deserve an audience. You have no right to an audience. And if you are focused on making the show you want to make, then that's an entirely different thing than making the show that the audience wants to hear. And I can. I hear people sometimes be disrespectful of an. Of an audience. So they don't, you know, they don't even know what they like until you show it to them and all this other stuff. And that's not true. I think you can ask better questions. I think people ask really terrible questions anytime I'm talking to somebody and they've attempted to talk to their listeners. If you ask people a question like, what do you think of my podcast? You're going to get an answer back like, I don't know. That's interesting. It's funny. I like it. That's useless. That's not going to help you do anything. That's not going to help you improve it. You need to ask better questions, and you need to be ready to hear those answers.

[Tom Webster]

How does. Dig into a couple other points. But this is so juicy and important. I think for people thinking about podcasting or wanting to improve their podcast, how does one go about doing okay, if we've determined what we really need to do versus not do, we don't need to amplify a bad thing. We got to make a great show to a singular kind of target and get in their shoes and know what they want to hear as Best you can. How do they. How does someone go about doing that? The best way.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah. You know, you don't have to do a giant survey. You don't have to spend some money. Just talk to six listeners. And I list some questions in the book that I think are better, questions that are. That are absolutely going to get, I think, actionable things. And your. Your goal in that is not to find out about your show. Your goal in that is to find out more about that human, why that human is listening to your show, why they're listening to any shows, how your show fits into their life. Right. You're trying to find out who they are when they're at home. And an example I give in the book is one of my favorite examples, is there's a podcaster, used to be an ESPN personalities with the ringer now named Ryan Russello. And I'm a big fan of the Ryan Russell podcasts on the Ringer network. Spotify purchased them a while back. And it could be just another sports show. Right. But there's a dynamic on the show that Ryan stumbled into that, you know, he's. He's older than his producer and his intern, and he's a little wiser, I think he's certainly wiser in terms of what he's gone through in his life. Right. And a lot of the audience for the show, they're young. They're like just out of college or maybe they're young professionals or whatever. And it became very clear that they also looked at Ryan a little bit as like an older brother or like the cool uncle or something like that. And so they added, they added a component to the show where people would write in questions and not about sports. And they. And they just called it life advice. And it is, you know, a segment where people will write in and say, you know, how do I get my roommate's stinky boyfriend out of our house? Stuff like that.

[Tom Webster]

Right.

[Ryan Alford]

And, you know, Ryan will talk about it from the perspective of someone his age who's been through it all. And then of course, there's a couple of producers on the show that are much closer in age to the people writing in, and they'll have different perspectives and so on. But to me, like, that is the part of the show that I wait for. It is at the end of the show, on every show, life advice. And, you know, if you ask somebody how to build a sports podcast, that might not have been their first choice. Right. But what it is, is it shows an awareness of his audience and where they are in their lives and who they are when they're at home. And it is. It produces a podcast that they care about. It's not just a sports utility service, you know, so that's part of the work, I think, is really understanding who they are, why they have come to you, what exactly drew them to you, and trying to focus on that a little.

[Tom Webster]

I love that. And we do a similar thing. When I started my show, I wanted to be a mainstream. I thought I could make a mainstream marketing show. Well, that proved very difficult. The first 18 months, you know, I tell the joke, we had 50 listeners and 49 were my mom. And so it was difficult, but then. But it was because I wasn't really focused on sort of that person or that target. And sort of we've become kind of the irreverent, let your hair down, you know, business and marketing show. And I still think we probably are almost two shows in one between our news episodes and our, our guest episodes. But we're self aware, like of where we need to go. But it's so true. You have to get honest with yourself and ask the right questions of your audience and get that. It's just hard. People don't want the feedback. You know, it's like it's kind of, you know, what. And you know, I'm going to pick on women, but I guess men can be the same way. But like, you know, my wife, you know, asking, they all asked her, you know, do you like this dress or like whatever. Yeah, don't ask your best friends. You got to go like to a neutral party or like the true. Because, you know, go ask my mom what she thinks. But I asked like, you know, Fred, who's my ideal, you know, avatar or whatever you got. But people don't want the honest advice Sometimes I think that's why, you know, they don't do it. But I do think that's why this is so critical of a discussion, why this book is so great. Like, look, we don't always like the medicine, but you need to know what it is to make true impact. We need some outcomes. And that's what Tom Webster's book the audience is Listening will do. Tom, other tenants of the book and how we can make sure the audience continues to listen.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah, so I'm a big, I'm kind of big on this. Roles and goals, like what are the jobs of people on the show? And I've heard a lot of people's podcasts and there may be three or four people on it and I don't know why they're on it. They're right. I don't really know why they're on it. They're friends in real life and, hey, let's. Let's all go do a show. But that's not how you. That's not how you construct an entertainment. And this, to me, is like the biggest aha moment, I think, when I talk to people about podcasting. A podcast is not a white paper, right? A pot. Like, there are much better ways to transmit information. You know, I could skim the transcript of a podcast and get what I need in 30 seconds. So why would I listen to 30 minutes? Well, hopefully it's an entertainment. And that's what we, you know, that's. That's the thing that really, we need to focus on crafting and, you know, like, yeah, these people may be your friends on the show or whatever, but if they were characters on a TV show, and I'm not saying you have to be inauthentic here, but you need to have a job or if I can't tell apart the voices and I can't tell what they're doing, then I'm not sure why they're on it. And the greatest in the world at this is Elvis Duran. And I've had the fortune and pleasure of working on various projects for Elvis starting back in the 90s. And, you know, today he's certainly one of the most widely syndicated radio hosts. As a big morning show, I started working with him in New York at Z100. And, you know, on that, you know, it's a typical, you know, sort of morning zoo, but it's not. It's the best morning zoo. And there are, you know, there's seven people in the studio. And Elvis is the greatest traffic director in radio because he is. He's at the board and he's making hand gestures. I need more from you. I need less from you. He's. He's managing the whole process because, you know, your audience is not monolithic. They're not. There's not just, like, one kind of listener. And I think what shows like. Like Elvis's show we just had. I'm in Boston, as I said, and just last night we had the whole TNT NBA crew here broadcasting live from the inside the NBA kind of halftime show that they do with Shaquille O'Neal and Charles Barkley, you know, Ernie Johnson and I love those guys. And that show works because there's somebody up there representing every aspect of the audience, and they are speaking for somebody, right? And what I love about it. And I'll just jump to that because it's one of the greatest shows, I think, in television. Certainly one of the greatest sports shows in television, often imitated, never duplicated, is, you know, Charles will say something like incredibly controversial or. Or risky. Right? And I love Charles. I love Charles, too. And, like, some people will go, oh, my God, that's so funny. Some people will go, I can't believe he said that. And, you know, some people may be offended or whatever, but there's Ernie always. And Ernie does two things. Number one, he is the voice of the person who thinks, oh, you can't say that. And so he will come in and he will give that voice. Right, Charles. You can't say that. But you know what? He let Charles say that. Yeah, Charles did say it. Saying that is a part of the show they wanted.

[Tom Webster]

Charles, Charles.

[Ryan Alford]

You can't say that. Yeah. So there's a. There's somebody up there to represent every personality, every aspect of their audience, to speak for the people who think Charles is a jerk and to speak for the people who love Charles. So that. That, to me, is. Is how you have to think through what are these people doing on your show? Like, what part of your audience are they representing?

[Tom Webster]

That is insight, friend. That's value. Look, we're gonna cycle that whole segment right there, guys. Like, if. How many shows I go listen to and I. Look, we've gone through this exercise on our show. I don't even know that we get it perfect on some of our news stuff, like with our three people that are on it, and we. We have this. This discussion. But I. But I. I listen to shows, and it's. It's not clear. You know, you've got the two guys or two girls or whatever, and there's no differentiation between the clarity of, I don't know, Abbott and Costello or whatever, right?

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah. Yeah. There's an old radio trope for this, for morning shows called the Dick, the Dork, and the Deer. And a great morning show typically has at least those three Personas on the show. The person who says the awful thing, the person who really represents the actual audience, who makes that other person look bad or whatever. And then the sort of deer in the headlights kind of guy or male or female, that says the innocent thing or the naive thing, and all of that kind of works in a stew. I'm not suggesting that your podcast needs a jerk, but. But it does, I think, require some thought about who's listening, why they're listening, and is the voice of that person represented well on the show.

[Tom Webster]

Yes. I think there's a local show here. I think it's syndicated now. Hawk and Tom in the Morning. And they have a female. And it is the exact. What you just said, the dick, the dork and the deer. It is exactly that. It's. I've talk radio, I mean, it's been around. And that's. That's an interesting point too, Tommy. And obviously that is. I think it's probably because I. I grew up listening to talk rodeo at a young age. My dad listened to it in the radio and I guess it just skewed me. Like, listen to Rush Limbaugh or whoever else. The, you know, like being. There's a lot of different. It wasn't just him. He had like all sides and sports and everything else, but just a lot of talk, you know, and it's like at home, it was weird. Had tons of music. I was like the biggest Four Tops fan as a like seven year old, which is unheard of. We had a very eclectic, you feel Collins, Four Tops and AC dc. But my dad, My dad played in the band his whole life. The. But I'll say this, but a lot of talk radio, and I think my ear gravitates to shows that kind of have that. I think our. I've been told our shows, especially our news, tends to have kind of a flavor of that talk radio, I mean, is that there's a lot of legacy there and a lot of crossover. Like, I mean, obviously the original forms in some way of all this medium. Is talk radio, correct?

[Ryan Alford]

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, the thing about talk radio, I think there's still enormous upside in podcasting for more talk radio kinds of things because a lot of what, you know, used to be great talk radio, that kind of doesn't exist as much anymore, right? There's, you know, unfortunately, with the financial condition of a lot of the big radio companies, you know, talent is increasingly syndicated, you know, and it's centered around a fairly narrow band of topics. Politics, financial, you know, things like that. And there's such a, you know, a much wider array of topics that could be discussed. But the thing about talk radio, which I think podcasting lacks a little bit, is talk radio can also be consumed passively. You can lean back. A lot of podcasts are very lean forward, right? If you, if you snooze through 10 minutes of this American Life, you have lost the plot. But you can snooze through 10 minutes or you can pay attention to traffic or Whatever you can dip in and out of a lot of talk radio. And that opens up a whole different audience of more passive consumers of spoken word audio. People are looking more for a utility or a companion than they are to lean forward and focus on every word of something. And all of that is part of an audience. An audience is a complex beast. So having, you know, those kind of passive consumption vehicles, I think is very important. And. And I grew up a huge talk radio fan.

[Tom Webster]

Yeah. Roles and what was the. It rhymed.

[Ryan Alford]

Roles and goals.

[Tom Webster]

Roles and goals of every speaker on the show. Talking with Tom Wester, author of the Audience Listener, the Audience is Listening and co founder of Sounds Profitable. Tom, once you know you've got roles, you've got goals for all the hosts. You've done the look in the mirror while also talking to your audience. Where do we go next to get the audience continuing to listen?

[Ryan Alford]

To me, it is the most neglected thing in podcasting, and that is editing. And there's three levels of editing, right? Level zero is I don't do any editing. And. And I support that with the crutch of I'm authentic. Well, I'll tell you something. I'm authentic and I edit and I'm authentic and I rehearse and I'm authentic. Because what is authentic to me is doing a good job when I'm on stage. It's not authentic to me to struggle, right? So I do the work of rehearsal, I do the work. I may not script everything, but I certainly script transitions and things like that. Like, I want to do a really good job. That's authentic to me. So, you know, not. Not doing any editing on, you know, under the guise of authenticity. Don't love that. The next level of editing is sort of hygiene level editing where you take out coughs and awkward pauses and things like that. And, you know, if at a minimum you should be doing that. But the next level of the game is editing for flow. And if you're in an interview and something comes up late in the interview, that actually would have been better to have come up earlier. You can do that, right? You can do that. You're not broadcasting a live show unless you are. So, you know, editing for flow, I think is super important. And you know, Alex Bloomberg is really, really good at this in the shows that he has produced and he worked for years on Planet Money then, you know, was a co founder of Gimlet with a startup, and Startup was a great podcast. And the way that those shows were edited and constructed were whatever was coming up on the show next answered the question that was in the audience. The next question that was in the audience's head. Like even if the interview wasn't structured that way, the way it was produced was structured that way. And so there was an arc to it. It wasn't just sort of a random, you know, whatever and that's not appropriate for everything. But it could make a lot of things better. And one of the, one of the things that I always advise people to do is get the best human created transcript of a recent show that you can. There's a number of services that do that. Get, you know, leave nothing out, be unsparing, get every and awe. And there are services that will do that and get the whole thing printed out and sit down with it with a red pen and tell me you wouldn't change some things. Right?

[Tom Webster]

Yeah.

[Ryan Alford]

And that's really, I think an outstanding step you can do to access the next level of this.

[Tom Webster]

I think, I think it's. This is a big one and I don't think we do this enough. But we've talked, we're talking about a dom. Is that. Yeah, me too.

[Ryan Alford]

I don't do it either. Like you know, the cobbler's children have, have no shoes, whatever.

[Tom Webster]

But we're going to do it, we have it on because you know, we're going to move, you know, probably to like a three day a week like business news and more topical thing and then the interviews kind of being separate or blended into those and they're almost going to be kind of like, you know, like a daytime TV show. You know, daytime TV has a very specific or even like a bit more like daytime news. Like our local news. Local news. You got local news, national news, weather, sports, you're out, right? You got segments. Everybody, everybody knows what to expect. And so you're having that and kind of editing to that to a flow which is the more the point. And I think we. Let's toss the oh, I'm being authentic and I can't edit. We're going to throw that over the camp of you're just being stubborn and need to get over it. But putting that to the side and then just going okay, oh, that was a really good, you know. Cause sometimes we have a good interview. That was a really good interview. Really, you know, it flowed. Well, you did like you had a lot of weird stuff. But it doesn't necessarily mean to your point that every single part of that convo, especially if a significant, you know, hour long conversation, that it flew. You still have the Ability to edit, you know, you can always change it. It's. You're not live, and you can flip things around if it makes sense. And just being, you know, like, taking advantage of what podcasting offers when it's not live. That's one of the benefits, right?

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I love it when people will talk about, well, if I'm interviewing a guest and I want to keep their voice authentic and, you know, if they have long pauses, that shows that they're thinking and stuff like that, you know, you want to make your guests look good. And there's a difference between. Your question has affected me profoundly, and I'm taken aback, and someone who's just. Who can't quite find the right word. Right. Like if. If a guest can't quite find the right word and they stumble through it, you're doing them a favor to edit that out. You know, if you actually did ask a question that stopped them in their tracks, like that, you know, great job, Spielberg. Yeah. But it's probably not the case. So.

[Tom Webster]

No, I think people. I think most people in this saying that are just either too lazy or didn't take the time to do it. And it was something easy to respond to doing it. But if you're trying to. I always come back, and this is why I love it. I mean, podcasting is a unique word, but I always come back to show you creating a show, like a TV show, a radio show. It's a show, though. It's entertainment, and it might be educational entertainment, but it's a show. And shows are, like you said, rehearsed, practiced, edited, and made to be optimal for the listener or viewer or whoever the audience is. And editing is a huge part of that.

[Ryan Alford]

Exactly. Yeah. And I think, you know, there's a difference between something sounding, you know, stilted and too polished or whatever, or something just sounding a little bit better than it. Than it. Than it did, you know, unmolested. And I just think that there's so much that could be left on the cutting room floor in a lot of podcasts that would improve them. Ultimately, a great piece of art is based on what you leave out and not what you throw in.

[Tom Webster]

Wiser words has ever been spoken. Tom Webster, co founder of Sounds Profitable, Other Tenants, other juicy things that people can expect in the book, which we will have linked and we'll call that out at the end of the show. Tom.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah, I mean, the. I guess the last thing I would talk about here is. I don't think I do talk about some kind of marketing and promotions advice in the book towards the end. And I don't think podcasters think about local and the offline world enough. And I, you know, to me, you can. You could start to promote your podcast a lot more effectively. If you promote it locally, promote it in your community, and you know someone, you might say, well, why would I want to limit. My podcast is for everybody. It's for anybody who speaks the English language or whatever. Okay. But if you can't make it work in your hometown, maybe you can't make it work anywhere. And it's just a lot easier to start building word of mouth. And then people can tell friends and people can tell friends in other cities and stuff like that. You know, if I have a sports podcast and my choices are, you know, to run ads on X or, you know, do posts on threads or something like that, I might actually just put up flyers above the urinals in a sports bar. That's a captive audience, right? I love offline marketing, and especially when you have a captive audience like that, like, that just makes a lot of sense. You know, when I was with my former company, Edison Research, I did a lot of marketing and advertising effectiveness studies. You know, yes, outdoor billboards, but a lot of out of home marketing. And out of home marketing is enormously effective. It's a companion to audio. They don't conflict. And you have the chance to capture people that might be the ideal audience for your show in a situation that makes sense. So never forget local. Never forget the offline world.

[Tom Webster]

Tom, I love you anyway, but I really love you when you prove ideas that I've. I don't know if my producer saw you remember this or not, but he may not. But I literally. And I have them, and I didn't do it. I created, like, an outdoor board campaign for my show to do locally, like, all around.

[Ryan Alford]

Wow.

[Tom Webster]

I never ran it, but I thought this was two years ago and this show is doing well. I've almost probably by, you know, like, all national, but need to go. But I literally was like, it. Exactly what you just said sort of just crystallized to me. But I don't. I just never was like, all right, do I spend that money? Like, we could have spent it. We had the money, but, like, it was just like, I just kind of paused. I usually don't second guess myself. I usually. I'm definitely just to go do it, but I've literally still have, like, the billboards, like, you know, playing off, like, number one in xyz. Born in Greenville, but born and produced here in Greenville. Kind of playing off, you know, national show now, but born and raised right here and, you know, whatever. But I don't know.

[Ryan Alford]

See, I love that. And, you know, we've talked about some, you know, syndicated personalities on today, and we've talked about, you know, Elvis Duran and you mentioned Rush Limbaugh, right? Rush Limbaugh didn't start out as Rush Limbaugh. Rush Limbaugh was, you know, a night jock at a station in Pittsburgh or whatever, and then moved to Sacramento and like, he was a local jock. And it was, you know, people, you know, a friend told a friend or whatever. And that's how we, that's how we started to spread. That's how it always starts to spread. And if you just try to eat the whole elephant at once, you're likely to do marketing that is not particularly precise or articulate.

[Tom Webster]

There you go. And that's what I love about the book. I, I think there's a lot of carryover into content creation and marketing that our audience will love. Tom, tell me anything you want to mention that you're doing with Sounds Profitable as we close out here. We've talked a little bit about that, but definitely want to give you a chance to mention any of your latest stuff or things coming up with that platform.

[Ryan Alford]

Yeah. So as I mentioned, Sounds Profitable is a partner driven organization. Thank you. And we function really as the trade organization for the podcast industry. And as a part of that, we produce a lot of resources, a lot of free research that we make available on our site. We put out a weekly insights newsletter and a daily podcast industry news newsletter. So we're constantly putting out resources. All of that [e-mail] I've been lately doing a lot of writing about the role of video, which, you know, video was part of podcasting from the very, very beginning, but, you know, maybe never more so than now. And you know, what, what Video really does, and that's just been really a fascinating inquiry, I think. So that's what I've been writing about lately.

[Tom Webster]

Tom, will you be a regular, like a couple times a year on this show? I bet. You bet. You're so knowledgeable. I, I want to bring you back to talk about, you know, maybe, maybe in January or something like what the first of the year looks like, whatever research you're in. Tom. And sounds profitable. Brian, these guys are great. They're partners of ours. I can't recommend them enough. Not just because the insights are great and what they're doing for the industry is great, but they're just good people. And Tom, how do we find the audience is listening, audiences listening?

[Ryan Alford]

Book.com is. You can also find it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble. And there's an audio book, of course, on audible, so you can find it there.

[Tom Webster]

Yes, I've got it here right in front of me. I'm sitting here going, I'm gonna. I want. I'm gonna have to listen to it over and over again. I gotta pound these ideas and get them off the paper. And us doing them ourselves, look, this saying, gotta eat your own dog food. You know, like, I gotta. We gotta do it ourselves. And look, if you're out there and you're listening, you're thinking about podcasting. It's still on the way up big time. It's changed my life. It's impactful in so many ways. And we have people like Tom and sounds profitable to thank for propping up the industry and taking it to the places that are going. Tom, thank you so much for coming on today.

[Ryan Alford]

Thank you, Ryan. This is a. You've been a great host and really enjoyed this.

[Tom Webster]

Hey, guys, Ryan is right dot com. You'll find all the highlight clips as well as links to Tom's book. Sounds profitable. And everything going on in the industry. We'll put some links to some of their great. The greatest hits of their decks. Tom's always writing some thorough research. This is what you got to do if you want to know about the look, if you're a brand out there, it's time to get off the bus and get on to the podcast train, because that's where the most trusted advertisers are and the medium is growing. We appreciate you for making us number one. We'll see you next time. Right about now, this has been Right.

[Ryan Alford]

About now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. Visit Ryan is right.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.